I am not very good at sketching/painting and I need more or less realistic sprites of a fighting medieval warrior. A knight. I could do the painting by hand, I am not that bad, but it would be nice to hear if there are any alternatives. I was thinking about using some sort of 3d-program, but since I am a newbie in that subject too, it must be quite easy to use. I have heard of "Poser", but is it easy enough? I don''t have very much time to dedicate for learning another program...

you can always search google for images of knights, take them and edit them in a program such as paintshop pro or photoshop. you can make the images look original this way. i am good at sketching - but i have no way of transferring it to my computer, and my mouse isn''t nearly as useful as i wish it was. so i will find an image, skew, retouch, and discolor it until it looks like i want it to. this doesnt take me more than a few minutes, too. i wish i could help you with poser, but i havent used it.

-geo-
http://www.geocities.com/elementum_game

poser is just for taking models, and posing them in certain ways. You wont actually be able to create anything with it. Maybe you should try out blender. It''s free and not that hard to use. Or if you have a few thousand dollars lying around get maya or 3ds max.

I have access to 3ds max, but I could never make something that look human in it.

But Poser does have some good figures for 2d work. And there is a Knight figure that you can buy for cheap, as well as some freebie knight outfits.

I think Poser might be good to create your sprites. It's pretty easy to use.

But as mentioned, it doesn't do any modeling. If you plan on making some unique figures or clothing, you'll need another proggy.

I'd say try the demo for Poser 4. See if it will do what you want. There was also a free version of Poser 3 given away in a 3d magazine a while back (6 mos or more), and you could try and find that if you're on a budget.

Here's a link to the Daz3d store . I found they have a medieval sale going on right now (link goes to sale page, which includes their knight figure at the bottom).

There are some other free knight-type models around, since it's a pretty common thing in games and whatnot.



[edited by - JSwing on September 30, 2002 12:30:31 AM]

Here''s something that worked well for me back in the DOS days (mode 13h... ah...)

*Get a figurine of a knight
*Place it against white paper (or other contrasting color)
*Take pictures of it
*Alter the pics in your fav image editor

If you have even a little skill with PSP or Photoshop you can make a lil'' plastic figurine look realistic, anime''ish, etc...

Hopes this helps. It used to work well for me ''cause my programmer art looked like... well, programmer art.

-Matt

I''m no artist and have faced similar problems many times in the past. In the end I decided to create all sprites, cutscene images, etc using 3D modelling packages. Being on a limited budget, I now use,

TrueSpace for the creation of objects (such as swords, shields and armour).

Poser for the creation of human and animal ''objects'', in your case the Knight (without armour, etc) and possibly his horse (if you wanted one)

Bryce as the package that is used to bring all the objects together and creates the final sprites or image.

I''ve actually created many different knight images for the game I''m currently coding (admittedly only viewable from the front as this was the only angle I needed). While I''m a long way from being a great 3D modeller I''m quite pleased with the results ... there are a few images at the following URL if you''re interested: http://www.geocities.com/jonalma/screenshots.html

Jon.