The Skindex - New comic skins for Unreal Tournament 2003

[legacy-DarkJared]

The Skindex released six new comic themed skins for UT2k3 today including Cable, Capt. America, Punisher, Rogue, Iron Man, and Phoenix.

More to come....

http://www.skindex.net/ut/

[legacy-SdKOwnsU]

Nice job Comic skins are sweet:up:

[legacy-DarkJared]

Glad you like! Check in soon for Cyclops (done) and Gambit (75%)

Lots more to come!

[legacy-yournan]

Impressive, most impressive:- Darth Vader Star Wars:- Empire Strikes Back

Looking nice, i like the Phoneix one the best along with Rogue. I know some other chap does comice skins as well, the site called Intertwinned or something like that. Can't wait for the Gambit skin. Any chance of making an Sabretooth skin, Juggernaunt or Onslaught?

Just an idea i would make them sorta ut2003 style, make them more dirtier and look more agressive like they really wanna kick some.

Other than that i think they look cool downloading Phoenix & Rogue now!

Let me know about Juggernaunt, Sabretooth & Onslaught skins i would love those three geezers in ut2003!

MsM:up:

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

Tip : find the Comicpacks and reskin them instead of using the standard UT'03 models.

Captain America & the Punisher for example look a lot better ...

-- edit --
This http://www.planetunreal.com/identity...s/intertwined/ is the place to be.
He's added Judge Dredd recently ...

and his Captain America looks like this :

[legacy-Arthedain]

The Skins made by Kryzalis are VERY cool.
The Cap Am one above is one of my favs.

Has anyone found a way to get these skins to be pushed down from a server so people can actually see them? Otherwise no one knows your wearing them, and they just see the big ugly default dude.

DarkJared - Your skins are looking mighty cool man. My son will be really happy someone made a Cable Skin, he has been wanting one for awhile, thanks!

[legacy-DarkJared]

I've been to Intertwined already and he does do some great meshes. I may or may not use some in the future. I prefer to make the skins more UT style (more armor and such) so they fit into the game world a little better though. Kind of a What If...? the character had been born into that world instead of ours.

Some of the Intertwined meshes ar elike that so who knows. Only issue I have is there is no real easy way to view the changes to the texture with custom models. I don't have all the files for the mesh to set them up in Upaitn for instance to quickly view a change made to the texture in Photoshop. You'd have to start the and load the game everytime after importing the changed texture. No fun.

I have lots of plans for more skins including the three last requests there. Gambit and Cyclops should be up today.

... and now they are!

[legacy-Rurouni Storm]

Long time no see Jared. I visited your site back when it first started.

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

// DarkJared :
it looks like you just need the psk-files to view a model in Upaint.
There are a few of the psk-files on that site or at least there's a link. You should try sending him an e-mail if you can't find the one you want to skin.
Just look here : http://www.planetunreal.com/identity...d/htm/PSKs.htm


your skin does fit the model, but it looks like a very ugly recoloring of the original skin

[legacy-Verizondude]

Nice skins, but you need to make new models of them.

[legacy-DarkJared]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I don't model so I won't be making new meshes. I did play with a few of the Intertwined meshes in Upaint and was not impressed with the mapping. The textures twisted and chop all over the place so I won't likely use any of those either. No worries as I'm quite content to keep making 'ugly' UT-style versions of my favorite comic characters for my own game anyways. I really enjoy the freedom of skinning them in a new style that's different from how they look in the comics. Fresh change of pace from what I've done for The Sims and Freedom Force.

If you don't mind the ugly radically different versions of comic characters then keep checking in as I'll keep posting them.

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

he even says so on the site that the uv-mapping (whatever that is) is 'not good' ... I guess someone could pick the psk-files and do a proper uv-map ?
// --

and I didn't mean ugly as in 'the model is not a good choice for the skin'
I meant it as in :
it looks like someone dropped a bucket of paint on the model without paying attention to shadowing, highlights, etc. to make it look like armor/skin or whatever the character is supposed to have.

Please use a few more colors then the 4-color palette you seem to have used.

Compare this :

to the Intertwined version and simply look at the lack of proper shadows/highlights for muscles,clothing & armor.

[legacy-DarkJared]

As UT models in general are covered in armor, I've simply made the skins covered in armor... most body armor I've seen in real life and in fantasy art doesn't have muscles. (I am fully capable of doing muscles and dramtic shading like that as my extensive portfolio shows)

I have used a base set of colours because in game the engine does a lot of shadowing for you and there are actually highlights and shadows on the skin, just not dramaticly rendered is all. I just prefer a cleaner look in my skins for this game. To me the characters are like Wrestlers who have an image and iconic look, so rather than make them all dark and dirty and subtle, I've gone with a TV-ized garish style. If I was one of these guys in the tournament, I'd keep my armor painted and clean as well... it's called marketing and image. You don't see wrestlers going into the ring each week with dirty clothes that never get cleaned, repaired do you? For that matter, in the comics themselves, the same holds true, somehow between each issue, the character (even poor Spidey) manage to have their tattered and dented uniforms repaired and cleaned. It only makes sense in the entertainment industry which is what UT is all about.

Cap in this case was my first go through with the engine, though and your right it's not the best skin I've done. It was very simple and I was still mapping the mesh and experiencing UT engine lighting. I didn't include much for detail on the chest, arms and legs where his body shows through. (In fact that one was done without the help of Upaint - before I figured I could import images to it to test). I will likely redo him in the future.

As for the Intertwined meshes, They're just not my style. Others may like them, but I just don't like some of the accessory choices (the big 3D spider on Spider-Man for instance). The base Silver Surfer body he used in almost all of them as well is very difficult to skin as along the ribs the mesh twists and deforms not allowing for any good muscular rib-cage definition. I also find the waist too small (almost girlish). As well, the upper thighs and knees compact too much and stretch in a wierd way making nice leg definition (comic-style) troublesome. I played with the mesh for a few hours trying to make a simple base musclulature skin in Upaint and Photoshop and was far too frustrated to enjoy continuing.

While his darker muted colour scheme might fit the grittier world of UT better than my bright one, I find I don't recognize the characters right away until they're up in my face (except the Thing and Wolvie - they you can ID far off) I find in my game, with my skins, I can tell who's who at a glance, as they stand out, like a heroic icon should. And to me that's the whole point of these kind of custom skins.

I guess the bottom line is style. Jim Lee doesn't draw the same as Frank Quitely, but they both have fans and both work in the business. Stylisticly they're quite different, but both are accepted. Jim Lee's pages are filled to the borders with exhaustive detail while Quitely's characters are often simplistic and in fact lacking standard super-hero muscles (even in spandex).

I apreciate the feedback, but I'm not gonna change my style to make my skins more like someone else's. I will make an effort though to include more detail and grit in the future. Thanks!

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

My initial comments were based purely on the screenshots on your site.
After looking at them in my game for real I'll have to say that they do look a lot better in-game.
I really like what you've done to the girls for example. (I'd say they're the best of the set)

I did notice a few things that could be improved though :

- teamcolors : not all of the models have them for one.
And in Cable's example the 'red' on his uniform is made useless by the blue of his standard-uniform.
Since you've tried to fit their standard costume on the existing models could you try creating true teamcolored variants ?
For the X-men you could use the movie-colors (= black/blue suits) as a possible alternative to the blue/gold.
Soccer teams usually have at least a second uniform just in case their opponent has something that's a bit too similar. I'd think that tournament-warriors have similar options if they play in team-games. Are there any alternate universe uniforms for the comicbook characters you could use instead ?

- rogue & phoenix : the X-signs and the borders on their boots shows a lot of pixels up close. Try to eliminate that in your next versions.
Their 'clothes' are a bit too black. Try using a bit more color in there.

- iron man : the red 'flexible' armor looks a bit too much like a photo. A bit of 'grit & dirt' should make it a bit more realistic without losing the idea of a 'iconic' uniform

- X-men / Punisher / iron man : it looks like you wanted the 'hard' armor to look like either 'gold' or 'plastic'.
IMHO it isn't work quite as convincing as it could be. The 'shadows' on the armor-bits look a bit too weird.
Why not try to use a reflective-material (I'm not sure how it's done though) and make it a bit more like real gold/metal instead ?

- cyclops : this one caused a problem.
The name is the same as the Kryzalis-cyclops ... as a result UT'03 picked that version instead. I expect similar problems if he makes any of the other X-men / comic-book characters.
I'd suggest renaming them as well as their skin-packages to something unique (UT03_Cyclops or Cyclops_MC ?).
And possibly you could package them as a single download texture-package as well to further reduce the possiblility of conflicts with other texture-sets as well.

- upl-files : when I opened them in notepad I noticed weird characters (probably a linefeed or something) inside.
Altough UT'03 didn't seem to mind it's perhaps safer if you could correct that bit.

[legacy-Doctor7]

Originally posted by Arthedain
Has anyone found a way to get these skins to be pushed down from a server so people can actually see them? Otherwise no one knows your wearing them, and they just see the big ugly default dude.

It can be done, but it also now works that if someone else has the skin but the server doesn't, they'll still see you wearing it.
So it's far more polite to just rely on the fact that if the skin is good, other people will have it installed, rather than forcing server pushes on everyone.
A themed server (where all the bots were comic skins, for example) is a different matter, then there's a good reason for pushing them.

[legacy-BaleFire]

Originally posted by Arthedain
The Skins made by Kryzalis are VERY cool.
The Cap Am one above is one of my favs.

Has anyone found a way to get these skins to be pushed down from a server so people can actually see them? Otherwise no one knows your wearing them, and they just see the big ugly default dude.

DarkJared - Your skins are looking mighty cool man. My son will be really happy someone made a Cable Skin, he has been wanting one for awhile, thanks!

Arthedain,

Might want to look here for your info:

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=255934

Hope it helps

BaleFire

[legacy-[Ci]CrazyCougar]

Just wanted add a small reminder about the character names in the upl files...

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=263620

If you do repack them could you remove any spaces between names(like captain america's).

[Kyllian]

I just don't think this looks good at all
Iron Man just shouldn't be a Jugg imo
Ack...

[legacy-membrane]

Iron Man rox, get some taste. It's original (even if it is a just a paint job) the spikes on cap america are kinda lame imo.

I'm just looking at the screenies here but it looks like DarkJared did a much better job with the textures than that other dood. A clean look > sloppy shadows. Props Jared, the comic characters are supposed to be bright, simple colors :up:

You should make the invisible man next :up:

[legacy-Arthedain]

Balefire - thanks for your post, looks like they may have done all the hard work already

Brgds/Arthedain

[legacy-DarkJared]

Thanks Membrane!

That's exactly the lok and feel I wanted to get. Bright colourful and clean as comic heroes should be.

As for Iron Man, I always liked the Hulk-buster armor and the original armor was huge and bulky as well so I thought it was a nice match, not to mention he is called 'IRON' man. It conveys a bulky heavy metal guy to me so that was why I went that route instead.

I'm not a mesher at all, no time to learn the various 3D modelling programs so all I do is skin. So anything I do is technically a 'paint job'. I think even still I managed to get a unique and new look for the mesh from the original Frostbite skin.

As for the naming issue, I'm not sure what the problem is. They work fine in my game and I also have the Krysaliz skins installed.

I've also gotten some feedback on the team colours (only a few of my skins actually have them). I'm not including them in future skins as they really detract from the iconic elements of the characters themselves. The beauty of 2k3 is that you can specify team members for each side. I just pick my team and shoot everyone else. I don't go by colour but by character but each team has the floating lights in team colours above each other as well as the HUD enhancements to designate team members. Works for me.

I'm hoping to get into some more skins again soon as I complete some unrelated projects I'm working on right now.

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

Are you sure none of those comics have ever used an 'evil' / alternate universe version of the characters ?

There's that black spiderman vs the 'regular' blue/red spiderman for example.

And as I've said : because of the bright colors the headlights can easily be missed.
Try placing your 'iron man'-character on both teams and see if you can see what side he's on if they're fighting each other.

[legacy-DarkJared]

Oh I can understand that it might be hard to see the team lights with some skins, but, myself, I don't double up skins. I pick my team and my opposition, so I know who is freindly and who is bad.

I mean to do Iron Man in red and blue colours... where do you stick the blue? And how much blue? And will it detract from the clear visual effect of Iron Man to begin with? I prefer to diferentiate by indentity rather than by colour. The game only does it because they use characters that no one is already familiar with. Who is Malcom?? But everyone recognizes Iron Man. So if he's on your team, don't shoot him. Sure I could do the blue stealth armor for instance, but the mesh is so un-Iron Man like that it wouldn't have the same iconic recognition as the red and gold.

[legacy-JaFO(JBE)]

I often use 'random' botteams ... so that makes it kind of difficult if a bright red/blue character is chosen to play for the 'wrong' team.

If that yellow is supposed to be gold ... why didn't you make it gold ? Metallic skins are possible in UT'03 ...

I think that a Darkblue/gold version of 'Iron man' would be just as 'iconic' and easily recognized given that the way his uniform-colors are used.