Published Aug 12th, 2012, 8/12/12 4:18 pm
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37
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE CHALLENGE
Mod: Mine Little Pony 1.2.5
Minecraft: 1.2.5
I don't dig My Little Pony. The reasons why and how I don't like it does not matter - this is not about the show, but the custom player model made inspired on it. Fans of the series are pretty close of fully recreating their show on minecraft, and kudos for then to making it happen. However, I feel it is a waste to have that unique quadrupede player model to be used ONLY for ponies. Hence the "Wyvern Whelp".
INSPIRATION:
In one of those mad evenings when I have an idea and test as many mods together as possible to make that idea happen, I have met the "Eternal Frost" mod. The immediate idea on my mind was "How cool would be to have a challenge on the Nether and the Frost, and ONLY on those areas - without the regular world resources?". After a few ideas and frustated attepts of finding a good (and compatible) nether mod for 1.2.5, I got around my idea somehow.
Now, all that was left to do was the story. After brainstorming, the idea of a dragon tale came to my mind. Problem is - there is no dragon player model to use in minecraft. Or is it?
I know the "Herd" can be delicate and/or troublesome, and using something related to the MLP show might cause extreme reactions - from both extremes of love and hate. But the idea was so good that I had to try. If we made Steve look like so many things over the years, why not make a dragon out of a pony model?
SKINNING:
At some degree, the Pony model, designed by Verdana, share plenty of similarities with a dragon's anatomy. The small details had to be arranged like many regular player skins have done in the past.
I wanted a metallic dragon, so thinking the color pallete wasn't so hard. The red gem parts compose its horns and "soft" shells. Comparing to the enderdragon skin, I decided to paint all that was supposed to be black and grey into grey and red. The base model was done. Time to work on the small details.
The head was worked on from the first second until the very end of making this skin. The pony ears surely would become the horns, but still looked like ears no matter what. The external head skin was fundamental to break the squarish shape of the head, making the eyes deepers by using "eyebrow plates" and base for the horns. Now, beside the side horns, there is a pair that ends up curlying to above - and so the pony ears became the dragon horn tips.
The major problem with the body was the soft plates. To locate and organize all the separate parts and make then all bend to the proper direction, as giving it a proper shadow between the plates was most of the trouble making this skin. Together with the head, this process demanded me to upload the skin countless times, and turn my minecraft on and off until I had a clear vision of all I could change.
The legs demanded research. I had to study the most general idea of how the dragon legs are imagined. It happens to be quite curved, a mix of reptiles and bird legs. I had to work with the "deep" feeling I applied on my female body model - to darken parts that are not suposed to be there, basically. It feels like it works when you look at it.
The snout. I lost such a long time to figure out from where it took its pixels. The solution was pretty logical: the snout it made of the pixels in the head aread, and NOT the second head (hair) area like I originally thought. The pixels are used like the snout was strudded from the front polygon. The wings were another one that made me lose a huge amount of time, but for bad reasons (read my conclusions below).
And to finish... the tail. Probably the most troublesome part, as it wiggles and moves like a pony haired tail should... but not a dragon tail would. I tried to texture it as spikes, and putting it at 1/4, but still looked like a fluffly thing. The only solution was to let it at the minimum size - looked much better.
CONCLUSIONS:
The use of space withing the skin file into the pony model is amazing. Almost every pixel have a purpose now, and it is good. However, the model have its flaws.
There is definitely something wrong with the wings. The use of the wing space is so messed up that the hear tip of a wing uses a part that is already being mapped into other body parts - and in terms of UV mapping, this is never a good thing. The whole lower right rectangle was supposed to be the wing skin, but I purposely left some white areas on the Wyvern, to show the parts the model is not using.
The versions for 1.2.5 have a huge flaw - they does not understand the skins in texture packs. Normally, I don't upload skins into Minecraft - I prefer to edit an texpack and play offline. But the mod didn't recognized the details of the skins for some reason while offline. I had to connect a lot to visualize my work and get it changed until it was done.
On the matter, I know Noppes Custom NPCs uses Verdana's pony model, but it must be outdated, as the texture was incredibly incompatible. I hope this can be fixed.
Overall, it is a pretty fluid model. I can think of a few ideas to be applied into this model that are not ponies. Now that the mod have been updated and even have custom sizes, it has became even more versatile. If I could, I would suggest them to make more of that "color pixel" control they use to configure the model and add thee more things: Tail thickness (thinner tails would benefit this model, for example) and/or alternative tails; and Leg size (shorter legs, different quadrupedes could be made, like Lions).
You don't need to be a brony or a fan of the MLP series to appreciate the work of Verdana into the Minecraft Mod scenario - you just need to be goddamn creative.
Mod: Mine Little Pony 1.2.5
Minecraft: 1.2.5
I don't dig My Little Pony. The reasons why and how I don't like it does not matter - this is not about the show, but the custom player model made inspired on it. Fans of the series are pretty close of fully recreating their show on minecraft, and kudos for then to making it happen. However, I feel it is a waste to have that unique quadrupede player model to be used ONLY for ponies. Hence the "Wyvern Whelp".
INSPIRATION:
In one of those mad evenings when I have an idea and test as many mods together as possible to make that idea happen, I have met the "Eternal Frost" mod. The immediate idea on my mind was "How cool would be to have a challenge on the Nether and the Frost, and ONLY on those areas - without the regular world resources?". After a few ideas and frustated attepts of finding a good (and compatible) nether mod for 1.2.5, I got around my idea somehow.
Now, all that was left to do was the story. After brainstorming, the idea of a dragon tale came to my mind. Problem is - there is no dragon player model to use in minecraft. Or is it?
I know the "Herd" can be delicate and/or troublesome, and using something related to the MLP show might cause extreme reactions - from both extremes of love and hate. But the idea was so good that I had to try. If we made Steve look like so many things over the years, why not make a dragon out of a pony model?
SKINNING:
At some degree, the Pony model, designed by Verdana, share plenty of similarities with a dragon's anatomy. The small details had to be arranged like many regular player skins have done in the past.
I wanted a metallic dragon, so thinking the color pallete wasn't so hard. The red gem parts compose its horns and "soft" shells. Comparing to the enderdragon skin, I decided to paint all that was supposed to be black and grey into grey and red. The base model was done. Time to work on the small details.
The head was worked on from the first second until the very end of making this skin. The pony ears surely would become the horns, but still looked like ears no matter what. The external head skin was fundamental to break the squarish shape of the head, making the eyes deepers by using "eyebrow plates" and base for the horns. Now, beside the side horns, there is a pair that ends up curlying to above - and so the pony ears became the dragon horn tips.
The major problem with the body was the soft plates. To locate and organize all the separate parts and make then all bend to the proper direction, as giving it a proper shadow between the plates was most of the trouble making this skin. Together with the head, this process demanded me to upload the skin countless times, and turn my minecraft on and off until I had a clear vision of all I could change.
The legs demanded research. I had to study the most general idea of how the dragon legs are imagined. It happens to be quite curved, a mix of reptiles and bird legs. I had to work with the "deep" feeling I applied on my female body model - to darken parts that are not suposed to be there, basically. It feels like it works when you look at it.
The snout. I lost such a long time to figure out from where it took its pixels. The solution was pretty logical: the snout it made of the pixels in the head aread, and NOT the second head (hair) area like I originally thought. The pixels are used like the snout was strudded from the front polygon. The wings were another one that made me lose a huge amount of time, but for bad reasons (read my conclusions below).
And to finish... the tail. Probably the most troublesome part, as it wiggles and moves like a pony haired tail should... but not a dragon tail would. I tried to texture it as spikes, and putting it at 1/4, but still looked like a fluffly thing. The only solution was to let it at the minimum size - looked much better.
CONCLUSIONS:
The use of space withing the skin file into the pony model is amazing. Almost every pixel have a purpose now, and it is good. However, the model have its flaws.
There is definitely something wrong with the wings. The use of the wing space is so messed up that the hear tip of a wing uses a part that is already being mapped into other body parts - and in terms of UV mapping, this is never a good thing. The whole lower right rectangle was supposed to be the wing skin, but I purposely left some white areas on the Wyvern, to show the parts the model is not using.
The versions for 1.2.5 have a huge flaw - they does not understand the skins in texture packs. Normally, I don't upload skins into Minecraft - I prefer to edit an texpack and play offline. But the mod didn't recognized the details of the skins for some reason while offline. I had to connect a lot to visualize my work and get it changed until it was done.
On the matter, I know Noppes Custom NPCs uses Verdana's pony model, but it must be outdated, as the texture was incredibly incompatible. I hope this can be fixed.
Overall, it is a pretty fluid model. I can think of a few ideas to be applied into this model that are not ponies. Now that the mod have been updated and even have custom sizes, it has became even more versatile. If I could, I would suggest them to make more of that "color pixel" control they use to configure the model and add thee more things: Tail thickness (thinner tails would benefit this model, for example) and/or alternative tails; and Leg size (shorter legs, different quadrupedes could be made, like Lions).
You don't need to be a brony or a fan of the MLP series to appreciate the work of Verdana into the Minecraft Mod scenario - you just need to be goddamn creative.
| Credit | Verdana |
| Gender | Male |
| Model | Steve |
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