eli5 what is a character model in a video game or animation?
In: Technology
Any kind of virtual 3d model, character or otherwise, is a collection of points in 3d space. They connect to each other in specific ways to make faces, or polygons. Materials are collections of pictures and other effects (textures, emissives, normal maps, etc. for some specific terms) displayed on the polygons to make the model look like a real object.
Characters are special though because they also move. Unlike a chess piece or any other rigid object, characters usually have to deform. That means they have to be “rigged” or set up for animation by adding extra programming that’s not visible in the final product, but allows them to move realistically.
Hope this helps a bit. I got my AS degree in game design over 10 years ago but things haven’t changed enough that I’m out of touch. 😛
A model is a 3d structure of polygons that a game can use to render an object.
Something like this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon_mesh#/media/File%3ADolphin_triangle_mesh.png
A character model is just the model that the player will controll.
It’s like an action-figure, or puppet, that the animators move around when you press buttons.
Press the jump button, they make the model jump on the screen.
Sometimes they act out a whole scene with the puppet in the in-game movies (cinematics).
Y’know when you play some old school Mario on NES or SNES and you have your 2D Mario running around? A character model is basically that, but for 3D graphics. It is more complex to build, animate, calculate hit detection for, and all that good stuff.
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