This is something I havent seen come up before so here goes...

Skinning Quake2's male and female models may indeed be hard at first, but at least theres a whole variety of other skins that you can use for reference in terms of working out where the stretch is. Its also a good way to see what shapes will work where. But when you skin a new model for the first time and you are cut off from others pioneering work on the model and you dont know how the traingle mesh will translate in 3d you should take a couple of Extra steps before you begin.

As An example, I am going to skin a base skin for the Zumlin model. Mostly because I havent seen any skins for it other than the one skin done by its creator, secondly I'm usuing this model as its a really curious shape, not strictly humanoid and thus has lots of areas on the mesh that are near impossible to figure out on the flat.

Oh yeah and my third reason is because i have to skin it for latest commision hahah
Aye but before you knock me for this I can remind you it'd be far quicker to just skin it without taking the time to document it <G>

Aye, just look at that baby eh!! Odd shape to say the least but its gonna be fun I hope :)

First thing I recommend with skinning a new model is to fill in a bunch of the triangles with different swatches of colour. This lets you judge the stretch of the Triangles and it also teaches you the shape of the model, i.e you learn properly where the chest should go in relation to the mesh, what areas you should use small and compressd detail and which should have large open detail..

So first of all I've painted in the front (in just the usual stlyish combinations of colour you've all come to expect from my skins!!). After its all painted in I load the skin onto the Model in Npernos Skin Tool (you're never too young to try Nphernos Tool for the first time btw kiddies!) and take a gander before taking a picture!

   As you can perhaps already tell I marked out in lighter white where I thought his chest should go, i was a little off, the top triangle out of the set of whites should be darker, to show that thats where his shoulders are going to be. Plus some of those side triangles at the abdominal muscles shoulder be where I put the ribcage as I dont need all that room for the stomach muscles (6pak anyone?!)

You can see also theres MASSIVE amounst of room on the top section of the legs, so plenty of extreme thigh muscles can be done tho the calf muscles are gonna look really scrawny in comparison, theres hardly any skinning room there at all so I've decided I'm gonna do really exagerated muscle on the thighs to make up for hte weak calfs!

In fact , due to him also having massive arms and neck also I'm gonna go totally overboard with the base skin making him look like a mutated contorted bodybuilder (witht eh head of a rat!)/ This should be ok tho for the commisions I have requires me to make the model into a cross between 3 things.

RESERVOIR DOGS, MUTATED ANIMALS, THE LURKER SKIN.

Thats the brief, I've got a couple of skins to do so im gonna use monster heads rather than strictly for reall animal heads. Monster heads will be more intersting that a big rat face anyway, should look more intimidating ingame and considering that the object of this game is to kill your mates , intimidation is a good thing no? :)

Already tho its obvious that Rowan 'Sumaleth' Crawford the model creator is a very good modeller, why? Look at the texture and compare it with the model, theres very little stretch, all the triangles retain a similar shape and size as the texture when on the model.

Meaning what you see WILL unlike with ID's models be what you get, the texture will be easier to make a design with as the flat textures IS an accurate representation of how the model will look with it on. This is good news for skinners, it means a lot less time spent checking to see how the effects of the texture wrap on the model.

After I've check the back of the model I can take it into Photoshop and starting shading some muscle tones in greyscale over the base mesh that I've coloured.

Theres a little more stetch on the back of the model than the front, namely at the arse and a couple of places on the shoulder blades. But nothing too dramatic like the Q2 Males back for instance. So it should now be plain sailing in Photoshop with nothing more strenuous than rotating the image partway thru to do its head with more ease as its on its side on the texture...

So lets start shading this fucker. First thing I do next upon opening it in Photoshop is double the size of the texture and start skinning it like it was its actually size, theres no point taking it to that size unless you want to go detail crazy, unless of course you want to speed up you base skin creation. You could afterall use doubling its size as a way to spend less time shading it and shade is more roughly as a lot of that will be ironed out when you reduce it.

Old habits die hard, as a result of this I still always start at the chest like I have done since I started skinning. I start at teh chest then circle outwards to the legs then arms and face usually leaving teh backside of the skin until the front is near complete.

Theres Masses of room on the legs for detail so I'm gonna add many more muscles later than I have at this stage. Also I will upon completion of the layout go back and add extra veins and shit to make his seem as if in a constant state of flex.

You only have one frame of animation if your a skinner, Modellers have plenty of them so they can afford weak ones if it benifits the whole. But for a skinner that one frame must be REALLY dynamic so that it makes the most of the model and gives it character. Well thats my opinion, and I'm not the most subtle skinner ( or guy! haha) but this is an explanation of my methods not a guarenteed 'how to do it right lesson' . Its just my way..

Anyway thats all for now, more later when Ive done more work to Zumlin.

'Patience is a Virtue, and Artists are lazy people