Characters

Here is a render of some of the characters I've been working on. So far, I have created an old man, a couple of business men, a cyclist and a girl.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not an animator. I don't know how to 'rig', paint vertex weights, or even create a realistic looking character mesh. I believe that whole area is a skillset in itself and if you've ever seen my animations, I think you'd agree that I'm wise leaving all that complicated stuff to those animator boys.

For Rail Similarity, I wanted a very simple character mesh, one that I could easily re-skin over and over, and one that even I could 'animate'. I chose a very old school approach, and made it from segmented nodes.

Because of their blocky appearance, the end result almost makes them look like papercraft (Pepakura). I must try making one of these characters out of paper at some point.

Once I'd mapped a single character mesh, the re-skins themselves were very easy to create. I'm pleased with the variety I can get from the single mesh. I have cheated though by adding a simple accessory to a few of the characters; umbrella, briefcase, balloon.

Here they are in Rail Simulator :