3D Character/Model Creator

Question

I'm in a project to create a 3d game using XNA/C#, and the game will use a lot of 3d characters.

Looking at the current 3d games, in some they create near to hundreds of characters, what lead me to think that there are some good 3d character/model creator.

To narrow the sample, the game will have characters like the game "Grand Chase". There are some good (and easy) character model creator for to use in XNA development? Free is better, of course, but I will get payed versions too.

EDIT: Another question is about the movements of the characters. The movements like walk, jump, sit, etc are "created" by the "character creator tool" or by the game?

Answer 1

Most 3D game objects are created in 3D software, such as Maya and Blender. But there are indeed applications that speed up the character modeling, such as Poser. If you quickly need a low poly mesh without big bucks and a lot of exporters, try MilkShape 3D. Its cheap and it's easy to work with. You can easily build meshes with joint animations, which you can edit later to fine tune your characters.

EDIT: Another question is about the movements of the characters. The movements like walk, jump, sit, etc are "created" by the "character creator tool" or by the game?

Poser 3D. It's not free, but it comes with a good library for starters. Also you might going to like DAZ 3D, also a commercial product. Personally I am not excited about most 3D modeling software that comes for free, exceptions are Blender and Anim8tor. If you are not that well tuned into modeling professionally, I would still recommend you to go for MilkShape 3D. It has an really easy learning curve and you can pop in and work out quickly just to test and work out your game (there is more inside a game than models). Eventually, you could fine tune all models in software you prefer later.

Answer 2

Another question is about the movements of the characters. The movements like walk, jump, sit, etc are "created" by the "character creator tool" or by the game?

Animation in various forms, key frame, skeletal and so forth are created in the 3D modelling software.

The game then plays these animations are certain points. For example, pressing jump will play the jump animation. Games often use a form of linear interpolation to blend different animations together to smooth them.

Consider a football game, you can animate the footballer running in eight different directions, but what if the player suddenly changes direction midflow? The modeller could not account for this, therefore the engine will "blur" the difference between the animations together to provide a smooth transition via linear interpolation or some other blending factor.

Software

As for software, free editors such as Blender will do. However I prefer Maya/Max. Often you can gain student editions of these, check their official websites. I got a free six month version via my university. While you legally cannot use the models in commerical games, for learning purposes it is fine. I believe they used to offer a Personal Learning Edition but this no longer exists as far as my searching has found.

Answer 3

The Xsi Mod Tool will allow you to do character modelling and animation and is a (slightly) cut down version of the full Xsi tool.
It's free for non-commercial use and has close integration with XNA plus it has plugins that support the Unreal Engine and CryEngine etc Available here

Answer 4

If you want, you could try using XBL Avatars; the bonus is that the players will actually get to use their avatar ingame, and AFAIK, you can procedurally generate characters and stuff through a code API.