[ReDesign] Suzanne (Monkey)

[Mish7913]

Hello everyone, I presenting my version of Suzanne.

MASCOT INFO: Suzanne - it's the official mascot of Blender (a monkey head).
ReDesign GIT: https://gitlab.com/Mish7913/stk-mish-med...ts/suzanne

NEW: - Upd2 2025-11-02



DOWNLOAD: suzanne_exported_upd2.zip

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OLD VERSIONS: 

• suzanne_exported.zip
  
• suzanne_exported_upd1.zip
  

[Alayan]

I did some quick testing of your new Suzanne.

While I don't know how to make good karts, I can still see how a kart looks and feels. 

Here is some feedback:
- Suzanne's face doesn't follow as closely the original Suzanne face from Blender, but that's arguably a good change to make the character look more natural (and better).
- I like the animations for turning (including details such as eye movements and blinking) and reversing, as well as the cute win and lose animations. Much better than the lifeless standard Suzanne! The jump animation is underwhelming however.
- There are several elements of the kart which are meant to look as if they don't have edges according to the lighting type used (such as the big nitro exhaust pipes or of course the wheels), but the polygon edges are still quite noticeable. Of course it's more visible in kart preview than in race, but even in race it's visible.
- I suppose the grey main color of the kart was picked for Blender, but I don't like how it looks.
- While the previous Suzanne kart is perhaps oversized, this Suzanne kart feels too small.



EDIT: Some other things I noticed afterwards:
- This new Suzanne is lacking headlights. Test in a track such as Ravenbridge Mansion and compare with the headlights you get if playing as Tux, Godette and many others
- In 3-strikes-battle, the extra wheels are covering up the nitro exhaust pipes, it looks strange.

[Mish7913]

Okay, thank you for feedback. 
Now I know what to fix, and I actually forgot about headlights, okay, I will fix and update kart.

[Sven]

Hi, I'm Sven lead artist of STK

I cannot test the kart itself at the moment so I'm going of your pictures (and I also can't see the animations for that reason)

I'm not sure which state you consider this kart in (early wip, or almost finished, etc) so I will give critique for everything.

This is definitely better than the current version of Suzanne and I don't want to be harsh, but I think there are some things that really should be improved.

The character model seems to be good imo, but it's a bit hard to tell only from the pictures, so once I can, I will take a closer look at it.

As Alayan said you should use more polys in many places, mainly the pipes but also others.
Don't go crazy of course, (or use them where not needed) but around 15k - 20k tris is fine if you should need that many.

The kart design itself seems fine, (even though I find it a bit strange) but the shape and the way it's constructed isn't clear enough.
It needs more edges and corners that clearly outline the karts shape. And you need to find a way to tell how the single parts are put together it looks too much like it's sculpted out of dough right now.
At the moment when I'm looking at it from the front, it is not clear what the shape really is, it looks a bit like a mash.
Another reason for that problem is, that currently there are no textures to help guide the eye and help to draw the shape.
From the back there are a few more details which help, but still there is that large grey area that also looks a bit like a mash.

So my suggestions are:
- Make the pipes (and some other things) smoother,
- Think about a few more details you could add in 3D to give the shape more reason to be the way it is,
- Make the shape of the kart clearer and more defined,
- When you add textures think about adding details in ways to also help understanding the shape and giving it purpose,
- Also don't forget to add pbr maps for roughness and metalness

And lastly one thing about shading:
I'm not sure if you know that already, but STK shades all geometry smooth, so in order to get sharp edges you will need an edge split modifier (or manually disconnect parts of the mesh).


I really hope that this criticism is helpful, I don't want to discourage you!

Cheers Sven

[Mish7913]

Thank you for feedback, I didn't know that tris can be around 15k - 20k, I just thoughts it need to be arund 5k, so ... when I use 3k for Suzanne I just started limiting polygons on kart, and that's why I didn't make more details, so... thank you for telling me. 

I will go and update the kart, and ... since you can't test it out right now, 
I'm just thinking maybe when I update the kart I will record screencast video, and post here too. 

[Mish7913]

I updated the kart, and some animations. And I recorded screencast, I show (turns, winning, losing, jump) animations, then I show how extra wheels looks on this kart, then how headlight works now, I hope I show everething:



(p/s: my laptop during screencast littlebit lagging, but still you can see animations).

[Alayan]

Some feedback on the new version:
- It addresses a lot of things we pointed out in our previous feedback, so that's great.
- The kart is lacking areas that are colorized when the player picks a custom color.
- The polygons on the wheels and the steering wheel are quite visible
- I think it would be nice if Suzanne's ears were a bit higher poly / more detailed ; it's one of the kart's most visible elements. From behind you can see edges, and from front you can see it's full instead of being hollow on the inside (compare with Sara's ear or real ears)
- It would benefit from some additional/better textures, especially for the tyres and Suzanne itself, to make them feel more like the materials they are supposed to be (rubber, fur). Although texture-making may not be up your alley, I think @Sven could do it.
- Light reflection on the golden handlebar can look a bit strange, but that's probably something related to the shader rather than anything you need to change.
- The headlights shine even when not active



Direct comparison with the Suzanne present in 1.5:

[Mish7913]

Oh yeah, I forgot about soccer (that it have two colors, red and blue), okay, I will fix that, and will add more polygons to wheels and the steering wheel, and ears too. Oh and fix headlights of course, I just have disabled bloom so that's why I didn't notice it.

Okay, next update is coming up! 

[Mish7913]

Hi Christopher, thank you for your feedback. 

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First, there's a bug that when she reverses her hands move outwards and then go back in when she moves frontwards or stops.

Okay, I will fix that bugs with hands.

Secondly, Suzanne doesn't really match the original Blender monkey head.

But about head: I changed her head on purpose, because I just tried to make her head more cute, well .. you know, add more personality to the character, because in original blender head I didn't feel that she is a character, more like a statue or something (well ... it's my opinion of course). So ... that's why I changed it.

Well ... about

... some writing and more detail on the wheels. Also add some animation graphics on the back number plate instead of black.

I will be honest, sometimes I have problem with texturing, and sometimes I just can't came up with idea what to add it (and what I need to draw), so ... polygons details I will add on the wheels, but I don't know about textures. 

And finally, the animation where she is lying with her feet out isn't really good, especially when it's Suzanne, I preferred your first animation.

And okay, I will change selection animation. 

[Mish7913]

Updated

[phax]

The Animation Isn't still good, the bug with the hands still happens, she blinks to slowly, the face doesn't look like the Blender mascot and the back plate that has the Blender logo should also have some animation to represent it is Blender or maybe play the Blender movie Moria's Race but blurry.
In soccer, the teams red, blue should be the main colour of the kart which is yellow, not blue. Also, change the black sides of the kart into yellow.


Sten really needs to cheek this.

The character doesn't look good to me for some reason, for now I can only think that the eyes could be more detailed. The blinking is fine for me.
The logo used in the back is outdated and it's in a bad quality but there's no need to animate it. You already have the speed weighted blender above it if you want something animated.
Also there's no need to make the kart yellow, it already represents Blender's colors nicely.

Btw lights are not animated or something

   

[phax]

If you add more yellow, you can then use the yellow parts (not the blue like it is now) of the kart to represent the red and blue team colours. I didn't want him to animate it, but the label is black, preview something made by Blender on the label or at least change it from being black.

Sorry I forgot about the teams when answering XD. Anyway I still think it's good right now, those parts are colorized and if you know there's just red and blue there should be no problem.

I didn't want him to animate it, but the label is black, preview something made by Blender on the label or at least change it from being black.

Idk what to say about this, black is not bad but ok

[Sven]

Hi, your latest version really is a big improvement, congrats great work!

The kart model looks really good now, I don't think it needs many more improvements, maybe a few minor details can be added but most of it can probably be done by texturing.


Now texturing and shading are my major complaints, the textures are missing a lot of details and the shading seems to be the same everywhere which makes it look too much like a toy.
Since you said you are missing ideas for texturing if you don't want to do it I could take care of it (but it willl take a bit until I have time for that). Or you try to gather some ideas with my help, only if yyou want of course.

Regarding shading I suggest to have some parts that are more like solid metal, some parts that are painted, a few imperfections will also help to give it more structure. Overall everything is a bit too shiny right now.

The animations are really good and creative overall imo.
I really like the jump animation, and the others are also really cute.
A few minor things:
You should switch the driving backwards animations, currently Suzanne looks the wrong way.
In the loosing animation the way the banana peels looks a bit strange.
Some animations look a bit robotic (still way better than most current kart animations but I think it can be improved a bit)

The coloring of the kart is really good as it is imo.

[Mish7913]

Thank you all for the reviews.  

And thank you Sven for offering help with textures, I will think about it. 

Well ... how I understand everyone here is thinking that I uploading the final version for this kart every time I update, my bad ... I didn't explained properly what I have in mind when I posted kart here (or I didn't right understanded rules of this server), so anyway I will explain what I have in my mind when I started posting here:

• First of all, I didn't posting the final version of the kart, I'm making kart on fast hand, you know, like sketching the image, but in 3D, my kart it's like a 3D sketch (concept art) but you can ride on it, I just wanted to show that I having in my mind right now, and when everyone will say that it's good idea - I want to remodel everything in good quality, and then post final version.
  

So ... at first I was worked only with Suzanne, but right now I'm working with 3 karts at the same time, and I redesigning Suzanne's kart again, because I have even better idea, I noticed that some of the characters have similar themes, here, I will explain:

• Suzanne (I's Jungle) - I'm trying to create kart from the wood and vines, it's like she made her kart from jungle stuff.
  
• Amanda (Bamboo Forest) - I have idea to make a kart from bamboo.
  
• Wilber (Forest), for me Wilber look like a wolf or something like that, so that's why I thinking about forest, so that's why want to make a kart base from wood, and then put paint tube on top of wooden base.
  

So ... if I need to post here only the final version, please tell me. 

And here is a gif screenshot of my new version of Suzanne's kart (still working on it):

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P/S: I have idea and for "Xue" too, but I will work with her later. (yeah I know, my thoughts sometimes all over the place).

[Sven]

You can post your kart in any version of course!

But it's helpful to let us know which stage you consider your kart to be in.
If we know if you consider something a final version or just concept stage, we can give feedback accordin to that

[Mish7913]

Okay

[Mish7913]

Relax, I'm not abandoning the current version, I just don't have any idea how to make it more better. So ... I just wanted to suggest my new idea that I have in my mind, but if everyone didn't like it - I can always turn back to this version, I'm not deleting anything. 

And don't worry about the soccer, in kart I will be using not only the wood, I will be use metal and coloring parts as well.

[Polo10]

Hi Mish,
What a great work you are doing ! Thank you so much to help the game in development by your quality skills.
You have many good ideas too so that's cool ! I just wanted to react about the universe's kart you were talking about. Suzanne's universe is jungle you're right. Amanda's kart in bamboo is a pretty logic idea but maybe you can find ideas with this too ( that's the description of the main character in-game) https://supertuxkart.net/fr/Discover. And for Wilber well it's not really a wolf but a cat, mascot of Gimp.
Cu !

[krabNchous]

And for Wilber well it's not really a wolf but a cat, mascot of Gimp.

 Actually...

Sorry for butting in but I Googled a bit on the internet and found something. Wilber, mascot of GIMP is not a wolf nor a cat, it is its own species: a "gimp".
As it says on this site: What Is Wilber? SOLVED
The author of this post says that he emailed the creator of Wilber, "Tuomas Kuosmanen" and got this answer from him.

[Mish7913]

By the way everyone, since I didn't make final version yet, I need everyone's opinion: how I see not everyone like my version on Suzanne, so I made a transformation steps of a head between my form and blender's form, so ... which form do you all prefer to use?

1. My From
   
2. Transform 1
   
3. Transform 2
   
4. Transform 3
   
5. Blender's Form
   

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p/s: don't worry about the mouth open in blender's form, I can close and open when I add rigging.