Bloody skins

[Mr.Burns]

My apologies if this has been asked before but whilst playing Painkeep at a LAN party recently I noticed again how the skins on my opponents have increasing blood spatter on them everytime the player was hit (which sadly with my aim wasn't that often ). IMHO it really was quite effective, especially for an old mod, but i gather it's not easy to get around the fact that you need the client side mod containing the various damaged skins in order to view the gorey spectacle. With this in mind I wondered if there any plans to include this as a toggleable option within Qrack/PQ/DP? Or, in the same way that cl_teamskins 1 is it already there to turn on Team skins is there another command already in place waiting for me to turn it on using some cl_bloodskins 1 type command? I recall R00k mentioned that he was looking in to the idea of having blood spatter in the players view/eyes but to couple this with the spatter over your opponent might add to the effect.

Alternatively, and obviously a second best choice, is there some way I could extract relevant bits of the Painkeep source and use it in some sort of -game bloodskins fashion? If so perhaps Metch might be kind enough to apply his artistic talent to enhance the gory effect even further

Any helpful suggestions would be much appreciated

[metchsteekle]

ooh those are pain skins
http://inside3d.com/showtutorial.php?id=95


and seeing pk lastskin for the player would go great with this tutorial, one of my favorites
http://inside3d.com/showtutorial.php?id=91

[Senban]

What would be even better, (but probably need to be done engine side) would be if you could apply wounds to the models as decals, so the wound appears exactly where the nail (etc) lands. The only game I can think of seeing this in is the N64 Goldeneye game, which also seemed to have the target bounding match the displayed model exactly, presumably using the model itself, which is something I'd love to see in Quake, particularly if it could be linked to location damage code in qc.

[Mr.Burns]

Thanks for the responses. Yes I hadn't gone as far as thinking the wound could appear at the point of impact, as I wasn't aware that Quake could do this, but that's a great idea and would be a great addition to the game. You got your ears on Baker/R00K?

[R00k]

I suppose, I could have 24-bit pain skins that can be parsed based on the players health, that could look cool. The face could have a different expression etc..

[Mr.Burns]

Great work R00k! It's the little additions like this that cumulatively make all the difference.

If you need anyone to test this please let me know (I'm sure Peg/Polarite would be up for this too, they can't resist any opportunity to splatter my entrails across the wall:d )

Kind regards


Monty

[=peg=]

damn right!

[Samus_Aran]

This sounds very cool, and would be incredibly useful for coop which I play with my friends -- currently before picking up any ammo, we ask each other what our health is at, to see who needs it most. With this, we could just *look* at each other! Cool idea.

[Mr.Burns]

I'd almost forgotten about this. Are we likely to see it as a togglable option on Qrack/Proquake guys? It would add a much needed dose of realism to Quake without changing the look anf feel too much and would perhaps bring it a little more up to date. The offer still stands for any testing you want doing and I'm sure Peg / Pol would still be up for it over pn the Bigfoot/Flanders servers.

Kind regards

Monty

[golden_boy]

Wouldn't it also be much easier for enemies to determine if you're almost dead?

[Mr.Burns]

Wouldn't it also be much easier for enemies to determine if you're almost dead?

True but that in itself works both ways as you are probably going to be more tempted to have a go at a more formidable opponent if you can see that he/she is more injured than yourself. Just play painkeep for abit and you'll see what I mean. It also makes you improve your awareness of the whereabouts of Health Packs, particularly on the custom maps.

Just as an example, I wouldn't even entertain the idea of taking on Polarite/Plop/Bong/Peg/etc unless the scene was something akin to this :


So all we need now is an early Xmas present from Rook/Baker

Kind regards

Monty

[R00k]

this could be done in QuakeC, by setting a player's skin number based on his health, or engine side in the same manner. As long as the player model has skin slots included and we have external textures. We've talked about this before. Some suggest realtime player decals (i think i have code examples of this), but with the talent i've seen from skinners like Fragger and others why stop at damage skins, we can also have Quad skin, a evil looking Pent-faced skin, animated face skins for pain or heck even clan logos!

[golden_boy]

So it would make the life of players who are low on health a little harder, because their health status is more likely to be noticed.

Doesn't it remove some of the skill required to estimate what your opponent's status may be?

Not trying to pester, just interested as a developer.

[R00k]

That is a two way street, if you say bind shift +zoom and look at a player at 40 fov and see he's NOT damaged you might hit that teleport instead! or keep it singleplayer/coop only option.

[Mr.Burns]

I would humbly suggest that it should be available in multiplayer games too. I think it is an excellent idea to involve a talented artist such as Fragger if he's willing and the Quad and Pent skins would be a sensible extension to the orignal.

With regard to Golden's point I would agree that in lightly populated games such as 1v1's or even 2v2's that may be true. However I can only speak from my personal experience and in most of the games I play they tend to be frantic well populated dm games with many talented players often using the same colours. This makes it increasingly difficult to judge a single players health status as a) you rarely have the time to continually track every opponent's whereabouts and b) many opponents have the same colour. For example I played a game over the weekend when almost all 7 players were dressed in white. If my opponent was covered in blood I'm more likely to attack with force rather than play the safer more strategic game.
Once again the exception to this is polarite whom you should run from at every opportunity even if he has 1 health, no legs and only a rolled up newspaper for a weapon.

As Rook said, it is a two way street and there are advantages and disadvantages depending on amongst other things your current status in the game . Bear in mind that this was intended as a helpful suggestion of relatively small change aimed to improve the realism of the game.

Kind regards

Monty