RiftQuake

[Sza]

I totally agree, I was never too happy with the muzzle flashes, but they are based on the same way id made their muzzle flashes. I love the flash in that Q2 enhanced video. Is that a high-resolution sprite animation spawned at the firearm's muzzle? I think I will look into this. I don't want it to be too fancy, because my goal was to maintain the old-school Quake feel, but I do agree that it should look better.

That being said, I've been seriously thinking about checking out the high-poly/high-res modeling world. If I make enhanced weapons I feel like all monsters, items and textures should be enhanced as well. I know there are some projects out there that do this. Maybe I will focus on this a little further down the road. What do you guys think?

The method i have used for my muzzle flash is based on a very old skool idea too :p its a model of a satelite on a front side of almost every gun, plus a extra texture and a small extra material. Every weapon uses the same one model of the arms. Every user will be able to change very easy the muzzle flash texture to another texrture(thanks to the extra material in a md3 model).

[Dutch]

The method i have used for my muzzle flash is based on a very old skool idea too :p its a model of a satelite on a front side of almost every gun, plus a extra texture and a small extra material. Every weapon uses the same one model of the arms. Every user will be able to change very easy the muzzle flash texture to another texrture(thanks to the extra material in a md3 model).

I like it. I will definitely be looking into this. You guys got me hyped about the updated models. I downloaded the latest Blender and a Quake .mdl import extension for it. Ten minutes of fooling around and the Flak Cannon looks like this:

Obviously I'm just having fun. I will construct it from scratch in Blender and fine-tune the hell out of it, then do my homework on texturing, UV and shading. Once I get the weapons done, if all turns out well, I'll start in on the player models and monsters. This is going to be a huge project but this looks like it could turn out well. Thanks guys for showing me another side of the modding scene.

[MadGypsy]

I think my current model has only 8 polys on the neck. Actually it has 8 polys on every limb. Only the torso has more than 8 (12 I think).

High Poly? Meh... I'm not a fine details kind of modeller. If I made a Cthulhu head it would look better than Id's models for Quake 1 but it would be seriously under par to be considered high res.

Honestly, I think a cthulhu head will be easy to model. Most of the main facial features are completely replaced with tentacles. It's just a head, eyes and tentacles. Basically, Imma make an octopus but just shove all the tentacles to one spot.

[gdiddy62]

Nice. I'm not sure of the color on the Flak cannon. Maybe a duller color? Yellow? Yes, I know is work in progress and it IS EXCELLENT work!!

[Seven]

Reading that you want to change your path and go the High-Poly, High-Res, High-Bling-Bling road suprises me a little bit. I was thinking:"Great, a man with vision and sense for original Quake".
If you follow the "High-xx" road, everything might be slowing down your progress: modeling, texturing, animation, ...
Working with the original models (and there are many others available in this flavor in already existing Quake mods), just like you did with animating shalrath for example, is always a good idea in my humble opinion.
Tool-chains to work with these assets are still available, as you already showed and proved to us.

One last question:
Why did you choose Darkplaces as the engine of your choice ?
Which benefits does it have over others. Or better asked, which are the features you are focusing on ?

[MadGypsy]

I went and reread everything. Aside from the Cthulhu head, Id like to help you from time to time with various aspects of your mod

here's my awesome resume'

QC coding - Not as good as R00k but I know how to get the job done
Modeling - I know my way around some edge loops
Texturing - I suck, plain and simple
UV mapping - I have a little system and it seems to work
Rigging - I actually spent way too much time studying rigs. I even make rigs for my rigs (control rig)
Shader Coding - no clue. Never learned any of it
Mapping - I know everything about making a Q1 map and I still can't make a good one. Ive come to the conclusion that I never really tried to make a map, I just like playing with geometry. This is evidenced by the fact that I have made doorways with more brushes than your average q1 map . I wouldn't "hire" me to make a map BUT, I'd hire the hell out of me to make brush expensive prefabs.

My tools:
NetRadiant
Blender
Notepad++
Noesis (barely for anything)
There are no graphic tools cause I suck at that. If you ever ask me to make a texture Imma bust out some MSPaint and make sure you never ask me again

I don't want huge ass projects to work on... I will flake out, I promise. Gimme small stuff that I can bang out in less than a week. I mean, my earlier post is a perfect example. I'm not even willing to bust out a whole Cthulhu but I'll make the hell out of the head. That's all you have to remember about me if you ever ask me to help with something. I want to get in and out...done. I can always come back and be in and out again on some other part.

However, (ex) I make a cthulhu head and you tell me later..ok now make an arm {job ends}... Now make a leg {job ends} LOL that shit aint gonna work. trying to fool me into making a whole model one limb at a time is not gonna happen but it would be funny.

[Dutch]

Reading that you want to change your path and go the High-Poly, High-Res, High-Bling-Bling road suprises me a little bit. I was thinking:"Great, a man with vision and sense for original Quake".
If you follow the "High-xx" road, everything might be slowing down your progress: modeling, texturing, animation, ...
Working with the original models (and there are many others available in this flavor in already existing Quake mods), just like you did with animating shalrath for example, is always a good idea in my humble opinion.
Tool-chains to work with these assets are still available, as you already showed and proved to us.

One last question:
Why did you choose Darkplaces as the engine of your choice ?
Which benefits does it have over others. Or better asked, which are the features you are focusing on ?

No you are absolutely right. I had to check it out just cause of curiosity. The high-res/high-poly idea was a fleeting thought that promplty died last night. I decided it's not what I enjoy about classic Quake. An updated engine and animation interpolation is as far away from the original setup as I'm willing to go. While I appreciate the work others put into to their totally updated models and textures, it's not what I want to focus on.

So I'm shifting my focus back to what it originally was: intense DM and SP gameplay, monsters, weapons, and gore.

As for using DarkPlaces, the reason I have stuck with it is because of the lack of problems I've had with it. I have tested the mod on Quakespasm and FitzQuake and the mod was basically unplayable. Custom sounds wouldn't play and certain models would crash the engine (like the partial gibbed players, which call on separate models that are mapped to the players previous parameters). Maybe I can deal with these issues to make it play better on other engines, but for now all I know is that DP is very friendly to my mod and has absolutely no problem handling it.

That being said, I would like your opinion on what a good engine to focus on other than DP would be. It certainly does bother me that I have problems running it on other engines.

I went and reread everything. Aside from the Cthulhu head, Id like to help you from time to time with various aspects of your mod

Absolutely man. Whatever help you would like to lend will be given clear credit for sure. Right now, if you would like to help, the Cthulu head would be great. Then I could start planning out the rest of the monster, including the body and coding. Let me know what else you would like to work on if something interests you.

Nice. I'm not sure of the color on the Flak cannon. Maybe a duller color? Yellow? Yes, I know is work in progress and it IS EXCELLENT work!!

Thanks! This cracks me up, y'all are saying the same things I've been thinking. I've been considering a two-tone steel gray and mustard color. I'll play around with it and post up a pic for feedback.

[MadGypsy]

I already started the head. Imma put in one more hour tonight and hit the sack. Modeling a Cthulhu (hereby known as Bob cause I'm sick of typing Cthuhlu) head is not really a big deal. I can already see in my head how it's all going to fit together however, making a low poly (or even mid poly) Bob head and making it look good is going to be a real challenge. I'm already at a stupid amount of polys in contrast to what is defined and I haven't gotten really anywhere yet.

[Dutch]

I already started the head. Imma put in one more hour tonight and hit the sack. Modeling a Cthulhu (hereby known as Bob cause I'm sick of typing Cthuhlu) head is not really a big deal. I can already see in my head how it's all going to fit together however, making a low poly (or even mid poly) Bob head and making it look good is going to be a real challenge. I'm already at a stupid amount of polys in contrast to what is defined and I haven't gotten really anywhere yet.

Haha Bob. I like it. I can see how keeping all those tentacles low poly would be a challenge. But it sounds like you got a pretty good idea on what you're trying to do, I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out so I can start thinking about the body.

In the meantime, I am going to keep working on the Vore, and I also want to update the weapons. My modeling was pretty sloppy because I was a little less experienced when I made them (the skins are not cut in half and complete, like the id originals. I made them out of several un-joined objects).

[MadGypsy]

See how it turns out? This will give you a good idea.

http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-mod...ulhu-head.html

Don't unwrap your models like ID. That's garbage. I'll tell you how I do it but it is a little involved.

1) turn "like" things into vertex groups. For instance turn an arm into a vertex group right up to where it meets whatever clothes the model is wearing. Do the same thing for (ex) boots, armor, gloves, head... all separate vertex groups

2) cut your model into vertex groups. Wherever a VG ends/begins is where you want to add a seam on an edge loop

3) unwrap your model and take all identical things from the left (as you are staring at it) and scale -1 on the x axis. So you have a right and left arm, flip the right arm (your left) by scaling it negative 1. This way it will be identical to your other arm on the uv plane. Then perfectly overlap the arms. It should look like you have one arm in the uv map. You can do the same for hands, boots, etc.

4) once you have determined what will share a texture and what wont, organize everything to fit comfortably in your uv map. There is no right or wrong here. Do whatever it takes to make your map sane. However, don't do any extreme scaling of anything. Your (ex) uv arms should be proportionate to your uv chest, legs, etc...


I am not a pro. I make shit up. I often find that my made up method is basically the actual method but, I'm not going to lie to you - I just invent methods. The method above is semi invented. Flipping body parts to match other body parts is old hat. I have never heard anyone talking about chopping the model up according to vertex groups though. For me this method works because the vertex groups are assigned the basic color that that part will be.

[Dutch]

Don't unwrap your models like ID. That's garbage. I'll tell you how I do it but it is a little involved.

I'm going to upload my weapons in Blender for tweaking and re-texturing and try this right now, starting with the Flak Cannon. Thanks Gypsy.

[MadGypsy]

@Thanks Gypsy

Yup... thank me if it works for you. One thing about inventing methods, you generally invent a bunch of other stuff around that method. Your other methods might not like my method. That's ok though, just take your knowledge (good and bad) and invent your own methods.

Blender is so robust that there are generally a number of ways to accomplish things. I've seen pro video tutorials where I was screaming t the monitor "You idiot! Just press ABC and fuck all that crazy edge manipulation."

And that one little sentence really is the key. It's all about tricks and the more tricks you know, the more powerful your method will be. I watched the entire blender man tutorials which is like 15 hours of Ward plane modeling a "high" poly model, then texturing and rigging it. A few years later I watched another Ward tutorial where he built an entire character mesh in like 5 minutes. He learned/invented a lot of tricks.

Actually that tutorial is how I got a Cthulhu base mesh so fast. His head modeling technique is sick. Imagine if you could grab a piece of paper, ball it up, open your hand and magically the balled paper was a perfect head. That might not make any sense but if you saw that tutorial it would.

One example of a "trick" (albeit a small example) is flipping uv maps. There is no flip but scaling -1 has identical results. Most of the tricks you learn will revolve around knowing blenders keyboard shortcuts and/or understanding the "button" window (which doesn't exist in 2.6 but all the stuff is there somewhere)

[Dutch]

Did some work on the Flak Cannon in Blender. The goal is to re-create with a little more detail (still maintaining low poly count) but with a much better and properly UV-ed texture. Pics when I get more done, I'm basically re-learning what little I knew of Blender from back in my high school comp class 6 or 7 years ago...

In the meantime, Ms. Vore became the super-bitch from hell. Check it out!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NODD7Qi9qDw]RiftQuake Vore - YouTube[/ame]

Going to add some growling sounds for the melee and a vicious pouncing scream when she jumps...I'm thinking a sound clip from the movie Aliens. Seems fitting.

Oh, and ignore the awful full-bright, mal-textured, big-box map. This is just a testing zone for monster and gib behavior.

[talisa]

woah, what a ferocious little bastard the vore turned into with your QC!

she's almost like a rabid dog or such...i love it!

[Dutch]

woah, what a ferocious little bastard the vore turned into with your QC!

she's almost like a rabid dog or such...i love it!

Thanks! I did some more tweaking and added a leaping growl sound since the vid.

Here's the Rift Gun in action with some slimy monster melting deaths if anyone's interested:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoww2MI4vUg]RiftQuake Rift Gun - YouTube[/ame]