Authentic Model Improvement

[NightFright]

I made my "threat" come true and did a rollback on the BSPs (except for the health boxes). Gotta admit it looks a lot better like this. More detail isn't always better. Lesson learned the hard way (one day of tweaking --> trash).

The ID1/ROG rocket boxes still profit from some significant skin optimizations. On top of that, I have refined the plasma cells which hopefully look more polished now and can be accepted as "non-voxelish" replacements. I have really tried hard to make their shapes a lot more interesting. (Besides that, the lower part of b_plas0 had been completely untextured before, which is now corrected.)

Download all reworked BSPs (0.2 MB)

jEqpYLr.jpg
cIqVL8S.jpg X6wWZyt.jpg

[talisa]

hmmm they're fine-ish? make the details on the sides and the cables a bit more rounded looking,
and same goes for the big socket on the front, make those octogonal like what TM did with his models

the other ammo-boxes look fine, its just the DOE ones that are a bit to voxel-like looking

the fins on the rockets could also look better imo if they were less rectangular looking
like to give an example, try making them like this instead
https://i.gyazo.com/dcd56f3d1aba0762...33809fac77.png


red is like what it seems you have now, green is what i think would look better
its less polys and makes the items look more like a real 3D model rather than voxels

[NightFright]

Right. I hope at least that the plasma cells are OK. I tried to keep those simple.

[talisa]

agree with osjc, your models look to cube-o-rific... they look more like voxels than 3D models
there's to much exact-90-degrees angles everywhere, and you follow the pixels of the textures to exact.

make details more semi-rounded, like hexagonal or octagonal, but keep them low-poly
also dont make every single detail be perfectly straight either, or you end up with models that look to much like voxels rather than 3D models

also, not every single tiny detail needs to be 3D. dont go overboard with the 3D look just cuz you can, keep the amount of 3D details to a minimum,
similar to the ammo-bxes that were in the pack, that only added 3D borders and corners.

adding to much detail will make them stand out as they'd look way more detailed than the rest of the authentic-improved models that merely add some light smoothing and making the bigger details 3D

[NightFright]

Yeah, the rockets look voxelized now. I was also a bit sceptical about most of these, also because all this detail doesn't give you any true benefit ingame since ammo pickups are nothing you look at for very long. That was also a reason why these items had such simple models in the first place (besides of performance reasons back in the days, as Romero mentioned on Twitter).

I will keep these versions for my own usage (and because I spent all day making them), but ultimately I guess I'll undo everything except for the health boxes tomorrow. However, the b_rock1 skin will keep the big rocket skin by default at least.

Thanks a lot for your inout, osj. It's good to have someone who tells you if you overdo it.

[osjclatchford]

really not sure about these.
dont take offence but it almost looks like some of it is just detail for the sake of detail.
the medkit crosses are a real nice addition but the nailbox logo for example, no real benefit in them being 3d.
the rocket shells look a little odd tbh. like a lego build of quake items... they all share that look...
Its almost like these are voxels not bsp. know what I mean?
to me it breaks the feel of it and makes it look less 'quake' and more like one of those build engine voxel remodel from sprites...

perhaps its just because I abhor voxels so thats making me so prejudice? I dunno...

as I say, the medkits? bang on, all three are tip top but the ammo kinda looks weird to me... bah, cant please everyone, eh?

[NightFright]

So... I wanted to keep going after gaining momentum while making the plasma cells, so I gave all the bsp models an overhaul (except for the small shell box since I couldn't find a way to make it look any better). Some changes are rather subtle and not so noticable if not looking closely at the model, but shells, nails and especially rockets look a lot better now. I like the effect even more in DoE due to the nice glow effect of lava nails and multi-rockets.

The big rocket ammo box (b_rock1) now also uses the big rocket skin again instead of two small ones to make it look closer to the original (even though it's weird that rockets look bigger, but that's how it is in the original). You can switch to the alternate version with small rockets by renaming b_rock1a (id1) and/or b_mrock1a (rog) to b_rock1 and/or b_mrock1. Find the new files in the attachment.

Download new BSPs + source files (0.5 MB)

Preview images of new BSPs

[NightFright]

Great! It's one of those fixes you won't notice that much, but someone obviously did since otherwise we wouldn't have received a bug report about it.

After that, I guess things will slow down quite a bit. Would still be nice to have the player model restored in SoA and the zombie in DoE by applying some necessary adjustments, but the really important id1 assets are pretty much done.

*EDIT*
Slightly updated plasma cells. Top texture wasn't properly centered.

[Tea Monster]

They look really good!

I'll try and get the shub fix done tomorrow.

[NightFright]

Plasma cells for Dissolution done.

frCAPJQ.jpg 9MgQA2F.jpg

Gratefully, these models are highly symmetrical, so I could work a lot with duplication, and b_plas1 is basically an exact copy of b_plas0 with one additional cell on each side. Animation of the originals has been maintained.

I didn't want to go too much overboard with the protruding parts in general, plus I refrained from adding wires at the bottom of b_plas0 since you wouldn't see that part of the model ever - it would just be needless brushes and these models aren't supposed to be too complex, too. Shapes are kinda rougher than with TM's prototypes, and if he manages to finish them, these might get replaced. For now, they should be good enough, though.

Compiled BSPs + source in the attachment.

[osjclatchford]

thats great news!
glad you're still enjoying this and able to continue to contribute new content.

its a really solid project now.
however, to be honest, I feel the project still needs a better vore/shalrath. dont get me wrong, chillos is a slight improvement over the original. and with our fixes, to the model and skin its much better still but for me, its a bit too chunky and clunky overall. oversized claws and shoulders. just seems off somehow, even against the other models chillo released of the same era. I guess this was wip. perhaps its just that I cant get skiffy's vore wip out of my mind... but thats like another capnbubs ogre all over again. look where that got us with the ad one. all round the houses to end up back where we started again...

anyway, glad you worked out the anmation bug in the walk cycle. in truth Ive not seen an error on my vores but then I may have fixed that myself a while back and not noticed anymore... or perhaps its because I'm using quakespasm? I dunno. mine is not choppy anyway...
also cant see anything wrong with tmonster's shub anims neither...

[NightFright]

Glad you like these. They are my first attempts of actual brush manipulation. Previously I just reskinned existing models (with the lava nail boxes), but this time I reskinned, resized, repositioned and added new parts. It's easier than I thought once you get into it and Trenchbroom really helps you a lot with repeating structures (which these models have in abundance). Took me almost a full afternoon to get into it, but once you know the hotkeys, it can be done quite fast.

Biggest advantage is really that those are true BSPs now, besides the fact they are super close to the vanilla models. The geometry of brush models is much simpler, so it's on a level I can actually comprehend. I am confident to get the plasma cells done soon as well since they are also quite basic and not too many adjustments are necessary. With those done, a new release should be justified, unless TM is able to provide the Shub fix soon.

Oh, and I just confirmed that all BSPs we have in the pack are now true BSPs, so no more surprises with "Non-Solid BSP" warnings. It can be verified if you open the file in a hex editor and the header starts with "1D 00 00 00" (= 29).

[osjclatchford]

NOICE!

these are better models as the others had missing texture on some vertices...
tis also good to have the animations back.

also the others were causing an issue on e1m1 where one of the soldiers was getting stuck inside the box. glad thats gone too...

added to my pak0...

[NightFright]

That's weird. If I click on it, the file gets downloaded just fine. Anyway, I am also uploading it here without the screenshots included to save filespace.

[osjclatchford]

the linkis dead/nonfunctioning