Authentic Model Improvement

[osjclatchford]

Yeah Its kinda like how we feel about the ssg. I know I made the skin thats more faithfull for it but i still prefer to use the dewere ssg as it is.
same for this.
this rl skin is more authentic with the vent bits highlighted but I prefer it without. so thats how I'll use it.
for the doe skin, did you just copy the stripe itself? (Thats what I'd have done)
or did you copy all of the barrel side.
if so there will be a difference in pixel quality between the standard and multi rl that will show when switching.

[NightFright]

I feel skin #2 highlights the vents better compared to the other two. It's again a case of personal preference, I guess. But yeah, after a short time it's growing on me. Seems like a small change at first, but it adds some more definition to the model in the end.

Now we just need those muzzleflashes back eventually. Amazing how there are always new things popping up lately. As if this doesn't want to get finished.

Remind me to say thanks to Andrey. While none of his models were useful, his input certainly was. Why can't more people be like that, actually TELLING you what could be improved instead of just saying "can't see the difference" or "I like some other model better"? Sigh.

[osjclatchford]

there's actually a large difference in resolution/detail between skin1 and skin3

yes skin 3 is indeed the current one.
I then made skin2, higher res on the bodywork and the highlighted vents.
I then decided I did not like the vents and made skin1
which is the higher res body with the old vents. which i personally prefer. if you're using skin2 you get the higher res skin and new 'classic style' vents... so yeah groovy!

this gif: https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/ac...f9ez3iefzg.jpg
shows the difference between skin1 and skin3...
skin3 is lower res than skin1 essentially...

but, as I say skin2 uses the higher res skin as a base too so you're using that already, just with the classic vents...

[NightFright]

I have checked this model and it has three skins in it. The difference between the first and the third can only be seen when you look really close. Texture has a finer grain and the left vent is a bit different. The second one has the rear parts of the vents highlighted.

AFAIK we are currently using skin #3. When comparing it with the original, skin #2 seems to be better since the vents are also highlighted on the id1 model. Weird, but it's indeed like that. So, skin #2 it is, unless there are major concerns.

(And no need to do the DoE skin, I have done it already - GIMP FTW.)

[osjclatchford]

well here's something I've just been toying with:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/iiads...jc+rl.zip/file

its a new skin for the rl with attempts to look even more faithfull
pic:
crochet.jpg
shown on my angled rl in the pic but is centred in the file...

if you prefer this I'll do the multi skin for it too... i'm not 100% convinced on this one. depending on local light sources, I feel the illusion gets wrecked at some angles...

Im thinking keep the higher detail on the body of the skin but revert the parts on the back of the 'vents' to as they were on the previous iteration, but what say you?

*edit*
tried that and I really do prefer it...
crochetlawnchair.jpg
(this and the other skin above are both on the model in the file linked on this post)

[NightFright]

Yepp, that's pretty much it. Looks a lot better ingame now! Not bad at all for someone who started with mere skin edits...
While we are at it, I will also update the Multi-Rocket Launcher from DoE with this (it's just a matter of importing the skin from our v_multi2.mdl to this v_rock2.mdl).

[osjclatchford]

try this smoother rocket launcher animation ammendment:
smoother osjc rl.zip

no, still no muzzleflash but frame 7 is now no longer a copy of frame 6 and is a transitional frame between 6 and 1 which should make the end of the animation smoother.
is that what you're after?

[NightFright]

Great! Oh, forgot to mention: Thanks a lot for the fast backpack fix, TM!

For now I have updated the to-do list to add the ID1 model issues reported by Andrey Shalunov (that's the name of the Russian guy).

[osjclatchford]

lols me too. yep, not all crits are bad-uns...

oh just fyi ive just had to reupload this: https://www.mediafire.com/file/wnrb4...hings.zip/file because I noticed the proxbomb was off-centre making for a wobbley flight path. fixed now...

[NightFright]

Wow, I never thought the backpack skin was wrong. It looks indeed a lot better now! I like when people actually give you bug reports that are helpful.

[osjclatchford]

as far as my understanding of it all goes, that was a waste of a perfectly good explanation on your part... LOL


but thanks for fixing the backpack model, LOL...

I'm sure it will make sense to others looking at this though

[Tea Monster]

OK. The backpack had some texture mapping issues. I looked at the face normals and they were all 'outies'.

Quick game tech tut: A face normal is how the game sees a polygon on a game model. If the face normal is pointing out, then the game will see it as long as there is a texture attached. If it's pointing in, then you won't see the face. That is what happened to the sheild model. Because the normals were inside out, the model looked inside out. You could see through the front's normals as they were pointing in and were looking at the 'back' of the model because all the back faces had their normals pointing to the player. When editing a model, the face normals can be reversed if the modelling app gets confused about what is out and what is in while you are mangling the verts and faces. It's always a good idea to check these before publishing your game model.

All the normals looked good on the backpack. In the picture with the blue lines, the blue lines pointing out indicate the direction of the normals. I merged a lot of overlapping verts. They tend to be created because the importer splits faces when it imports the model. That was the weird extra face on the body of the grav belt. I hid a few faces and took a peek into the model and I didn't see any extra internal faces that shouldn't be there. They can cause shading issues on models and are best avoided. Same with overlapping faces.

There were some strange UV texture mapping issues. I fixed them. The model looks great in QME. Rotate flag was set 'on'.

File:
backpackuvfix.zip

[osjclatchford]

here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/wnrb4...hings.zip/file is a file with new models for lavaball and lavarock (same models different names) and proxbomb based on that chillo lavaball model as it is indeed much smoother.
the proxbomb is actually round now and for the lava-balls I did the tilt and oval shape as I did on the ad model as before...

Alas, I tried to add muzzleflashes to the rl and gl but failed.
By removing all vreticies but the flashes on the old id1 models then blending the resultant model with the new v_weapons we use now. however for whatever reason I cant navigate the viewscreen and select verticies at the same time and my version of qme wont let me drag select polys either so attemting to move the flashes out of the way in all frames but the one I want it in is next to impossible... sigh...

the backpack has some stripey detail not on the original:
BACKPACK.jpg
those stripes (which ive taken to be vented expandable areas of the bag) are what I think he's referring to... meh, just tell him to use thatone from copper mod...

[Tea Monster]

I'll look into The Old One's animations. I thought I fixed that, but maybe it didn't get back ported to the authentic version.

I'd like to eventually do my own versions of various other Quake critters like the Vore. Don't get too excited though as I'm short on time at the moment. That's the plan though.

I'll check out the back pack. That should be a quick job.

[NightFright]

So... I checked what the guy sent me. At first it seemed like a nice pack with a bunch of models, but it turned out to be a compilation of entries from Chillo 1.7, AD, Quake 1.5 and others. No sources we didn't know already. The ogre was pretty much what we are working on right now, so we can forget about it.

However, there was some constructive criticism that might be worth considering:

1) Backpack (backpack.mdl):
Overlay problem with skin on the side - black spots?

2) Lavaball (lavaball.mdl):
Chillo's lavaball has 112 polies, ours 64

3) Shub (oldone.mdl):
Position of tentacles in the last 45 frames is too far from the first frame, leading to twitches during animation cycle. Left tentacle is particularly noticable

4) Vore (shalrath.mdl):
Walking animation frames 23 and 24 are identical which makes walking twitchy. Chillo's original model apparently didn't have that

5) Grenade Launcher (v_rock):
Missing muzzleflash when firing

6) Rocket launcher (v_rock2):
- Barrel position difference between frame 6 and 0 is large, leading to a twitch when returning to original position
- Missing muzzleflash when firing

Comments from my side:
1) Regarding the backpack, I am not sure what he means, I cannot see anything wrong with the model at first glance.
2) Dunno if it's worth replacing our version with another just because of higher polycount, it's a simple model and not that important.
3)-4) Shub should be possible to edit if necessary since TM has the source. Vore walking could indeed be smoother (maybe frame got lost during editing process).
5)-6) I was aware of the missing muzzleflashes for GL and RL, but didn't mention it for a while since we had nobody who could edit existing models. Maybe TM can look into that at some point. Whether the RL recoil can or should be improved depends on whether another few frames can be inserted into the firing animation loop, I guess.