Authentic Model Improvement

[osjclatchford]

sorry, seems i misunderstood you entirely there. or vise-versa
i'll look into it and get back to you asap re. the prox...

*edit*
please help me here:
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/68...835yxszczg.jpg

here is another comparison shot. on the right is the mp1 model and the left my new skin for the dwere model (also edited for scale).

can you point out the problem?

because I cant see what you're saying. mine simply makes the model smoother and neater and eliminates the model limitations and errors on the original. whats the "dark bit" in the centre you're referring to?

[NightFright]

I am not talking about the geometry of the GL/PG model in its entirety. I don't mind having rounder model shapes. It's rather about that small dark part in the middle of the barrel which is missing in v_prox entirely. There are just the dark spots on each side, but not the "gap" on the top. That's the one I'd like to eliminate. With Plague's model it's not possible since he made a gap in the mesh, while it's much easier to cover with dwere's mdl since it's just realized via the skin. (You gave that part a darker red tone compared to the "socket".) Ultimately, it's something I am willing to overlook for the sake of just moving on. Eventually the point is reached where one just gets too tired with iterations of the same stuff over and over again.

Anyway, the new multi-grenade launcher looks good and can be considered final. I'll see now what Chillo (and possibly Sock, whom I also contacted) come(s) up with.

[osjclatchford]

eh? did i read that right about the v_prox.mdl?
if so, why are you trying to make it flat? I dont understand.
the whole idea was to create a smoother rounder model. like its the tube that's inside the grenadelauncher's brown bits, just red instead of blue (and the added holes, obviously)
thats why deware made his rounder, and thats what ive been doing to the skin the whole time. to make it even rounder still.
thats what the model is supposed to be surely...

the original mp1 prox model is only flat because its skin is on the same old model as the id1 v_rock.mdl. (lazyness) and this is only squared off because the brown cladding parts on the skin, need it to be so. or it wouldn't work visually. (cant help but wonder if this is only the case so that the model was as lo-poly as possible for back in '96...)

However, nothing in the prox's skin suggests it's supposed to be anything other than round. just like what the nadelauncer would be if it didnt have that brown bit of cladding on the barrel...


It seems to me you're mistaking the limitations of the 1996 low poly models as a design feature...
this is what I meant about loosing the 'spirit' of the project to what the vanilla model was.
nostalgia is one thing but gloriying the errors on a model is going one step too far. based on that, get rid of the new soldier.mdl because his face isnt flat, get rid of the new v_nail2.mdl because the barrels are too round and the bodywork has new detail on it?... no. of course you'd not. it would be plain silly.
Look, I'm sorry to say but it just seems a bit pointless remaking something to make it better and more detailed but keeping all the bad attributes about it for the sake of nostalgia of the quaint model errors. its just a wasted endeavour otherwise... just play it vanilla if you want that way, surely?
just seems the two conditions are diometrically opposed.



anyway, heres the ammended v_multi2.mdl's skin
multilaunchers v2:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/n4ka47...chers.zip/file
yes, this is a link to the same pack as before but I've ammended the file by adding another skin on the v_multi2.mdl with darker stripes (left the other, brighter skin in there so you can see the difference easier, but feel free to delete whatever skins you dont need from the model in qme)

[NightFright]

Already pretty good. There's just an inconsistency now with the different yellow tones of the multi-grenade launcher and the multi-rocket launcher. The latter is more orange while the first is rather yellow. I think it's better to make the GL stripes more orange-ish.

As for the world models, there aren't any in DoE. If you pick up the normal GL/RL, you automatically also have the RoE counterparts if you find the right ammo for them.

Still looking for a way to make that Prox Gun model for SoA flat on the top, but it's not easy. Having to modify each frame for a model separately is indeed painful and I would rather like to leave this to an expert.

I also noticed Plague's weapons don't come with a muzzleflash. I guess you hardly notice it during gameplay, but well... neither of us has the necessary skills to add those retroactively.

Also I found a small fullbright pixel on the read side of the Ogre head (h_ogre.mdl) which I managed to remove successfully.

[osjclatchford]

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

well, Ive never played doe and dont own it but Ive made these based on what you've got in the pack so far.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/n4ka47...chers.zip/file

your multi-rocket skin weren't at all bad for a starting point. just needed the stripes extending and a bit of texture blending and shading to make them the high (well, slightly higher) resolution of the new model...

open to suggestion on these skins... just let me know if you feel it needs more work...

btw...yellow's a bitch to work on in the quake pallette...


oh, yeah...do they not have world models?
none in the pack is all...
or is it just the view models. (If so, I assume you just get both versions of either the gl or rl when you pick up the standard weapons as usual in doe then?)


*edit*
while I was at it i've redesigned the prox-launcher again (for the last time I hope now LOL) to better match the above multilauncher and the plague/osjc grenadelauncher even more.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/8lt57o...final.zip/file


so yeah, this is an alteration of deware's prox model (and skin) to better match my skin I did for plague's gl model.
if you're sratching your head at just quite what that means, just check out the added pic below and you'll see what I mean.
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/ef...f9tgt8ryzg.jpg

the idea behind this redesign is that the brown chunky bits on the gl are simply not used on the prox variant. as such the barrel should be thinner a bit in the middle parts (red areas) and also smoother too.

to as I've said before said, thats damn hard to do on the plague model without physically editing the model itself to make the barrel smooth. thats out of my skillset and out of my hands...

BUT!
with a bit of thought and cogitation, I've now simply opted to use one of deweres models as a base instead of the plague model!
however, its not just as simple as that. theres quite a bit more to it actually.

I had to do a lot of tweaking to the proportion and position of the model and the 'art' of the muzzle and rear of the skin itself so it felt like they were a match for the skin and model of plagues gl I had previously used.
In fact, you may not notice without a bit of further scrtiny but my 'nadelauncher skin (for the plague model) uses a lot of visual trickery to make these parts look higher poly and 'rounder' than the low poly model actually is and, without these changes, would show them to be.
its a complicated bitch of imagined-angles and fake-curvatures to try and work out but the ending result creates a smoother cleaner version of the weapon without the obvious ugly sharp corners, but its often so subtile that people just assume its model work, not skinwork. and as such overlook it. shame but thats how it is.
still, its victory at all costs eh, as long is the end result works and does the job you want who cares how we got there.
So, uh, yeah, I've done this to the prox skin so the two match is what I'm slowly getting at...


oh and the pickup uses a simple reskin of socks gl pickup so it matches the other gl's pickup too! (but this is just the one I did before, but I still thought i'd add it in here)

so thats your continuity and quality problems solved ?

[NightFright]

Fair enough to say. I knew the reversions would be controversial. Can't make it right for everyone. Maybe I find a more satisfying solution in one of the next releases without having to sacrifice higher quality models. That's why it is a work-in-progress still.

It's just sad there is so little forum activity here. Would be good if there was some input from other people as well, to get a bigger picture.

*UPDATE*
osj, if you can provide skins for the DoE multi-grenade/multi-rocket launcher (v_multi/v_multi2), I may consider going back to the reskinned Plague/sock model in the next revision. (You had already provided a skin for the SoA prox gun, so MP1 is covered.) So far I have come up with this for v_multi2, but it can probably be done better (basically I reused parts of the original skin for this). What should be maintained is the amount of black/yellow stripes and their orientation on the weapons - or at least stay as close to it as possible.

And yes, I need to stop reverting stuff at some point. After we have figured out this thing with the MP2 weapons, I will try hard to only replace existing content if it's DEFINITELY better than what we already have (while still being faithful, even though it's obviously debatable how this is supposed to be defined). Besides the titty-less Vore, I actually would probably call it a day with updating any existing content - then it should only be about adding new stuff.

[osjclatchford]

so, even though plagues models of the gl and rl are clearly superior models, and, with the appropriate skin , are very faithfull to the source material, yet a considerable upgrade. which is the ultimate goal of this endeavour. you've dropped them just so that the mission paks weapons have a consistancy?
that makes no sense to me at all...
mission packs are considered optional extras and oftimes have very different and out of place looking stuff in them anyway so different weapon models should not really be an issue.

I dunno. i suppose to me its like you're upping the consistancy of the models across the packs as a whole, but at the cost of the id pack's quality...


I think the point I'm making is most visible with the gl.
dwere's view model is not really much of an upgrade at all. in truth its little more than standard. which is an issue when the gl has always been the least quality weapon model in the game. just look at deware's ng and sng. MANY changes and added details yet its preferable over the original. plagues model likewise adds more polys and sense of a third dimension and , with my added skin, retains the classic visual theme that makes it fit in with deware's other models.

I dunno, I guess I've seen this before with other folks working on similar projects. you get so hung up on the must be as close to vanilla as possible that you actually loose the 'spirit' of the project.
if you use that as the logical proccess why even bother with new material at all? just use the vanilla models... its a slippery slope that ends in a lot of back and forth between different stuff that often ends in a bland and unexciting finish...

just my 2 cents.

and before anyone should say, its not me saying "use my stuff because I want it in there" you can use whatever you want. that matters not to me.
Its just I really feel that dewares gl is considerably poorer in quality to the one plague and I have managed to create...
as such I fear that the spirit of the project is being lost... and thats a shame


I can't help but wonder whats next to be sacrificed in terms of consistancy over quality...

[NightFright]

Revision #20 has been released (version numbering is different since we started getting conflicts with similar numbers from previous releases - I am simply counting the amount of releases in total now).

The most imminent reason for this new version was that I had underestimated removing the R1M7 elevator fix for DoE in Rev. #18. Apparently without it, the game is even crashing in QSS, so it's important to have it included. It's a simple edit in newplats.qc (source files have been updated). I did not reapply Seven's buzzsaw fix since that one was meant for Darkplaces only and would actually break the buzzsaws in QSS (and probably other ports) if used.
As you can see in the changelog, there are quite some reversions in this release, too. I went back to dwere's GL/RL models since they fit better with the DoE models and have more faithful looks in general. I followed osj's advice and reverted to Chillo's previous Death Knight and Lunaran's Knight (which also fits better in DoE since we use his model for the statue there, anyway).
Otherwise, Ogre, Fiend and Vore got some reskins by osj and should look even closer to the original versions. Unfortunately, Chillo's hasn't reported back regarding the titty-less Vore model so far, therefore I decided to include osj's skin "hack" - hopefully just as a placeholder.

Download Rev. #20 on Github

Changelog:

• General: Version numbering changed for better overview
• Update: [ROG] Progs.dat refresh #3 (critical R1M7 elevator bug fixed - again)
• Update: [ID1] Chthon, Death Knight and Ogre mdls recompressed with QuArK to save 70% file size
• Update: Models reverted to previous versions
  - [ID1] Knight (+ head gibs) back to Rev. #15 (Chillo --> Lunaran)
  - [ID1] Death Knight (+ head gibs) back to Rev. #18 (Chillo)
  - [ID1] Grenade launcher (+ pickup) back to Rev. #16 (Plague/sock/osj --> Dwere)
  - [ID1] Rocket launcher (+ pickup) back to Rev. #16 (Plague/sock/osj --> Dwere)
• Update: Chillo model reskins by osjclatchford
  - [ID1] Fiend
  - [ID1] Vore
  - [ID1] [ROG] Ogre (+ head gibs)

[osjclatchford]

oh, yeah. totally agreed. i just thouht it would be best to post it here as it is +/- a high detailed, yet vanilla-compatible re-interpretation of a classic model so yeah. its just here as an alternative in truth...

[NightFright]

Well, the AD axe is a considerable deviation from the original, so unfortunately it's not usable in the model pack, but it's nice to have alternatives to choose from, anyway.

[osjclatchford]

that is good news. never thought you'd here anything quake related from chillo again to be honest.
and you've struck a quake nerve with him it seems, just look at this on his recent twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1331114040744050688 LOL

anyway. I made a little skin today.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/xwpshs...d_axe.zip/file
I was playing some arcane dimensions and when going back to regular quake maps I found I really missed the new axe model.
Ive compiled the standard, unbloodied-clean one (simply renaming it to v_axe) and also tweaked the shadowaxe (bloodied one's) skin a bit so it doesn't glow in the dark anymore.

essentially its an alternative model with a choice of either a classic-bloody skin or clean skin. your choice. Ok its not as faithfull as dewarecat's but it does make a nice alternate nonetheless... (pic attatched for those just stopping by)

image_3257.jpg

[NightFright]

Good news: Chillo replied to my mail. Bad news: He isn't sure if he still has the male Vore saved anywhere, but he will check.
Well, at least there's a chance!

[osjclatchford]

yes its true the id1 demon.mdl skin has no brightmaps on it. its just something that bloodshot added to his skin and I found I rather liked it. not necassary though so this:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/1h0vke...final.zip/file
is the final version.
it has the smaller eyes as requested. they also dont glow.
and its got the less derpy and more stabby-stabby nang-nang proper fiend teeth you're sure to remeber from those feind pounces that are solidily fixed in all your teenage nightmares...
I've done nothing to the headgib. it has no eyes so needs no work in theat respect. the teeth are all kinds of wrong but I personally dont like the chillo headgib model at all. its just got something about it that i cant put my finger on.
as such thats why ive not done any work to this.
im using the vanilla headgiba s I think its fine but. meh, whatayagonnado?
each to his own... i've still not found a h_demon.mdl I'm happy with as yet...

[NightFright]

Well, I don't remember the Fiend eyes sticking out very much (it almost looks as if it's blind), so maybe small, but not-glowing eyes plus new teeth might be the way to go. One skin will be enough for this one since there are no mission pack variations.

These wip releases are nice, though. You can easily cycle through all available skins with QMV and see the differences quickly.

[osjclatchford]

yes as its wip ive left three skins on that model:

theres a version with the new teeth and glowy eyes.

one thats just the requested smaller eyes (that dont glow)

and chillo's original.

what I was saying is if you want one with the new teeth but without glowy eyes I can make that by combining the two then re-package it with only one skin in it...
I tend to leave the multiple skins in the model when its wip so i can still mess with stuff before im finished...