Authentic Model Improvement

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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 guess I should have done it like this.

rroZrYt.png

I am aware that the Plague model has this indentation in the mdl mesh which makes it hard to pretty much impossible to cover it up just via a cleverly made skin. I doubt it's possible without editing the model. Similar problem as with the "Titty Vore" (tm), actually. However, since the GL/PG only has six frames, the editing effort is not so huge.

[osjclatchford]

ok its you who've mistaken me.
Im not using plagues model for the prox any more.

please read this again:

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!

i'm using an entirely new model for the prox with the intent for it to be used, as-well-as and alongside the plague model for the gl.
the new model is close enough in appearance to the plague model so it does not look too different when both the grenadelauncher and proxgun are used in the same game/levels.
THIS PIC: https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/ef...f9tgt8ryzg.jpg shows my grenade launcher next to my newest proxlauncher. see how the metal matches? the muzzles and rear end match +/- perfectly. only the centre barrels differ. which is how it should be.
the idea is to forget my old version of the proxgun that used plagues model. it just doesnt work. and it doesnt have to.
this is its successor. although based on one of deware's model the changes to the skin and model make it match my grenade launcher just fine.

you must have missed that I posted a new model or something...

here it is again
THIS IS THE NEW MODEL: http://www.mediafire.com/file/8lt57o...final.zip/file it's a rework of deware's model that uses a slightly altered model and a heavily modified skin to match the plague grenade launcher gun skin we're currently using for the gl and multilauncher. visually the intention is to use this model as the proxgun along with the other (plague) model, only for the grenadelauncher and multilauncher...

what Im saying is that the guns can use different models... only the multilauncher shares the same actual model as the grenadelauncher

[NightFright]

LOL! OK, I thought we were still talking about the Plague model edit you had posted a while ago. With this latest version I have no problems whatsoever, ofc. Good that we sorted this out. I really need to learn how to read posts completely and thoroughly...

So hopefully, this puts an end to the launcher models. All of them (g_rock/g_rock2, v_rock/v_rock2, g_prox, v_prox, v_multi/v_multi2) will be replaced in the next release - again. And for good this time!

[osjclatchford]

Lols. No worries. I post more wip crap in rapid succession in a couple of hours than most sensible modders do in year. lol no wonder you got confused.

*edit*
Looking again above at our too-and-fro conversation again its actually quite funny. both of us are stoicly making our points, equally oblivious that each of us are talking about completely diffferent models!
Hell, I thought you'd gone crazy, as I just couldn't make sense of it! LOL nevermind eh. sorry if any of it seemed out of line and all that.

also I'd like to to say thank you for subtlely pushing me to actually get the doe view-weapon skins done for this. I don't know why I was previously so un-enthused to do so. perhaps because I've never played it, meh. who knows. Either way, its a nice sense of achievement with these done and the newer prox launcher now. I must admit it is much nicer if it all matches properly...
and yes. I agree that it will also be good to say. "thats-that" and they're done LOL.

Must also say while I'm here, its actually been really nice doing this stuff again and nicer to do it with a goal in mind rather than my usual mindless variations of stuff I often post. (ad axe, chainsaw mod add-on etc...)

hell, Ive even done stuff for alien-quake, and I doubt I'd have thought to even do that if I'd not already been working on the stuff for this pack. plus you've put me on to the new chillo demon-model which i'd somehow missed out on until now. I'd been using bloodshot's one which is surpisingly not as good as i remember it when viewed against the chillo one...

so yeah, thank god you're here doing stuff for quake. otherwise I'd feel like the only one still quakin'.

I see you're still waiting on chillo for answers but I also saw you mentioned being in touch with sock. anything specific pending from him? or just a general request for stuff?

[NightFright]

I have played the first two SoA episodes and gotta say that new prox gun model really blends in nicely with the grenade launcher. Good that we had that "argument" since otherwise this might have never happened (weird misunderstanding, again).

Regarding Sock, I had actually poked him if he had ever done DoE skins or a prox gun model (which was before you came up with your versions), but he quickly turned me down, claiming he never had anything to do with Plague's weapon models whatsoever and just wished me luck with my project. Fair enough, I guess.

As for Chillo, my request for the male Vore is still pending. I also asked for Scrag head gibs (h_wizard) since that one is still missing and kinda sticking out. Also a rather simple model, so I hope Chillo can quickly make it if he hasn't done so already.

And yeah, there could be more activity in this forum. Even Seven doesn't show up so often lately. There's more going on over at the Func_Msg board these days, but then again, the Quake community is a rather quiet one in general. Gratefully, some folks are still creating new maps and even episodes, see Epochs of Enmity or Dwell, for example.
It's difficult to find active modelling artists if you need one, so there aren't many options to get more stuff from the to-do list done. We can be glad if Chillo is coming up with something and skin edits it's all that it takes to give his models an (even) more vanilla-like look.

[NightFright]

Update:

It seems Dwere is still active over at the Quaddicted forums. Someone posted links to a new shotgun with reload animation and a hand model. Dwere combined them into one. Need to check that, maybe it's something for the project. However, I'd prefer the shotgun from our current pack (which is also made by Dwere) with reload, but without hand. There's still the risk of overdoing it with this deviation, so I dunno if this really counts as an improvement or not.

I also asked Dwere if he might possibly tweak his Perforator to make the rear part of the gun less articulated. It's the last thing I could think of regarding the weapons that could still be improved.

In other news, I found two bugs in QSS while playtesting the models and progs.dat adjustments, one in SoA (finale cutscene broken) and another in DoE (lavamen in R2M3 spawning in the wrong place).

[osjclatchford]

well ive tried all three new models.
the shotgun with the pumping AND hand is nice but a no-no for the pack, for obvious reasons.
the shotgun with NO hand but pumping is a rather nice addition and I think a subtle enough detail to make it worthy for an inclusion.

I'm torn on the sng. I personally prefer the current version that "fleshes out" the sng with the more detail but its true this alternate version without the rear "bodywork" or "capped" parts to the rear of the barrel is much closer to classic. that I simply cant deny.
Also, its still a marked improvement for the id1 sng. making the barrels smoother and rounder looking.
Im going to try an alteration to this v_nail2 one (theres a surprise eh?), a version with the "capped barrels" just to see how it looks but I think I simply gotta concede and say, move over v_nail2, i think we have a replacement...

odd things with the progs.dat eh? I dont use one. the main reason being that you can use the model pack with whatever mod you like without wrecking it.
soa, soe, doe, ad etc... ive used it with all and have had no problems. even adding on old things like chainsawquake or explosive weapons mod, even kqp is fine because without a progs.dat to conflict with its not really a problem.

perhaps simply have another seperate .pak with the prog.dat pptions in? i dunno. this way its more plug and play freindly. and I know thats what lots of people desire most. simple to load without all the faff that you and I have to bother ourselves with. you, know just the end user stuff of "ooh that looks nice" but, also "i dont care how it works but it does". I'm sure you know the sort of people I mean...

[NightFright]

Ah, I wrote it in a misleading way. I wanted to see if the progs.dat files cause problems, that's why I playtested. But the bugs are in QSS, not my files. The glitches also appear without the authmdl pack and if you use regular QS 0.93.2, everything works fine. It's definitely an issue with Spike's port, that's why I already opened bug reports on Github.

Maybe I will really make the progs.dat files external. Main reason to include them in the first place was to fix projectiles, but now they also include important vanilla fixes. DoE's R1M7 is actually unplayable without the elevator fix in most ports. No clue how this ever worked in vanilla, Rogue put a horrible bug in the code which resets a variable to 0 all the time, making your weapons frozen when pressing that elevator button, usually leading to a crash. If the port doesn't fix that somehow, an external fix is mandatory.

Did Dwere use the shotgun from his Okayishness mod (which we use) for his adjustments? I would only consider adding the "pump action" version if it's based on the one we have already. But even like that, I'd probably still include the current one with a different name so you could switch back if you wanted.

Still, that additional reload animation could be nice, especially since Dwere's changes to the shotgun are very subtle otherwise and it's really hard to see any difference.

[osjclatchford]

so Ive made the promised adjustments to the new sng model's skin:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/un06ij..._skin.zip/file

due to the style of the changes I've called it the "compromise" skin

so yeah, this is a visual compromise of the two deware sng models he's done.
it features the "capped-off" rear detail to the barrels yet removes the big ol' bit of ribbed "bodywork" from the top/centre of the model.
hence "compromise".

all the nice new innoffencive details yet retaining the vanilla form of the id1 model, YAY!

heres a picture of it in game:
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/ff...6ebnmjaczg.jpg

what say you? too much or just the right amount of compromise?





now the shotgun...
it is indeed +/- the same model we're using but its not. there are changes.
a bit of funny thing, the skin on this new deware shotgun has a few (VERY subtle) changes that are not on the one we're currently using. as such Ive made this version of it for you:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wvmqd4..._pump.zip/file
like the above v_nail2 its a 'compromise' skin.
Included is the both my 'compromise' skin and the one it came with. you can see the differences in qme or whatever. much easier this way.

i've not included a screenshot of this as its visuals are exactly the same as the model already in the main pak! (all the visuals of the current model/skin but with extra pumpyness! which is what we want, so, groovy!)

I agree that the model/skin is so close to vanilla that this added pumping detail is a nice additional level of detail that improves and enhances the quality yet retains the authentic vibe we're going for . so yeah. no reason not to include it really...

[osjclatchford]

just had another Idea today too.

I've made a new model/skin replacement for the SOA/mp1 V_laserg.mdl
http://www.mediafire.com/file/4go1cy...r_SOA.zip/file
based on the 'widowmaker' shotgun as featured in the AD mod

here is a screenshot of it:
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/48...klkiuw3hzg.jpg
ready to put the hurt on armagon...

as you can see it matches the style of the dewares sng barrels to quite some extent... (thats probably because he made the widowmaker, i dunno if he did or not tbh, if not its a happy accident)
ive found, working in the quake pallette, its hard to get much more detail without making it a little bit darker than it was originally. but thats just contrast. which to me is forgiveable for increased detail.
the limited colours do limit the options available somewhat...

anyway, its a thing...