Authentic Model Improvement

[NightFright]

Shotgun and Perforator are spot-on. Great job done with those - not only you, but also Dwere and the guy who did the shotgun animation. Remarkable especially since the shotgun was a lucky find. I never check the Quaddicted forums normally, no clue why I did now, lol. The Perforator is now the way it should have always been. I already made the DoE lava variation for it. It's even better there since finally the glowing rear part of the barrel is shown again which was hidden by the brown thingie before. I guess that should be it for the ID1 weapons, then.

As for the laser gun... well, it's not bad, but a mere reskin won't do the trick here. That rear dark blue part needs to be wider, and the muzzles should stick out. The major reason for not using it is that the firing pattern is entirely different. It has a shotgun-style recoil while the Hipnotic model has the barrels rotating around the center axis (more like the Perforator).
Admittedly, the original Hipnotic model is already quite good. You would just need to make the muzzles a bit rounder and it's done.

Otherwise, I have been contacted by someone from the Quaddicted forums regarding capnbubs' unreleased ogre. Seems like capnbubs is working at Nightdive Studios now and for some reason that guy believes I can talk capn into digging up that ogre model for the sake of mankind. I doubt it was ever finished and it might have been lost in the meantime, but I guess I can still try. Chillo's ogre also ain't bad at all, though.

[osjclatchford]

fair play on the lasergun. not 100% familiar with the original tbh.
which is why Ive overlooked these things.
I'm using it but thats because I'm less discerning of the original details but probably wont do any more work to it now...

perhaps I'll instead try to add more detail to the original v_model skin instead. sampling and recolouring bits of the deware v_nail2.mdl for consistancy? then again maybe not...

that sng is indeed a real find. as was the animated shotgun. was nice to get those barrels on the new sng with such ease too. makes its an ideal addition to the pack.
with the pumping sg, having been playing with it for a couple of hours I must say im in love with the new shotgun and would never go back now! funny how quickly your opinion of stuff can change, eh? if you'd asked me two days ago I'dve said "no way is that shotgun going from the pack, its far too good" LOL same for the sng...

as for the capnbubs ogre.
dont suppose you've a pic of it at all?
I can remember being absolutely blown away by it but im just wondering if we've got rose tinted goggles of nostalgia on for that or if it really is better than the one we're currrently using from chillo.
I vaguely remember it looking akin to the soldier in terms of level-of-detail and use of the original skin, but I'm still not sure if it is actually better than the chillo one we're using, especially since we've done so much more work to the skin to improve authenticity in the meanwhile as well.
its been a long time since ive seen it and I need my memory refreshed I suppose.

It probably is that awesome still, though.

the chillo model polycount is indeed appropriately high but a lot of chillo's skin texture seems to have a slightly grainy jpeggyness to it that, although very very slight, would still be superceded by better work... also, the falling backwards death anim is quie different on the chillo one isn't it...

Anyway, without visual comparison, I just cant say...

hell, this could all be moot anyway! not exactly a sure thing aout getting the capnbubs version is it? LOL

i think it might have become the holy-grail of the authentic pak! LOL

[NightFright]

There were several attempts to contact capnbubs about the ogre throughout the last seven years, all failed. I doubt I will have more success. Right now, I am not even able to find screenshots of it any more. Even those might have passed into legend...

BTW I saw that Dwere posted his own versions of the reload shotgun and SNG later on. It seems the shotgun skin got slightly improved (a bit more detail on the edge of the brown handle and muzzleflash), so I'll be using it. The SNG is basically identical to yours except for the rear barrel part of the skin. Yours is better.

It's a bit tiresome having to puzzle together the best of all the offerings of all the remaining modelling artists out there, but I guess it's worth it.

[osjclatchford]

Its totally worth it. and much more satisfying in the long run. i actually enjoy the hunt! LOL just gets annoying when you feel you've gone as fara s you can go again. however I love to spend ages reviewing all the best attributes of each available option and try to create a new skin for one of the models that contains all the 'best' attributes of available stuff in one package!

and man, seven years have we been at this pak that long now... sheesh...

and, oh yeah, those ARE the shotgun and sng models I used.

I put the old skin back on the sg as I thought thats what you wanted! LOL so it was the same as the current iteration? just with the pumping added... nevermind...
ah, its such a minor change its kinda unnessacary. BUT to see what I mean, load the model I posted above in a viewer and swap between the two skins in there. preferably with the current shotgun from the pack open too and you'll see what I mean...

not sure why, but even though the dewares new model/skin has reflection on the barrels that shows the pump in more detail I feel the resultant lack of light brown tones on that part of the skin causes the barrel to look too dark to me. (also the rear part is horizontally flipped for some reason) it almost steers it away from the classic id1 model asthetic. but thats just silly ott nitpicking in hindsight.
the more detail the better, surely...

*edit*
also this opinion about the shotgun skintone may be coloured by the fact I have my models ever so slightly angled on my setup. viewing the new dware shotgun this way kinda breaks the reflection illusion a bit. looking at it again centred its clearly superior with the reflections added.
this is also why I can tolerate the sng with the added brown bit on. when slightly off-centre it doesnt obscure the barrels half as much... thats why I dont mind it, but when its fully centred you loose-out on a huge part of the detail on the skin, the barrels themselves!

yep. im convinced.

[NightFright]

Revision #21 has been released.

This should take care of the weapons for good. As a bonus, I have reviewed the head gibs models and found that quite some blood flags had been missing. The lava nail for DoE is also a nice little addition - finally the lava nailguns don't shoot orange triangles any more. The eels becoming non-solid much sooner after death (like the Rotfish) improves gameplay more than you would think.

For people who prefer the old shotgun without recoil/reload, I have made a slightly improved version and included it as v_shot1.mdl. It is not used by default, but if you switch its name with v_shot.mdl, it's back in business.

Special thanks to osj who helped a lot with decisions about which weapons should be included and provided some very useful contributions (yet again)!

Changelog Rev. #21:
> General: Progs.dat files now external (can be deleted if desired)
> Added: [ROG] Lava nail (lspike) based on Chillo's model (skin by NightFright)
> Update: Progs.dat refresh
- [HIP] [ROG] Super Nailgun renamed to Perforator (already done for ID1 with Rev. #19)
- [ROG] Electric eels now become non-solid after death much sooner
> Update: Weapons
- [ID1] Shotgun (v_shot) with reload animation (Barnaby/Dwere) *
- [ID1] Perforator (v_nail2) with modified rear center (Dwere, skin by osjclatchford)
- [ID1] Grenade/Rocket Launcher reverted back to Rev. #19 (Plague/osj)
- [HIP] Proximity Gun based on Dwere's model (remodel/skin by osjclatchford)
- [ROG] Lava Perforator (v_lava2) with modified rear center (Dwere/osj, skin modified by NightFright)
- [ROG] Multi-Grenade/Multi-Rocket Launcher based on Plague's model (skin by osjclatchford)
> Update: Added missing flag #4 (GIB) for head models
- [ID1] Rottweiler (h_dog), Shambler (h_shams), Zombie (h_zombie)
- [ROG] Knight/Statue (h_knight)
> Update: [ID1] [ROG] Fixed wrong flag #32 (ZOMBGIB) for Ogre head (h_ogre) and removed one fullbright pixel

* Previous shotgun (no additional animation) with slightly improved skin still included as v_shot1

--------------------------------------------

I doubt there will be anything coming up in the near future to justify another update, so I'll be moving on to other projects for a while. Will keep monitoring any developments, ofc.

See ya around!

(BTW, this model pack is now also on ModDB, at long last.)

[osjclatchford]

well, dont shut up shop JUST yet.

I remember you saying in the past you were not 100% on the look of the ssg so I had a go at making another "compromise" skin for it!
blending elements, colours and themes of both to create something in between that should please most parties.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/xdf2uc...sg_02.zip/file
the issues needed fixing for 100% authenticity have always been the lack of blue tone and the form of the rear recievers.
see this pic and see if i've read your mind or not:
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/41...oe5ncvytzg.jpg
left is dewares, middle is id1 and right is my compromise skin.
(just fyi Ive also altered the size and shape of the model a bit to match too)

is that what you meant?

I myself am still using dewares as I think its better but ive been enjoying working on these so i thought I'd see if i could pull one more out of the bag in time for christmas! LOL!

[NightFright]

That's actually pretty good, brings the SSG a lot closer to the original. Sadly, I cannot make a new release just for this, so it will have to wait a bit before it finds its way into the collection.

In the meantime, I have switched the ModDB entry from addon to mod, which fits a lot better. Also took a few nice screenshots for the occasion.

[osjclatchford]

no worries, Ive updated mods for less but its there when you're ready.

I'm just glad you like it. I guess I totally got what you meant then!
oh and its just as well you've not included yet, as ive just this minute reworked the barrel to look a little rounder at the back. see here:

https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/07...oe5ncvytzg.jpg

same dl file link as above for the file itself...
I guess thats all done then.

its been fun. i just hope we hear from capnbubs or chillo soon...

[NightFright]

Even better! I was actually willing to settle with Dwere's offering for the SSG, but after seeing those edits of yours, I wonder how I could ever live without them.

Well, maybe there will be another release before the end of the year after all. My hopes are not high for either Chillo or capnbubs to report back, but hope dies last.

[osjclatchford]

well, to make it more worth you're while you could add this to it if you wish?
http://www.mediafire.com/file/bx505d...ndtop.zip/file

its a version of the new deware sg but with the top of the rear part altered to make it look rounder, heres a pic:
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/e9...dl2quycvzg.jpg
its only a skin edit, but like on the gl and proxgun it works to improve the illusion of a curved surface to the model...

[NightFright]

While I appreciate the effort, I feel like this last shotgun edit doesn't bring anything new to the table. While the SSG and SNG skin edits helped to add more authenticity, that doesn't happen here.

On top of that, the skin trick is kinda visible if you look closer, also adding a thin seam at the transition line from rear grip (?) to barrel. I can also see a few pinkish pixels which weren't there before.

While most, maybe even all of the issues could be fixed, I think the shotgun is just fine the way it is right now and any effort to push it even further would mean taking it over the top.

[osjclatchford]

fair enough.
but thanks for pointing out the flaws. (in truth didnt have my glasses on!, I know thats pretty stupid...)

although its not going in the pack here I'll post the screenie of my resultant work to it nonetheless.
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/f3...551k72f1zg.jpg
I think it came out ok in the end.
designed to work with the model viewed at fovs of around 100 or 110 as lower fov's break the illusion but its great for what i want.

I +/- managed the centre version too.
https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/a9...unq1qpx6zg.jpg
this is fine on any fov. I know you're not using it. just thought I'd share the pic for shits and giggles...

[Tea Monster]

Just out of curiosity, what is missing from the pack?

[NightFright]

It's mentioned in the Github readme.

Not everything listed there would really need a remake, though. The Electric Eel from DoE is pretty good already, for example.

I would say the following remodels would still be nice to have:
- ID1: Scrag headgibs (fitting to our model), Shub, Biosuit
- HIP: Centroid, Gremlin, Armagon, Wetsuit
- ROG: Wrath, Guardians, Hephaestus/Lavaman, Mummy, Overlord, Anti-Grav Belt, Plasma Cells (x2)

[Tea Monster]

I swear someone did a shub model.