Authentic Model Improvement

[osjclatchford]

cheers, bud!

I keep getting the whole "quakespasm can use md5's now" thing from everyone all over the place, suggesting that the AMQ project is obsolete.
A little reminder to all the nay-sayers and griping complainers that there are still many other engines out there that do NOT support md5.
mdl is always going to be the safe bet for compatibility.
Another factor for me is that I've not updated my quakespasm for some time and might not for a while.
last time I did that the machine I had couldnt run it... a risk I'm not keen to test again anytime soon...

Also worth mentioning that if not for my most recent endeavours on this project their fancy new monsters would still be without matching headgibs at all... in mdl or md5 (thanks trickle).
same goes for your ammo bsp's. they'd be dealing with the old plain boxes without those.

Instances of imagined vertex wobbles and miniscule detail variant interpretations have truely tested my patience to quite an extent on this too. nitpicking, critisizing nonsensica, without any suggestion or offers of alternatives leaves them bitching for the sake of bitching.

cretins aside, its a great project and I'm just glad I was able to muscle my way in on it! but then I believe that as long as you are actually contributing, then you have a part to play... eh, anyway. the show goes on and will continue to for many a year on and off I feel. in the end we do this for ourselves first. then share the goods afterwards...
we're nice like that...

so the moral of the story is: appreciate what you've got

'cause basically, we're fantastic...


...oh and humble, don't forget humble...

[NightFright]

For what it's worth, some of the conversions are even better than the MD5s. The Demon's arm doesn't clip into the floor after death, same as the Ogre. Also the Grunt has correct brightmaps on the gun.

Right now, I am using the new pak files for the watervised maps, resampled sounds and fog effects, but with the progs.dat from the AMQ to override all the crap they added (e.g. achievements) which is useless outside of Steam. The only thing that still eludes me is DOTM since I can't figure out its progs.dat and how to de- and recompile it properly. I would like to make it work with vanilla code, but for that I would need to know a bit more about QuakeC.

Anyway, we are focussing on ID1 and the two original missionpacks here, and it's mostly about models. Even though I have to say I made nice progress with the code part, too.

[NightFright]

Found an issue with the Mummy from DoE (mummy.mdl). Its skin lights up like a Christmas tree in the dark. This couldn't be seen in DoE itself since the model is placed in a well-lit environment, but in the user map pack "The Night Journey" it shows.

MJVBkuj.jpg

The offending color seems to be R:159 G:91 B:83 (Hex: 9F5B53). Anything that can be done about these fullbright pixels?

[osjclatchford]

Not a problem, NF, I'll take a look soon. will post the fixed skin later today/tomorrow morning...

while you're waiting, I've some time before work this morning and have decided to play with weapons.
the new models, the deware models and classic all have features I rather like that dont always feature on each other.

so take this shotgun:


you can see the one on the left is deware's.
I like the classic feel. I like the version that has the moving pump also.
but I also liked the form of the enhanced shotgun's pump.


well half-dead over at mod-db (and on youtube) has been playing about with the new enhanced models too. I used one of his conversions as a base and have been twisting, cutting, re adjusting both the model and the skin to use features of deware and the id1 style of textures on the new enhanced model.

SO. the one on the right is my new one.
it has the moving pump but the pump has all the detail and smoother form of the new enhanced one.
it has the much nicer rounder barrel but with the proper id1 colours on it (would have used the deware texture with the reflection of the pump segments actually on the barrel but couldn't get that to move along the barrel with the pump like on the deware one. shame)
the rear reciever has a more realistic and shaped section and this has been edited to better match the texture of the original id1 skin.

all in I'm rather pleased with it.

not really needed for the AMQ IMHO as the deware model has the chunky oldskool look that feels just right but its worth posting here for those who want alternatives and I cant think of a better place to put it!

oh yeah, here's the model itself: OSJC_shotgun_deware_enhanced.zip

[NightFright]

It looks good! Wouldn't use it already due to its angled nature, though. Also, maybe check that model for seams. If you move its position to the left by 3 units for testing, you can see that the moving parts have gaps. I guess that's where you attached the moving barrel part. You probably wouldn't see it otherwise, but if anybody does with the model what I did, this might turn into an issue.

[osjclatchford]

Ah yes. Indeed tis angled. So used to doing mine angled I forgot about centred version for other users... True there are gaps when animating that have gone unnoticed due to making this with angled view in mind. Doh, Might fix that later if I can. Might be cowson to do it now though... Grrr. Nevermind. The deware one is more classic anyhow... Think this is best kept as an alternative for now. Off to work now so mummy will be tomorrow...

[osjclatchford]

heres your mummy fix:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/9ew10...t_fix.zip/file
will need your magic to reduce the filesize though...

[NightFright]

Almost! There were a few red glowing pixels on the top of its left hand (dunno if they were there before), but I was able to remove those by myself. The final version is on Github now, compressed to 470 KB and ready to use.
(BTW: You can do the compression on your own easily. All you have to do is to open the model in QME and save it again.)

Anyway, most of the work was done by you, so thanks a lot - again! Will keep playing with the models and see if I find any other oddities. Next revision will rather be about bugfixing again, I guess - unless Nightdive comes up with that DoE Zombie, for which we should wait, anyway.

[osjclatchford]

cool. oh and btw, I do use qme... in fact I onnly use qme for mdls...so I dunno why the file is so mahoosive...

[NightFright]

Maybe you are missing da magic touchy touchy. But well, main thing is it gets done. I am currently playing a few DoA/SoA bonus missions. Gratefully, there aren't too many of them. Basically Death's Dominion, Gotshun's Lost Levels and The Night Journey.

Sometimes it helps to see the models in a new context/environment. It's remarkable how well the old models still blend in with the new ones, even though DoE models still have more detail than in SoA.

[NightFright]

More words of wisdom from the Quake master!

I was tweaking the progs.dat files in the AMQ a bit more and was wondering whether I should include Lunaran's change in his Copper mod regarding an active Pentagram powerup also preventing armor from being damaged. I wasn't sure about this even after looking at the code, so I turned to Romero again.

My assumption was that if it was intended like that, it's supposed to be some kind of penalty to even the odds a bit during invulnerability: If you take too many hits during powerup time, you will end up in a more vulnerable state afterwards.

His answer:

1TaoOYZ.jpg

So... yet another Quake mystery solved after all these years!
That's why I went for a compromise in my QuakeC code now: Cheating via console ("god") will give you full invulnerability (no armor loss + no gagging underwater + no impact force when being hit) while Pentagram keeps working as before.

[NightFright]

Sadly, the first big update for Quake Enhanced didn't contain any model changes, so no SoA/DoE weapons or enemies. That also means no DoE Zombie fix. The waiting game continues.

[NightFright]

Another victim of morbus pixel fullbrightiensis: Player head model (h_player.mdl). Diagnosis: treatable. Dr osj, proceed with administering the cure, please!

UpaVVRZ.png

[osjclatchford]

funny. I did that skin for that model ages ago. I just know I could do better but haven't for ages. this is a good opportunity to do so. will get back to you asap...

*edit*
so here is a file with the replacement model/skin:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/rwznb...heads.zip/file
no more fullbrights (afaict) and the helmet matches the rest of quakes assets better, only the original id1 face is at that resolution. (never really knew why the id1 player head was twice the res of the other skins.)


included is also a version of the head with a a smaller skin, designed to match the capnbubs player model we use. this I feel is better but you might consider it too much of a deviation from the classic? I dunno the choice is yours but I'm personally using the capnbubs style one for consistancy...

see here:


if you want any other changes, do let me know...

[NightFright]

Great! I'll actually really use the new one based on the capnbubs model. While it might lose some skin details, it's closer to our player model and doesn't look like it was done by some other artist.
Side note: The original head model is actually angled and faces upwards. I don't see how that would have any relevant consequence ingame, though.