Customizing Player Models

[Dr. A. Goon]

In Q3, there was a large number of (random) player models.  Was this feature removed because it would be too much work, or was it incompatible with Tremulous?  I think that two or three skins for two models could provide a lot of variety for trem gameplay.

EDIT: This would be for the human base model only, and maybe grangers.

[Tremulant]

I imagine they only had one suitable model for the final release, have you created some decent quality models that you'd like to contribute?

[Dr. A. Goon]

No, but I am working on a re-skin for the standard model. My friend has made a low-poly md3 for a model replacement in trem, so we could help if the code is enabled.

[Nux]

It would be great if you could contribute, but I will that say in my opinion the texture for the human is already pretty nice, so you might have trouble improving on it.

If anything, I'd like to see more models complete with animations available. I would love to make something like this, but it's a bit of an undertaking given my lack of experience with editting md3s (that's after learning about them here and there for a couple of years).

[Dr. A. Goon]

The re-skin was thought up after we noticed that a relatively large portion of trem players came from california and texas, so we made a more racially diverse skin(it started out as a brown version of the normal marine and ended up with a few color tweaks).  The problem is that it would mean having a different client to test the model selection on, because I think that it would impact the netcode both client and serverside.

[Tremulant]

The re-skin was thought up after we noticed that a relatively large portion of trem players came from california and texas, so we made a more racially diverse skin(it started out as a brown version of the normal marine and ended up with a few color tweaks).

I'm not sure i'm following the logic.

[Qrntz]

The re-skin was thought up after we noticed that a relatively large portion of trem players came from california and texas, so we made a more racially diverse skin(it started out as a brown version of the normal marine and ended up with a few color tweaks).

I'm not sure i'm following the logic.

Someone is a separatist.

[CreatureofHell]

The re-skin was thought up after we noticed that a relatively large portion of trem players came from california and texas, so we made a more racially diverse skin(it started out as a brown version of the normal marine and ended up with a few color tweaks).

I'm not sure i'm following the logic.

Don't worry. I don't either.

[Lakitu7]

Personally I think it would be a neat compromise to implement letting you choose a color that could be painted on some highlight-type areas of the skins.

[Tremulant]

Are you suggesting blacking up the marine?

[SirDude]

who says its a marine? does it matter?
I'd bet its a specialized mercenary force as they have to each buy their own weapons.

[Venkman]

who says its a marine? does it matter?

You're got'damn right it matters!

Damn Marines always taking our jobs and voting for Obama and wanting everybody to get all gay married and shit! That's what's wrong with Tremulous today: All the Commie propaganda!

[Qrntz]

marines

Commie propaganda!

whut~

[GeneralScott]

He's a Republican.
xD

[kharnov]

Personally I think it would be a neat compromise to implement letting you choose a color that could be painted on some highlight-type areas of the skins.

I actually really like this idea, it'd be great to tell people apart that way. Could also benefit clans in some way.

The only problem is, how can this be done?

[Qrntz]

The only problem is, how can this be done?

I remember kind of doing that myself in Q3A. Wasn't too hard, basically involves duplicating a texture, re-coloring (or whatever) it and packing it back with a different name as a skin.
Trem is ioq3, so, I suppose, it won't be much different.
I'll investigate on that.

[kharnov]

The only problem is, how can this be done?

I remember kind of doing that myself in Q3A. Wasn't too hard, basically involves duplicating a texture, re-coloring (or whatever) it and packing it back with a different name as a skin.
Trem is ioq3, so, I suppose, it won't be much different.
I'll investigate on that.

Please do so. If you can get something working, you can probably demonstrate this to a developer.

[Lakitu7]

It'd be *really* cool if it could be done with a shader that gets the color from a userinfo cvar or something, rather than duplicating the textures. That would both save on bandwidth/space/whatever and allow a much larger variety of color customization, but I really have no idea how feasible that is, so if it's only really workable with duplicate textures, then don't let that discourage you from working on it.

[KillerWhale]

OSP/CPM implemented "bright" skins, which were white textures, but you could colour them using menu settings.

I'm sure there's an open source implementation of it out there somewhere, and if not, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out what's going on by just looking at the assets a bit.

[Venkman]

marines

Commie propaganda!

whut~

He's a Republican.
xD

For the record, I was just being satirical by comparing the "what's wrong with Trem today" threads going around with political talk-radio rhetoric. I'm actually a fan of Marines, mainly because I'd rather keep all my killing to a simulated environment. Every enlisted man is one more between us nerds and a reinstated draft. So hoo-fucking-rah and thank you for signing up so I can stay home and play video-games.

To get back on topic, I'd love to have the option to modify my colors, though it might be dangerous to allow fully-paintable skins. Jet-black Bassi assassins are one obvious possibility. The highlights idea would be cool though.

[A Spork]

Jet-black Bassi assassins are one obvious possibility. The highlights idea would be cool though.

Actually, ive been thinking basis should be a lot darker than they are now, seeing as they are assassains.....

[/offtopic]

[Qrntz]

Okay.
So what my little bit of research shows is that one of the possible way to change skins would be to change the skin name in an override file, though... well, that way doesn't work. At least for me. It's still the default skin.
Replacing the texture itself from an external pk3 or changing the default skinfile so it points to a non-default texture works for me, though that kind of defeats the purpose.
I'd love to hear some explanations or at least 'you're doing it wrong' from the devs.
P.S. I did all the testing on my main box, which (for now) has only an ES1000 for graphics, and that means a fully in-software 3D rendering at slow speeds and with bugs. I'll check this on the other computer too ASAP to check the real outcome.

[Venkman]

Actually, ive been thinking basis should be a lot darker than they are now, seeing as they are assassains.....

Now that you mention it, making darker could be a simple way of giving the class a bit more of an edge in GPP (though a few players have commented that the class is already OP.)

Still, if you're going to turn a spider-possum into a ninja, I think it should be dark enough to blend in with shadows. What's more ninja than the ability to become one with darkness?

[ziplocpeople]

Actually, ive been thinking basis should be a lot darker than they are now, seeing as they are assassains.....

Still, if you're going to turn a spider-possum into a ninja, I think it should be dark enough to blend in with shadows. What's more ninja than the ability to become one with darkness?

Wearing orange jumpsuits and shouting really loudly on important missions.
Yeah, I went there. Believe it.
EDIT: For the sake of staying on topic, trem is kinda bland with only one human. You'd think a clone army would use more than just one person's genetic code. I mean, if there's any sort of flaw in their genetic code, the "come on guy" would have to stop saying "come on" and start saying "I need a medic!" We should really be more realistic here.

[zybork]

Another thing that comes to mind is that not only humans would need certain parts of their textures to be colored, but aliens as well. You could giv'em kinda tiger strips or something. Could look pretty cool if done properly.

[Lakitu7]

With help from a lot of people (but mostly benmachine), I am proud to present proof of concept:


Color is applied from a cvar cg_color you can set yourself. It's not multiple textures.

There is still a lot of work to be done on this (mostly, figuring out how to apply the effect to only parts of a skin), and we have not really discussed the idea to decide if everyone is cool with including it, but it is at least possible.

[Lakitu7]

Hello pink bsuit I am blue granger nice to meet you!

Note: I realize that coloring entire models like this does not look very good. It is just temporary while people that understand shaders figure that part out.

[vcxzet]

I told it to benmachine a few years ago.
It has been used by a few mods.
(Not to mention, it exists in q3a since its release)
So, It is quite uninteresting for me. But I appretiate your effort.
(BTW look at a few q3 skins. For the whole skin coloring, you should look at warsow skins)

[mooseberry]

The re-skin was thought up after we noticed that a relatively large portion of trem players came from california and texas, so we made a more racially diverse skin(it started out as a brown version of the normal marine and ended up with a few color tweaks).

I'm not sure i'm following the logic.

Don't worry. I don't either.

Just because nobody seemed to respond to this, I assumed it was because in both California and Texas the percentage of non-Hispanic whites is less than 50%. My next step in following the logic was assuming he assumed that players wouldn't mind having the option to customize their model to more reflect themselves, and since, for example, black and Hispanic populations in California make up almost 45% of the population, he figured there may be a fair amount of players with darker than albino skin (although honestly, most tremulous players are probably scared of the sun anyways, so the accuracy of this statement might not be true.)

[Tremulant]

Darker than albino? i should think the vast majority of players have "darker than albino skin", either way, thanks for injecting some statistics, do you happen to know how many people in those states are blue grangers?

I take it there'll be a clientside option to turn off these re-coloured skins(just the general recolours, not necessarily the more precise human racial diversity ones), so that players with darker/lower contrast colours don't have an advantage?