Balance Mod seeks modeller!

[chompers]

so are you saying you dont want to see a flying alien model ever, or you want to see one that is nothing like the one I'm thinking of?
Or is this about the crosshair hud again?  

Also, that droid model looks pretty good, but the UV mapping could use a lot of work. You should try to avoid as much unused area in the texture as possible. Also it is usually better to distort the texture a little than it is to split along the edges like you seem to be doing in some places. edit: look at any of the textures for any of the game models, they are pretty good examples of the right way to layout UV maps - minimal texture wastage and not too many seams.

Rather than cutting holes in alpha channels, if you want to use 2 shaders in a model, you just have to have 2 objects in the md3, as each object can set it's own shader. You could also make it considerably cooler by splitting into seperate md3s and using tags so that parts of it can constantly rotate.

[vcxzet]

believe me You dont know what you are talking about
go back to mapping
edit: maybe you were not talking about my model DOH!
btw I loved the droid concept I will recreate a new one with proper textures/geometry
also for the flying alien you can look at the flying alien in mietz's tremulous comic

[chompers]

no vcxzet, I wasn't talking about your model, I haven't seen it and don't use blender at all.

The UV map suggestions were directed to Vector Matt and gareth, since they posted the UV maps. Those are pretty standard, basic tips for UV optimisation which every modeller should be aware of. Disputing them just makes you look foolish.

[Risujin]

I'm not going to touch this unless it is definitely needed and will get used though.

I guess I'd better start on the droid code ... I don't want to set a procrastination precedent here. :oops:

[Vector_Matt]

I guess I'd better start on the droid code ...

Yay!

[gareth]

no vcxzet, I wasn't talking about your model, I haven't seen it and don't use blender at all.

The UV map suggestions were directed to Vector Matt and gareth, since they posted the UV maps. Those are pretty standard, basic tips for UV optimisation which every modeller should be aware of. Disputing them just makes you look foolish.

well i know mine is crap, but i hardly consider myself a modeller.  :wink:

[chompers]

it looks like you fixed a lot of the problems in the original gareth, but i couldnt say for sure without seeing the file. In any case, considering the toolset you get with wings3D for UV mapping you did a pretty good job. Wings3d is fast, but not as powerful as some other UV tools.

One little trick to keep in mind if you're using nPherno's tool for the md3 conversion (you should be) If you recalculate normals and don't force it to ignore seams, then you can use the seams in your UVmap in almost exactly the same way that you use hard edges in wings3d or smoothing groups in 3DSMax. What this means is that your model will light a whole lot better in-game, because you define where the hard edges are, instead of it all being lit up as a single smoothed blob.  

The reason to use fewer seams is that it helps the renderer to optimise the model. A vert that uses a single texture co-ord for all its faces is a single vert. multiple texture co-ords make multiple verts in the md3 for what could be reduced to one. The UVmap that Vector Matt posted is practically impossible for the engine to stripify as it is full of splits and dead ends.

anyway, here is a quick concept sketch for adv. dretch / firefly for vxczet to hate on.


Risujin, to explain why I think it should fly by 'jumping in mid air' - it's not so much to force you to come down eventually but more so that it moves all over the place while it's in the air, making it a harder target for jetpack / mdriver compared to something that hovers. I also think it should have 40HP to survive a single mdriver hit.

It could be too hard to aim though if it moves 'up' when you jump, maybe you could look at a jump that pushes up and forward at 45 degrees, and prevent jumping again for as long as the player is still moving upwards.

[Risujin]

anyway, here is a quick concept sketch for adv. dretch / firefly for vxczet to hate on.

Nevermind vcx, hes in a trolling mood lately.

The concept sketch looks great ... though the cartoony face isn't really Trem style.

Risujin, to explain why I think it should fly by 'jumping in mid air' - it's not so much to force you to come down eventually but more so that it moves all over the place while it's in the air, making it a harder target for jetpack / mdriver compared to something that hovers. I also think it should have 40HP to survive a single mdriver hit.

Yes thats fine. I had in mind originally that it would fly by flapping its wings (jumping) rather than float around and also that doing so would shake you a bit.

[chompers]

heh, it's not looking at you with some o_O face, it has 4 eyes and is in profile. but yeah, the other way of seeing it is pretty funny looking. The model would be about as cartoony as the existing ones.

edit: heres a model:

[vcxzet]

hint if you have 3 vertices on a straight line you can make it 2
this will help you to reduce poly count
btw it looks like mietz's flying alien concept
data-1.1.0.pk3\models\players\level0\animation.cfg for needed animations

[chompers]

Thanks for the pro-tips chief, it's at 584 tris now, i can probably get it down to like 20 polies or something.

Say, which one of those animations do I use for the flying?

Seriously though, got a link to mietz's concept, i havent seen it.

[vcxzet]

[holyknight]

unless they flame at that human. BURN!

[Vector_Matt]

<slightly_off_topic>Is the environment mapping thing dependent on your graphics card? I can't seem to get it to work, but my card has virtually no advanced functions so that might be it.</slightly_off_topic>

[vcxzet]

<slightly_off_topic>Is the environment mapping thing dependent on your graphics card? I can't seem to get it to work, but my card has virtually no advanced functions so that might be it.</slightly_off_topic>

to test open utcs look at it railing near human base
does it change as you move around?

[whitebear]

Hmm... flying aliens flaming human:

Code: [Select]


alien n.1 -"Bzzzzz... Omg! Look what a n00b!"
alien n.2 -"No shit. Where did you learn to aim so bad?"
alien n.3 -"LOL. Trying to kill us with that n00b stick of yours"
alien n.1 -"Get a real weapon man..."
alien n.2 -"Yeah! It's disrespectful to even think about wining with rifle!"
alien n.1 -"Get a flamer n00b!"
alien n.3 -"Haha! Lets go flame some other n00b too!"
anyway. Flapping would be good but wings of bug are too small for gliding and slow flapping. that is the reason they flap so fast and make cool buzzz noizzzzze  :wink:

[chompers]

Matt, your GFX card would have to be really, really old and crappy to not support environment mapping. It is possible you have it working but the texture is not appropriate for env. mapping. Try using a really busy, detailed  texture so you can see how it works. My guess is that you will want about 10 small shiny spots spread around your texture to ensure there is usually a spot visible, also if the env. mapped area is completely flat, it wont look very good.


OK. Risujin, here is what I propose for the flying dretch model.

Model code:
All alien models currently have only one segment, while humans have 3 connected by tags. I want to make the flying dretch ("fletch"?) with two segments, so it will require some extra code on your part there. The root segment is "body" which contains the head, wings & little legs. Most of the animation will happen in body. The second part is "tail", if you have a look at the code that tilts and rotates the legs of a human model in accordance with their velocity, the tail would rotate around it's tag in a similar way, with more of a tilt than human legs have. It should tilt when moving up and down as well, as far as the tilt direction goes, up = backwards and down = forwards.

The primary attack is with stinger, and the sting animation will go in the tail md3.

Using shaders, the tail will glow in the dark. Flitting around the top of a dark room will make you very visible. If you are interested to do this, I can make it so that the glow colour can be changed in code on the fly. Let me know if you want this.


Gameplay:
Sting attack should be automatic like the dretch bite, this will allow you to bind the special jump ability to your usual attack button. Range 64, damage 36, repeat 700ms - ie. slow and not very powerful.

For a secondary attack, in keeping with the firefly idea is an area of effect "flash." Flash does splash damage, 48hp at the center, range 128. Flash also causes 24 damage to the fletch and you cannot flash with less than 24HP. Flashing while at exactly 24HP will kill the fletch. Would be neat if you could code a bit of temporary whiteout blindness, but not really necessary if it's too hard.

HP should be 40 with regen 2. Starting from full health, it will take 4 seconds to regen enough HP to burn yourself to a crisp.

A fairly close flash followed up with a stinger to the head should kill an unarmoured jetpacker before he hits the ground.

Walking speed should be 1.0, making it one of the slowest aliens on the ground, there's no reason it shouldn't be able to wallwalk as well. Most of your velocity in the air will come directly from the jumps, the effect would be similar to the way a marauder moves, except that it doesnt require a wall to bounce off. It will still need some degree of air control between jumps.

Anyway, it's not set in stone, but can you let me know of any changes from what I propose Risujin, so that I can keep the model appropriate to the code.

[Vector_Matt]

\offtopic

to test open utcs look at it railing near human base
does it change as you move around?

Well, the highlights seem to move when I move, also that dretch on it moves around even when I don't, what's with that thing anyway?

Edit: I tried the utcs shader in my map and it works! Now to replace those textures with ones more suited to my map.

heh

\ontopic

[Risujin]

chompers, your model looks great.

Model code:
All alien models currently have only one segment, while humans have 3 connected by tags. I want to make the flying dretch ("fletch"?) with two segments, so it will require some extra code on your part there. The root segment is "body" which contains the head, wings & little legs. Most of the animation will happen in body. The second part is "tail", if you have a look at the code that tilts and rotates the legs of a human model in accordance with their velocity, the tail would rotate around it's tag in a similar way, with more of a tilt than human legs have. It should tilt when moving up and down as well, as far as the tilt direction goes, up = backwards and down = forwards.

Yes this is doable. The segmentation code seems to be wholly contained within the cgame. The upward tilt of the abdomen is needed in the jump animation only. I see your point as far as moving forward/backward though ... please make a non-segmented model while I think of a good way to handle it, it won't be too much trouble to split it later, will it?

If you are interested to do this, I can make it so that the glow colour can be changed in code on the fly. Let me know if you want this.

The glow is a good idea. Im wondering when custom glow would be used. Do you mean like Q3 rail-colors picked by players?

Gameplay:
Sting attack should be automatic like the dretch bite, this will allow you to bind the special jump ability to your usual attack button. Range 64, damage 36, repeat 700ms - ie. slow and not very powerful.

For a secondary attack, in keeping with the firefly idea is an area of effect "flash." Flash does splash damage, 48hp at the center, range 128. Flash also causes 24 damage to the fletch and you cannot flash with less than 24HP. Flashing while at exactly 24HP will kill the fletch. Would be neat if you could code a bit of temporary whiteout blindness, but not really necessary if it's too hard.

Im not particular about the stinger controls, though I think we would cause less confusion if we use a simpler primary/secondary control scheme.

The flash attack should be an extremely short-range projectile with splash damage (as you say). Thus when you use it, you receive the splash damage. Blinding effects can be done.

Walking speed should be 1.0, making it one of the slowest aliens on the ground, there's no reason it shouldn't be able to wallwalk as well. Most of your velocity in the air will come directly from the jumps, the effect would be similar to the way a marauder moves, except that it doesnt require a wall to bounce off. It will still need some degree of air control between jumps.

Sounds fine. Do you want to limit the amount of "rejumps"? I don't think we should.

Vector_Matt, I'm working on the droids.

[chompers]

Here it is in-game using the /testmodel command from console.


That texture is really crappy, just a 5 minute patch job pasting bits of other alien textures, but it does have a shader that makes the tail glow in the dark.

For anyone who wants to take a bash at texturing, here's a zip.
http://evilbastard.org/slight/test-fletch.zip

Contains the md3, the crappy textures, a shader and this UV map.


With the code for changing glow colour on the fly, I was thinking maybe they could glow different colours depending on health, or they could flare up during the flash attack, but it will be fine with just a regular shader.

As for seperating it, it's one piece now and you can mess with it like that in game at least, but it's not animated. I'd rather do the animation after it's in two parts if that's at all possible, just to avoid the potetial headaches that come with fiddling with origin offsets in the exporters.

If you want I can give you another version that is in two parts with proper file structure so that you can mess with it.

Initially I was all for limiting the rejumps to four, but see how it goes first with unlimited.

[whitebear]

That looks awsome... texture could get little touch up though..

[vcxzet]

[SexyGhost]

in that pic of the "fletch" makes it look huge compared to the human.... is it? or is it just the angle?

[Vector_Matt]

It probably is big, unless you get another q3 player model in there with it it's hard to tell how big it will be.

[Risujin]

With the code for changing glow colour on the fly, I was thinking maybe they could glow different colours depending on health, or they could flare up during the flash attack, but it will be fine with just a regular shader.

The problem with that is that enemy health information would have to be communicated to the client (it is not now). It is possible to change to a flash shader during the flash attack.

If you want I can give you another version that is in two parts with proper file structure so that you can mess with it.

Yes, I would need that.

[SexyGhost]

but in the pic u can see a human's head.... and the "fletch" is a lot bigger then him... i'm just asking, how big will it be? Bigger or smaller than a human...

[Risujin]

but in the pic u can see a human's head.... and the "fletch" is a lot bigger then him... i'm just asking, how big will it be? Bigger or smaller than a human...

Adjusting the size is easy enough to do in the code. I am making it a little bit larger than a dretch (height-wise). The wings end up pretty large and you wont be able to shoot them.

[techhead]

Nothing wrong with the name fletch, except for the fact that it isn't exactly a dretch, now is it.
Fletch is even an actual word!

Fletch (fl?ch)
tr.v., fletched, fletch·ing, fletch·es.
To feather (an arrow)

[Risujin]

Fletch (fl?ch)
tr.v., fletched, fletch·ing, fletch·es.
To feather (an arrow)

The official name for now is "firefly".

chompers, Ive added the class. It rejumps, has your attacks (I tweaked the damage params etc a bit though) and is ready for animations. I wouldn't bother with segmenting the body from the top. The way I have it configured now whenever it is flying it is constantly jumping so the tilting would never be used. It does not fly around like the jetpack.

I'd like to arrange a play test for you, if possible, so you can get a feel for it and offer suggestions. Please PM me over AIM/MSN when you are online and we can set something up.

[chompers]

It's just the angle in that screenshot that makes it look big, it's right on top of the human. If anyone wants to see the size in game, rename the zip file to pk3 and put it in base, then from the console:

/devmap atcs
/testmodel models/bug.md3

The body is smaller than a dretch, but the wingspan is over 6 feet across. As Risujin said, the bounding box should be 32 x 32 x 32 compared to a dretches 30 x 30 x 30, and you wont be able to shoot the tips of the wings. Since the wings will be moving fairly quickly, it should work out OK.

If you want to change the glow colour in game... it's years since I looked at the code, but if you change the first pass of the shader from rgbGen identity to rgbGen entity that should allow you to set an entity colour using the same method as the q3a rail gun. It should only be one or two lines of code to enable it, plus whatever code you write to modify the colour. The effect is like a tinted fullbright. It will look fine without this effect anyway, it's just something you might want to look into later.

Wont get a chance to send you the segmented model for a little while, bit busy this week.