Messages

16

Skins, Models and Maps / Austavin (Version 1.1) released

« on: February 22, 2016, 08:46:08 PM »

> At long last, after about 10 months of on and off work, I am finally ready to release the first official version (Version 1.1) of my Austavin Quake 2 PPM. The model is far from perfect and there are many things about it that I'm not happy with. First off, at 1619 polygons, the polycount is uncomfortably high. Second, there are weird lines in the skin that only seem to show up in OpenGL mode. Third, I was forced to place the weapon model unusually high up in Austavin's right hand in order to prevent it from clipping too badly into the left hand during the run animation. However, I can fix all of these issues in future versions of the model, if I ever get around to it. But for now, I'm all burnt out and I consider the model to be good enough for the time being. My nephew Austin will be using this model a lot when he plays on Tastyspleen, so if you want to see him properly, go grab yourself a copy of it.

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Quake2/PPMs/Austavin/Austavin(v1.1).zip

> Enjoy.

17

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: February 17, 2016, 03:32:59 AM »

> The fifth and final phase of my Austavin Quake 2 PPM is currently underway. This phase is the VWEP phase, which stands for visible weapons package, and involves creating weapon models for Austavin that will represent each of the twelve weapons in Quake 2, including the grappling hook. Austavin will use my universal 1-handed VWEP, which he will share with two of my previous Quake 2 PPMs, Chuckie Finster and Dib. However, he will use a unique hand grenade model, which is basically a pipe bomb with a wooden handle. The hand grenade model is completely finished; the model has been built in Animation: Master, optimized in Quake Model Editor, skinned in NPherno's Skin Tool, and then scaled and aligned to the right hand of the Austavin model in QME. Here's a few preview pics that will give you an idea of what the hand grenade will look like...


> Mesh...




> Flat shaded...




> Skin...






> Three of Austavin's other weapons; the blaster, the railgun, and the grenade launcher, are all pre-existing models for the universal VWEP, so all I had to do was to align them to Austavin's hand. The other eight weapons will be aligned to Austavin's hand over the next few days, and then I will try to officially publish the first official release version of the PPM on the 20th of this month.

18

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: February 11, 2016, 04:03:57 AM »

> Austavin's default skin is now completed, as well as his two Capture The Flag skins; red and blue. This concludes the skin phase of the Austavin Quake 2 PPM, and I will soon be moving on to the fifth and final phase, the visible weapons package, or VWEP for short.


> Mesh...




> Flat shaded...




> Austavin skin...








> CTF Red skin...








> CTF Blue skin...

19

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: February 01, 2016, 08:23:10 PM »

> While working on mapping the polygons of Austavin's hands in Npherno's Skin Tool, I found a strange indent on the base of the left thumb. I was able to fix that by opening the model in Quake Model Editor, deleting the three polys and the isolated vert that made up the indent, and then patching the hole with two new polys. This lowered the overall polycount by one. I also found two additional hidden polygons inside the first joint of the thumb that I had somehow missed during the optimization phase, so I deleted them. After these fixes on the thumb were finished, Austavin's overall polycount dropped from 1624 to 1621.

> Later on in the skin mapping process, I found that the back two polygons in the top row of the crotch segment would never be visible during gameplay, and so I deleted them in QME. This brought the polycount down from 1621 to 1619. At this point, I don't think I can lower Austavin's polycount any further. The skin map took several days to complete, but when I did, it turned out to be 256 x 256 pixels in resolution with 17 percent wasted space. The next step is to draw the default skin, a task that I plan on starting tonight.

20

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: January 24, 2016, 04:43:38 PM »

> Ten days ago, I began the optimization phase of Austavin's Quake 2 PPM. I exported the first frame of Austavin's All Frames choreography as 3ds file and imported it into Quake Model Editor, where I used the standard Male Quake 2 model as a reference to correctly adjust the rotation, position, and scale of Austavin. Then, I exported all 198 of Austavin's frames as a series of 3ds files, and then saved them as a single md2 file in QME. The polycount was unacceptably high, weighing in at a whopping 1714 polygons. At this point, the model was a mess, since half the polygons were facing the wrong way, so I flipped the errant ones on body part at a time. As I was working on the hair, I noticed gaps where the hair met the forehead, so I went back into Animation: Master and buried the hairline's verts into the forehead. I also took this opportunity to remove even more unnecessary patches from the model...

> The top of the crotch was permanently and completely buried within the bottom of the shirt and would never be seen. There were four patches sealing this area closed, and after removing them, Austavin's patch count went down from 1004 patches to an even 1000.


> Patch Reduction - Crotch - Before Fix...




> Patch Reduction - Crotch - After Fix...




> The tops of the shoes were completely buried within the bottom of the pant legs. There were two patches sealing the top of each shoe closed, and after I deleted these four patches, the patch count went down from 1000 to 996.


> Patch Reduction - Shoes - Before Fix...




> Patch Reduction - Shoes - After Fix...




> I saw what I thought was a chance to shave off a lot more patches from the model when I examined the back of Austavin's shirt. I saw that this part of the model was somewhat flat, and the central vertical spline may not be needed, so I removed it and adjusted the patches above and below it in order to accomodate the change. Surprisingly, for all the work I put into this edit, I only managed to lower the patch count by two, bringing the count down from 996 to 994.


> Patch Reduction - Shirt Back - Before Fix...




> Patch Reduction - Shirt Back - After Fix...




> After going through the exporting process again, I found that Austavin's polycount had dropped from 1714 to 1690. I then went on to correctly flip the rest of the normals in the model, but I also had to apply backfaces to the hair, and this increased the polycount to 1752.

----------

> Once all of Austavin's polygons were facing the right way, I moved onto eliminating the model's permanently hidden, and thus useless polys. I began with the hair, where I found a total of four hidden polys near the ears, two on each side. After deleting them, the polycount dropped from 1752 to 1748.


> Hidden Poys - Hair 1...




> Hidden Poys - Hair 2...




> Within the ears, I found six hidden polygons in the middle of each ear, totalling twelve. Deleting these polys lowered the polycount from 1748 to 1736.


> Hidden Poys - Ears 1...




> Hidden Poys - Ears 2...




> Next up was the eyebrows, where I found two hidden polys inside each brow. Getting rid of these four polys further lowered the polycount from 1736 to 1732.


> Hidden Poys - Eyebrows 1...




> Hidden Poys - Eyebrows 2...




> The open mouth segment had only 40 polygons total, but eight of them, a fifth of the total, were hidden and useless. Once they were gone, the polycount dropped from 1732 to 1724.


> Hidden Poys - Open Mouth 1...




> Hidden Poys - Open Mouth 2...




> After all of the extra polygons in the head had been eliminated, the next step was to drastically edit the chest area in a way that would take down the polycount dramatically. The collar of Austavin's shirt was open so that the polys of the chest could be seen. My plan was to seal off the collar, eliminate the chest under the shirt, and later to simply draw the collar onto the skins during the upcoming skin phase. Sealing the collar closed added nine polys to the model, increasing the polycount from 1724 to 1731.


> Collar Seal - Before Fix (Wireframe)...




> Collar Seal - Before Fix (Shaded)...




> Collar Seal - After Fix (Wireframe)...




> Collar Seal - After Fix (Shaded)...




> Once the shirt collar was sealed, the polys in the chest were now completely hidden and useless, allowing me to delete the entire chest. This wiped out a whopping 44 polygons from the model, bringing the polycount down from 1731 to 1687.


> Hidden Poys - Chest 1...




> Hidden Poys - Chest 2...




> With the chest now gone, I moved on to fixing the hands. I was able to find 13 hidden polys buried in the five fingered left hand, most of them at the base of the fingers. Removing them lowered the polycount from 1687 to 1674.


> Hidden Poys - Left Hand 1...




> Hidden Poys - Left Hand 2...




> As for the right hand, which was a permanent fist, I was able to find ten hidden polygons. After I deleted them, the polycount dropped from 1674 to 1664.


> Hidden Poys - Right Hand 1...




> Hidden Poys - Right Hand 2...




> When I examined the crotch segment for hidden polys, I managed to find six of them near the bottom. Once they were gone, the polycount went down from 1664 to 1658.


> Hidden Poys - Crotch 1...




> Hidden Poys - Crotch 2...




> The next section to be fixed was the shoes, and this area was particularly bad. There were a dozen hidden polygons in each shoe in the form of a ring around the top section. These polys were actually inside 24 poly rings, and shared the same vertices as them. I simply exposed the 12 poly rings, and eliminated them, lowering the total polycount from 1658 to 1634.


> Hidden Poys - Shoes 1...




> Hidden Poys - Shoes 2...




> The final section I worked on was the bottom of the shirt. There were 20 polygons sealing the bottom edge of the shirt, and I felt that I could seal that edge with fewer polys. I eliminated the middle row of vertices and reconnected the outer ring of verts with a new set of just ten polygons. This change made the bottom edge of the shirt flatter, but also reduced Austavin's polycount from 1634 to 1624.


> Poly Reduction - Shirt Bottom 1...




> Poly Reduction - Shirt Bottom 2...




> Poly Reduction - Shirt Bottom 3...




> With all of the visible polygons facing the right way and the errant ones eliminated, the optimization phase of the Austavin Quake 2 PPM project is now completed. The next phase will be the skin phase, and I'll update this log again once that phase is over.

21

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: January 11, 2016, 12:14:48 PM »

> Okay, first update of the year. The last of Austavin's 20 animations, the three Standing Deaths, are now completed. Here's what they will to look like when the model is released...


> Standing death 1 animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Standing_Death01.avi


> Standing death 2 animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Standing_Death02.avi


> Standing death 3 animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Standing_Death03.avi


----------

> Also, I've taken some time to reduce the model's ridiculously high patch count. Before I began, Austavin weighed in at a whopping 1230 patches, but I brought that patch count as far down as I could...


> I began by turning Austavin's right hand into a permanent fist, since he uses that hand primarily to hold his weapon. I deleted the right hand, copied the right fist from my Dib model, and pasted it onto the Austavin model. This was by far the most difficult change, since I had to then make sure the fist was the right size and shape, and position it so Austavin would still look like he was holding his weapon convincingly without having to change the position of the right palm's bone. As a result of this change, the patch count was reduced by a whopping 149 patches, bringing the model down to 1081 patches.






> Once the fist was done, I moved on to the ears. By flattening out the concave front of the ear, I chopped off 13 patches from each ear, totalling a reduction of 26 patches. This further lowered the overall patch count from 1081 to 1055.






> The next part of the model to be edited was the bottom of the shirt. I removed the middle spline ring and reconnecting the rest of the splines, and this lowered the patch count by another twelve, bringing the patch count down from 1055 to 1043.






> After editing the bottom of the shirt, I moved on to the irises of Austavin's eyes. Since the back six patches were completely hidden by the eye whites at all times, I chopped out those patches. I also flattened out the front of the irises by deleting the center vertces and replacing them with horizontal splines, cutting four additional patches from each iris. I ended up chopping a total of 20 patches from the eyes, ten from each iris, and this lowered the model's patch count from 1043 to 1023.






> The lips were simple and had only three cross sections. The back cross section was completely hidden by Austavin's face at all times, so I deleted all five back splines that made up that cross section. This brought the model's patch count down by another nine patches, reducing the total patch count from 1023 to 1014.






> Next up to be edited was Austavin's head hair. After I deleted a few splines from the front of the hair, the hair was lightened by six patches, bringing the total patch count down from 1014 to 1008.






> After the head hair came the eyebrows. I deleted three permanently hidden patches from the back of each eyebrow, totalling six patches taken off of both eyebrows. This reduced the model's patch count from 1008 to 1002.






> While working on the reduction of Austavin's patches, I discovered a hole on either side of the head on the hairline between the ear and the eye. I fixed these holes by adding a single polygon to either side of the head. This fix added two patches to the model's total patch count, increasing it from 1002 to 1004.










> At this point, the animation phase is completed apart from the 198 frame animation choreography, which I plan to work on today. Once that's done, the animation phase of this project will be officially completed, and then it's on to the optimization phase. After I get through that, I will be writing the next update to this page.

22

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: December 30, 2015, 11:55:20 PM »

> Only a couple of animation phase updates left. This time around, I've got the five crouching animations to show...


> Crouching stance animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Crouching_Stance.avi


> Crouch walk animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Crouch_Walk.avi


> Crouching attack animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Crouching_Attack.avi


> Crouching pain animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Crouching_Pain.avi


> Crouching death animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Crouching_Death.avi


> That's all for now.

23

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: December 17, 2015, 10:50:55 AM »

> I wasn't kidding when I said that the next update would come very soon, so here it is. This is a preview of the five now completed gesture animations...


> Flipoff animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Flipoff.avi


> Salute animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Salute.avi


> Taunt animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Taunt.avi


> Grenade Toss animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Grenade_Toss.avi


> Point animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Point.avi


> As always, any feedback is welcome.

24

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: December 15, 2015, 08:00:28 AM »

> OK, next update. The three Standing Pain animations and the Jump animation are now completed.


> Pain animations...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Standing_Pains.avi


> Jump animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Jump.avi


> Expect the next update very soon.

25

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: November 18, 2015, 04:17:56 PM »

> Here's a quick update on the progress of my Austavin Quake 2 model. The Run and Standing Attack animations are now completed.


> Run animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Run.avi


> Attack animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Standing_Attack.avi


> That is all.

26

Skins, Models and Maps / Re: Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: October 24, 2015, 10:31:43 PM »

@|iR|Focalor

> First of all, thanks for the long and detailed reply. Austavin isn't the first model I've made for Quake 2, he's actually going to be the fourth. In fact, I've actually written a currently unfinished tutorial explaining the process I go through when creating my models, which can be found at...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Games/Quake2/Model_Tut%28fs%29.html

> The program I used to build the mesh, and the one I'm using to animate the model is Animation: Master from Hash Inc., and it's a spline based program rather than a polygon based one. As far as the vert shifting problem you mentioned, I've never had that problem with my previous three models, so I doubt it will be an issue this time either. Austavin currently has 1230 patches, which is quite a lot, but it's still not too late for me to cut that down, if I can find a way to do so. Thanks again for all the advice.

27

Skins, Models and Maps / Quake 2 PPM WIP: Austavin

« on: October 23, 2015, 07:54:19 PM »

> I'm working on a new model for Quake 2 of a character named Austavin, which is the alter-ego of my 15 year old nephew Austin. The mesh and skeleton are already completed, as is the stance animation, but I still have a long, long way to go before the model is completed. The model currently weighs in at 1230 patches, but I don't know yet how that translates into polys. Here's what I managed to get done so far...


> Mesh images...








> Solid images...








> Idle Spin animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Idle_Spin.avi


> Stance animation...

http://creamyg.jdluke.com/Projects/Character_Models/Austin_Luke/Movies/Animation_Tests/Austavin_-_Standing_Stance.avi


> Austavin as drawn by Austin...




> Austin's Austavin YouTube channel...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT5yhkvu1HU5CKVT82_IXFA


> Any feedback is welcome.

28

Trouble Shooting / APRQ2: Servers not appearing

« on: July 26, 2015, 12:49:48 PM »

> Recently, APRQ2 has been giving me trouble. I have five servers in my address book, but for whatever reason, only Mutant shows up on the Join Server list. The other four servers (Vanilla, DM, and two Lithiums) not only fail to show up on the list, but cannot be connected to manually either. It doesn't matter if I run the game as a regular user or as root, I get the same problem. Oddly enough, all five servers show up just fine on Quake 2 Pro on my main computer. Anyone have any pointers?

29

Trouble Shooting / Re: AprQ2 Version 1.21 - Installation failed

« on: July 04, 2015, 03:56:06 PM »

> Good news. I just solved the issue that was preventing Quake 2 from running. It turns out that all I had to do was create a "baseq2" sub-folder under "quake_2", and then copy the pak0.pak file from a flash drive into baseq2. After that, the game started successfully the next time I attempted to run it. All I have to do now is copy over the player models, the bright skin pack, recorded demos, maps, and my server list, and then I'll be good to go.

30

Trouble Shooting / Re: AprQ2 Version 1.21 - Installation failed

« on: July 01, 2015, 07:29:19 PM »

@quadz

> OK, I used "yum list | grep "^mesa"" to search for the Fedora version of libgl1-mesa-dev, and managed to find a package called mesa-libGL-devel. I used "yum install mesa-libGL-devel" to install the package, and this resolved the dependency issue. There were several additional dependencies that stood in the way of the compilation of AprQ2, but I managed to download the right packages in order to resolve them all. After successfully compiling the source code, I moved the aq2 executable file and gamei386.so to its own folder under /usr/games/Quake_2, and tried to run the game, but had no luck. Here's the text that appeared when I tried to run Quake 2...

using /root/.quake2/baseq2/ for writing
couldn't exec default.cfg
couldn't exec aprconfig.cfg
Console initialized.

------- sound initialization -------
Attempting to initialise ALSA sound.
ALSA: period size 1024, buffer size 3072
    1 stereo
 6144 samples
    0 samplepos
   16 samplebits
 2048 submission_chunk
44100 speed
sound sampling rate: 44100
------------------------------------
--------- [Loading Renderer] ---------
Using /usr/lib/libGL.so for OpenGL...Initializing OpenGL display
...setting mode 3: 640 480
Red(8bits) Blue(8bits) Green(8bits)
Depth(24bits) Alpha(8bits) Stencil(8bits)
GL_VENDOR: VIA Technology
GL_RENDERER: Mesa DRI CastleRock (CLE266) 20060710 x86/MMX/SSE
GL_VERSION: 1.2 Mesa 7.3-devel
...enabling GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
...ignoring GL_EXT_point_parameters
...using GL_ARB_multitexture
...GL_SGIS_multitexture not found
...GL_NV_texture_rectangle not found
...GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap not found
...GL_ARB_texture_compression not found
...GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic not found
Maximum Texture Size: 512x512
Received signal 11, exiting...
Stack dump (1 frames):
00: ./aq2 [0x80f128d]

> Keep in mind that aq2 and gamei386.so are currently the only files in the Quake_2 folder. Will including pak0.pak and the baseq2 folder resolve this error, or is this error a result of my computer not meeting the system requirements?