...The ogre face discussion is an old story... They made it far too human, not the way it was originally depicted. This somehow lessens the fright factor...

No good.

The soldiers look like completely awkward and, why is that enforcer shooting rockets?

Scrag is nice, but the bony spikes have been omitted.

These are not retexturings, more redesigning(of the skins)... 

I pretty much agree with what has been said. The work is good quality... but subtlety and tact are necessary when doing these reskin things. The basic skins and textures have been serving me fine, and will continue to, so a replacement had better be damned fine to fix what's not broke.

And it's just a nitpick, but the reinvisioned scrag bothers me. On the original skin, you see a wormlike creature that has consumed a human wizard from the inside out, leaving only the ribcage. Given the Lovecraft quote about "instructing the very worm that gnaws," I think it's pretty clear that was the intention. The reskin has little to no hint of this disturbing subtlety. Actually, it has pectoral muscles instead of a ribcage, which doesn't seem right.

Also, poor (hungover?) hell knight. I guess he's supposed to have just been drinking blood, but the bump map is cranked so high that the dribbling looks like vomit. Just sayin'.

And will their fiends have eyes or not? story at 11. 

the worm that gnaws quotation is from the Necronomicon exerpt in "The Festival," one of Lovecraft's most atmospheric stories. Your take on the scrag based on this idea is genius. I never thought of it that way, but then there has to some explanation for the name monster_wizard. 

"The nethermost caverns', wrote the mad Arab, 'are not for the fathoming of eyes that can see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; til out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."
-H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Festival'

I interpreted it as if the wizard has managed to return after death, in a much reduced form. Kind of like badly mixed materia. 

oh man I just love Lovecraft's disgust with organic processes. I think part of this passage is his idea that it's just disgusting to imagine that organic processes of eating and shitting and chewing and decaying etc, could somehow produce consciousness. Surely the "things that have learnt to walk that ought to crawl" are humans. At least an ape or dog (rememmber "Pickman's Model" in which he uses both of these animals as images of bestial disgust, and the fact that Lovecraft as a cat lover must surely have hated dogs) or worm for that matter, isn't aware of how rank its existential situation is. Yet, in my view, it'd be even more ridiculous if a mind existed actually apart from any physical variables; "Evil the mind that is held by no head." 

Like the story Cool Air. 

I think "the worm that gnaws" is probably the standard worms that decompose buried people, but taking a mundane concept and re-imagining it as a fantastical concept is where i think a lot of fantasy/horror originates. The "giant worm that is digesting a human torso" idea is pretty great, i never thought of that but it fits the original creature design well, so i approve this implausible interpretation. 

yeah, that's some pretty grotesque imagery... which is of course perfect for quake. ^_^ 

Although, most quake guides and monster bestiaries seem to agree that there is something vestigally human in the scrag. I'm looking at the Quake Wiki and quaddicted's bestiary right now, and the wiki says: "a Scrag is a kind of floating creature resembling a white snake combined with a human torso that spits small green globs of acid at you"

I also found this picture, which is otherwise kinda painful to look at due to overblown darkplacieness, but the redone skin really brings out the ribcage: http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/3999/dp000042sd6.jpg

To me, the evidence is clear, except that it's weird, disturbing, and unexplained. As far as why such a horrid floating creature is inhabiting a human ribcage, I think that's for each of our twisted minds to decide. One final answer would defeat the mystery.

Oh and necros, I really liked your ideas for chestbursting vorelings. As if the little buggers don't give me enough of a startle already. 

Every enemy in Quake and the Mission Packs. Animated. Not just animated .. animated with background transparency.

http://quakeone.com/reforged/bestiary.html

re: Scrag discussion ... thanks for that. I'll never view the scrag the same again. And makes some concept drawings/fan-art all wrong ...

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/2783/quakescragbynatan77.jpg 

How/why would it develop shoulders/pecs like that without arms? 

there seems to be a fine line between making it look human enough, but yet no.

i don't know if this has anything to do with the uncanny valley or not, but a monster design seems to be able to go from scary/disturbing/strange to ridiculous/comic/mundane really fast. :S 

http://quakeone.com/reforged/enfocer.html 

 

i like that. the texture on the visor area is pretty cool. 

above site is filled with warez and stolen content. he spammed it to i3d too. 

oic, seems like there's download links off of file locker sites. :S 

 

I still don't understand why you'd want to make super-hi-res textures to put on ancient 300-poly models that animate choppily and have 8-bit vertex precision.

I mean the law of diminishing returns is going to kick in pretty fucking soon isn't it? :p 

some of the skins look cool but they should really be looking at remodelling them too else it's a bit of a waste.. 

I don't understand the need for new models. Sure, the original are insanely ugly, but the same goes for the level brush-work. should we bash rygel for having made his hi-res textures instead of recrafting all the maps??

Part of the fun is in making appear new and detailed something that is not.
The nostalgia factor have a big part in the process, infact a remake with a new engine would be seen as a completely different beast from the community. For me this is revival.

Is this fanboy-ism? No, I'd like higher-poly models too, but that doesn't dimish my desire for these skins. Maybe in the future we'll have new models too, even from this same team, it seems. 

Super-high detailed skins with full specularity, bumpmaps, chocolate sauce etc are a bit incongruous with the 300 poly models. Making the skin map so advanced actually draws attention to the primitive model it's going on.

It's beyond diminishing returns, it's almost negative returns as you keep upping the resolution in my opinion. I think the sweet spot is probably 2x or maybe 4x at a push, and keeping it just at the diffuse textures.

I think the artists are very skilled actually, but have to agree that it might be misplaced effort. I'd love to see faithful 1-2k poly monster replacements though, combined with 4x res faithful skins, that could be beautiful and very worthwhile.

I take your point you made using Rygel's textures as an example, but at the same time, you can load a more modern map with better brushwork that deserves the textures, but you'd have to make new high-res skins if you made high-poly models.

I share your excitement at seeing things that were not previously, look detailed and new, especially when it comes to games I love like Quake. It's awesome to see things brought up to date.

I really disagree that this is the optimum direction for a graphical reboot though. Opinions may vary of course. If it was down to me, I'd go for slightly above Quake 3 quality graphics, but with everything very consistent, coherent, and at the same level: models, skins, textures, particle effects, etc.

All that said, it's fun to see what they're doing, it's nice stuff, even if I wouldn't want to have those skins always turned on in Quake by default! 

Rygel did NOT make all those textures himself. He used the Quake Retexturing ones as base.

Also, they look rather weird with all their comical reliefs and stuff. 

starbuck is almost right, more or less like the previous comments, in the sense that with new models all would be better, but I disagree with the sentence on diminishing return: it's true that maps and models remain extremely sharp, but having seen the final result, it's not bad like you're suggesting.

They worked right to dissimulate the low polycount, adding details where it made sense, avoiding for example to paint false 3d elements where it was too evident.