Daya: That BFG 9500 looks really good for Quake, it just needs some weathering.

Skiffy: If you group the first scenes, you'll have to modify the QC code, and that means making your models incompatible with everything but your own mod.

Let's say you have a model with these frames�

0 base
1 idle
2 idle
3 idle
4 walk
5 walk
6 walk

� and then you group the "idle" animation:

0 base
1 idle(1,2,3)
2 walk
3 walk
4 walk

See how the indexes of the "walk" animation were affected by the grouping of previous frames. 

only thing with frame groups walk and run anims: stock models have different movement per frame. this is accounted for in the code, but with frame groups, you do not know what frame you are on because to the code, it's all the same frame index. you would need to redo the animation so that the movement is constant on all frames. 

Framegroups do support individual timing for each subframe. 

So if I understand this correctly I could have 255 frame groups for some crazy reason? Its not a 255 frame limit but index limit. But if you dont group frames then they each take an index... so to speak.

Daya I do look forward to having this in Quake though :)

Here is another take from the one mode that added all the quake2 weapons to quake 3.

http://www.wireheadstudios.org/album/album35/strogbfg_shots.sized.jpg 

Amusing... I thought quake1 ran at 10fps logic all the time. Then again I think the minotaur in Arcane has some at a higher framerate? 

the individual timing thing doesn't work. also, timing isn't the issue, it's distance. 

Individual timing does work. But IIRC, maybe not in GLQuake.

PS: Confirmed, it's a GLQuake-only bug. All hail software rendering!
http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60097&start=179&end=179 

And here's the proof that it does work in WinQuake. See the function R_AliasSetupFrame:
https://github.com/id-Software/Quake/blob/master/WinQuake/r_alias.c 

Hmm so now I just need to make a model that uses a zillion frames and work with a programming on this form crazy enough to do it with me? Shub Niggurath proper boss fight anyone? :)

Dont let her just sit in a pool of lava waiting to be tellefragged. Have her take off and hover and fly around after a certain amount of damage coming after the player with all manner of evil spells. 

IMO I think you should animate it so you can use it to replace the current model. You can always add extra frames at the end anyway which will be ignored by standard quake. 

Any future models I would add additional features on the back end for any intrepid programmer to tinker with if they are up for it. I plan to add at least 1 new range attack and death for the shambler after his first release. Some sort of AOE lighting sphere channel attack is what I have in mind. 

Any future models I would add additional features on the back end for any intrepid programmer to tinker with
If you want I can add the new Shambler model to AD with alternative channel attack. Please don't listen to anyone about framegroups, they are freakin nightmare to get right in QC.

Things to consider with your model, add idle animations (checking hands, looking around etc), alternative death animations, maybe a stomp to the ground attack (could be cool for a stomp+lightning combo) Any new stuff you add, let people know the movement speed you animated at, it will make implementing the QC easier.

Also if you have time, update the horrible head gib model, that is so damn ugly it makes me cringe when I see it in game. Any extra gib models (claws+feet) are always welcome! :P 

In ad-obd I saw a shambler foot gib that reminded me the cyberdemon, and it felt great. 

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/03/1453567594-wip3-bfg9500.png 

Since the topic came up, the group_frames function in qmdl does support an optional 4th parameter called duration, which defaults to 0.1 if not set. This sets the duration of frames in the framegroup. Because of the GLQuake bug that prevents per-frame setting of the value in most engines, the function only takes a single value and applies it to all frames. You could write your own code to set individual values if you desired but I wouldn't recommend it. 

Avoid mixing blue tones with gray, that's very hard to get it looking really good in the software renderer.

Try to use similar hues for both the base image and the weathering, only drastically switching hues on neighbouring pixels that have the same brightness, to smooth out the transition.

Grayscale tones are difficult to mix with other colors. They mix better with more desaturated colors. 

That would be a nice debut for this guy I think in Arcane Dimension. I just finished his original animation set so now I can look into adding some new one. Check it out!

https://youtu.be/OemMkCeTB6Y

New Idle and death for sure! AOE Stomping lighting attack would be murder.

Speaking of lighting... Its one of the things I would love to redo. Longer more varied chunks because the default tiles like crazy and does not give me the electric vibe. 

that looks absolutely incredible!! Cannot wait for this badboy! 

 

 

 

this time trying to put more rust, bonus point for software rendering (I don't like that because it stings the eyes, but some people do so eh)
http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/03/1453577612-wip4-bfg9500.png 

That would be a nice debut for this guy I think in Arcane Dimension. I just finished his original animation set so now I can look into adding some new one

I would recommend 2 idles, something with claws as they are obvious to see from a distance. Also as the Shambler has no neck, turning would not be obvious to see. 3 channeling lightning animations (start/looped/stop), a single foot stop (shockwave effect, lift all around up into the air unless jumping) and 1 extra death animation.

I would suggest any new features be on a shambler with a new skin (always best to keep the original behaviour) and to keep the HP exactly the same with GL/RL resist as before. If you want this as part of AD then then let me know as it could be added as a patch easily.

Longer more varied chunks because the default tiles like crazy
The lightning bolts are hard coded to the engine lightning effect. If you want more variety of bolts then its needs new QC to calculate the length, draw the segments and then fade them. It could be easily added as this is what I am doing with the AD fire wraith. 

skiffy: that looks great. 

Hey Daya, that latest one has come on leaps and bounds from the first shots. Making the weathering rusty is a good move because it gives the metal a contrasting warmer colour to the blue body. It could probably stand to take a bit more noise on the flat portions, perhaps by adding a specular highlight on those portions (the directional illumination is already much better).

I think you could also get some more mileage out of that blue glowing bit at the back. If you can bake some fake blue reflected highlights into the surrounding portions it will stand out much more. You are working with the quake palette of course, but you might be able to switch palette rows to do it, using the lower bright blue row to find some more saturated highlight for the blue bodywork, and pale blue tones on the nearest metalwork highlights.

One final idea for the light itself, since the palette has very few fullbright blue tones it's hard to do anything other than make it totally flat. However, perhaps you could try a chequerboard pattern with the lighter shade. In software mode you might hope for an effect like:

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzU1WDE2MDA=/z/KpsAAOxyVLNS8SsT/$_35.JPG

In GLQuake the smoothing will at least create more texture and perhaps some kind of gradient effect.