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Quake 1 Custom Monsters
since there's been some discussion of custom monsters, both old and new, I thought I'd share these ideas I've had pulsing in my cerebelum for some time. Depending on my current mapping projects, I'd like to try modelling these sometime in the near future, but I'll pitch the design briefs here and let you foul creatures leer at them...
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Ricky 
Do you mean vectors? Use Inkscape for that.

I love GIMP. And I really like it's seperate windows because my window manager allows me to control them nicely. 
Yeah, But There's No Line Tool. 
To do simple drawing I have to use paint. But for editing bitmaps GIMP is awesome. I mean there's a clone tool, brushes like PSP, a magic wand selection tool like photoshop etc. But it doesnt have a line tool. Sometimes a curved line is what you need, and you cant get one from GIMP. 
Use Paths 
 
 
or selections. Draw On Selection or something. 
Vomitus Teaser 
Here's what I've been thinking about one of our 'new' enemies.

It should be a Shalrath class enemy, although much more defensive / medic class.

The vomit attack is its primary ability:

It eats any gibs lying around if it has no player in view or has no player, which become gib ammo.
If a grenade is fired at it then it is diffused and becomes grenade ammo.
It only vomits at player entities
When vomiting it fires a qty of stuff at the player dependant on the skill level 1-4
Grenades act the same as normal player grenades - they bounce and later explode
If a Vomitus manages to hit itself with a Grenade or gib then it is re-consumed
Gib ammo bounces but does not explode, causing 5 damage to any non-undead hit
Grenade ammo bounces and explodes as normal, it can gib undead
Any non-special ammo is deigned as blood ammo, the default
Blood ammo does not bounce and causes 3 damage on hit
As well as this the Vomitus can create zombies (after chewing) from any human-sized corpse. Bigger corpses produce a zombie and a number of gibs dependant on how big it is.

A gib produces one gib ammo
Dogs and fish produce two gib ammos
Scrags, Grunts and Enforcers produce a zombie and one gib ammo
Ogres produce a zombie and 3 gib ammos
Vores Produce two zombies and 3 gib ammos
Shamblers produce three zombies and 2 gib ammos
A dead player produces one zombie and one gib ammo, and any grenades carried are converted to grenade ammo
So, the ideaa is that it's not transforming the corpse but instead reconstituting it into something else...

I'm thinking also that three rockets or a combination of damages finishing with a rocket are needed since it instantly 'dispels' grenades and has a melee ability to fall back on called devour.

Devour deals 100 damage to anything hit, instantly converting it to ammo if killed (removing any corpse)
Vomitii ignore attacks by all other monsters (they're not the sensitive type)
Other monsters can't gib a Vomitus, and forget about it once it temporarily dies 
Sounds A Bit Complicated For Quake? 
That's just a gut reaction though. 
Pretty Much My Reaction Too 
first, i don't think it needs ammo.

i like the idea that it gains the ability to fire a grenade if it catches one, but there's no need to complicate matters by keeping track of how many it's got. all a player needs to know is that "when i fire a grenade at this thing, it can fire it back". a simple 'if grenade is caught, then next attack is a grenade attack' type of thing is all that's needed to convey this. after the first grenade catch, subsequent grenades are still caught, but won't trigger another grenade attack until the first has been completed.

also, i don't see why it couldn't catch missiles too. while it would be cool if it could fire actual missiles back at the player from a gameplay pov, it doesn't really make much sense. still, if it could convert missiles to grenades, that'd still be an interesting mechanic.

for it's normal ranged attack, i don't see why you'd want to limit it with gib ammo unless it's some kind of overpowering ability, which would be bad for other reasons.

as for the whole zombie resurrection thing, it seems like there's too many abilities on one monster. especially if you're going use the vomitus as a base, which has a really boring and ugly model. basically just a blob with a couple of tentacles.
this is just opinion, but resurrection abilities seem way too cool to put on a blob. :P 
Well 
The 'I fire this, it fires it back' is pretty much what it does. The whole 'ammo' thing is just how it works internally.

Not being able to change rockets is just to allow the player to kill it, explained that the velocity of the thing causes it to explode.

The overpowering ability is being able to manufacture new enemies - the ressurection thing is just to underline the fact that it's undead and make it tough to kill. It can also start 'deflated' until triggered.

Already redone the mesh :)

Finally, about the complexity, a lot of our monsters are more complex than the originals, but to the player remain relatively simple. The idea isn't to confuse the player but leave them thinking 'ah cool, I'll be ready for that next time!'

So grunts that strafe and reload as opposed to patient Enforcers who lie in wait makes both more complex from a code standpoint, but the game more varied and interesting overall. 
GIMP 
is the typical open source application. It has great features, is stable and performs well, but it looks and feels like shit. It does not adhere to any GUI standards on any platform that I know! I have never been able to use it at all. 
 
I find Gimp, Blender, and GTKRadiant a lot more intuitive than PaintShopPro, Gmax, and Worldcraft.

I haven't tried Photoshop because I can't be arsed to pay the monstrous sum that some evil commercial entity requires. Same for 3ds max. I find Blender's UI to be superb, actually. GIMP is getting there, it's already down to two windows. 
 
Also, wasn't there something called GimpShop that has a Photoshop-like UI? Or did that project die? 
 
GimpShop is dead afaik. 
Looks Pretty Alive And Kicking To Me 
www.gimpshop.com 
Better A Half Knight Then No Horse! 
Look what Ijed's Id did to me!

http://members.home.nl/gimli/beacon.wmv 
Hahah 
 
Stupid Teleporters 
jpl sure has to take a look at it! 
Wot ?? 
I don;t get it .... o_O 
Haha 
I was aiming to the broken teleporter in one of your levels. It's still on my mind.

The knight tried the wrong teleporter and ended up like this. 
Broken Teleporter... 
... hmmmm... I don't see what you are thinking about... nv 
C'mon 
Half arrives at one telepad and the other half on the opposite side of the dungeon. 
 
i actually thought it was going to be like a special knight version where you kill him and his torso keeps coming after you, floating like that, with the entrails dangling.

broken teleporter is goofy. :P 
Indeed 
I was thinking of a level, where there is a broken teleporter.
It looked something like this, but I can't remember the name of the level.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/badporter.jpg 
Pyramid Head 
Anyone ever thought of remodeling some of the Silent Hill monsters for Quake? I know it wouldn't be original, but there's some pretty Fucked Up Shit in Silent Hill that would probably fit in Quake. 
 
i liked those strange acid belching armless zombie things in the SH movie. 
 
Yeah I always thought the Silent Hill monsters, or at least some of them, would work well in Quake. But I wouldn't just take them and move them into Quake, I would just use them as reference/inspiration. 
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