System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition Update & Community Participation

[66ef3c502f9c2logical]

sarge945
Oh dear... that is a serious condition, please visit an eye doctor as soon as possible. 

Joking aside, I did say difference was small. It is not that unnoticeable though.

[66ef3c502fb7deldrone]

There's always the struggle between fixing things or keeping them faithful.

Sneakily keeping my eye on this thread!

[66ef3c502fd29voodoo47]

pretty ok, but would recommend tweaking the texture to make him look less cuddly/puppy eyed.

[66ef3c502fe8eicemann]

As long as it doesn't end up like Rebirth did, with some models that looked great and some that looked very out of place or average.

[66ef3c50302bdRocketMan]

pretty ok, but would recommend tweaking the texture to make him look less cuddly/puppy eyed.

What would be wrong with that?  He's human after all.  Must all characters in the game look menacing or creepy?

[66ef3c503040dZylonBane]

You only ever see two alive male humans in the entire game anyway, so it hardly matters.

[66ef3c5030503voodoo47]

that has never stopped us - remember that one object that is only used once in the entire vanilla game, and we still fixed it knowing that there is pretty much zero chance nobody will ever notice?

[66ef3c503075elgs]

You only ever see two alive male humans in the entire game anyway, so it hardly matters.

There's also ghosts. Also fanmissions can use that stuff

[66ef3c50309aeZylonBane]

There's also ghosts.

Are you really going to make me explain that ghosts aren't alive?

[66ef3c5030a98lgs]

That's a straw man argument. The point was they are same model with semi-transparent texture

[66ef3c5030c66ZylonBane]

The point was they are same model with semi-transparent texture

How much would you care to wager on that assertion?

[66ef3c5030d3fRocketMan]

[bites tongue]

[66ef3c5030eb3eldrone]

It's used mostly for the humans in starting levels as well as cortez, suarez, watts. IIRC.

Ghosts have the same face, but actually have closed eyes, but they're translucent and very brief moments that it's easy to miss it.

My list is massive, but I occationally go back to the older things I've made to touch up colors, contrast and various things, moreso when I'm moving them ingame, It's essentially every single ai-mesh and, hostile things like turrets being remade.

Luckily we have a new importer/exporter for ai-meshes which makes this work a little bit less messy.


Here's another one showing the weird properties of an extremely lowpoly head and choosing which angle you want to recreate faithfully:


[crew_progress.jpg expired]

[66ef3c5030f9cZylonBane]

Oh yeah, Suarez and Tommy, forgot about them. Poor guys didn't even rate getting their own custom model.

[66ef3c50311b6eldrone]

ZylonBane
To be fair, only Diego got a custom one if we don't count bloome, the rest are using these four.

I almost didn't believe the two with caps are used in the game when I imported them, even though I've already seen them all over the place. They're shorter, they have very strange texturing and I almost dismissed them as early development models that they forgot in the files.


[corpseheads.jpg expired]

[66ef3c503129dvoodoo47]

that's why they cannot overdo the polycount and detail. it would be even more obvious.

[66ef3c5031502RocketMan]

Luckily we have a new importer/exporter for ai-meshes which makes this work a little bit less messy.

what's this??

[66ef3c50317baZylonBane]

Now I kind of want a cap model, just to scatter a few around. Like, the VB crew are all issued caps as part of their official uniform, but almost nobody actually wears them.

They're shorter, they have very strange texturing and I almost dismissed them as early development models that they forgot in the files.

You're half right. They are early models. In the gamesys hierarchy they're under "Old Corpses".

[66ef3c50318d5lgs]

 

[66ef3c5031b7aeldrone]

RocketMan
We had this issue of characters ending up with short legs when imported from the game, and I've seen this issue in various other places where people import the ai-meshes, including the most recent rebirth models being almost a head shorter than the vanilla models, possibly from importing, making changes and re-exporting without noticing the character shrunk.

I also didn't want to deal with the planes for rigging a character, so it's an armature and proper weightpainting now, there's also the ability to import the animations into blender to better preview the rigging.

As an example, the worm on the new hybrids are more segmented and needs to deform properly as the hybrid turns their head, which would've been impossible to do in a good way before:
[assassin.jpg expired]
[headrigging.jpg expired]

[66ef3c5031c56voodoo47]

better AI mesh tools would be a godsend.

[66ef3c5031d5eZylonBane]

If memory serves, the reason the Rebirth human models were shorter was because the author wanted their head to be closer to the player's camera view. Never agreed with that decision. Anyway, leg-shrinking is a new one.

[66ef3c5031e9cvoodoo47]

yes to the Rebirth models height, and the legs do like to break with the current tools, it seems.

also, since you (eldrone) are apparently working on the EE AI meshes, I'll pop the request here as well (originally posted on discord) - please, if possible, the shotgun hybrid's shotgun stub should be a subobject, to ensure compatibility with mods. I can attach the modified vanilla model if reference is necessary.

[66ef3c50324adRocketMan]

RocketMan
We had this issue of characters ending up with short legs when imported from the game, and I've seen this issue in various other places where people import the ai-meshes, including the most recent rebirth models being almost a head shorter than the vanilla models, possibly from importing, making changes and re-exporting without noticing the character shrunk.

I also didn't want to deal with the planes for rigging a character, so it's an armature and proper weightpainting now, there's also the ability to import the animations into blender to better preview the rigging.

As an example, the worm on the new hybrids are more segmented and needs to deform properly as the hybrid turns their head, which would've been impossible to do in a good way before:

But you still use the 3dstobin front-end to bring them back into dark?  I've had problems in the past with unknown errors trying to bring models into the game and spent hours bringing pieces of the model in to see where the defect was.  An alternative method for importation would be great but what you're showing above is also very handy... I just don't know if I can use it personally because it involves blender and 2 words you mentioned that I never heard of, which means I'm not educated enough in 3d modelling techniques to know what I'm doing with that tool.