SS2 Simon Pennington Protocol Droid - Edited: RocketMan/Grosnus

[67406c2693a16Olfred]

You might as well just give me the model (as 3ds) and I just do the cascet for you.

[67406c2693e7eRocketMan]

You're right.  I wonder why it screwed up like that?  I bet there's something simple that'll fix it, that I didn't know how to do.

Join Us:  The silver feet were my doing.  At the time it seemed preferable to the very dark texture that looked almost as though it was untextured.  The silver also looked a closer match to stock although there are some black streaks or something that I wasn't able to incorporate.  Perhaps a later revision will fix it.  The laser eyes, again are not an exact match, although personally, I think they look good and fit the fiction but that's just my opinion.  The torso is pretty close except that the "winding" of the cables looks a little different.  Again it comes down to personal taste, as it doesn't depart from the art style dramatically.  We'll keep an open mind going forward but so far I don't see an overwhelming cry to change any of this.

I think it's helpful to re-acknowledge at this point that we are working with a piece of art and have already altered it significantly.  Granted most of it was necessary to make it work in the game but we should be thankful for the author's brilliant work and allow some of that to be retained as a footprint of his style and vision.

[67406c2693fa1RocketMan]

Get it while it's hot!  See first post.

[67406c2694147voodoo47]

I believe there is no way of preventing the engine from not rendering offscreen objects. also, [annoying moderator mode]the casket should not be posted here if it's not finished, that's what Engineering is for. in the Modifications subforum, people should not be able to download mods that will make their game look weird or broken.[/annoying moderator mode]

[67406c26942d1Kolya]

Who chose these colours? I don't like 'em one bit!

Just kidding, awesome work Mr. Pennington, Mr. Rocket, Mr. Grosnus. Going to test it in a moment and get back to ya. *lifts hat*

[67406c26944aemiracle.flame]

Folks from outside would probably not figure out easily it is supposed to go under additional mesh folder (BlueMM won't recognize it). Let's not forget about that in next release.

I am surprised how much I like the laser in-game even though it's not in accordance with the friendly face protocol droid is supposed to have. How about making the laser appear only after the droid is clearly after you - similar to the ninja dash mode switch from SecMod? I suppose it will require additional dml along with the model but worth it.

[67406c2694608Kolya]

Yeah, the mod should definitely be repacked into a mesh folder.
[EDIT: I just repacked both mods and reapplied download counts.]

It would be nice if the laser switching off when the droid is off screen could be fixed, but apart from the training area where you have time to examine a droid up close it's hardly noticeable.
More importantly an animated texture with random transparent parts should be applied to the laser (if possible) so it looks like smoke was passing through it, making it visible in parts and invisible in others. Currently the laser looks too much like a solid (albeit transparent) object attached to the droid's head.
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[67406c26947a6RocketMan]

Bahh... how did I manage to forget the mesh folder!  Thanks K.  Also, wasn't sure about what to do with the casket... makes sense to put it in engineering.  I suppose I thought keeping everything in one place might be convenient too.  I've got no problem moving it though.

It's funny, I thought I'd heard about some way to force an object to render all the time but maybe I'm confusing that with efficiency settings like T-Pose vs animated.  Hope it's not too noticeable. 

I was thinking about ways to pull off some nice laser effects.  There are a couple of things I could try.  I don't know how good they will look but it's worth a shot.  I know for a fact there's a way to make the pulsating laser eye work with a material file but the answer is eluding me so far.  I'll keep digging. 

[67406c26948a2Olfred]

Based on the incomplete cascet, here is a working one.
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[67406c269499eRocketMan]

I knew you'd be able to fix it.  These issues I have, while perplexing, are probably just due to lack of experience.  Thanks Olfred.

[67406c2694aa6Olfred]

Call me the lord of static objects!

Praise should also go to nemyax, without his splendid Blender script I would have run into big trouble as well. Which goes as deep as hacking away inside the *.e file (, that's what I had to do before he did the script).

[67406c2694dceSystem]

this can be an alternative to Droid download?

[67406c2694ee0voodoo47]

casket files merged, given appropriate folder structure and attached to the first post. will fix the dl count later (too tired to check the interface K made). 8 people have dloaded the incomplete casket, myself included.

[67406c269503eRocketMan]

You beat me to it Voodoo.  Was just going to upload but got caught up trying to incorporate a feature at the same time.  I really thing material files can do some awesome stuff but for the life of me I can't figure out how to make them work. 

[67406c2695402ZylonBane]

The laser eyes, again are not an exact match, although personally, I think they look good and fit the fiction but that's just my opinion.

How does a targeting laser on a droid intended to help people with their shoe shopping make sense in the game fiction? The combat bots don't even have those.

Thanks to movies like Terminator and Predator, most people associate "targeting laser = evil killing machine". Putting one on the protocol droid misses the point entirely. It doesn't want to kill you, it wants to help you.

EDIT: Anyone else remember the Xenoborg from the 1999 AvP? Laser beams all over that thing.

[67406c2695523voodoo47]

a laser pointer on a multi purpose droid is not too far fetched, but I do agree that the laserless version fits the SS2 universe better.

I guess the problem with the laser disappearing when the droid is offscreen could be lessened by making it a separate object, then attaching it to the droid.

[67406c269578cOlfred]

I really thing material files can do some awesome stuff but for the life of me I can't figure out how to make them work.

What do you want to achieve?
Also keep in mind that in some cases there are different commands for mesh and static models.

[67406c2695955RocketMan]

ZB:  Anyone who's been to Home Depot knows that lasers are frequently used in both commercial and industrial applications for such things as range finding, leveling, IR temperature sensors, etc.  I don't disagree with you about the terminator reference but I hardly think it means the droid is evil.  Plus, many people pointed out they didn't want it at all so I made a laserless version.

Olfred:  First and foremost I want to get rid of all the animated textures and just use 1 or 2 to smoothly swing between 2 brightness levels.  I've seen it done before so I know its possible but no matter what code I try, it won't work.  Beyond that, any kind of cool effects that could be applied like reflective maps to glass or dust to the laser would be nice but not mandatory.

Also, since it's been brought up a few times, is there a way to associate AI alertness or change of state with a different physical model or perhaps whether a texture renders or not?  That would enable the laser to come on only if it sees you, which might make it look less hostile under normal conditions.

[67406c2695a73voodoo47]

smells doable, but not sure whether dml doable.

the problem with the laser is that it changes the droid aesthetics from "oh hello there" into "aw crap it's onto me", something that is probably not desirable. but, as always, to each his own.

[67406c2695b6cRocketMan]

Yeah...  that's true.  Maybe the pulsating light could be green.  At least then there's one somewhat friendly colour on the thing.

[67406c2695c6fRocketMan]

Just wondering... has anyone:

1) Figured out how to slide between texture brightnesses using material files
2) Found anything broken or bad looking in-game
3) Got any ideas how to change textures when the AI state changes?

[67406c2695d63ZylonBane]

I thought material files didn't work for AI meshes.

[67406c2695e5eOlfred]

They do, but not all the functions.
Totally forgot that I wanted to look into this... hm...

[67406c2695f65ZylonBane]

Interesting. Well, you can easily pulse a texture by modulating either its RGB or its alpha. Dunno if those functions work on an AI mesh though.