the texture animation works like this - the textures need to be named texture_.ext, texture_1.ext, texture_2.ext, ... texture_xx.ext, and the engine will animate them automatically. as mentioned before, we can control the animation with a mtl file (small txt where you can set up things like anim rate, looping and some more). the texture that should be referenced in the model is texture_.ext (the very first one).

attaching the current resources converted to mod format (hexedited the texture name in the model, renamed the textures and duplicated the first frame because it was missing, and added the mtl). note - now the textures are a bit too lowres. still needs less ground (none ground) to be visible through the pile, and the worms need to be less fat, more spiky, and less brown to not look like a pile of turds.

the 3d model helps a lot.

Nevermind, I had the glass and worms as separate meshes.
Edited the first post.

Should I add a 25 frame variant as well?

it would work best if it was the same as the orig texture, just hires. that is what players like, and what causes least headaches for other modders.

You and some other players like it, and it causes you less headaches when making 100% faithful upres according to your tastes and preferences. Not every modder wants to be a humble servant of the original's looks and feels.
I reference a new material name, so no conflicts there. My original naming "kck_*.png" was precisely to avoid mod conflicts - another "xwormy*.png" texture may appear somewhere, but "kck_wormy*.png? Hardly ever. And they are also easier to look up in the txt16 dir. Was there a technical problem with my file naming?

I would even understand your persistence if we were talking the last lowpoly/lowres stragglers in the game, but for example literally NO AI model has a faithful recreation, maybe except Eldron's midwife, but I'm sure she has some horrible consistency issue I'm not aware of as well.

Yes, I agree - it would be amazing if we had all the assets 1:1 recreated in higher detail, but do you really think it's going to happen the way things are going?

You see, it's like some metalheads rating music almost exclusively by the criteria "how much metal" it is. Doesn't really help you unless you are looking for the most metal stuff ever and you both have similar tastes.
And people also have different tastes as to what constitutes being faithful and not detrimental to atmosphere. For example I like the first Silent Hill the most partially because it's the crudest and most pixellated of the series, and no HD remake/overhaul will do any good in this regard, but I'm sure I could stomach some sensible alternate textures.
How are the vanilla worms consistent even with its own larger, AI worms? The former are basically a bunch of earthworms, and the latter are thick, stubby larvae consisting of just of a few segments. To my sensibilities i have improved the worms. Definitely not perfect, but neithere were the 3-frame earthworms. But I guess SS2 devs didn't make mistakes/compromises, period. 

And adding some slime would be nice, but it's beyond my abilities to animate something like that. If you can and want to, please go ahead. I'll be very happy if someone improves on my work.
There will most likely be some tweaks, I'm not that happy with the outcome.

you are free to take your own path with the visuals of course, but optimally, the new resource should be an improvement over the orig in all aspects. at the moment, I don't believe that's the case - the old beaker looks better, imho. anyway, just adding some brown background would solve the problem with too much stuff being visible through the worms.

also yes, two underscores are not allowed in animated textures, so you will have to change that (kckwormy_.png would be ok).

and yes, piles of disgusting worms are one of the great mysteries of SS2 - nobody really knows what they are.


//K, would wait until the author considers the mod ready. at the moment, it's usable, but there are still some things left that would be better off fixed or improved.

ok, to demonstrate what I mean, here is a video (view in hd and a new window), with the orig pile using your model on the left, and the current new pile on the right - while the animation is obviously choppy and the resolution is low on the orig pile, it does a better job of convincing the observer that it has actual mass, while the texture on the new pile is making it painfully obvious that the worms are just flat, especially when viewed from angles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCfOgAydt_Q


setting the visuals and color aside, this is something that really needs to be improved, I believe. and yes, there are places in the game when you can view piles from angles, so this would be visible.

Olfred would be the person you should ask about this.

Hell yeah! Thanks, nemyax! I don't mind the extra setup, as long as the process works reliably, and it does.
Beakers are now swarming with worms.

Glad you like the brain. It still needs some work, and I'm probably going to have 2 variants in the end.

Improved worms and beakers:

Download Worms_v2.7z

All these worm shots are taken in the basketball court on Recreation deck and brightened up a lot. I'd swear there was a light switch somewhere.

Yeah I think this looks good, although the animations could be a bit more convincing. Also the colours could be lighter. But yeah, this mod is more or less ready now.