Forgotten One
Rating: 10
baseq2/players/forgottenone
Intro
The Forgotten One is yet another outstanding PPM from the modelmeister himself, Brian Collins, aka EvilBastard. For those of you playing the drinking game (it's an inside thing, from the old Q2PMP message board crowd), it's time to take a drink (take 1 drink whenever Dan Bickell or EvilBastard releases a model), but it is definitely not time to take 4 drinks (should either of us release a model that gets a sub 4 star review, signaling a very bad week in store for us all). Nope, as you can see by those 5 little star graphics at the top of the page, this is another must-have piece of fun from EvilB.
BUT... let me warn you now... it's not for the faint of heart if you're concerned about bounding box issues. In fact, the whole thing was designed from the start with a "screw the bounding box" attitude :) On a different model, by a different modeler, it would get slammed for it...but not by this reviewer. Brian had a good idea that he knew would cause bounding box problems, and he went ahead with it anyway...and it's cool. Sure, the wings stick out of the bounding box a lot of the time. What the means as far as the game is concerned, is that sometimes the wings might go through walls and stuff that the player is close to, and shots fired at the player may go through the wings and not hit the player (because they didn't hit the bounding box). To quote Brian, "If you shoot at the blue parts you will score hits ;P" For those of you who are really anal about this stuff, Mr. Collins has been so sensitive as to provide a no-wings version of the model (in the .zip) to accomodate you.
The Model
The model is based on Brain's Lin Fang PPM, with several changes. He's big, buff, and armored, and has big 3 fingered talons at the end of each arm. Oh yeah, and he's got a couple of big ass wings stuck in his back :) The body is one solid object, with seperate objects for each wing and the 2 small wings on the head. The weapon model is a long halberd (a staff with a blade on the end) with a barrel on the end for rockets and such to fly out of. The poly count adds up to 782 for both models, which is rather respectable for such a detailed winged humanoid. Typical of Brian, there are no flaws to be found here.
Score: Ten
The Animations
The animation quality is definately very good, as animation has always been Brian's real strength, but within the rather large subcategory of his own models this one isn't quite up to the standards of his other efforts. After seeing what Brian did with his latest PPM Alita (a truly amazing animation effort), Forgotten One's animation seems lackluster in comparisson, and even when compared to his earlier efforts such as Lin Fang and Devil Hunter Yonko. As mentioned earlier, there's the bounding box issue, which I've decided not to hold against him... for the most part. I get the impression though, that since he just said "[screw] it" with the bounding box issue, it translated to a bit of sloppiness with the rest of the animation, which is just a bit outta character for EvilB. There are a number of little things to nitpick here, such as the weapon model and wingtips dipping under the bounding box at a few spots (going through the floor everytime, unless he's mid-air), but it's nothing worth griping about. On the other hand, the animations are typical EvilBastard- smooth and full of character. I especially like the run animation, which seems to have a very solid heaviness to it, despite the wings. Overall, the lowest I can take the score down to is 4.5 stars, so that's what it gets.
Score: Nine
The Skin
There is one skin for Forgotten One, plus CTF skins. The Blue CTF skin is identical to the standard skin, and the Red one is a red version of that. Not much variety, but an excellent effort anyway. The mapping is quite well done, with a very respectable 12% and 18% wasted space on the 2 models. Both skins are sized to be 3d card friendly (256 and 128 square). Mapping tricks such as overlapping polys from symmetrical areas of the model are used well. There are a few tiny rough spots in the mapping where some mapping vertices could have been welded, but nothing remotely worth docking the score for. The skin itself is well rendered, with lots of details, and a very nice complimentary-colors color scheme.
Score: Ten
Sounds
There are no sounds included with the model.
Visible Weapons Support
Nope, and it wouldn't work very well with the type of weapon he carries either.
Pack Inclusion
Bounding box smounding box, it's in. =]
review by Dan Bickell
author name Brian "EvilBastard" Collins
tris.md2
Vertices 363
Mapping Vertices 349
Polygons 710
Skin size 256x256
Skin Wasted Space 12%
weapon.md2
Vertices 52
Mapping Vertices 47
Polygons 72
Skin size 128x128
Skin Wasted Space 18%
relevant links
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