Mr. Coat
Rating: 5
baseq2/players/mrcoat
Intro
Mr Coat's first incarnation was created by Neal Corbett in June of 1998. He has since re-released Mr Coat with some revamped skins. Some investigation of Neal Corbett's web site revealed a slew of other characters being made for a Quake2 movie called "Eschaton." All the other characters seem to be made in the same "lanky" style as his first model, Mr Coat. I'm not sure whether Mr Coat here will make an appearance in "Eschaton", but Neal had to start somewhere in order to move ahead in the modeling world. What can I say, he's a guy in a trench coat and hat, wielding nothing but a pistol...do the math.
Originality
Originality.
Score: Number
The Model
I don't want to start off my first model review with a harsh reality-hitter, but I feel it's my duty as a modeler to be honest and objective about this part of the review. Mr Coat is, as I mentioned before, tall and very lanky looking. He stands just a little bit taller than the standard male model, but definitely is within reasonable limits. He's just a tall guy! The fact that he's is so skinny is an issue however. In the real world people are all different shapes and sizes, but in the world of quake he looks a bit out of place being so thin. I mean the wake from a rocket could blow this guy over! Moving along I took a close look at the models joints or rather his lack-there-of. It seems that Neal cut HUGE corners by omitting any geometry that has to bend. I was disappointed at this and the other models on his website also suffer this design flaw (perhaps it's a style choice) For the low-poly look of this model and his general "Block-man" appearance, I have to say the poly count of 656 seems completely wasted! Where are all those faces going?! I'll tell ya where they are, the blocks that make up the limbs hide many unseen polys in the overlapping! Making the model a single piece mesh rather than 14 separate segments could have eliminated many faces. I'm going to deduct a point for this because no attempt was made to disguise these shortcuts.
The trench coat has many inconsistencies. Most of the animations in the standing position show the coat attached to the models legs at the knees. The author explains they are attached there by elastic. Yet, during the crouch animations it is completely detached from the legs. Flow is extremely difficult to animate with regards to fabric in low-poly situations and I commend Neal for trying. However, he could have eliminated the previously mentioned wasted polys and used the to make the coat flow more realistically. Since the model is "Mr Coat" more attention could have been paid to THE COAT. Sorry but I feel the model's overall quality is sub-par and it's not a crime for a first model to be sub-par. Consider that another falling star in this department.
To add insult to injury =( the bounding box is not only much wider than Mr Coat, but the model's origin isn't even centered to the bounding box. Shooting to the left or right of Mr Coat revealed a great deal of slop in the bounding box. Not exactly difficult to center your model so I'm taking off a little bit here too.
Score: Five
The Animations
Well I'm going to keep this section very short. Mr Coat is a STIFF. If his arms and legs moved just a little less he'd be a vertical corpse. There's not a whole lot of life in the animations until you get to the taunt. I'm a firm believer that ATTITUDE is everything. If you're character doesn't have character...it's just a mesh. Animation is the process of bringing life to your mesh, not just making some limbs rotate. His Run animation is actually a walk and he skates as a result of this. He makes no attempt to hustle. Pain animations are generic basically a nudge here and there. His jump animation was more lively than the others. He finally shows some realism in grabbing his hat so it doesn't get whisked away by that rocket wake I mentioned! During the Taunt animation, Mr Coat pulls the brim of his hat down, spins his pistol on his finger, then proceeds to push the brim back up with his barrel. This animation is easily the highlight of the lot. I actually enjoyed watching the subtle yet effective hat movement. Good job Neal!
Not to bring him up just to cut him down again, but we get to death section. Here goes...[deep breath]...The deaths are very poorly done and seem to be rushed at best. Maybe he got tired with Mr Coat, and these last animations are really a great example of lifeless death...does that make sense? =P First, his feet stay planted to the ground all the way through all 4 death animations (crdeath included). If you play the death animations backwards it looks like those vampire movies where the vampires rise from the ground stiff as a board on their heels =D hehehe. It's the only redeemable value these animations have!
Good attempt at animating the coat in the jump animations and most of the standing animations, but it seemed to be pinned to the ground in the crstand and crwalk animations and look awkward. Overall, like the model, the animations are sub-par and Neal can definitely only get better at animation. A good try for a first model but our job is to be critical.
Score: Six
The Skin
Mr Coat comes with a basic skin and CTF skins. The CTF skins aren't JUST palette swaps, he's added some flavor to these. ctf_b adorns a pair of shades and ctf_r has a funny eye patch covering a scar across his eye. But...these skins are supposedly improved (I haven't seen the originals) but I must say that they are fairly low quality. The coat in particular leaves alot to be desired. It looks like Neal just scribbled within the mapping areas. Speaking of the Mapping, there's a big ole 38% wasted space there. I know it's tough to be efficient in the mapping arena, but it's important. Simple, neat layout of the skin, but no attempt to mirror body parts was made and if he HAD, making the skin more detailed and "prettier" lol would have been a snap.
The gun skin didn't seem to be linked correctly and it showed up with the NULL red/black texture. Easily fixed but not sure why it wasn't.
I get the feeling Neal isn't a great 2D artist BUT as I always say... "A great model with a poor skin can't compare to a poor model with a great skin!" - QuartZ.
Score: Four
Sounds
No sounds are included with Mr Coat.
Visible Weapons Support
There is no current VWep support for Mr Coat. He has his little hair dryer looking pistol though =)
Pack Inclusion
Mr Coat had some interesting qualities, I even enjoyed playing with him for about 2 minutes, BUT I don't feel that he is up to par when you consider the abundance of good models out there.
Addendum
MESSAGE FROM MASSIVE BITCH: Well, QuartZ may not want Mr.Coat in the pack, but he's gonna be in there. Mr.Coat is a classic in my opinion and deserves to be in there. Sure other models are better, but that has nothing to do with the model packs.
Wouldn't it be funny to see a rocket jumping flasher in a trench coat? Maybe someone could make a skin for that!? errr not!
click thumbnails for larger image
review by QuartZ
author name Neal Corbett
tris.md2
Vertices 354
Mapping Vertices 511
Polygons 656
Skin size 256x256
Skin Wasted Space 38%
weapon.md2
Vertices 22
Mapping Vertices 30
Polygons 40
Skin size 64x64
Skin Wasted Space ?
relevant links
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