Intro
This was about all the background I could dig up on this guy...from the readme file:
"Strange mad bloke with an axe shotgun and stupid name."
First effort model here, leaves a lot to be desired though. Does have the handy feature of being able to use any skin that will work for the standard male model...which is quite a few. I orignally gave this model a 2 star rating, but I had just gotten through with reviewing Slith. My appologies to Frankie for being a bit too harsh with my rating of Oo. I didn't say anything about the model that I felt wasn't correct, just made a bit too low of a rating. Overall, Oo is just slightly below what I would consider an average model...but still far far better than many of the models I've reviewed recently.
The Model
Oo is Frankie Hobbin's first PPM, built from scratch in Lightwave, and he comes in at 612 polygons. I introduced Oo to the wonderful world of 3DSMax, and made him get intimate with one of my favorite friends, Mr. STL Check, who quickly found two double faces just under his left pec. Other than that, no other technical problems...but this mesh is REALLY sloppy. The proportions are TERRIBLY wacked. The head is mishappen and way too complex, the neck is stumpy, the upper arms are way too short and mishapen, the forearms are just slightly too short, the waist is way too wide, hips are just wrong...this poor guy has NO ass whatsoever. The legs are way too short and very muddled, and the feet needed to be clarified...the oval shape just isn't working...even a boxy shape would've worked better. This model has SERIOUS problems in it's construction...that's the bottom line of it.
I have to point out some good things though...so I won't feel too bad for trashing this poor guy, as this is Frankie's FIRST modeling attempt, and we'd like to see him continue and get better. The forearms aren't too bad, they have a pretty decent shape about them and the geometry works pretty well there. There is some decent shape in the upper arms and shoulders...but it's all joined really strange, so while the bits of it aren't bad...they're disproptionate to to each other and don't mesh well to form the whole. This fists are kinda muttony, but they're nearly identical to what I came up with for the terran marine model, as he's gripping something in both hands...it's a valid solution in my opinion.
The weapon model is an axe for the left hand, and a shotgun for the left. Not very well done models, unfortunatly...the shotgun is a couple of cubes. The axe is...well...they're just not very good models.
I really suggest that Frankie take someone elses mesh, a really well done male figure, and play around with it and modify it (with their permission of course). It'll really help him get intimate with the proportions of the figure, without having to worry about the daunting task of building it at the same time.
Sorry Frankie, but I just can't buy the "alien taking a human form" line...it's too much BS for even me. ; )
He attempted something here and completed it...it has a LOT of problems, and couple of minor technical issues that should have been addressed. We can tell what it is supposed to be, and at 612 polygons it's under the face limit It's certainly a more ambitious model than something made from primitives or bun-bun (our standard for bad work) It's an effort, not a good effort...but an effort none the less. The Animations
"Some people ive showed it to thinks the animations and model are bit strange but i dont think they are, but if you do the reason being is that he is really an alien and taken human form . and but the body has been made by a stupid alien and didnt get the things right. And it dont go out of the bounding box (i think) except for the jump animation(which may look strange but thats due to the jump jets in his boots, and the alien thing)."
Needless to say, they were right. Okay, I don't have a problem with doing an alien model that takes on the form of a human and doesn't get it right...but this isn't what it is. Sorry, can't buy that story.
I'm not going to go into great detail about every sequence, they all share the same basic problems which is a lack of understanding about how a body moves. Not just a human body in particular, but any mass...it all has to obey the laws of physics. The crouch death, and death2 (a tiny bit) have a glimmer of decent movement in them, mostly in the arms. But otherwise, there's just too many problems for me to go into. There are plenty of jiggly vertices, sliding feet, clipping problems, and many occasions when the weapons just don't want to stay in the hands.
Spend some time studying GOOD animation, everyone does this...no one is born with a natural ability to animate. It takes a lot of time studying movement...fortunately, most of us subconciously study the way humans move every day of our life. But, don't just look at it and identify the action, ie "That's a cool run cycle!" Figure out what it is about the animation that makes it look good...try to find the anticipation, the little action that sets up, and leads into the main action. Look for the lines of movement...the straight, powerful moves or the gracful arcs of motion. Notice how the WHOLE body and all it's pieces shifts to compensate for any movement, the secondary motion, how the posture changes to keep itself balanced over it's center of gravity. Look for the follow-through, the way mass continues to move in a direction until it's forces to stop or move another way...this is especially evident in appendages.
It's the only thing I can suggest...just take a bit of time to seriously study this and you'll get better.
Kudos for attempting more complicated movement with the whole figure...too many 1st timeers would be tempted to just wiggle an arm or rotate the head a bit and call it animation. It's unfortunate that it didn't work out better for you, but keep at it and you'll get better and better.
2 stars.
Same skin base as the quake2 male model so you can use all your favorate skins for it with this model. There are loads of ctf skins so if you play it just put the ones you use into the models directory. Also cos i did this the skin mapping is terriable and is about 39% wasted and not glfriendly, blame id not me but i though it was best this way.
At 284x195, These are NOT hardware friendly skins. They do share the same mapping areas as the id male models, so you can copy any skin for that into the Oo directory and us it for the model...It comes with 3 skins, all of which are decent skins at best. The fst skin has some really really nice modeling on the chest armor and boots...very well done...it's probably the best skin of the bunch.
Unfortunatly, the skin seams are very visible in all the skins...they also seem to be kinda flat...more like painted decals than a modeled form, with the exception of fst. They're all detailed pretty well, but it loses so much of that detail with the engine scales these maps down in hardware mode.
The weapon skin is really weak, poorly modeled. There's also some "glowing" pixels on the axe portion of the weapon skin. Should checked for that before shipping the model out. 256x256 skin for the weapon model is just ridiculous....absolutely no need for it to be that big for such small weapons and no detail in the skin itself. Could've gotten away with 128x128, probably even 64x64 and never been able to tell the difference.
The real redeeming quality of the skins is the ability to use any male skin, of which there are hundreds? It's a luxury that I'm not sure if it was worth butchering the skin dimensions and layout for though.
Decent skins, some good things, some bad things...horrid dimensions and fairly high wastage (even if it's id's...it doesn't make it right).
3 stars. No custom sounds. Guess since he can share the male skins, he can share the male sounds. Visible Weapons Support
From the text file again:
"Couldent be arsed doing vweps as the axe would have buggered the skin mapping."
I couldn't have said it better...
Pack Inclusion
Technically speaking, it borders on being acceptable in the packs, but I just can't reccomend it. It has too many asthetic problems. It's a good first effort, just not pack worthy. That's just my opinion though, and thankfully I don't have to make the final desicion on it.
Oo, sporting the rst skin And with the Rampage skin...copied from the male directory review by Wrath
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