TAC-Ranger
Rating: 8
baseq2/players/ranger
Intro
"TAC ( Tactless Assault Core) - Ranger is a rather large, aggressive, bio-robotic assembly.. yaddah.. yaddah.. designed primarily for the destruction of things other than itself. "
For those of you yearning for an interesting history or story-line, may I suggest your local bookstore, haha. I mean, come on, are you going to download a model to read about it, or frag your friends wild. "Ranger" is the "first ever" PPM designed by author Michael Mellor who, according to him, spent a long, long time working on it. It was actually completed quite a while ago, yet it lacked any skin to be released with, and as you can see for yourself, it was worth the wait. Ranger is a cybernetic monstrosity, perhaps another Strogg experiment in crossing a native lifeform with one of the tortured, captive space marines, in order to create a stronger, more devious and efficient killing machine to populate the dying Strogg militia. He is the newest soldier they will use to combat the alien, human invaders who threaten.. sorry....
Originality
For those of you who may be new to Q2PMP, we do not score models on originality any more. The reason ? Many models that come through are not original at all. Most stem from pre-existing ideas or characters ( nothing wrong with that ) and some of the final scores may be dragged down by a reviewer penalizing a model in this category. So an author may create a fantastic, 5 star model only to have the score drop because of a low originality rating.
The "cyborg" seems to be a somewhat popular theme with PPMs since the first one was released. But its always nice to see the personality that an author details into his subject. According to the author, the idea for Ranger basically came from a sketch he did years ago of what he called "a big nasty robot thing". (So being original is no problem here.) Personally I think it fits rather well into the Quake 2 scene and could easily slide into the ranks of the Strogg forces. (They could use the help, haha..)
The Model
A great model, but a few little flaws. One (which may be a bigger deal to some experienced modelers than your average "fragger") is a few double sided polys and flipped normals in the model. Occasionally this seems to be a byproduct of creating a model in pieces, then bringing them together to form the whole. Then the designer tends to neglect to remove the extra polys at joining points and inside the model where they will never be seen by anyone viewing the model in a DM. Ranger fits in this category with a few of these polys inside the model. Does this do anything to affect the model visually?.. Not really, but the extra faces are enough to bump the poly count up a bit. Models with a high number of faces usually cause a slowdown in DMs with many players or in large areas. There are also a few unnecessary polys that Ranger could have done without (in the arms, front chest, legs) but, according to the author, the the count was not so high to have to remove them all. In fact, in Michael's' defense, he is totally aware of these small problems but felt it wasn't so major as to delay the models' release. (I tend to agree) He also hinted at fixing a few things here and there and possibly release a second version. Although the model is well within our standard range, with a few "nips and tucks" Rangers polys could actually be trimmed down even more which may make him a bit faster in some crowded DMs.
The author was a bit concerned with a few problems with Rangers legs. One was in the thigh/knee area which showed a slight bit of skin stretch in some of the leg movements. The other is the fact that the legs shrink a slight bit when in a crouching stance. Michael attributes this to poor bone setup in the leg area. Personally I really had to look to notice either of these problems and don't find either glitch major enough to criticize. Skin stretch, for one, is pretty normal in any natural movement. (Look at the Rangers neck during the pain and taunt scenes) It is actually pleasing that Michael is this picky, haha, it guarantees us some more great models from him in the future. The short story is, Ranger is another fine example of quality that I hope an authors' first model would have when it is released to our grubby, fraggin' hands. In fact, wait until you see his second model.. it is almost complete. ; )
Score: Eight
The Animations
As we all know, this is the "meat and potatoes" of a model. Ranger is not much of a slouch here either. . From the snap of the head during pain sequences, to the the way Ranger's body tends to swing in order to balance the larger "scythe" arm, Michael created some very fluid and lifelike motions, which illustrate the hulking behemoth Ranger appears to be. Save for a few of the taunts, the model sticks fairly close to the bounding box during most animations. One instance which he does not, and was more noticeable than others, is when Ranger is crouching in a low ceiling area (Base1 "crawlspace" is a good example) During the firing or pain animations, his head and part of his shoulders tend to disappear into the roof. There are not many areas like this in most DMs (a few airducts here and there) where this would be very apparent. The taunts were effective and well performed, (don't worry Michael the "cut throat" motion is implemented in a few models, so we know it was not copied. Besides, it is most appealing in this model with that cool arm.) The stance where Ranger takes a bow, was an especially nice "human" touch to a beast like this. However, I just did not understand what he was doing in the "flip" sequence? Is Ranger smashing the ground with his "fist", or slashing at his opponent ? Regardless, Kudos to the author in doing a fine and fluid job where it counts. 4 stars here..
Score: Eight
The Skin
As stated earlier, Ranger was completed for a while but lacked a skin to be released with. I'm not sure how he came to ask James "GWOT" Edwards (Terminator model) to create the skin, but he was an excellent choice. Unfortunately he did only one. However the skin he created uses rich, vibrant colors and a level of detail that really breathes life and personality into Ranger. His maniacal facial expression is priceless, I could almost picture the drool coming out of that devious looking grin, and the models armor is detailed down to the tread on the soles of his boots. The skin itself was made in the 256x256 skin size (which, luckily, is becoming the growing norm) and has an unbelievably low 8% waste. It would have been nice to see a "wirebase skin" for other artists to start creating some skins for Ranger, but most skin artists could use GWOT's skin as a template.
The only problem I could find with Rangers skin, was that there was only one.. (argh) It is usually nice to get a variety of skins with a new model. Gameplay gets a bit boring (and confusing) when a bunch of people are using the same model with the same skin. I am almost sure there are artists already working on more, so when they are done, send them over to Michael a.s.a.p. (There are a few now posted on his page already) At present, he is still hoping for some CTF skins . So let's get moving people. 5 stars for GWOT's creation, less a half star for the extreme lack of variety the model was released with.
Score: Nine
Sounds
No original sounds.... (but the author recommends the "Cyborg" sounds)
Visible Weapons Support
No. Not feasible with the weapon built in to the main model.
Pack Inclusion
You can be sure to see this menace in the next pack.
" Looking for some help ?? "
" Man I hate that Quad !!"
review by Hunter
author name Michael "Magarnigal" Mellor and James "Gwot" Edwards
tris.md2
Vertices 469
Mapping Vertices 483
Polygons 670
Skin size 256x256
Skin Wasted Space 8
weapon.md2
Vertices 3
Mapping Vertices 1
Polygons 1
Skin size 8x8
Skin Wasted Space ?
relevant links
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