Intro
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
The scariest thing to come out of the BBC since rumors of a second series of 'Eldorado' (sorry, this is a British in-joke), has emerged into the Deathmatch scene. The Daleks, the bane of anybody in a bungalow, as all you needed was some stairs to get away from them, have overcome their design flaw, and sprouted legs. Not just two, though, but eight. I'll hand over to Scarecrow's readme for the full story:
It was borne from a conversation with Sysop CoreY Clemmow on Compuserve's Sci-Fi forum. He mentioned that the Paul McGann TV movie version of Doctor WHO would originally have featured 'Spider Daleks'. I asked CoreY if any concept designs existed for the creatures. He replied that they didn't and so I decided to have a go myself. My original design was a little more flamboyant than this, but just as the BBC had financial restrictions, so too, I have triangle restrictions. I have sent the designs to Terry Nation's estate and also the BBC. I also showed John Peel, Author of 'War of the Daleks' - the first novel to feature the Spiders. It met with approval from all sides. This was Scarecrow's first released model, and since then he has become a major talent in Half-Life player models. So that this will just be an evaluation of this model, as I know Scarecrow has improved greatly. But we all have to start somewhere, so all you modellers who are disheartened how your first model turns out, check this one out then look at Scarecrow's later stuff.
The Model
Technically, no problems whatsoever. Low poly with every triangle accounted for, no more optimization required.
As for the look of the model, I can't criticize. It has the same look as Scarecrow's original hi-res version, with the air about it of both spider and Dalek (which would be a fairly major point if it didn't!). The only problems I find is that the weapon is part of the the model, and not separate, which denies any possibility of VWEPS, and it is a little short compared to the Q2 marine, but not much.
If anything, I would have liked to see a bit more detail in the model, like the bumps on top of the head in the original version, and perhaps some more shaping of the legs
No real problems, though, really. An efficient mesh. The Animations
One of the problems in animating a Quake 2 PPM, is exaggerating the animations enough so that they can be seen in the arena. Spider Dalek's animations are all fine, nice and spidery, except that they are all too subtle, and some have an strange smoothness to them. There is not enough bob in the stand animation, and the salute animation, where the Spider Dalek draws it's front two legs in front of it is way to smooth for a machine.
The crouch animation , which is a bug-bear for most animators, isn't low enough, but Scarecrow was aware of this, and this was his first model release. One solution I would have liked to see was, maybe, the body to rotate around it's legs, then lower itself onto it's 'front'. Just an idea...
The basis of the animation is fine, it's just too subtle, plus the crouch problem.
Quite a few flaws on the skin front. The first one to hit you when you fire up NST is that the skin is linked (bad) to the test model path (worse). This isn't a problem for running it in the game, but I feel it should be pointed out as a potential pitfall for new modellers. DON'T LINK THE TRIS.MD2 skin, only the weapon skin needs linking.
Neat is the skin itself, at 48% wasted space on a 44o x 194 skin, it's pretty bad. This could easily go on a 256 x 256 with no loss to it, just by mirroring the sides of the claw and the gun. There is only one skin, and it is fairly plain, but in keeping with the original subject matter.
The weapon...Why does a one-poly weapon need a 136 x 60 skin? It is actually a copy of the default id weapon...A blank 32 x 32 skin would have sufficed, maybe smaller, I haven't checked.
In it's favor, the layout is clear for new skins. Sounds
Great fun. When I first fired up Skinview to have a look at this model, I jumped up to get a view of the top. This jump was accompanied with a familiar cry of: 'EXTERMINATE!'. I promptly spent the next five minutes jumping around the arena with the model shouting 'EXTERMINATE!' and me gigling like a mad-man. There are two other phrases, but the 'EXTERMINATE!' is the important one. Do not pick this model if you like to sneak around. Great fun. Visible Weapons Support Not possible as the weapon is part of the main mesh. Pack Inclusion Some faults, but it works, and a must for all Whovians, I recommend it for inclusion to a pack. Though check out Scarecrow's later stuff if your a Half-Life fan.
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! (says it all, really)
review by Burnt Kona
|
|
