Intro YF-19 is a variable fighter from Macross. Created as part of Project Super Nova, The YF-19 has the ability to convert from a fighter to a robot and back, and is controlled by a human pilot within. While this model was a valiant attempt to recreate the original Macross Mecha, it falls short of this goal, leaving us with a model of average quality that only hints to the beauty of its origin. Originality This hasn't been the first Macross-based model we've received, and it probably won't be the last. It's not really that original. The
Model sTuPiD fOoL was
really doomed from the start when he chose the YF-19 as his subject
to model. Take a look at these two pictures to see what I
mean: The YF-19 in the drawing is highly detailed, and virtually all surfaces are
curved. These characteristics, while appealing to the eye, also make
for an enormous polygon count and make transformation to jet mode
impossible. To compensate for this, sTuPiD fOoL did the only thing
he could do. He took out the curves. This allowed him to create a
model with a polygon count sufficient for pack requirements (764
faces), but robbed the model of much of its anime style. The Animations The animations, on the other hand, are dull and ordinary. YF-19 doesn't walk, but rather hovers over the ground, presumably through jet power. While this is an interesting idea in theory, it makes the walk animations mind-numbingly dull if you don't do it right. If you're going to do hovering, folks, at least have the model bob up and down slightly or something. Also, the taunts are pretty much id Software standard, with YF-19 reloading its weapon as the only real variation.
The death animations could also use work. The final frames of the death animations do not correspond with the id male player with respect to the location of the head and feet, and in some cases, YF-19 is partly out of the bounding box. This is especially true for the last death animation, where it goes almost completely out of the bounding box. This makes it more difficult to frag the dead bodies that may clutter up a deathmatch.
sTuPiD fOoL apparently thought he'd spice the model up a bit by having spent cartridges fly out of the gun as it fires. This looks good in Q2Modeller and the like, but in deathmatch you almost never notice it. Aside from the fact that the cartridges go out of the bounding box and can easily disappear into a wall, they're also easily obscured by the angle of view, and they're too easily confused for hyperblaster fire due to their yellow-orange color.
Although dull, the animations are fairly fluid, with no obvious errors outside of those involving the bounding box. It almost fells like the author may have rushed YF-19, especially since I see attention to detail in some places that matches some of the better model authors. YF-19 comes with two skins. One is the default skin, and the other is a simple blank skin for skin artists. The blank skin is the same as something you could produce automatically with NST. The default skin is among the worst deathmatch skins I've ever seen. It has little or no shading, and it's bright white, so anyone using it might as well be wearing a big neon sign that says "Frag me!" It's really a shame, too, because the model isn't nearly as bad as its skin, and would benefit greatly from an expert skin job. However, the author confessed that he did a rush job, only intending the skin to be temporary, so I'm going to show a little mercy here.
The skin mapping itself seem sell done. I should note, however, that both the skins for tris.md2 and weapon.md2 are 320x200, which means that even though they have fewer pixels than a 256x256 skin, they will be resized by 3D acceleration hardware. The Sounds YF-19 doesn't come with any sounds. I suggest that anyone who wants to use the model copy sound from Fuel or some other robotic player model. Visible Weapons Support YF-19 doesn't support the Visible Weapons patch, but I see no reason why support couldn't be added later. Pack InclusionYF-19 is just barely eligible for pack inclusion. Because it's so large, it skirts both horizontal and verticle size requirements. Any bigger and this model simply wouldn't have made it.
review by Space Dog
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