Wirehead Studios

Oh. If you want to play with Doom weapons, you should rip the weapon models from the JDoom Resource Pack on www.doomsdayhq.com . The JDRP's weapons are much closer to the original sprites than the one in Gernerations or Generations Arena, and are in MD2 format, perfect for insertion into Quake II. The super shotgun and pistol especially are the spitting image of the originals and you ought to study them to see how you can improve the Gen Arena models..

It's generally a no-no to take someone's work and say "Oh, you should make it look like so-n-so's".  This equates to a slap in the face to the artist.  Saying my models "need improvement" and then pointing out someone else's work is something I get very easily offended by, especially when I look at said work and it's well below my own standards, so don't be surprised if I bite your head off for it.

There are two entirely different philosophies behind Generations Arena's models, and the ones in the JDoom resource pack.  Gen Arena occurs in the Quake 3 Arena universe.  This means we have some artistic license to make things look however the hell we damned well please.  It also means we can take full advantage of the Quake 3 Arena engine and shader language.  The design philosophy behind most of Gen's weapons are to create new, distinct models that pay homage to the originals while adding some of our own personal embelishments.  JDoom, on the other hand, is an enhancement to the ORIGINAL DOOM.  That means the artist has the goal of making models look EXACTLY like the original sprites (I'll get to that in a moment).

The models I made for Gen are designed with animation in mind mechanically, and you've not even seen a taste of what that's going to look like, and I'm not offering any spoilers up either.  They were also, where possible, patterned after real world weapons, specifically:

Pistol - Taurus PT945 .45 ACP pistol
12 Gauge - Remington 870 with magazine extendsion, extension clamp, and combat barrel.

The Combat Shotgun was taken from an actual side-by-side as well, but thanks to the pre-.99a HD crash I don't have the info on which model it was.  The pistol was made a .45 because, well, .9mm's suck, I had access to an actual weapon to pattern it after, and I did not have access to a 1911 or I would have used that instead.  I also had the actual shotgun to pattern the 12 Gauge off of, all the way down to the action and trigger.

I suppose what ticks me off the most about this is that you don't give me or Tabun any credit at all here.  I took a look at the model pack.  You know what most of the weapons are?  Gen Q2 rips.  All the third-person weapon models are, and so is the first-person shotgun, just with a retexture.  I don't know whether or not they had permission to do that, so I won't comment on that.  Don't even get me started on the monster models, and their quality or lack thereof...  Of the first-person view models that look somewhat decent I'd say the plasma and rocket launcher are the only ones I like, and even then I see glaring mesh and animation errors.  See, I'm not content to just hack something together, slap a skin on it, and be happy with it if the model contains mistakes, and you sitting here comparing what we've done to someone else's work "just because his mesh looks more like the original" without taking even a moment to apreciate the amount of detail and effort we put into our work makes me fume.  Have you ever made a model, a skin, or attempted to do so?  I might suggest you give it a try before knocking Gen's models.

What Tab stated about retexture packs holds true for model packs as well.  This is why I've not used any of the model packs for playing Doom, because frankly, they all suck, and I can give you reasons as to why they suck.  The game feels completely WRONG compared to how Doom plays out of the box.  A model or texture pack is supposed to high-detail something, not change how it feels completely.  The animations on the monsters are all sloppy, the meshes and skins are amateurish, and to me it does not do Id's original work any credit.  To me the model pack as a whole does NOT reproduce the feel of Doom at all, and in that respect fails miserably.  Now if this is how you like Doom to look, hey, play it however you like, but don't go bashing our work over it like this without expecting a strong and defensive reaction as a result.

I look at what Odium is doing, he's inspired by the Gen models and is matching our style a bit.  They say immitation is the highest form of flattery, but at the same time, he's also adding his own embelishments and interpretation of style, but in the end it's his own work.  That's what art does.  Ever hear a singer mimic certain singing styles, and offer their own interpretation on a work?  That's what Gen is!  That's what Q2 Evolved is!  But see, I don't go over to his site and say "You should make your stuff look more like this, or this, or this because that's how we did it."  Nor does Tab.  Odium doesn't do that to us either.  We could say, "We did something this way and this way on our stuff," and offer tips, or food for thought, but the goal is to remain respectful of someone's work and let them do it their own way.  Odium is being extremely respectful of ours, he drops by and shows us what he's done, asks for critique, sees if we're "ok" with it since he does mimic our style, and came up front to us to let us know what he was doing in the first place since we've had so many people try to rip our stuff off in the past.  Since his work does look very similar at times this prevented any misunderstandings.  I really wish other people would take this approach!  This is the same approach we took when dealing with Id Software's intellectual property rights.  The result?  We're legal with Id, Odium isn't trampling on our stuff, and we're all happy for it!  This to me is an excellent example of how things should be - taking pride in your work, and being respectful of others who do the same.  You don't see the modeler behind JDoom's first-person weapons showing up on our board telling us what to do, do you?  Nor do we go around on other people's boards telling them how to do their stuff either.  We can hold strong opinions and still be respectful.

As  for the Gen Q2 models... you have to understand something.  Those of us who have played Gen Q2 know it as it was played.  We're familiar with the models and style of play it had.  All I did with the pack posted above is clean it up a bit and sync up some of the animations better.  I did this a long time ago since I still sometimes play Gen Q2.  I did it for my own personal benefit, I had never originally intended it on being something released to the world.  For a little background...  Doom Unleashed was my first modeling project.  From the ashes of Generations for Quake II, Doom Unleashed arose, and opened the door for me to become involved with Generations Arena.  I loved the concept of Gen Q2, and when I saw it was a dead project I was quite displeased, so in Doom Unleashed I was able to return a little bit of that back to the Quake Community as a nod to nostalgia, and to try to keep some of the work that was put into Gen Q2 from passing out of memory completely.

Which brings me to my final point in all of this.  Even if I liked the JDoom models better, I have no permission nor right to rework them to be used in Gen Q2.  The model pak above I did have permission to do, as it is a derivative of what I did with Doom Unleashed.  I'm not about to go ripping off someone else's work and posting it around publicly without permission, and I have absolutely zero interest in making a new model pack for Gen Q2.

I did not say rework them, I said look at them and see how they approached such an unbelivable similarity. Besides, the Strogg models look almost exactly like the originals except they are far more detailed, so it seems only logical that the same level of resemblance should extend to the other Generations (except Earth--Id did not know or care what any actual WW2 weapons looked like and pretty much tossed pixels together into things vaguely resembling guns and hired a bunch of random guys off the streets and had them recite German lines witn NO regard for pronunciation, grammar, or accent. It was incredibly amateur and most WW2-themed Wolf 3D mods today use more realistic weapon graphics and sounds).

The Strogg stuff looks exactly like an uodated Q2, so why not have the Doom stuff look like updated Doom stuff? Hell, the resemblance with Strogg models is so strong that the only real difference, besides detail, is that the machinegun's stock has a different shape.

/me points his railgun in woolies direction and says to pho "I think I can hit him from here '

I did look at them, and you said earlier to rework them:

I don't see an "unbelievable similarity" except on maybe the plasma gun, but for the sake of refuting your point, I'll bite.  It's simple.  The .9mm looks like a Beretta, the SSG was made of three spherical rear sections with two large cylinders sticking out forward.  Really difficult to model there, and you only have to see it from one direction when playing.  I had to make an entire gun that had to be suitable from both first AND third person views, with the capacity to be animated at a later time.  Have you even seen what a side-by-side shotgun actually looks like?  Here, take a look, real world and our version:

(http://www.gunshop.com/merkel_2000/merkel_122_close.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/ssg1.jpg)
(http://www.zabalahermanos.com/berri-1.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/ssg2.jpg)
(http://www.incisionidassa.com/shotguns/shotgun9.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/ssg3.jpg)

Pistol:

(http://dealerease.net/catalog/images/taurpic1945041.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/pistol.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/pistol2.jpg)

And I have to split this since I hit the per-post image limit.

Now, comparison from the JDoom weapons and ours, first person views:

(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/jd_pist.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/pist_fp.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/jd_ssg.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/ssg_fp.jpg)

And something the JDoom view weapons do not have to do:

(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/pist_tp.jpg)
(http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead/phoenix/pics/misc/ssg_tp.jpg)

I'd like to think I know what I'm doing here.

Tabun laughs out loud.

Those models look better than ours? Ahahahah. Hahah. Hah. You were joking, right? I certainly hope so, or I may be a hallucinating crack-addict 24/7. Not entirely ruled out, mind. Just checking.

But seriously. Getting something to resemble a low resolution, 256 color sprite bitmap is easy. Making something look good isn't. If you want something to look like a sprite, make a damned sprite. Never have we claimed at any time that we set out to make Generations resemble original games exactly. We set out to recreate the feel and improve the graphics as we saw fit. Artistic freedom is a biggie here too.

The Strogg models are very different from their originals. I'm not even going into detail here, you'll just have to accept this as I have not only studied them very closely for some reason, but am also the resident Quake2 addict :]
This, too, is e-ok and entirely following plan.

As usual, Pho's making a lot of sense, so take the time to read that huge rant ;]

And since you slap us in the face, I'll have to return the favor: By blatantly combining a presentation of your ignorance and personal bias with a sneering stab at two honest small-time game-artists that still honourably create their own content, you only make yourself look stupid.
This is as harsh as I will post for now, but if thou doth not repenteth, I shall do my worst (best) Lowtax impersonation here. Cower, mortal.

In reality, JDOOM wants Q3Gen's weapon models cos they're a damn sight smarter looking than any MD2 out there. :slippy_thumb:  :thumb:

Well i dont want to say the Jdoom models suck because i think they did a fine job with Jdoom in general but you simply cant compare them to the gen models. Now i would understand your point better if perhaps you were talking about the monster models for resurgence ( im just saying) it would certainly be easier than making new models.

I'm not saying JDoom models suck, just that Gen's models look nicer by default cos they're MD3's.

Isn't there an 800-poly limit for MD2s?

The format nor the amount of polygons is directly related to the aesthetic quality of a model.

dont even get me started about polycount
well i think the gen models look awesome like they are, the  FX  kind of does look VERY outdated on most weapons but this was ment to be cuz were talking doom and stuff here, right?

you can easily do great models with like that 800 poly limit, the main thing is that if you at example dont see every side you can save polys here and there.

if you have a great texture artist you dont need to worry about modelling details, because the texture takes it away.

or the bumpmaps if you use any....just take a look at farcry and the polybla stuff.

The graphics look dated because it's Quake 3! It''s never going to look like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 until somebody does a graphics engine mod like Tenebre for Q1 or Q2 Evolved for... Q2.

The weapons look fantastic. They look like Q3-ish versions of the Doom weapons, which, as far as I can tell, was the idea -- and they still look better than anything originally from Q3.

Weapon FX (Assuming this is about sprites) is not what we were discussing here :]
That said, those are still under construction, and I'm sure Phoenix will have one or two surprises once .99f is out the door.

Most weapon effects, such as muzzle flashes, smokepuffs, rocket trails, etc, are currently placeholders.  Some effects are finalized, like the BFG10K explosion, but most are not.  Now bear in mind, some effects, once finalized, will look deliberately dated owing to the fact that they're hailing back to the old games and we want them to be recognized.  That's not to say we can't make them look better than the originals, but you have to get a certain blend of old and new together to make it work.  It's been a matter of prioritization during the development cycle.  Some things just get done before others.

I don't understand. This could be interpreted two ways:

"Neither the format nor the number of polygons is direcly related to the quality of the model."
"The format, not the number of polygons is directly related to the quality of the model."

Which one do you mean?

I'm not psychic, but i'm betting he meant the former.  pho, would you be so kind as to toss out some ballpark polycounts on our stuff?

If I type 'nor', assume I mean 'nor' :]
Rumors of the amount of typo's I make have been greatly exaggerated.

Just in case there's still confusion about that statement: I mean to say that it is very well possible to make horribly ugly models for Doom3, just like it is possible to make beautiful models for Quakeworld. Any MD3 can also be converted to MD2 and vice versa, which makes this irrelevant in a much broader sense.

I was never pointing to the MD2s in overall quality (in fact, they MUST be kind of primitive because dozens of them may be on-screen at once. But they're getting better than they use to be), I'm just saying that they look like 3D versions of the original weapons, which is how I always thought updates should be carried out--make them look like the originals, only more detailed. (Tabun, where are the myriad liberties you claim to have taken with the Q2 weapons, besides the shape of the machinegun's stock and some changes to the  big orange thing on the top of the railgun?)

As for the Doom pistol being a Beretta, its shape is a lot sleeker and more rounded than the Beretta pistols shown at http://world.guns.ru (http://world.guns.ru) (it's a pretty good site for anything gun-related). The Doom pistol is kind of tricky to imagine because it doesn't seem to be 100% perspective-correct. Trying to draw it in other angles makes it not turn out quite right. I think they drew the gun mostly by hand.

I've always been alert to inconsistencies in a game. It still annoys me that the chainguns used by the chaingunners in Doom are a different color and fire with a different sound. Why are professional game developers so sloppy at times?

(Since jDoom supports MD3s as well as MD2s, they really ought to convert the MD2s to MD3s to take advantage of the better animation system and the limit removal)

From one direction only.  Please pay attention to what I post, I already stated the JDoom view models only have to be seen from behind whereas ours have to be seen from any direction in 3D space.  I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself.

You're not in charge of the project.  I am.

I'm sure Tab will have something to say, but I'm really not up to justifying our design techniques to you any further at this point.  If you're too lazy to examine the weapons in detail before making a criticism I don't think you deserve a detailed response.  Slothful ignorance will not be rewarded here.

It's a 9mm Beretta, trust me.  The single-barreled shotgun in Doom was also a toy they photographed from behind.

Well the shotgun noise sounds beefier, so maybe they did it for "feel".  If you don't like the way games are designed, you have the option to either make your own, mod what you don't like, or don't play them.  Also I see blatant ignorance in the fact that you seem to have no concept of just what is involved in creating a full-blown retail game.  Not everything that does not make sense to you is "sloppiness".  Sometimes there are good reasons why things are a certain way that are not apparent on the surface.

Per Dr. Jones's request...  Most of our weapon models average from 1000 - 1500 polygons.  The largest amount for any single gun model is around 2400.  The smallest I believe is 800 or so.  The amount of geometric complexity depends on the physical design as well as the style of the weapon.

What's being ignored in all of this is the texture mapping and object separation.  This is something you don't ever see unless you examine the md3's, but we've designed all of our models so that the textures render with the least amount of visual distortion and seaming as is possible, and minimize wasted texture space as much as possible..  That's a large part of how we're able to get as high a level of detail as we can and though Gen takes up a lot of memory with textures, it would take up to 30%-50% MORE if we weren't so diligent about this.  Tab and I both know how to generate extremely efficient texture maps with skinning in mind so that he's able to dress the models up extremely well.  Also, any part of a model that requires special effects, like glows, energy shaders, etc, have to be mapped out so that the shader will handle properly.  This requires extensive knowledge of the Q3 shader language, functionality, and also a clear idea of what you want to do effect-wise before you even begin to texturemap and split the various parts of a mesh into individual objects.

Where this whole argument is stemming from has nothing to do with quality, and everything to do with style preference.  Style is something unique to the artist, and remains at their discretion, and the discretion of those in charge of the project.  I don't mind if you prefer a specific style over what we've done with the Doom weapons, but our quality of work is what is being completely ignored by you, and this is what's generating such a heavy backlash by us.  We take pride in what we do, and detest ignorant criticisms.

Sadly, it's always the people with the least experience and know-how that are the most eager to make bold claims and demands.
I shall not dissappoint ye faithful reader, and respond to this:


Obviously I'm not going to through the pains of posting screenshots of texture and model details. My time may not be priceless, but it is definitly too valuable for that. I suggest taking some dried frog pills, if you have trouble spotting the differences.

Other than that, I'm pretty much done with this. If you're trying to help, think it over first, do your homework and be reasonable. If not, what the hell is the point of stating your dislikes so expansively here?

woolie , if you dont like a weapon in game , then dont use it .

Games are just like everything else in life then.

I still can't believe woolie is being so

well how can i put this so as not to offend

hmmmm

you know i can't, if anybody wants to know what i really thing about woolie, e message me

Tab and Pho's work is amazing  :thumb:

and quiet frankly Gen is all about gameplay

yeah is nice that we have top notch looking models for the weapons, that in my opinion
(and that's all it is so don't bite my head off) as it adds to the game

and how the hell can he say they don't look like the originals, apart from the doom pistol which i always though looked out of place, honestly a 19th century pistol in the 25th century, is a complete joke

the beretta model of gen suits the doom class more, as they are more like the traditional weapons of this era, of which other than the plasma based weaponary are spot on.

i mean if you gonna dis the gens doom like weapons, why not have a go at slipgate as well yeah

or strogg

why ?

because you can't, the weapon models that have been made and textured by Tab and Pho, and i dare , here me DARE !!!

anybody else to have a go

beacause the Doom, Quake and Quake 2 weapons and damn near perfect, and with animations, we'll all end up dying a lot more, as dribbling and playing is hard to do

want to see a crap model, play J-Doom

want to see a work of art Look no further than this web page

Stifle!

I think it's time to terminate this topic.  :rules: