HDTP Release #1 Discussion Thread

Phasmatis · Post by **Phasmatis** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 3:22 pm

Oh yes thank you for reminding me Jonas, the urinal and toilet water is different because the water was modulated in the original and 3ds2de doesn't support that effect so I couldn't do it.

Yixian · Post by **Yixian** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 3:34 pm

Screenshots please!!

ZylonBane · Post by **ZylonBane** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 4:24 pm

Okay, first thing I did on firing up HDTP was turn around to check out the much-improved police boat. Aaaaaaand... not improved. Damn. Oh well.

Most of the updated stuff looks great. But--

The updated fern looks weird. The leaves and stems seem to be bending inwards and upwards, when in real life it's the opposite.

The Gunther model's eyes are way more RED than I remember from the beta shots. Like, ridiculously red. Like Christopher Lloyd's eyes at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit red. And what's with the rotting flesh on his arms? Gunther isn't some slapped-together Frankenstein's monster-- he's an incredibly expensive, expertly-maintained government agent.

Deus.EXE · Post by **Deus.EXE** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 5:56 pm

The New Gunther can't hold the FlameThrow right...

warman · Post by **warman** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 6:59 pm

Deus.EXE wrote:The New Gunther can't hold the FlameThrow right...

He glitched with me and ended up sliding arpund like a cleaning bot.

The unreal Murray · Post by **The unreal Murray** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 8:31 pm

Shodan · Post by **Shodan** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 9:59 pm

ZylonBane wrote:Okay, first thing I did on firing up HDTP was turn around to check out the much-improved police boat. Aaaaaaand... not improved. Damn. Oh well.

Most of the updated stuff looks great. But--

The updated fern looks weird. The leaves and stems seem to be bending inwards and upwards, when in real life it's the opposite.

The Gunther model's eyes are way more RED than I remember from the beta shots. Like, ridiculously red. Like Christopher Lloyd's eyes at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit red. And what's with the rotting flesh on his arms? Gunther isn't some slapped-together Frankenstein's monster-- he's an incredibly expensive, expertly-maintained government agent.

It did say that vehicles were being released at another time...

Gunthers arm isn't rotting flesh, its where his mechanical muscles have been implanted, the point was that he wasn't maintained in the game, he was an outdated piece of technology that was discarded in place of the new, nano-augmented agents.

Phasmatis · Post by **Phasmatis** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:38 pm

I just want to say a big thanks to everyone who posted.

The criticisms have been great! There haven?t been any ?ur mod sucks, dont bofer workin on it? posts so far, they have all given us something to work on so we shall get on with tweaking and fixing.

This is the first release and we expected a lot of problems and flaws, a perfect mod release just doesn?t happen, especially first time.

Rest assured Gunther?s animations will be looked at plus I expect pretty much all the other objects mentioned too.

Keep those crits coming!

Thanks again.

fub · Post by **fub** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:30 am

ur mod sucks, dont bofer workin on it

also it looks really great. i spotted a texture bug on one of the barrels, but i guess that's what you get for an early release.

Jetsetlemming · Post by **Jetsetlemming** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:03 am

You know, about the seam in Gunther's face, I thought it was on purpose. Re-attaching his face around a shiny new metal skull. >_> Course, right down the middle of the face is a really shitty place for the docs to put that seam, but yeah. Come to think of it, the original gunther's skin tone looked dead to me.

Like it had been sloppily re-attached as an afterthought after opening up his head and tinkering with it.

James T · Post by **James T** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:26 am

Jonas wrote:Christ, this thread is long.

I just tried out the HDTP, and uh... fuck. It's amazing. I did notice somebody criticized the animations of the crowbar, and I just want to say that if you mess with those animations, I will be mad. I love them! They bring a whole new "WHACK!" to brutally killing people.

Aww, but dude, it's not a whack right now, it's more like a 'rap', like JC's banging on a door with his cane!

It's alright though, I guess, it looks nice and different. I really think the vertical baton swipe should be longer though -- I wanna slam people across the back of the head!

Phasmatis wrote:Gunther:
This isn't an excuse but just to let you know what I had to do. 69 sequences in total all had to be reanimated by myself, the walk sequence alone took around a week if not longer to do and when you work on the same thing for that amount of time you begin to loose sight of how good it is. Now that I have stepped back from the animations for a while I will take another look and tweak them.

His mouth animation is a tough one. The lip-syncing it awful in DX, I really wish there was a way to correct it but unfortunately we can't. Originally the mouth sequences only had 1 frame. I put 2 in to try and make his mouth a little more animated, however it doesn't show.

The raising of his arms during a speech is straight from the original I made it a little different by tipping his head when he raises both arms in a kind of shrug motion.

I can't use the original animations because the models are not boned. I don't know the correct term for it but each frame is a different mesh and the engine tweens between these meshes to produce the animation, so like I said above I needed to reanimate him completely. I will be looking in to the animations again.

The teeth do in fact have a proper texture, he even has gums, I can post the texture if you like. The engine blurs textures a lot and unless you are up close to his face you can't see the definition.

Hi Phas! I'm glad you appreciate the crits, 'cos I didn't mean to sound sneery at what I'm sure must have been a massive amount of work. I think that his running animation will probably look heaps better once he's hunching forward in more of a runner's stance, 'cos the arms and legs seem to move fine. I just had a look at the walking animation, and it kinda has a similar problem, in that he's ramrod-straight -- it looks a bit like he's still in 3ds Max

It's hard to know what to recommend without fiddling with it myself (and I haven't animated in 6 years, yikes!), but I think perhaps if he had his shoulders back, chest puffed up in kind of a "pompous, threatening pugilist" manner, it would look more natural, and very 'Gunther'. I think he should definitely keep his fists clenched, too -- Gunther doesn't sleep... he waits.

The open hands while he's running give kind of a nice 'T-1000' look to it though.

I know what you mean about the arm-movements coming straight from the original. ...Now that I look at it a few times, I'm coming to like it more, and the shrug is good -- I think it might be good if, when he waves his arm, he presents his palm slightly, in an 'explaining' kind of way (body language isn't easy to talk about online, is it!

). If you can stop him lifting both arms at once though, it'd help, 'cos that still looks Donkey-Kong-ish.

I think the lip-synching problem is kind of random -- sometimes his mouth stops at the right time (like on my latest jailbreak), other times it doesn't. So there's probably not much to be done about it, unless you can speed it up a touch or something, so there's less time for the movements to keep going after he's said his line. I think the mouth animation itself is actually very good, you should be pleased with that -- I do really think something's gotta give with the teeth though. Maybe it could be remedied somewhat by animating his mouth so that it shows less tooth? It wouldn't be a perfect fix, but I really am just seeing a white block -- the engine must blur the teeth texture into oblivion.

Maybe upping the contrast on the teeth texture would help, I dunno.

Jetsetlemming · Post by **Jetsetlemming** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:10 am

Gunther's got teeth, well detailed teeth. It's just too small a detail to show up well at any distance but kissing.

James T · Post by **James T** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:38 am

Heheh, I see... Yeah, with a bit of squinting in-game, I saw the outlines of the teeth. Perhaps lower gums and more 'shadow' between teeth (like a pillow emboss) would help... On the other hand, with the in-game blurring, it could end up looking like fully grey teeth that way. Oy!

edit: Another gripe with the baton: Switch weapons from the baton to another weapon, and, uh, JC's hand bobs back up again before he changes weapons. Not sure why that's happening.

PV · Post by PV » Sun Oct 01, 2006 9:40 am

*snif* so beautifull
=P

Nah I really like it, like others I didn't saw the most obvious changes at first. surely I doesn't look _different_ but it surely looks _better_ .

Except for a few things... hehe

*Houseplant leaves (I'm talking about the one with the feathery leaves here)
are too light, also very light at the edges, which looks odd. I'dd darken em up. Other houseplants look fantastic.
*Water container: I think the part with the water would look better if it had a more blue/cyan tint.
*Large crates: try to darken up the corners of the framework abit maybe.
I also noticed it *slides* when you push it, it's very very subtle but it's there. Something wrong with collision I think.
*Pinball machine looks WAY too good? Is that a 256*256 texture?!

*Gunther: I'm going to have to agree with his arm augmentations looking rather over-the-top. It just looks like they took him to the junkyard and stacked stuff into his arms. Sorry to put it like that...

I'm also having problems with the way he walks and stands. His walk feels rather mechanical. There's allot of subtelty in the way the torso moves during a walk. the original had this a little more, you don't notice it unless you look for it - the way it should be...

some tidbits that might help...

I also noticed his back looks really straight, gives a tense pose.
The old Gunther still had a little bend in his spine.

*Crowbar animation is good, but I'm sure you could make it even better...

Animating isn't easy, and certainly not with stuff like walks, which we see people do all the time in life.

Anyway, I'll quit the bullshiting and give you a thumbs up.
I'm really looking forward to the final release.

Post by **DDL** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 9:48 am

When you say 'bobs back up again', do you mean the last few frames where you can see the hand + folded baton? I think that's intentional: JC lowers the baton, folds it by pressing in into his other hand/chest below the field of view, then you see it again briefly as he stows the folder baton away somewhere.