[RELEASED] Unreal HD Skins [UT] [227]

[Hyper]

I like them, Lightning.

[Kajgue]

Good work with your progress through this.

I notice that the new stinger, although much more detailed, is slightly darker. I guess that darkness sort of lowers the metallic effect, maybe it might be a suggestion to make it just 'slightly' brighter? Depends what you think.

Either way, well done with the progress you've made.

[Lightning_Hunter]

I notice that the new stinger, although much more detailed, is slightly darker. I guess that darkness sort of lowers the metallic effect, maybe it might be a suggestion to make it just 'slightly' brighter? Depends what you think.

Yeah, that is often a common symptom of detailing textures.  Most high-res projects I've seen contain textures that are slightly darker than their original counterparts (including Diehard's texture set). I noticed this myself, and think it has to do with the detailing process.  Most old games had bright textures that looked almost cartoonish, so I think most artists choose to darken them up to look more real.  I will try brightening up the Stinger, and see what it looks like.  If it loses detail in the process, then I might just leave it how it is. 

I might also have simply forgotten to brighten that particular screenshot (I usually increase the brightness in Photoshop, because UT99 takes dark screenshots in general).

Edit:  Comparing the two screenshots of the old stinger and new stinger makes me realize that I did indeed forget to increase the brightness of the HD skin screenshot (take a look at the background brightness).  I will still take a look at the HD skin though.

Edit #2:  I updated the skin a bit.  I think it looks more true to the original now:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/StingerHDupdated_1.jpg[/img]

Original version to compare:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/StingerOld.jpg[/img]

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

http://www.klankaos.com/TextureMergerUT99.zip

Try this, i examined a steel barrel and it appeared to work properly.

Thanks to Han & Masterkent for crappity smacking linker errors.

Smirf for DDS import code.

[Lightning_Hunter]

http://www.klankaos.com/TextureMergerUT99.zip

Try this, i examined a steel barrel and it appeared to work properly.

Thanks to Han & Masterkent for  crappity smacking linker errors.

Smirf for DDS import code.

Awesome, thank you all for putting that effort in to it!  This will really come in handy later on.

Now that there is a working mutator that does not lag, I will likely not release a modified UnrealShare or UnrealI.  However, I will be using this texture merger for about 75 skins I plan to release for RTNPUE (the beta skins and all).  I have decided to include those skins in a special HD edition of RTNPUE, because I do not want the HD skin mutator to check for too much.  Also, all the RTNPUE files are external files, which means I do not have to modify any system files (which is really a bad practice anyway).

Thanks again.  I will test this soon.

[Lightning_Hunter]

Completed the Razor Jack and GES Bio Rifle:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/RazorHD.jpg[/img]
Old:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/RazorOld.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/BioHD.jpg[/img]
Old:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/BioOld.jpg[/img]

[Lightning_Hunter]

Bleh, the Rifle was the most annoying weapon to work with so far. The skin is pretty stretched over certain parts, and the model is kind of warped. I had to tweak it for hours to look right.

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/RifleHD.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/RifleOld.jpg[/img]

[Lightning_Hunter]

Here is the Minigun:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/MinigunHD.jpg[/img]

Old:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/MinigunOld.jpg[/img]

[Lightning_Hunter]

I never did like the original ASMD skin much. I always felt it was very blurry and low quality. It is hard to even tell what the red stuff is. I made the assumption that it is some kind of acid/fluid coming from the ASMD, and ran with that idea. Here is the result:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/ASMDHD_1.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/ASMDOld.jpg[/img]

[subzer0]

That red stuff on the asmd is most likely blood.

[yrex .]

It's a worn out red paint.

If it was acid/fluid then the weapon would either be very badly engineered, or seriously damaged so that stuff is leaking.

And it's not blood - I would rather expect blood on weapons like the chainsaw.

[Lightning_Hunter]

I thought about it as possibly being paint also. I even tried to make a second version with paint, and see what people think - but it turned out horribly. No matter what I did, it just didn't look good. This version ended up much better. Besides, the red stuff in the version I made can pass for whatever people want it to.

[Krull0r]

As usual great work! I wish I can modify uv maps ( skins for meshes ) like you.

I like the way you reworking the skins. Is very close to the original but way better!

Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing your progress on your project.

[Lightning_Hunter]

As usual great work! I wish I can modify uv maps ( skins for meshes )  like you.

Thanks.  Although it can be annoying, I have worked with a lot of these old models before.  I did some high-res skins for Quake, and those models were far worse to work with!  It takes way too much patience sometimes...  By the way, I wish I could map like you!   ;D

I like the way you reworking the skins. Is very close to the original but way better!

I am glad to hear someone say that.  My goal with this project was to keep the skins as faithful as possible.  I wanted them to look almost identical from a distance, but high quality close up.  As such, this project was not about redrawing skins from scratch, but instead using layers of each part of the skin to manually sharpen them (by adding shadows, highlights, and detail textures).  The process usually involves manually air brushing each part of the skin to remove blurriness and pixels, and sharpening up corners/edges.

Anyway, here is the Flak cannon.  I based this skin on a version created by J-Rts over at UnrealSP.org.  I scrapped some parts created by him to make it more faithful to the original.  In the end, I did about 5-6 hours of work on it (longer than doing the Stinger skin from scratch, ironically).
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/FlakHD_1.jpg[/img]

Old:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/FlakOld.jpg[/img]

Here is the version created by J-Rts that I based some parts on:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/FlakJTS.jpg[/img]

[Lightning_Hunter]

It took way too long for me to tweak this one, but I think I finally have a good faithful rendition of the Eightball Gun.  Ahaigh made the original HD skin for this model, and I modified it to look more faithful to the original.  This particular mesh was a nightmare to work with...

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/EightbHD.jpg[/img]

Old:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/EightbOld.jpg[/img]

The original HD version by Ahaigh01:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/EightBahaigh01.jpg[/img]


And for fun, the pickup model:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/EightBPickup.jpg[/img]

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

I can see the issues with the UVs big time. Is there any reason why theyd be wrapped so weirdly?

[Lightning_Hunter]

I can see the issues with the UVs big time. Is there any reason why theyd be wrapped so weirdly?

I don't know, but the issues are much more noticeable with Ahaigh's original HD skin (the screenshot on the bottom).  A bulk of the work I did on my version was to simply make the skin less warped and more faithful to the original.  It was no easy task...

[Lightning_Hunter]

Surprise:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/CARHD.jpg[/img]

old:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/CARold.jpg[/img]

Pickup:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/CarPickup1.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/CarPickup2.jpg[/img]

[Lightning_Hunter]

I always hated the RTNP Grenade Launcher and Rocket Launcher skins. They just look far too pixelated and messy. In fact, you could say they are way too beat up looking, especially given the fact that they come brand new from UMS drop boxes. As such, I opted for a slightly cleaner look, while still maintaining some of the beat-up look. I think the end result is a far better skin for the Grenade Launcher, although I will let people decide:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/GLHD.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/GLHD2.jpg[/img]

Old:
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/GLOld.jpg[/img]

[Kajgue]

Really good work on some of these weapon skins, especially the UMS weapons (which look much better).

[Lightning_Hunter]

Skywolf, are you still around?  I noticed a few more model bugs that could be fixed.  The first one is glaring, and I'm not sure how I never noticed it before.  The GES Biorifle appears to have a part of the model cut off:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/GESBioBug.jpg[/img]

Also, the 'UnrealShare.SlithTail' gib Mesh has a problem with the "fin" being 1-side only, and not masked.  It needs to be masked and two-sided.  This is way more obvious with an HD skin:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y226/l_hunter8/SlithTailGib.jpg[/img]

The 'UnrealI.WarlordWing' gib mesh also has the same issue as the slith tail gib, but I don't care as much about that mesh since it is rarely seen.  It's up to you if you want to fix that one (it just has to be masked and two-sided).

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

The model issue with the biorifle is your FOV being too high for your resolution -- no real fix for this if you like your fov high without modifying the weapon model or uscript offsets.

[Lightning_Hunter]

hmmm, what should the FOV be with 1280x1024?

[[]KAOS[]Casey]

according to http://www.wsgf.org/fovcalc.php

86.3 (unreal can only do ints iirc, so 86), since you are a 5:4 res, more narrow than unreal's original 4:3 90 degree FOV.

You can compare if it looks normal by windowing and setting fov to 90 and resolution to 1024x768 or another 4:3 res, which is how it was originally designed. I personally use the bottom of the ASMD to determine if my FOV is correct.

[Lightning_Hunter]

according to http://www.wsgf.org/fovcalc.php

86.3 (unreal can only do ints iirc, so 86), since you are a 5:4 res, more narrow than unreal's original 4:3 90 degree FOV.

You can compare if it looks normal by windowing and setting fov to 90 and resolution to 1024x768 or another 4:3 res, which is how it was originally designed. I personally use the bottom of the ASMD to determine if my FOV is correct.

Weird.  I have to set the FOV to 80 in order to hide the disappearing bottom part of the Biorifle, but then the rest of the weapons are far too hidden (plus, I don't like that FOV).  I might just modify the PlayerViewOffset of the UT Oldschool GES in my own personal copy.  At least I know this is not a model bug (or is it?). An FOV of 80 is just too low for my taste. By the way, Unreal 227i is the same. I checked.