Any updates on the ranger?

let's start counting graphics artists that have disappeared when they were close to finishing x or y

let's have some faith. from what i've seen in this thread it would take the artist just a rather short period of time to finish his work. let's hope he didn't lose interest.

So, he's not abandoning the ship, but first things first!

They always say that. Not holding my breath.

If the ranger is finished, will we be able to play with this model or will it be detected as modified and therefore illegal?

It would probably be added to the "legal list" in ezQuake and thus allowed. However, an md3 model would not play well with ezQuake unless they add proper md3 support.

I don't think we'll see this model animated and skinned before ezQuake md3 support will be fixed. Anyway, only major issue is that md3s are fullbright, and fullbright skins are standard in QW, so fix won't make much difference.

One more thing. What about the size of the model, I mean what if the new ranger is bigger (has more volume). Will it be like, if you hit the model on the edge, the rocket will travel through without harm, will it hit or is there a kind of a premade shape elektro has to fit his model in?

Well, the ranger hitbox is much larger than the standard ranger model, so he has a bit of wiggle room. As long as it's not noticeably smaller or bigger than the current model then there probably won't be a problem with it.

Hold your breathe, don't hold your breathe... whatever you want to do is up to you. I'm busy putting food on the table in real life atm, I have a family to provide for. Sorry but if that doesn't ride cool with you for the free work that I'm doing that you might have to wait a little bit longer than I don't know what I can do to please everyone.

The hitbox would go unchanged so the model would need to fit that like the original ranger best I can.
Being on the ezquake team, I'm sure I can have a little bit of sway (hopefully) in getting this character approved.

Rather than md3 being an issue of not working, what about normalmaps? I'm going to have to turn all the next-gen-esque textures to moosh just to get them to show up (baked in single lighting direction and specular all crammed into diffuse). I don't think the mdl format limitations would allow this model to even load in that format. So md3 would be the only option for old-gen.

Yes, don't bother with mdl wersion, it just won't work. md3 is only way to go. About normalmaps: i'm sure they will be added to ezQ at some point, we'll have to wait, but it's not any problem. Right now if someone wants "next-gen" eyecandy he use FTE or Darkplaces. ezQ from my point of view is client focused mainly around useful things and improvements in less visible, but not less important matters than eyecandy. So if you can, and will have time, please make separate 24-bit texture that'll look decent without normalmaps. Or maybe we can ask Primevil to do it? His ranger skins are just flat textures without support of new tech, but still breathe new life in to old, low poly model. Unfortunatelly he is really busy man, with his mission to make every pro shooter look better

To Stev: yes, there is a bit of free space in hitbox, but i'm worried that if model would be even only slightly bigger than original, ppl will say that's cheat, because you can see it sooner than original when player run around the corner etc. :/

Thats not a major issue, a major issue is that the md3 support is b0rked. Like on my pc my fps count drop with 2000fps when using some of ruohis models, in FTE there is no performance problems at all. Also Q3 uses md3 models for everything at that can run on 500mhz pc's.

Just keep doing what you're doing. If FTE or DARKPLACES is required then use it. ezQuake wont use bumpmapping anyways in the foreseeable future but leave the option open to others. Same for MDL support. If you provide the .max files anyone can export to MDL if they choose.

Sometimes people will imagine the worse, if true information isn't provided, a screen shot helps tame the beast

yeah, but there are still some servers..mainly TF ones that aren't fullbright. I think fullbright is cheap anyways.

we all have to agree that Electro put 110% into the first weeks he was working on this. I was ultimately impressed with the pace and effort.

right now hes working hard to put food on his family and working with contract work. we are lucky to still have him interested.

Zalon, i wasn't aware of that. I used some md3 models some time ago and didn't noticed any fps drops. Don't know why.

If there's such problem it's even more obvious Electro should aim @ FTE and Darkplaces with his work, take advantage of what they offer, and don't bohter with ezQ atm.

Only four percent of the QuakeWorld community use FTE. Four percent of the QuakeWorld community is like one person. Doing all this work for one person seems like a waste of time.

I really hope ezQuake will have proper md3 support some day.

well, I might not change to fte as my primary client, but I would use it for spectating.... It's sad that md3 support is not a higher priority for the ezQuake team, as we got a lot of high quality md3 models, like ruohis' weapon models.

Ruohis has remade like everything except the player model.

Exactly, and it's sad that we can't include that in nQuake etc :/

what computer are you working on?

super:
At work - Intel Quad Core Q9450, 8gb ram, GeForce GTX 260
At home - Intel Q6600, 4gb ram, GeForce 9800 GTX

That what you're after?

cool, let get ezquake updated to run these models.. then all we need is a little more qw-lobbying and we are set to go : ]

electro: hook me up some dragon lotion for your dirty love!

i've heard Electro works for Quake3 PMX (standalone Challenge Promode by arQon)

guess money trumps us, again.

He was working on PMX before he started this modeling project, he is busy with contract work, not PMX

PMX does not pay anyway.. lollery

lollers

he'll be back, we know where he lives.. we know what machine he uses.. stay a while electro.. *breathes hard* *whispers* forever..

Good news everyone! (you're now thinking of Professor Farnsworth)
I might actually get the modeling/texturing side of things finished up this week. Don't hold your breathe though. You will die.

Then comes the painful task of rigging/animating. Originally I wanted to do a facial rig for it so I could do tf2 style facial expressions. Now I'm just tired though and want to get it finished hehe.