M1 Hd Weapons Redux

[General Tacticus]

So a few months ago, I decided to take a crack at making a new weapon sprite plugin for the current version of M1.
Long story short: scope creep set in and next thing I know I'd re-done the item and projectile graphics as well.

I'm finally finished with the heavy lifting, and think I have something that sucks less than what I had cobbled together back in highschool.

I'm posting it to simplici7y 'cause file size

Please post questions, comments, complaints, criticism, threats, and blackmail below

[Shocktart]

I never use HD anything, with every HD release the game looks more and more like DOOM 2016's hidden classic Doom maps with the 2016 character models and weapons.
I find it too jarring.

[patrick]

[General Tacticus]

Yeah, I don't usually play with HD stuff either, for the very same reason. I do however enjoy working on this stuff, as it's a nice way to practice my artwork.

Also, wth are you on about patrick?

[ravenshining]

Nice work.

Fist: Beautiful fist, perfect animation. There is something artificial about it, however. It could do with some darkening and dirtying.

Pistol: SO AWESOME. The reloading sprite, the light reflecting inside the scope - wow! It did bother me that it sits higher, so I compared screenshots. On my 1200p display, your pistol sits a good 50 px higher than the original one, and the hands are rendered larger/closer to camera. I'd shave off some from the bottom of the sprites and call it perfect.

For both the pistol and AR: the bullet ricochet effects need some sort of fragment bits flying out, otherwise it looks like a fire puff.

AR-75: Huzzah! The default AR sprites from both games are so ugly, I hate the AR for it's looks. But this, this is a thing of beauty, and faithfully rendered at that. The grenade explosion is done in a completely different style, but it's not bad. I might revert to the original grenade-in-flight, as I like seeing that grey outline.

Fusion Pistol: Beautiful! Love the detail around the lights, and the plasma shots are gorgeous, too. The sprite is a liitle larger than it should be, but not enough to be cause for concern.

Flamethrower: It looks really nice, just not what I was expecting. It'd be a great M2/M∞ flamethrower, but I always figured the M1 flamethrower was more of a boxy ordeal. Also, it's HUGE! Seriously needs to be scaled down so it doesn't obstruct the view. The flame animation, while smooth, needs to have more of an enlarging/dissipating/reddening effect on detonation, because with yours you can't tell whether it's hitting something or not.

Missile Launcher: I'm sorry, you clearly put some effort into this, but it looks almost nothing like the M1 SPNKR. For my own use I'd take this one out of the pack, including the explosion effect.

Alien weapon: Mind = blown. Gorgeous! I had no idea that was the Marine's fist jammed in there, but now I look closer at the original, for the first time in twenty-two years I now get that that's a fist jammed in there and not part of the weapon. It's a bit narrow - the original sprite gives more of a hint that it's a huge thing wrapping around your body - but that doesn't look easily fixed, and that issue is outshined by the sheer shininess of it all. I would however go back to the original shot detonation effect, yours is a bit too flamey for the M1 alien weapon which I always figured was more of a projectile weapon to M2/M∞'s alien flame weapon.

Finally, the ammo sprites are SO good, they look out of place against even the HD texture pack, especially since they have only one frame - an engine limitation? I would actually reduce the item resolution!

[thedoctor45]

Nice job as always, but I would like to know if you're planning to patch this plugin for M1A1. If not then I could take a look.

[Pfhorrest]

Is there somewhere I can just see screenshots of these? I'm curious but I don't actually have the time to playtest anything.

[General Tacticus]

Is there somewhere I can just see screenshots of these? I'm curious but I don't actually have the time to playtest anything.

http://tacticus359.tumblr.com/post/162411352208/heres-a-collection-of-screenshots-from-my
-Here's a blogpost.

Pistol

-Noted

the bullet ricochet effects need some sort of fragment bits flying out, otherwise it looks like a fire puff.

-There are some fragment effects, but they are dark and blurry. I'll be sure make them more visible.

Flamethrower

Missile Launcher

-Yeah, I'll need to shrink it down.
-The design of the rocket launcher and flamer just didn't work in 3d, so I made them more M2 like.
-For the flame and blast effects, making them look better is definitely on the list.

Alien weapon

-Yeah the impact effect will need re-doing, on the list that goes!

-For the Items, the engine won't let me add more frames.

As far as M1A1 goes, feel free to do whatever you want with this. I'm not going to write a compatibility patch myself, but I'll include one if it is provided.

[Zetren]

Fists: motion blur isn't nice
rocket launcher: still suffers from the same clipping problem as stock weapons do on 16:9
https://github.com/Aleph-One-Marathon/a ... /issues/37
assault rifle: the wobbliness and lack of fire animation blur makes it more kiddy-looking compared to the well-done pistol fire animation. its reload animation also isn't good, the drum doesn't leave the weapon.

apart from that well done, someone work on items, scenery, and enemies now and we'll have a nice looking game

[Pfhorrest]

Is there somewhere I can just see screenshots of these? I'm curious but I don't actually have the time to playtest anything.

http://tacticus359.tumblr.com/post/162411352208/heres-a-collection-of-screenshots-from-my
-Here's a blogpost.

Wow, those are pretty awesome looking! The MA-75 is especially cool.

I feel like a broken record here, but seeing as with your Alien Weapon you're already 12.5% of the way there (and with the Fusion Pistol, maybe more like 20% of the way there)... would you possibly be willing to help with Eternal's never-finished weapons? I have a handful of incomplete models that various people have promised to finish off and then never did anything that you could start from if you wanted, or you could start from scratch if you prefer, your call.

[General Tacticus]

Sounds like something I'd like to work on, once I finish the revisions on this.

If the models can be imported into blender, I'd be happy to take a look at them.

[herecomethej2000]

That's great work General! It looks great, and at least reminds me of the originals, which is a far cry from anything anyone else has ever done.

[ravenshining]

-The design of the rocket launcher and flamer just didn't work in 3d, so I made them more M2 like.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to tell what's going on with the original blobs and what they're suppose to represent. I'm no expert 3D modeler and I'm not at all a texturer, but this is my relatively crude take on it..

crude spnkr texture

[General Tacticus]

Ok, things are moving along at an fair pace.

I've identified and am fixing a couple bugs related to the infravision power up, drawn up improved bullet impacts, and fixed the compiler bolt color tables. The weapon position and scale fixes should be pretty quick.

I'll ruminate on the rocket launcher a bit, but I won't replace it until I can make better one.

Also, I've mocked up a rough version of the Eternal fusion rifle, based on the Hd Item sprite (the details and textures haven't been added yet) I think I could manage the rest, given time. I'll probably make a separate thread once I've got something worth showing.

blog link: http://tacticus359.tumblr.com/post/162505443243/a-very-rough-rendition-of-the-marathon-eternal

[Pfhorrest]

Awesome

[ravenshining]

Last night I got playing some M2 with the XBLA plugins, which I normally think look awful and so leave off, and realised: While your flamethrower would make a fantastic M2 flamethrower, the XBLA flamethrower would make a great M1 flamethrower. If only they could be swapped...

I'm still mindblown over how awesome your AR, fusion pistol, and Alien weapon are. Also, I see what you mean about the bullet impacts just needing some alpha adjustment - I can see the fragments just fine under infravision.

[herecomethej2000]

Just a suggestion from the peanut gallery, you don't have too, but I thought I'd put it out for thought.

I was thinking that since the pistol take so much screen space vertically, it would be good to make the glass transparent as is the freeverse ones. Maybe I've been using freeverse weapons so long, I half expect it now...

[thedoctor45]

Ok, things are moving along at an fair pace.

I've identified and am fixing a couple bugs related to the infravision power up, drawn up improved bullet impacts, and fixed the compiler bolt color tables. The weapon position and scale fixes should be pretty quick.

I'll ruminate on the rocket launcher a bit, but I won't replace it until I can make better one.

Also, I've mocked up a rough version of the Eternal fusion rifle, based on the Hd Item sprite (the details and textures haven't been added yet) I think I could manage the rest, given time. I'll probably make a separate thread once I've got something worth showing.

blog link: http://tacticus359.tumblr.com/post/162505443243/a-very-rough-rendition-of-the-marathon-eternal

I'm currently working on porting this plugin to M1A1, I'm about half way through atm - could you maybe send me your updated files before publishing them on S7 so we can include the M1A1 patch in the next release?

[General Tacticus]

Sure.

[thedoctor45]

Here's my finished M1A1 version of the plugin if you wanna test it - https://cl.ly/0q1W1z372p3N
There's one weird problem though, the M1A1 shapes file doesn't seem to like custom bitmaps for weapons in hand graphics and refuses to draw them when you replace them with ShapeFusion, so I had to use the mml script commands shape_width & shape_height to bypass the problem, which only seems to work with AlephOne versions up to 1.0.2 unfortunately.
Which means any later version of AlephOne will draw the weapon sprites distorted. Not sure if there's a fix for this tbh...

[herecomethej2000]

I don't understand. Why the interest in M1A1? I would assume with the actual data files of M1 being usable, M1A1 would be considered obsolete. Are we still recommending players play M1A1 for some reason?

[Wrkncacnter]

Apparently a lot of people think M1A1 is more true to the original than Alephone with the m1 stuff.

[thedoctor45]

I don't understand. Why the interest in M1A1? I would assume with the actual data files of M1 being usable, M1A1 would be considered obsolete. Are we still recommending players play M1A1 for some reason?

Just to make things clear, I'm not recommending M1A1 to anyone here, I'm merely trying to provide an alternative, besides I kinda enjoy the little extas and easter eggs that can be found in M1A1 and that's the reason I'm still using it, also I don't wanna give up all my custom maps and plugins for M1A1.

[General Tacticus]

not to mention co-op support

[treellama]

Apparently a lot of people think M1A1 is more true to the original than Alephone with the m1 stuff.

Colony Ship for Sale. CHEAP!