[Tea Monster]

I'm not a big fan of these packs, but if you are going to do one with bare nekkid ladies, then you might as well go for broke.

[Duker101]

better than the current XXX pack. but really it shouldn't change the overall image.

[Tea Monster]

Just noticed a few things after someone else told me they don't like the HRP.

If you check out this shot, all the older models are really really shiny as they were made without spec maps before polymer came along. It might be an idea to adjust default specular levels on the older models.


The obvious fix is to redo them with spec and normal maps, but that isn't going to happen.

Another problem is this:

Because the original texture was so low res, people are able to squint and tell themselves that it's something like brushed metal. This happens a lot in the levels, where people use sprites and textures in unusual means to indicate stuff that dosen't exist naturally in the texture set. Once you up the res and make it clear what it is, the illusion falls apart.

I have no idea how you'd fix that shit. I don't think that you can.

The only thing I can think of is that you go through the levels and edit them so that they work with high res content. As an example, edit the map in this example to use a brushed metal texture. It wouldn't be true to the original (que rage from all quarters, oh, and yes, you CAN edit the levels), but it would look 'right'.

[Spiker]

No need to create maps to get rid of glossiness (if you want to remove it completely). Also one day they may be remade even if you don't believe it.

[Tea Monster]

I know you can turn down spec in the def. You'd have to go through and adjust them all, probably individually. Ideally, you could make a spec map from the diffuse map. You could generate normals from the diffuse, but it tends to look awful. Ideally, they all need to be re-made.

[OpenMaw]

It was a nice experiment for both Duke and Doom to try and do high res stuff with models and all that, but I honestly think it works best when you start from the ground up with those kind of things in mind. Duke's levels are crafted in a very loose way with regard to the usage of textures and so forth. That coupled with the very inconsistent look of the assets created for the HRP over the years... It just doesn't look as good as it could.

[Mark]

With all the generic and free for use models on the web it doesn't take much to replace some of the HRP models. This is one I did a while back but it uses a famous model ripped from somewhere so its not usable. I added a skeleton and and posed them.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Spiker]

You also musnt use the cube shape cause its all over the place and someone may sue you for using copyrighted art.

[Mark]

Cube shape??? I must have missed something.

[Spiker]

Yes, you miss your sense of black humor.

[OpenMaw]

It's not just the models themselves, though. It's also the way that animation is handled by the game. To really get it to work right I think you'd have to recode most of the actors with models/animation in mind. There's some really stupid/janky behavior otherwise.

[Tea Monster]

LOL Spiker!

With what CM said, I think Doom works much better for these HR replacements as everything is cut and dried in the level design. In Duke, everything is very freeform, you can take textures and use them to make other items. I can make a car or a staircase out of bits of sprites of other items. In Doom you don't have that freedom. 'Here is a sprite of a bloody altar', it will be a bloody altar and that's it. So there is no ambiguity when putting stuff together.

I think the only real 'fix' for this in Duke would be to edit the maps so that they work correctly with HR content. Once you do that, you are going to want to do things like making nice, unblocky caves and cars - stuff that you just can't do unless you have either models or a more modern engine or both.

Mark - Make Human is there for human creation. They used to be really ropey (trans: blehhh!), but it looks like they have improved the base meshes and topology so it would be usefull for making people.

Oh, what happened to the baby in the fetus jar?

[ReaperMan]

Tea Monster, on 11 October 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

Oh, what happened to the baby in the fetus jar?

He grew up.

[Spiker]

ReaperMan, on 11 October 2015 - 09:17 AM, said:

He grew up.

Ouch, that was harsh!

[LeoD]

Tea Monster, on 11 October 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

Oh, what happened to the baby in the fetus jar?

ReaperMan, on 11 October 2015 - 09:17 AM, said:

He grew up.

No. Polymer ate him.

[NightFright]

The really sad thing about the HRP these days seems to be that major new contributions are rather unlikely to happen. As you have probably noticed already, our last releases were always 5.x, and that for a reason - we could already celebrate if we had one new model. The rest was polishing. Maybe we have reached a dead end with the project or it's just a really long break this time, but apparently those who used to contribute a lot have moved on to other projects. Some people here make admirable efforts to keep the project alive, but in the end it's just not the way it used to be.

I hope I am wrong and interest in the HRP will be rekindled eventually. Throughout the years, lots of stuff has accumulated which is kinda outdated now and pales in comparison with later additions. Achieving some kinda homogenuous quality regarding HRP contents would be a nice goal, even if we may never manage to complete asset replacements for all the episodes.

[Daedolon]

What map is that? Looks horrendous in HRP.

[OpenMaw]

NightFright, on 12 October 2015 - 12:03 AM, said:

The really sad thing about the HRP these days seems to be that major new contributions are rather unlikely to happen. As you have probably noticed already, our last releases were always 5.x, and that for a reason - we could already celebrate if we had one new model. The rest was polishing. Maybe we have reached a dead end with the project or it's just a really long break this time, but apparently those who used to contribute a lot have moved on to other projects. Some people here make admirable efforts to keep the project alive, but in the end it's just not the way it used to be.

I hope I am wrong and interest in the HRP will be rekindled eventually. Throughout the years, lots of stuff has accumulated which is kinda outdated now and pales in comparison with later additions. Achieving some kinda homogenuous quality regarding HRP contents would be a nice goal, even if we may never manage to complete asset replacements for all the episodes.

The problem I think, and this is with ALL DUE RESPECT to those who work on the engine, the lack of major functional polish to Polymer, and the breakage in multiplayer. I think if Polymer was running much faster and the multiplayer was as plug and play as it was supposed to be we'd see a resurgence in getting faithful high res content back into the game.

It's a shame that the new 3D Realms was not able to release the Duke3D source files in their entirety. Things like the RAW JSJ recordings, the 3D models used to render sprites, maybe some of the source image files used for the textures that might allow truer-to-form HD remakes.

Also, I think the HRP really needed better management in terms of who was going to do what. Human characters should be handled by one person, props by another, and weapons by another. That way everything in a particular "set" would look consistent. As it stands, all the varying quality and shifts in style makes things look fairly jumbled.

[darkprince227]

NightFright, on 12 October 2015 - 12:03 AM, said:

The really sad thing about the HRP these days seems to be that major new contributions are rather unlikely to happen. As you have probably noticed already, our last releases were always 5.x, and that for a reason - we could already celebrate if we had one new model. The rest was polishing. Maybe we have reached a dead end with the project or it's just a really long break this time, but apparently those who used to contribute a lot have moved on to other projects. Some people here make admirable efforts to keep the project alive, but in the end it's just not the way it used to be.

I hope I am wrong and interest in the HRP will be rekindled eventually. Throughout the years, lots of stuff has accumulated which is kinda outdated now and pales in comparison with later additions. Achieving some kinda homogenuous quality regarding HRP contents would be a nice goal, even if we may never manage to complete asset replacements for all the episodes.

It would be awesome to see a resurge in activity. There are also lots of models in the addon packs that haven't even been touched yet.

As I've probably said before, I know next to nothing about making models, textures, programming or anything like that so all I can do is mention glitches wherever I find them.

Whatever happens, best of luck to everybody. I'll be watching from wherever I am.

[ReaperMan]

Daedolon, on 12 October 2015 - 12:38 AM, said:

What map is that? Looks horrendous in HRP.

Looks like E4L1

[Tea Monster]

That was a major problem with the HRP, but it was a wonderful thing as well. I thought it was great and a testament to the power of the King that so many people came forward and contributed to the project. I've not seen anything like it in other communities. This is especially true once you consider that Duke didn't (dosen't) have a 3D modding history like Quake and Doom. With those two series, there were modern releases of the game with mod tools that encouraged the community to develop 3D modding skills. Duke went from 2D sprites to a HRP that other communities envied. I think we should be proud of that.

[Fantinaikos]

A very large quantity of mods use liztroop variations and this was a regular content in polymost version, but with polymer it has not been made yet. So I tried to fill the gap.

Lizard Trooper Polymer PAL Skins
http://www.filedropp...polymerpalskins

"monster.def" to overwrite is included.

[Kyanos]

That's without your skins, using the highpal swap system in Polymer. Polymost users may appreciate the skins a lot more.

[Fantinaikos]

Drek, on 21 November 2015 - 02:31 PM, said:

duke0001.png
That's without your skins, using the highpal swap system in Polymer. Polymost users may appreciate the skins a lot more.

So then, It means that I have created a solution for that part of users.

Unless it is planned to completely eradicate the polymost render in the future...

[Kyanos]

Fantinaikos, on 21 November 2015 - 02:49 PM, said:

So then, It means that I have created a solution for that part of users.

Unless it is planned to completely eradicate the polymost render in the future...

^your new skins in polymost, looking good, only complaint here may be the blood color doesn't match the original sprites pal, those should all still be red, see above post with highpal swaps, they match 8bit properly.


^your new skins in Polymer, not so hot, probably the detail or spec map interfering.


Now for my 2 cents on making polymost alt pal skins... I would define the skin to a tile on the hud, then use polymers highpal to automagically generate skins by changing the pal of the texture. Screenshot, crop and done

[Fantinaikos]

Quote

^your new skins in polymost, looking good, only complaint here may be the blood color doesn't match the original sprites pal, those should all still be red, see above post with highpal swaps, they match 8bit properly.

The blood it was my complaint also, i admit that i just say "meh" to that. Maybe I'd think about it later.

Quote

^your new skins in Polymer, not so hot, probably the detail or spec map interfering.

Yeap, definitively i don't remember to have done an orange armour.

Quote

Now for my 2 cents on making polymost alt pal skins... I would define the skin to a tile on the hud, then use polymers highpal to automagically generate skins by changing the pal of the texture. Screenshot, crop and done

Unfortunately my game just crashes on polymer render and apparently highpals are enabled only on it. So i can't realize the idea.

What can i do for now is provide a quick fix for green and red liz troops, most commons on the original game, based on what i can see in your image.

[Hendricks266]

Fantinaikos, on 21 November 2015 - 01:19 PM, said:

A very large quantity of mods use liztroop variations and this was a regular content in polymost version, but with polymer it has not been made yet. So I tried to fill the gap.

Lizard Trooper Polymer PAL Skins
http://www.filedropp...polymerpalskins

"monster.def" to overwrite is included.

There is no use for these. The Polymer model is not intended for use with Polymost, and as Drek pointed out, the highpal system takes care of the variations for Polymer. For the model to be used feasibly in Polymost, its diffuse, normal, and specular maps would need to be loaded into a 3D modeling program, and then have shading baked onto a new texture*. Repeat for every alt-pal. However, your alt-pals are far too inaccurate to the original palette to be included. With some work, it should be possible to apply highpal to images offline.

If you want to play in Polymost, use LeoD's Polymost override pack.

Spoiler

*This is why so many of the "Use the HRP in Duke Megaton!!!!" guides on Steam look so bad, even though its users can't see that: they use the Polymer assets in Polymost, and as a result nothing has any shading.

[LeoD]

I agree to Hendrick266. While I've put quite some effort into reviving and maintaining the Polymost HRP, I think that it's futile to create replacements for existing Polymost HRP assets. Polymer renderer+HRP combo is the future, even if it may take another couple of years until it performs satisfyingly for everyone. If someone makes a new Polymer model or texture though, I'd be happy if a baked skin/texture for the Polymost HRP would be provided, too, so that it keeps up in terms of completeness.

Off topic: Sorry, Fantinaikos, as some things turned out other than expected, I haven't found the time to take a closer look at your WG Realms 2 HRP.

[Tea Monster]

Whos gone through the HRP and knocked down all the spec maps to really contrasty b/w images?

[splitterface]

EDIT:
nvm i found out it was some weird-ass adware browser plugin
that somehow got itself installed which added the links