[Borion]

Hendricks266, Photonic, NightFright, thanks for input!
Solving such CON scripting challenge is beyond me, it is not matter of lack of motivation.

On subject of Atomic Health, there is still a lot of work to be done, but it is steadily going forward.

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As for the jetpack I have some doubts about the brown details and overall details. The in-game sprite was rather small compared to other pick-ups. I prefer the first voxelized version (with second version exhausts)!

Hi Jmoc! I think game sprite is rather small, because they (3DR) needed to fit in those straps too on this lo-res image. When we look at Dukes sprites, we can see true proportions of jetpack and some of details lost due to low resolution of pick-up sprite.

Anyway, I will prepare later version without brown elements, if you or others prefer it that way.

[NightFright]

Maybe we'll just include both versions of the jetpack in the end, with one line commented out so people can activate which variation they like best. Personally I would probably also opt for the updated model minus the brown straps in the front, even though I think they are an interesting addition and make sense when considering the player sprites. Let's just imagine they would emerge from the jetpack once the device is equipped.

[Micky C]

Thanks for your continuing work on this project. The voxels look amazing.

On the topic of the jetpack, my vote is also to include a version without the brown straps. My view is that it’s ok to reference other art to fill in completely hidden detail. However, a goal of this project should be that when the voxels are viewed at the same angle as the sprites, they should basically look identical.

Of course, this “looking identical to the sprite” idea works much better for sprites that are viewed completely straight-on like most of the pickups, and doesn’t work so well for sprites viewed at an angle like the jetpack.

However at the end of the day, those brown straps are (without a doubt) completely missing from the sprite, and so look out of place on the voxel, hence my vote to remove them. The comment on low resolution causing omission or detail may be valid, but we have models in the HRP to fill in detail. The appeal of the voxels are that they are accurate to the in-game sprites

[Borion]

NightFright, on 09 April 2019 - 04:23 AM, said:

Let's just imagine they would emerge from the jetpack once the device is equipped.

I can do that

Keeping both, with optional brown-things-one would be very nice.

Micky C, on 09 April 2019 - 04:25 AM, said:

Thanks for your continuing work on this project. The voxels look amazing.

Thanks, in name of all people involved

Micky C, on 09 April 2019 - 04:25 AM, said:

On the topic of the jetpack, my vote is also to include a version without the brown straps. My view is that it’s ok to reference other art to fill in completely hidden detail. However, a goal of this project should be that when the voxels are viewed at the same angle as the sprites, they should basically look identical.

Of course, this “looking identical to the sprite” idea works much better for sprites that are viewed completely straight-on like most of the pickups, and doesn’t work so well for sprites viewed at an angle like the jetpack.

However at the end of the day, those brown straps are (without a doubt) completely missing from the sprite, and so look out of place on the voxel, hence my vote to remove them. The comment on low resolution causing omission or detail may be valid, but we have models in the HRP to fill in detail. The appeal of the voxels are that they are accurate to the in-game sprites

All agreed.
By popular demand, jetpack MK II - wireless edition

KVX: https://mega.nz/#!8i...4hP2zW7kzJFAIU0

[NightFright]

Now it's spot on, I'd say.

I have taken a look at the "squeezed" Shrinker voxel ingame and gotta say it's too "slim" for my personal taste. The HUD weapon sprite clearly indicates it has some width and the pickup should reflect that.

[LakiSoft]

Guys can you tell me what i am doing sstrange? I played Duke3D with Voxel Pack and it had one voxel behaved weird. Example, this "vent door" voxel texture still looks like as it is been plced on wall, even if it's arranged to be floor/flat one. Indeed, it behaves as intended, as you can walk on it, but this visual gltich seems weird. It is me wh ouses some outdated Eduke32 version or this occured also to other people?

[Borion]

NightFright, on 09 April 2019 - 05:22 AM, said:

Now it's spot on, I'd say.

Ok, cool!

Nuke Button (0142-0145)

KVXs: https://mega.nz/#!Yy...Pvf-GmE0Jz9JdtI

Pivot settings should be correct.

[Borion]

Gingis Khan, on 09 April 2019 - 05:51 AM, said:

Guys can you tell me what i am doing sstrange? I played Duke3D with Voxel Pack and it had one voxel behaved weird. Example, this "vent door" voxel texture still looks like as it is been plced on wall, even if it's arranged to be floor/flat one. Indeed, it behaves as intended, as you can walk on it, but this visual gltich seems weird. It is me wh ouses some outdated Eduke32 version or this occured also to other people? duke0000.png

I have the same problem lately. In the past EDuke32 & Mapster were not using replacement voxel models, if sprite was floor or ceiling aligned. Now it seems to be broken.
WISHFUL SPECULATION: Maybe devs are trying to implement voxel orientation flipping and floor/ceiling alignment? One can dream

[LakiSoft]

voxel orientation flipping would be coo thing to be implemented. Also i was always wonded one thing. I rmemebr downloading some very old version of this Voxel Pack, ti was neither v1.0 or v1.1 (the current latest) And it had even voxel mosnters. now this latest version have only voxel pickups. Why voxels for monsters were thrown out, just curious. As i don't think these were removed due the perfomance reasons or something, sicne i played this old voxel pack even on my very oldd PCs and worked pretty fine.

[Jmoc]

Gingis Khan, on 09 April 2019 - 06:09 AM, said:

voxel orientation flipping would be coo thing to be implemented. Also i was always wonded one thing. I rmemebr downloading some very old version of this Voxel Pack, ti was neither v1.0 or v1.1 (the current latest) And it had even voxel mosnters. now this latest version have only voxel pickups. Why voxels for monsters were thrown out, just curious. As i don't think these were removed due the perfomance reasons or something, sicne i played this old voxel pack even on my very oldd PCs and worked pretty fine.

I think you are referring to something like this:
Duke3D Voxel Pack (BETA)

which, however, features voxels ripped from 3D models. I agree with all the people above that the ultimate goal of voxels is to be as faithful as possible to the original sprites. The HRP project already covers the "modern" 3D look.

[LakiSoft]

Jmoc, on 09 April 2019 - 06:47 AM, said:

I think you are referring to something like this:
Duke3D Voxel Pack (BETA)

which, however, features voxels ripped from 3D models. I agree with all the people above that the ultimate goal of voxels is to be as faithful as possible to the original sprites. The HRP project already covers the "modern" 3D look.

Yes that's the thing i am talking about. I still prefer having mosnters in voxel format as well, rathan than just items. I thought this project ging to be some kind of 8-bit HRP which would be cool as if happens for someone to use old computers (like i do) he could play HRP in 8-bit without a need to have 3D supportive card, which of course do, but i said just for an example why 8-bit HRP proejct would be useful.

[Jimmy]

Duke Nukem: Endangered Species, while cancelled, seemed to have heavy involvement from 3DR in terms of art direction. The shrinker in that game is extremely accurate to the original design in my opinion, and the extra angles provided here may help anyone trying to design a voxel.

[NightFright]

I think voxel monsters ain't gonna happen, mostly due to the complexity of the animations. And converted models definitely don't belong into this pack.

In general, not every single sprite in the game needs to be voxelized in this one. The idea is more to have voxels like you had in Shadow Warrior or Blood. Once the pickups are all done, we are actually already pretty close to that.

[LakiSoft]

Well I do understand point of the project, but as alternative thing, it would be nice to have kind of 8bit HRP based on voxels as well. Just saying. Anyway guys, good luck with project. I think i can't offer any help, as i don't know anything about moddeling, neither in voxel neither in md2, md3 format, etc.. I even suck at drawing 2D stuff, to be honest.

[Borion]

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I think voxel monsters ain't gonna happen, mostly due to the complexity of the animations.

Exactly.

It is possible, but with current state of tools, it would be a nightmare.

First huge problem, there is no tool that provides more than 5 frames of animation. MagicaVoxel is only game in town in this regard and it doesn't look like adding extra frames to max animation length is high on its list of future enhancements.

Second huge problem, Angular reprojection. Qubicle provides front/back/left/right/top/bottom reprojection. It's is fantasic feature, but for effective conversion of DN3D enemies, we would need 45 degrees reprojection too. It is possible to use this technique manually, but it is extremely laborious. As of today, Qubicle developer is in silent mode, so there is no way to know what are his plans for the future of Qubicle.

The only tool realistically capable of this task in a future, is Goxel. It already has most of features required for such task, it is free and has passionate person behind its development.
But that would require feature requests for mentioned features on GitHub page of Goxel from more than just me

EDIT:
Now when I read my post again, it may look like I try to speak in name of NightFright...To clarify, I personally like vision of voxelized monsters. I'm in no position to speak for those project initiators about such plans or lack of them

Cheers

[Kyanos]

Jimmy 100MPH, on 09 April 2019 - 08:35 AM, said:

Duke Nukem: Endangered Species, while cancelled, seemed to have heavy involvement from 3DR in terms of art direction. The shrinker in that game is extremely accurate to the original design in my opinion, and the extra angles provided here may help anyone trying to design a voxel.

picture//i.imgur.com/rKsVo.jpg

Hola Jimmy, ¡Gracias!

[Borion]

Fence(4429)

KVX: https://mega.nz/#!Ai...X7pvU4ts9hkmlCI

Lines for props.def:
// Fence (4429)
voxel "voxels/props/4429_fence1.kvx" { scale 1 tile 4429 }

Unfortunately it doesn't replace fences on the starting roof on E1M1. They are probably masked walls or sth. Anyway, this fence model works fine as typical wall-aligned sprite replacement.

[Mark]

Being a 3D models guy since I joined the community years ago I'm looking forward to using voxels when Nightfright or whoever else creates a package to drop into my eduke folder. I never thought I would consider making a level designed for software mode. The time is getting closer.

Any present users of the many voxels released so far notice any big framerate drops with a lot of them being used in a map?

[Borion]

As it was said, enemies are not part of this project. But would sprite 0558 be accepted if converted to voxels?
Precisely this one:

I want to make all frames of hatching animation. It always bugged me how flat this object looks.

[Jimmy]

I don't think people are opposed to voxel enemies in theory, but rather that in practice they rarely look good. I think the egg would look fine though. Cheers to both of you guys for your hard work.

[Jimmy]

I've been at work all day so there's been a couple things I've been meaning to post that I just didn't have access to:


I hate to be this guy but while the jetpack voxel is fucking awesome, it's not accurate to the game at all. If you reference in game cutscenes, concept art, etc, you get a much better look at the jetpack, revealing quite a few things.

1: There is no groin strap. [Multiple sources show this.]
2: The two torso straps come straight down, not toward the belt buckle. [Multiple sources show this.]
3: The little tubes are present. But they're actually just air lines for the scuba gear that clip on the jetpack's webgear. [Clearly shown in the Birth ending cutscene.)
4: There are no exhaust pipes. The bottom of the jetpack is one big exhaust. [Pay close attention to the player sprites and you can see this design persisted past the 1994 concept art right into the released game. Unfortunately the Duke model seems to be under-detailed depending on when it was used, like in the Lunar Apocalypse ending cutscene. Also the actual exhaust hole seems to be untextured, instead relying on lighting, so when it's viewed directly head on it just looks like shiny metal instead of the hole it's meant to be.]
5: The fins actually are present. [Both the fins and the exhaust are hard to see in the original sprites, but very clear in the Total Meltdown sprites, as well as some cutscenes.]

In general, the jetpack mostly stayed the same from the 1994 design.

Media for posterity.

Spoiler

Apologies for my autism.

Also, even though a fire hydrant voxel has already been completed, I would just like to point out that for some reason there was another frame of the hydrant cut from the game, which could have been used to make a "fake" 3D object like many others in the game. Here are both sprites, if you or someone else wanted the voxel could be made "more accurate."

[Striker]

Gingis Khan, on 09 April 2019 - 05:51 AM, said:

Guys can you tell me what i am doing sstrange? I played Duke3D with Voxel Pack and it had one voxel behaved weird. Example, this "vent door" voxel texture still looks like as it is been plced on wall, even if it's arranged to be floor/flat one. Indeed, it behaves as intended, as you can walk on it, but this visual gltich seems weird. It is me wh ouses some outdated Eduke32 version or this occured also to other people? duke0000.png

It's because voxels can't be pitched/rolled. I suggest the EDuke32 devs do what I did in OldMP: Disable voxel rendering for floor-aligned sprites.

[NightFright]

Jetpack "rant":
While I can really live with the version we currently have, it may be worth giving Jimmy's "autistic" approach a chance. The sprite leaves space for a lot of interpretation since it's angled and difficult to guess what the strap system is supposed to look like without the right references. A groin strap would actually make total sense for safety reasons since otherwise it may happen that the shoulder straps get lose in flight mode, but if that's not according to the original design... what can you do.

Hydrant "twin" tile:
That's a good find. You can assign multiple tiles to the same voxel (e.g. surveillance camera), so if I know the number of the other tile, it can use the same voxel as #981.

[Jimmy]

The other sprite comes from one of the pre-1.3D versions of the game. I don't think both sprites were ever in the game at the same time which is weird, because there's a blank tile right after the hydrant.

[Jblade]

I think they cut it because there's no support for just using 2 tiles for a sprite's view angles...I doubt they wanted to add code just for one actor.

[Jimmy]

That's not true actually, you can define an ACTION that only has two frames, and it will use the two frames to "fake" a 3D actor, switching between the two every 45 degrees or so. It's an under-used feature for sure.

[Jblade]

huh, that's not on the wiki so I didn't realise you could do that...I'll double-check and then add it in.

EDIT: it does work, though the wiki's having problems so I can't save it. Looking at the fire extinguisher sprite with 2 angles, It did look a little bit strange so I guess that's probably the real reason they cut it.

[Borion]

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Apologies for my autism.

There is nothing to apologise for, Jimmy. Its obvious that you took time & effort to thought-out and describe all these valid points.

All agreed, NightFright.

In regard to crouch strap, I would rather keep it. I don't want our heros torso being forcefully disconnected from legs. I you guys want to have it that way, you have to take full responsibility for eventual casualties

I will get back to jetpack and adjust it accordingly to your comments in coming days.

Extra hydrant frames - nice finding! Unfortunately, it doesn't bring many new details to model. Watch carefully how light stays at same direction on both angles. It's an illustration trick, that imitates light source is coming from camera (observation point).
This makes shadows always occlude outside part of object. We cant use that angled variant, it's lit differently than front one. About switching two variants of voxel model, I'm afraid jumping between two variants of differently lit hydrant will look very strange.
Still, this feature of changing voxel model according to angle, sounds super useful. If I understand correctly way it works. It might be great to simulate metallic surfaces, like make jetpack reflect light a little bit differently depending on angle you look at it.

[NightFright]

Borion, on 09 April 2019 - 01:21 PM, said:

As it was said, enemies are not part of this project. But would sprite 0558 be accepted if converted to voxels? [...]

Since I forgot to comment on that:
Go right ahead on this one if you feel like it. Wouldn't count it as a monster directly, either. I am not sure how it will behave in rooms with a lot of slimer eggs like "Overlord" or "Derelict", but we can test it once the voxel is available. On modern machines I don't expect a huge impact, though.

[Phredreeke]

This may be a crazy idea but we could test it preliminarily by defining an existing voxel of similar size as the slimer egg then load a level with lots of them to see what the impact is.