So Coxxon, how have you spent 2015?

[coxxon]

I’ve also been reworking some of the Scion ones. The stock textures are too muted, too muddy, but again, I’m willing to knock back my version a little closer to them, just not all the way.

You have my sympathy on this, I have been trying to upscale/rework the original 256 x256 to 1024x 1024. So that they "look the same"
The absence of detail caused by the reduction of what was clearly once very detailed original art is extremely challenging.

Yup, I think I saw some of your work, or a thread of something on that. Blowing them up is definitely hard b/c of the reason you mentioned. That’s why I just finally went the route of trying to rebuild them – which o’course has its own issues.
Good luck on your efforts though.
Ps – If you’ve had some success with all those mechanical looking menu screens, and would want to share them, I wouldn’t mind putting them in my mod, and give you credit for making them higher res. I’m definitely not going to try to recreate those by hand.

[coxxon]

also, it will be up to the players to use them or not, so it's not like they have a gun to their heads. stay true to yourself and let the chips fall where they may. me, i use your textures in all my installs, coxxon.

That’s true on both counts, plus players will have the ability to adjust their graphic options. I certainly wouldn’t be foolish enough to believe everyone will like everything about it, but I believe most will have an overall positive view of it if/when they spend some time with it.
On my textures, thanks for using them. I’ve gone back and reworked the icons and reticles to be back to a bit closer to the original than what came with my hi-res texture pack, as well I have redone the wire/unit status icons, but one of the main things I’ve done is to make another pass through the planet ground textures. I think I’ve managed to remove more of the repetitiveness that was apparent in the first hi-res pack which was noticeable when one was high in the air. The funny thing is, even when I eventually put this mod into a pak file, I suspect that ¾ of the size of it will be the textures.

[coxxon]

on your reply

Definitely take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, I'm not one to claim my opinions as gospel. The work you've done is above anything that I've yet attempted and if I'm being honest, you have me inspired. It'd be nice to see some of the fan factions redone in such immaculate detail, perhaps even a little known faction of Egyptian-god-worshiping lizard people.

Though, the puffed up lizard comparison, actually seems like more of a defense for keeping them.

I've changed my mind, it's a squat fat man wearing skinny jeans and a wing-suit standing in a Superman pose.

For the moment (which may change next week) I’ve removed the wings, and haven’t added anything else. I tried a variation of your idea and a couple of others, and most of them kind of gave it an apron look around the legs, which wasn’t necessarily bad, but it didn’t really add to the bulk of the structure which was my goal with the failed wings. I’ve also thought about adding a deploy anim to the building where the feet raise up and are taller structures – kind of like the matriarch’s version of the isdf wings – but I’m too iffy on it at the moment. Still, I keep trying to think of a way too bulk it up without having weird wings or a fat man in skinny jeans – though, that would be funny.
As for the Eygptian-god-worshiping lizard people, well I’m not ruling it out, but I’m going to need a break for a while after this project.

[coxxon]

I for one, actually like all the aesthetics... they're interesting though I feel the Scion buildings are a bit much but a welcome change. While I'm not going to give any constructive criticism, I just want to point out that what he's doing is essentially what 343 did to Halo when they put out Halo 4. Some people prefer the new aesthetics, some don't, it's just the way it is.

The Halo redo, especially the redone version of HCE was an inspiration for doing this. There were things I really liked about it, and things I didn’t care for - like the revised look of the halo construct itself in the menu screens. Now if I can just get this mod done so I can actually play Guardians when it comes out …

[coxxon]

from the "while you're at it" department: wondering if you could add hardpoints for each weapon type (cannon/gun/rocket/mortar/special) so people could customize them.

You’re in luck. I’ve tried to add extra hp’s to many of the vehicles where it seemed appropriate. Not everything has everything, and certainly not always used in the odfs, but most of them have a few extra ones added specifically for modders. I tried to add notes in the odfs if extras are available. For example, on the Sabre tank, there are un-used rocket hp behind each of those circles on the outer front edges of the turret texture. A second example is I also added gun hp on the Scion scout at the tips of those undercarriage tube shapes.

Also I’ve kept the recoils on weapons that have them already, and have added them to the Warrior, Scout, and Lancer, and maybe some others. The lack of visible weapons on the Scion hover units is another thing that drove me nuts about their models. At the moment I haven’t necessarily kept active recoils on “guns” in odfs. My thinking was they animate so often and fast and are fairly small, so I wasn’t sure if they would even be noticed. I’ve also been unsure if all that animation would put an undue burden on the processing/calculating that the software/computer would have to do. Though when I’ve had them active in the game, it has not appeared to cause a problem on my 5+ year old machine and nVidia card in terms of framerate – so I might put them back in.

[MrTwosheds]

Ps – If you’ve had some success with all those mechanical looking menu screens, and would want to share them, I wouldn’t mind putting them in my mod, and give you credit for making them higher res. I’m definitely not going to try to recreate those by hand.

I am being lazy with those, I noticed that Irfanview has a magic way of making zoomed images look much better, it has resize and save functions. It does quite a good job on the screens. I'm not doing the whole credit thing, All these images are belong to BZ2. (once I get round to sorting out some web hosting)

[Red Devil]

re: hp's and recoil Yaaaay!

was reading about the wing flaps on the matriarch and remembering flying maulers, so...a flying matriarch, too?

[coxxon]

Been pretty busy the past couple of weeks doing a lot of behind the camera work, and a good bit of in front of it too. I went back to the old darker grey on the sides of the isdf buildings, while leaving the baseplates in the lighter original concrete grey, and took out some of the texture detail in the orange areas on buildings.

Also I redid multiplayer skins. After being introduced to the concept of using the a0 as the MP texture mask, I didn’t like it much b/c it killed spec hi, and bumps. Then I realized I didn’t have to use it at full opacity, so I went with an overall 40% opacity on most of the masked areas. Though there is still a little bleed-through of the teamcolor in masked areas, this allows for (muted) spec highlights and bumpmaps, while still giving better colorization and contrast in MP.

While I’m definitely not going to make a Sept release, I’m very close to being done.

Okay on to screenshots …







The orange colorization is coming from the map lighting on this one.

[MrTwosheds]

-Collapses from an eyecandy overdose-

[DeusExCeteri]

Oh, nice, a Fury, building those never ended badly, nope, no sir.

Overall they look, ah, what's the word? GORGEOUS. I can't wait to see how quickly they crash my simple little school laptop, haha.

I mean, wow! Even with team colours! I'm not even going to complain about anything this time, there's no reason too, these have had an incredible amount of effort poured into them and I am amazed. When I look back at Uler mod, I can hardly even believe my eyes.

I bow to you, Coxxon, you are a true artisan and a master of your craft.

Now, if you'd kindly...

GIMME GIMME

[Red Devil]

what she said ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[General BlackDragon]

Very nice

It's hard to make team colors look good. I think you pulled it off, congrats!

[DuoRanger]

if coxxon messes up later with BZ and FE models, i'll buy a passage only to hug him personally

They look FABULOUS!

[Progressor]

I always admire people who can do something I cannot and will never can...

[Axeminister]

Loving it!