================================================================= Prowl Quake2 Player Model by Jason Seip email: jay@telefragged.com "Bluestreak" and "CWclan" skins by Rikki Knight email: wigger@texas.net ================================================================= Title : Prowl Author : Jason Seip Description : Quake2 player model of the transformer Prowl, a member of the Autobots Additional Credits to : id Software, makers of Quake2 Hasbro Inc. for creating the Transformers line of toys NPherno, maker of the awesome NST Newtek, makers of Lightwave3D Rikki Knight for skinwork Rikki, Gears, and Eric for TFQ (my favorite obsession) Build Time : don't ask, don't tell Tools Used : Lightwave 3D v5.6 Photoshop 3 Paintshop Pro 5 NST Q2 Modeller And a whole lot of cd's ================================================================= DESCRIPTION A plugin player model for Quake2 based on an Autobot character from the Transformers line of toys. The model features additional frames that were added so it could be used in the Transformers conversion of Quake2 that I am leading (www.telefragged.com/ transformers). Added are frames for which the character wears a jetpack, and, more importantly, frames in which Prowl transforms into a car and back into a robot. Note that you can NOT access these frames in standard Q2 play (so don't ask me how! :P) You will need to view the model in one of the shareware Q2 model editors, like NST or Q2Modeller, for example, in order to see the animations. Once the conversion is complete, you can download that and then you will be able to transform and drive around in car mode. No, I don't know how soon we'll release something; yes, I know you really want it (me too!). For those interested, here's Prowl's bio: Function: Military Strategist "Logic is the ultimate weapon" "Prowl will keep at a task for as long as it takes. Strives to find reason and logic in everything. A listener, not a talker. Has most sophisticated logic center of all Autobots. Able to analyze and advise on complex combat situations almost instantaneously. Fires wire-guided incendiary missiles and high-corrosive acid pellets. The unexpected can often scramble his circuits." INSTALLATION After unzipping the files contained in the archive, put them in a directory called 'Prowl', underneath the Quake2\baseq2\players\ folder. If the name isn't exactly right, it *will not* work. USING Prowl IN QUAKE2 To use Prowl go to the mutliplayer setup and choose the Prowl model instead of the male or female players. You're on your own if you want to use Prowl with one of the 'bot' programs, I'm afraid. I haven't had the time to play with that. SKINS I created the "Prowl" skin from scratch (except for the autobot symbol I stole from Rikki :), and then built the ctf skins from that. Both ctf skins borrow the window colors from the Bluestreak skin Rikki did. I've grown fond of giving transformers ctf skins that resemble race car stylings. You may notice that the white stripe for the red ctf skin doesn't extend the length of the body. I had to stop it because the feet use mirrored mapping, which prevent me from continuing the stripe on only one side. If the skins seem dark, it's because I play Q2 in GL mode with a Voodoo2 card, the end result being that skin colors really tend to brighten up once in the game. The CWclan is for the Cybertron Warriors, a transformer-based clan that Rikki belongs to. A skin for the "Smokescreen" character will be made as well, and released separately. Oh, before people start writing me, the Bluestreak skin is based on the original toy, not the cartoon or later version of the toy. So the skin is mostly blue, as opposed to the gray cartoon version. Please feel free to create new skins for Prowl. You can send them to me by email: jay@telefragged.com. SOUNDS Where they came from: I hacked together a bunch of sounds to make the player seem a little more like a metallic being. Most are from 2 demos I downloaded: 'Shadows of the Empire' and 'Take No Prisoners'. One or two Quake2 sounds made their way in there, too. If you don't like them, just delete them and the game will play the default male sounds. COMMENTS Prowl is a logical, somewhat quiet character in the transformer mythos, so his animations tend to reflect this. Except maybe the taunt, which I couldn't resist. :) Also, this model was the source of a lot of research and development, and served as the bridge between my older Sideswipe model and the new stuff I'm working on now, which is much more sophisticated. The best part of Prowl is easily the transform sequence, which was a lot of fun to do. The skin for the weapon was made by creating a high-poly version of the gun and rendering it from different views in Lightwave. Then I cut, pasted, and scaled the peices to conform to it's skin. I'm pretty happy with the results and am likely to use this method again in the future. I didn't include vwep models because I just don't have time to mess with them, besides, I think human weapons would look kinda silly in Prowl's hand anyway. If anybody wants to make them, be my guest. Slight bug: The 2 red pieces on the top of Prowl's helmet have a lighting problem in Q2, and almost seem to flash. I believe it's because they share points on the edge, and Q2 tries to light them as a continuous surface, even though they are facing opposite directions. The end result is that each frame has them being lit slightly different, and it doesn't look right. Oh, well, live and learn... Please ask if you want to use the model for anything other than personal use as it is explained here, particularly if incuding it in a patch or add-on. Don't stick it on anything retail...it won't be me coming after you, it'll be Hasbro's big, bad lawyers. Now get out there and kick some. Jay jay@telefragged.com http://www.telefragged.com http://www.genetic1.com