So I'm going to sneak in and interrupt Masterz. I posted this on Halomods, but for those of you who don't go there, this might interest some of you.

So honestly, I'm not really sure if I should even be showing you guys some of this, but with Lag and Masterz showing off what they're working on, I thought I might as well too.

I would like to point out that there were some turn table's planned, but due to how busy the team actually is most of the time, it became more and more unlikely that they would get done. So I did the next best thing, some renders with a short video at the end.

Alright, lets get started. I was originally going to show off the Battle Rifle as the first model, but to be honest, I hate that model. It was the first model I made when I joined CMT just before the release of a50. It was a poor excuse for a high poly model, and to be honest it looks as good as it does now thanks to Dano saving it with his amazing texture work. So I decided to overlook the model for now, and to show you some of the more recent goodies we have cooking behind the scenes as art developers. I hate to have to say it, but as usual, anything you see ahead is subject to change at any time, so don't go crazy pointing out issues, more than likely we are aware of them already, we stare at this stuff more than you.

So the first model I would like to show you guys is our Pistol. I want to kind of walk some of you through the basic steps that go in to creating a model for CMT and what we strive for. Feel free to skip ahead and look at the pretty pictures, but for those of you who are curious, you can read this too. The first step to creating any decent model is to have a plan. Obviously we have a lot of resources to look at in the Halo universe. Many of us on the team have different opinions on what the art for CMT should be like. We want to stay as true to the Halo universe as possible, without directly copying it, or ruining what most of you have built in to your heads through the many years of playing the games. When I first looked at the pistol, I wanted something very similar to the Halo Reach pistol. We found very quickly that the model was both: too similar, and quite frankly, just not working. The scope section copied almost directly over from the Reach pistol, as did the slide. We found this to be very ugly, and unattractive in the first person. Since we all look at the rear of the gun while playing, it can be sometimes difficult to judge right away. We went with several revisions of the model, we even yanked chunks off the original pistol and twisted and manipulated them to work with the new model. We eventually came to an agreement on the design you see now. It's a mix of the Halo 1 pistol, with the bulk of the Reach scope, along with bits and pieces from other games. Personally I think it came out great. It works well in game, and is instantly recognizable as the Halo pistol.



Now when we go to model something, we must first start with the high poly model as seen above. Thanks to the advancements of Open Sauce, we are capable of using normal maps, extended specularity maps, and many other amazing features. We create the high poly so that we can have an accurate normal map. No crazybump or computer generated normals here. We hand make everything. The high poly is eventually "baked" in to the low poly model. This gives us all the detail from the high poly, but in a manageable low poly size that Halo's engine can handle. The low poly is then passed on to the texture artist, in this case it was Dano, who takes it and creates the wonderful piece you see before you.



I know in a few sentences I say it like it's a cake walk. But it takes a lot of time, patience, and practice. You'll notice as I start to post these regularly that my modeling changes quite a bit. Right now the edges on the high poly of the pistol are a little tight. And this can cause issues with the baking process. Again, Dano really saved this one, it wasn't near as bad as my Battle Rifle, but it certainly wasn't as good as it could be. It's a learning process for myself as much as Lag and Masterz are learning new things all the time on how far we can push this engine. We are always striving to make as many people happy as possible, and I hope this gave you a quick look on what we do.



Check out this video for a quick and dirty look at the pistol in game, and look forward to more in the future. Nothing level based is even close to final, just focus on the pistol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nmruzN4l8Q

Thanks for your time, and I'll see you again in a few weeks? ;)

Check out Halomods as usual for more info and upcoming updates:
http://www.halomods.com/ips/index.php?/topic/597-bobthegreatiis-crazy-contraptions/page__pid__6864#entry6864
Edited by BOBTHEGREATTHE2ND on Sep 26, 2012 at 02:57 PM

I'd like to say that CMT and TM are examples of what defines a good team in a community that mods games.
Edited by XlzQwerty1 on Sep 26, 2012 at 03:25 PM

Cool artwork Bob the Great. Thanks for posting it here too.

There is something wrong with the reload animations, the clip that pops the slide back into place moves after the chiefs finger goes back on the grip.

I remember seeing a list of contributors floating around somewhere and noticed I wasn't mentioned. I guess I didn't contribute as much as I thought.

Don't mind me, just posting rather interesting bits of my enormous data folder. (over 4,000 files)
(Definitely not SPV2 level data) http://www.mediafire.com/?lc327e7agym4i88

And these maps I found, they clearly don't have any relevance to this thread.
A30 http://www.mediafire.com/?kjw0puuig97f9yq
B30 http://www.mediafire.com/?06i10v20c7n7yab
B40 http://www.mediafire.com/?72o35ft7r9rmjqz

Are there other reasons for these items being put on public display? You bet. But if I tell you these other reasons, I fear my identity will be too quickly figured out. CMT wouldn't want that!

Masterz1337, I turly appreciate the way you do things now (the thread layout/format, not the use of silly OS). The way I used to do my own threads keeps coming to mind. Although one could argue that you could use more organization. Now guess who I am.

:)

I'm not going to play guessing games, but if you have any more SPV2 files or data I do encourage you to release them. All our stuff is open source (SPV3 included) so the more stuff you have the better. I know there's lots of people who want some of our older tags which we overwrote (Snowgrove weapons and SPV2 A10 Pistol for example), so please do upload these to halomaps as well.

Though, if you do feel you have contributed to this team and you are being unrecognized for your work, just tell me who you are and what you did for us. If you've been unrecognized I'll be sure to correct that mistake.
Edited by Masters1337 on Sep 27, 2012 at 10:55 AM

5 bucks on DSalimander.
3 bucks on Grunts.
1 buck on Il Duce Primo.

I'd say Il Duce Primo, it really isn't grunts nor DSalimander's style.
Il Duce Primo really hasn't got any recognition whatsoever, so I'm putting my bets on him.

I'm putting my bets on Il Duce Primo.

He did lead the old Community Mapping Team and did contribute quite a lot to this CMT(Custom Mapping Team) before the whole conflict.

That guy's grammar is far superior than Il Duce's, it can't possibly be him.

who was the guy who used to make the old cmt threads? had a avatar pic of daffy duck. supersniper was his name I think, but I could be wrong
Edited by Delicon20 on Sep 27, 2012 at 04:37 PM

I liked the Daffy Duck dude.

"I'm not going to play guessing games,"
It's funny you say that. Or as you used to say, I lol'd. Just keep denying it.

If SPv3 is simply SPv2 recycled with OS and a few modifications, I don't see how this release doesn't scream spoilers and incompetence. Especially since all you want to do for now on is release OS maps. There goes most of the loyal fanbase, IMO. As I said before, credit isn't the only thing I'm seeking by doing this. I wouldn't even care if you continued to not credit me, as long as my alterior motives are met.

Here's 400mb of raw texture data, compressed down to about 216mb. (Split into two rars because of 200mb filesize limit on MediaFire, ugh.)
http://www.mediafire.com/?kpa9wbyujh19tps
http://www.mediafire.com/?h7mi5mg9h7kaa3x


I also have what seems to be all the Halo 2 music in .wav format, but I think that was already released, right? I only wonder because its in "rootdir:data\cmt\sound\music". I do have more level data, but it's in a slightly out of reach place. I'll see what I can do to get it.

Figured it out as soon as I read the first sentence. Call it intuition.

Loving all this drama, bravo who ever you are, you make Altheros look like a saint :D

Keep it coming. Glad to see this stuff is getting released. Saves people the time of having to rip it.

oh man I wish it was that simple, we'd have been done months ago

He is a saint, some of these were lost when my hard drive failed. Got anything else you can release?

shh
if he wants to be anonymous while demanding credit, let him.
Edited by master noob on Sep 27, 2012 at 11:05 PM

Its so obvious its DSali. No need for guessing games.

Yeah, 5$ to Lodex.

Also http://www.mediafire.com/?wqh9kt55wa23qfd

All our SPV2 a30 stuff for those that are interested. also includes multiple scenarios in there as well, since the thread has turned to a "release old things".

I still got an old version in my maps folder of "b40_final" child scenario (the thing that inspired me to make b40_firefight), if you guys don't have it up for grabs anymore I could upload it. Probably one of the most interesting encounters made for SPv2.

How best to deal with a leaky troll: Let him keep doing stuff.

That would be awesome....

Release the kracken lodex.

Thar she blows: the original SPv2 Ending I whipped up for b40:
http://www61.zippyshare.com/v/5725795/file.html

People who played b40_firefight will definitely recognise the setting and encounters.
Cheers and beers!

Thanks....

lol I still have the old leak of this from ce ripper

somehow managed to juggle it around despite all my pc crashes

Your pelican thrusters are amazing. Easily the most impressive thing I have seen so far.

Seriously, they are just really awesome for some reason.

Cut the attitude Altheros ffs.
This is just another post in your endless circle of ragequits and comebacks.

Would love to see more of the new Pelican by the way Masters.

Psh, Masterz hasn't done anything with the pelican. He doesn't get to show it off.
Edited by BOBTHEGREATTHE2ND on Sep 29, 2012 at 02:06 PM

I hit the compile button for the map..... :(.


It's bob and rob's peli, they get to show it off.

Hi,

I have a question about OS.
When OS gets installed, it is known to change the default field of view (FOV).

However, when one disables the d3d9.dll to "disable" OS, what happens to the FOV? Is it possible that it remains the same value that OS set it to? I realise this is a more technical question as to how OS works, but an answer would be much appreciated.

Atm, there is some that think the FOV remains that which OS set it to after installation, which can cause some cutscene issues as more gets shown than the cinematic director wants to show.

When OS is 'disabled', FOV returns to how it was before OS was installed.

It's known by who to change the default FOV?

Unless a custom FOV is defined in the settings file, it's always at default. I've never known OS to change the default FOV upon install, and I know for a fact that it's extremely easy to reset it back to default through the in-game menu.