The ai Frontier - My ups and downs

[ai]

So you think the flag is still too big or can I continue on with animations and possible bones once I figure out how that would work ingame.

[Alien]

Me thinks that the flag stick shouldn't reach the ground. Probably it could be raised a bit later, so flags would be above players heads then. This is just what I think.

[ai]

The stick doesn't reach the ground. It's a little bit above it. But I could scotch everything up a little except the middle part of the stick where the lasers come out from. However, I don't know how far up the flags will go. If they go above the players heads the whole model will look too big, but at least halfway down the flag or 75% so to speak.
I'll try it out tomorrow, and if no more objections or suggestions comes after this change I'll start with animations and whatnot. Meaning the model part would be finished (for the most part, parts where there doesn't exist any animation on the model could, theoretically, still be changed).

Post pics tomorrow (EU time )

[ai]

I have redone the flag just a tad. However, it won't be possible to make it any taller as it will show through ceilings and such. Also I think I need to scale it down a bit as it pokes through walls as well.

Morfar also suggested to remove the emblem (the top thing) on the flag. I did something just quickly to get the point across how that would look like. Pics below, any comments and suggestions on that? I personally think it sucks without the Nexuiz emblem ;D. At least, the thing I did in the pictures sucks.

So I suppose I will actually lower the flag a bit as well as scale it down. Once done I'll see if it will poke through any walls and such, if it doesn't I'll post more pics.

[[-z-]]

Personall I like the single flag better than the quad and tripple but overall FANTASTIC JOB!!! This kicks the CRAP OUT OF the current models. I'm excited to play with real flags!!

Great work ai.

[ai]

Well, the reason why I have 3 flags instead of one is that with only 1 flag it would be very hard to notice the flag carrier sometimes. Especially if you look at him straight from the front. The flag would hardly be visible. I almost didn't notice the flag carrier on greatwall zoomed in with the nex, I shot at a random guy and luckily he dropped the flag. I didn't even know he had it

[[-z-]]

I didn't even know he had it

Is a smoke trail out of the question? I love that feature in games. Helps people know THEY have the flag too.

[ai]

Meh, I have a dilemma here.
I scaled down the flags and in certain positions the flag won't show through walls, however the flag still pokes through the walls if the flag carrier spins/and or jumps (thinking about the Greatwall bunker). But also by scaling down the flag it's a bit harder to notice the flag-carrier. The Headhunter model is very big, actually the biggest as far as I know and he's the worst case.

But, I decided to release another beta test version. And now I ask you to download this, put it in your Nexuiz/data folder and play with these online and see what you think. I would love to have some of your thoughts on this. Can you live with the flag being so small or can you live with it poking through walls (I hate the latter myself).
Now as far as I know, Greatwall is pretty much the only map where it is a big problem, the bunker. Other maps might not have such thin walls, but I don't want to restrict mappers to a certain wall-size just because of the flags.

Your thoughts are highly appreciated.
To play online choose 'Green's' if you're in EU, to be able to see these flag models. Don't know any US servers as I never play on them.

Flag models: http://ai.planetnexuiz.de/Models/z_aiFl ... V0.4.1.pk3

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On a totally different note, I found a cool flag bug on the Greatwall map when testing my flag models with morfar. However, we decided to switch back to the original flag models first before recording. Check them out

Flag bug: ai view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=828aWqGOIcY
Flag bug: morfar view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOKNCNiwaLc

[Dokujisan]

ok, I'm going to try to get some more people to take a look at this thread and comment because it seems only three of us are responding and giving ai feedback so far. If this is to be the next Nexuiz flag model, this discussion really needs input from lots of people.

[Alien]

I think that whole flag should fit inside the bounding box of the model. AFAIK, they all should be the same size. Then there won't be problems with flag poking outside/through walls. Flag should be only an object which you should carry not an object which makes flag carrier distinct.

Making flag player distinct would be coding issue then, e.g. applying glowing orb around him. Even you scale the flag bigger, fc won't be clearly seen using insta nex.

I don't know if making flag a solid object would help, cause then you might get stuck cutting paths around corners. I wonder how our current flag acts when touching walls.