People that read the change logs for Nexuiz releases might know that my beloved carni model has a little problem. Its standing 'animation' is slightly broken. The model is not total centered but is standing a bit behind where it should be. So when you aim from the left or right at a standing carni you might miss him. Its not a real problem as you will have a hard time to find standing players in Nexuiz but it made me reconsider my playermodel..
I would not deserve the title 'forumaddon' if i would just choose a new model. No no no no!
Well i compared all the current models in Nexuiz 2.2.2. As i have little clue about moddeling i just loaded all the models and used r_speeds 1 to see how much stuff the engines needs to draw in thirdperson view which also includes the map and all stuff so i can't give you absolute numbers and i'm not totaly sure if this is representive but here is what i found: The top six from 'lightest' to 'more stuff to draw':

Shocktrooper (my new one )
Headhunter
Pyria
Insurectionist
Frika
Skadi

Might also be interesting for the planned pro editon. I did make it top six as i think the headhunter does not look that nice so its still top five if that one gets dropped
Also one might use that info to think about making brightskins for the shocktrooper instead of the nexus model.

one should rather do a FRESH brightskin with less polygons than Shocktrooper. People like big models, and I consider the size of Nexuz exactly right, "big"

What is a Brightskin? Is it a model? I always thought it was some kind of texture slapped onto a model.

Yes the brightskin is just a texture slapped onto the model. But if you vote that feature in nexuiz it uses the nexus model as green only made a brightskin for that one.
Well Green is right bulky models are better as they are easier to see.. i compared headhunter and nexus and there is not much difference both are really big and bulky.. Also it would be easy to make a brightskin for the headhunter as almost all the model is used for shirt/pants colors already. Actually i'm beginning to really like the headhunter so maybe i'll use that model from now on. Would also fit my style of not hiding with small models

Why not simply throw out the broken models or those which are too complex? Perhaps that is the easiest way to improve performance for some people?

Nexus is the biggest model, but isn't it also slightly bigger than the hitbox? At least I heard about that. I can't verify that, since I don't know the size of the models or the hitbox. Is there a way to show the hitbox, would be interesting to see?

Did you use chasecam for your test, or did you log in with another client? Or does the side you view on a model not matter for r_speeds?

Thanks for the list anyway. Good idea.

aimless wrote:Why not simply throw out the broken models or those which are too complex? Perhaps that is the easiest way to improve performance for some people?

Nexus is the biggest model, but isn't it also slightly bigger than the hitbox? At least I heard about that. I can't verify that, since I don't know the size of the models or the hitbox. Is there a way to show the hitbox, would be interesting to see?

Did you use chasecam for your test, or did you log in with another client? Or does the side you view on a model not matter for r_speeds?

Well the main problem with the models is that they are about the oldest things in Nexuiz. One should better create new models with modern techniques which will look way better but use less resources then the models we have now. It should be possible to use the current models as a guide or create groups like robots, monsters, humans which could also serve to differentiate the teams in team matches like quake4 does. Just throwing out old models is not really a good solution. And i have not yet tested if it would indeed be a bit speed boost.

I do not know of a way to show the hitboxes.

I did use chasecam yes but i also made the model transparent so the engine had to render it completely.

The poly counts in the models need to be totally optimized before you go working on other less important aspects of them.

esteel using a different model than carni??? what hathest yon world succumb to?

003 wrote:The poly counts in the models need to be totally optimized before you go working on other less important aspects of them.

Hehe i was almost tempted to respond with 'thanks wise kid'. But honestly.. yeah we know the player models have some damn problems but people following the forums and stuff for longer might have noticed that its not that easy to find modellers willing to do GPL stuff for some reason. Because of that it should be worth to improve the current situation but also continue to try to get new models..

4m wrote:esteel using a different model than carni??? what hathest yon world succumb to?

Yeah i know what you mean.. Well at high quality settings the carni really looked very cool but i did want to change it because of that bug. Well mulder looks also very cool but i wanted to be nice to other peoples FPS I'd really like to see new models.

Though we should replace the models i tried some stuff with the models.. timedemo for demo1:

with unmodified stuff: fps min/avg/max: 37.0370370/96.5360303/500.0000000

now i replaced all models

with the robot model which seems to be the worst of all: fps min/avg/max: 35.7142857/84.7766231/500.0000000

with the headhunter model which should be second 'lightest' but is the biggest and most visible of those light ones: fps min/avg/max: 41.6666667/106.3509749/500.0000000

and with the shock trooper which is the most light model: fps min/avg/max: 43.4615385/108.4597466/500.0000000

Maybe i should do a test with the nexus model but its getting late As one can see there is a 24fps difference on average from using worst vs best model and around 10fps + / - compared to the mixed models that demo1 normally has.
So it seems we will get quite some improvements by using optimized models and this should convince people even more that we need to try to find modelers and get new and optimized models.

Though i'm a bit worried about that reported lowest fps. One even sees that slowdown when watching the timedemo so maybe there is something else to optimize either the engine or the map. Other then that i think the numbers are ok for a map cramped with models

yeah, I'm totally for the fact that we need new optimized playermodels. However, I'd also like to ask to get at least one model with "really low" polys ... well, it not being a box but something like that ... 1000 polys or so , for competitive purposes.

I did optimize Carni to a nice 1.4k triangles before. Unfortunately SMD exporters (and importers) for Blender do not exist.

Well there has to be some way to do it, how did you originally get the current models into nexuiz? The best I can think of would to be add a feature to force all models to a specific one, and then get the default model optimized, and then people could force to the default model until the others were optimized as well. Also a new rule should be instituted. No new models can enter Nexuiz unless they have been optimized.

How many times to tell: client side player model forcing will be done by CLIENT SIDE QUAKE C! Till that, only server can force player models, but I'm pretty sure, most of the players won't welcome this change. Mind, our community is not only those people, you can see chatting here on the forums. I can see a lot of frequent players on servers, who never ever posted a line here, or probably won't ever.
Btw. what do you think about new players? They have just downloaded Nexuiz, selected a cool player model, and then all they can see ingame is a bunch of other models running around? What do you think, what would he/she say?

"This game suxx big time!" --- RandomGamerJohn drops Nexuiz folder in the trash-bin.

No, this is not the way.It was said trillion times again, that Nexuiz's player models are
-ugly (not all of them, but some of them moves very strange).
-have too high policount
-and wtf is this zym format???

We badly need a good modeler, who has time to redo/fixthe models, and allows his work to be released under GPL. Imho redo, at least the movement, just look at the firing animation: shakes like a bowl of jelly, tries to show rapid firing, only problem is that nexuiz does not have that kinda rapid firing weapons...)

Well 003 is rather new to the forum so he might not be aware of those csqc problems.. Version 3.0 will use csqc that allows the Clients to do some stuff on their own, right now you can only vote forced models on the client and indeed i think it would be bad to make this the default.
However the plan for 3.0 is to have new models and add all those familiar client side stuff that people want like forceable models, scriptable hud and so on..

I'm partially aware of CSQC. But OK so maybe you cant have a clientside force model option yet, but what stops people from working on the models? Sure it will be slow, but it's faster that not doing ANYTHING. I really wish I could help instead of just saying what needs to be done, but the most skill I have is some very basic map making stuff in UT2004. I can't do anything with modeling programs, photoshop, etc... Even my BSP is pretty bad.

But anyway... I take back the idea of only allowing new models into nexuiz if they are already optimized. See, this brings up some points.

1. IMO, Nexuiz already has plenty of models and they all look fine to me.
2. You want to add some new models and optimize them. Ok, great idea, finally starting to optimize. BUT WAIT...
3. Nexuiz already HAS plenty of models, all of which need to be optimized, so why waste your time optimizing new models instead of optimizing the ones that are ALREADY THERE?

This gets confusing...

003 wrote:Nexuiz already HAS plenty of models, all of which need to be optimized, so why waste your time optimizing new models instead of optimizing the ones that are ALREADY THERE?

Making new models would be simpler than optimizing the current models.

Wow is it really that bad? Then why not start redoing them one by one (starting from the default model)

To look and feel modern thise new models would do well with normalmaps, and that can be difficult to add to a model not designed for it in the first place. Optimizing the current ones are just a bad idea period. Low poly modeling degeraly works by adding polys from a very low poly base untill the final shape os down. Welding down an higher poly to a lower usualy turns out looking rather bad and taking a long time. (woohoo loose-loose situation xD)

To sugest diffrent appoches to what needs to be done where is all good, but untill someone hunts down and straps a chara modeler into a chair untill she/he is donw with the replacement models its all just wasted ascii. So if you realy what this to change, find and inspire a chara modeler to work on nexuiz.

Ok how about this. We can set up a donation fund and use the money to pay somebody to make models. I sure would donate, as long as there was a pretty strong guarantee that at least one or two models would be done and have normal maps. I'm sure other people would donate as well. And when I say I would donate, I don't mean some chincy little $1 donation, either.

Whats wrong with 1$ donations? Add up 500 of those, and you get quite a bankroll.

Are there 500 people that are going to donate? Anyway does this sound like a good idea?

I dont think so... i mean, when you pay someone to do something (like modeling), then it sort of takes the whole spirit out it IMHO. Its sort of like DIY— you dont pay someone, or else its LSEDIFU (let someone else do it for you).

If it gets the job done and they are GPL.... I would be willing to make a nice donation.

No, this won't work. All the main idea behind nexuiz is that it's fully GPL and made by heart of those people. That's why it's not a commercial game. And imho it's not a good idea to pay somebody to make those models. I'm not saying, nobody makes quality stuff if getting payed, but there's a hug risk in this.
Nope, we need a good modeller who can spare his free time to make new models and release them under GPL. And like esteel said, sorry if I was a bit harsh in my last comment, but on this topic you should have at least look around in this forum, the problem and the answere was poste d amillion times. About the solutionfor this question, that's another tale.

003 wrote:Well there has to be some way to do it, how did you originally get the current models into nexuiz? .

horrible proprietary 3d studio max software

003 wrote:Well there has to be some way to do it, how did you originally get the current models into nexuiz.

I have found a decent md3 exporter/exporter for Blender. Its from the xreal guys
http://xreal.sourceforge.net/xrealwiki/BlenderExportMD3.

The smd exporter which was in development never seemed to work. Python don't seem too different to any other language so THEORETICALLY any 1 could modify, say, a OBJ export script to a SMD exporter.

I never seem to get the time to finish anything not work-related.

I believe you can import .3ds files into blender, so if you arent familiar with working in blender, one could theoretically import into blender, save as .blend, and export with that md3 export script.

but Nexuiz doesn't use md3.

Maybe I misunderstood something in the past, but I thought the models were being/had been converted to md3 in order to avoid ugly, poorly-written converter scripts or expensive software.