ZeroK-RTS
✨ Likho remodel.
Folds wings when landed (like existing Likho apparently). Both modes shown here + comparison with other planes.
On buildpad.
Colvol XZ size of existing Likho seemed alright so I didn't touch it. Only made it less thicc in the Y dimension (and removed a random sideways shift).
Minor issue: doesn't enter the "landed" state on airpad -> doesn't fold wings and can clip the superstructure on airfac pad.
Probably not worth touching the colvol on a unit that has been so tricky to balance. A visual difference of 4 elmos seems ok.
Apparently this part is bugged and not supposed to look like that, but I hear it looks correct in Blender
Deleting the armature object in the model fixes this, so i'm pretty sure that this is an engine issue.
Not necessarily, maybe it is a badly UV'd copy of the whole geometry, perfectly overlapping so that neither is "on top" of the other, and Blender happens to draw the real geometry on top while Spring/Recoil happens to draw Armature on top?
Also yours looks matte bright-gray compared to my shiny dark-gray, though maybe it's just map lighting (I tested on duck).
Not necessarily, maybe it is a badly UV'd copy of the whole geometry, perfectly overlapping so that neither is "on top" of the other, and Blender happens to draw the real geometry on top while Spring/Recoil happens to draw Armature on top?
Seems implausible. There is only one mesh object in the file altogether - likho2023. Additionally, the armature is essentially this:
Essentially it's a hierarchy of transform matrices for each bone. It has no polygons, so it can't be drawn on top.
The darker, slightly shinier version looks better to me. In terms of colour, not in terms of the texture being messed up around the edges. In general a bit of variation of colour could be good too.
The darker, slightly shinier version looks better to me. In terms of colour, not in terms of the texture being messed up around the edges. In general a bit of variation of colour could be good too.
There is no darker/brighter version. The one in my screenshot has different lighting (it's on Folsom, not on Duck) and is highlighted by the cursor hover shader, but it's the same texture. There were no changes to texture, or even to UVs on the model vertices, all i did in that test was to delete the armature to see if it was related to the garbled texture problem. Which it was.
There is no darker/brighter version. The one in my screenshot has different lighting (it's on Folsom, not on Duck) and is highlighted by the cursor hover shader, but it's the same texture.
I think GF means that the texture should be edited (made darker and shinier) so that it would look on Folsom (and other normal maps) like it currently looks on Duck (and on Duck it would then probably end up being black and mirror-level shiny?).
I think GF means that the texture should be edited (made darker and shinier) so that it would look on Folsom (and other normal maps) like it currently looks on Duck (and on Duck it would then probably end up being black and mirror-level shiny?).
It seems as dark as other "core" planes on Folsom atm:
That said, maybe it could be significantly blacker and glossier. It's made out of denser stuff. The texture could also be a bit less noise grain and more metal-material-ish.
That said, maybe it could be significantly blacker and glossier. It's made out of denser stuff. The texture could also be a bit less noise grain and more metal-material-ish.
I made a quick attempt to evaluate/iterate
I see three different versions above.
- Sprung's screenshots with a decent black plane, which are perhaps bit too shiny and a bit close to grey, but which have broken texture alignment.
- Anarchid's concrete grey version that fixes the texture alignment, but is really grey and matt.
- Anarchid's terrible cloudy version.
Why are there so many differences, which one works? Is it a map lighting thing? And all three versions have a stretched texture issue in the air intakes on the top.
Cloudy is a retexture attempt. Difference between mine and gray Anarchid is map lighting but unfortunately mine is on an map with uncommon/broken light.
I guess I could crosspost this feedback here.
actually the ravager picture is a good example of things I think new Likho is missing Ravager has a bit of variation. It has black and while, different texture of black on the wheels, and a little red window Likho is just shiny black with teamcolour trying to do a lot of the jobs that little highlighted details would try to do. But it all ends up being one colour with teamcolour on top. and usually I think teamcolour exists in reasonably thick blocks, not things like thin edges that fade into the rest of the texture. It should stand out and not be everywhere the blacks of Likho turn into grey, but it all depends on the angle of the unit and the sun settings of the map. Which is bad for consistency
But idk if anything should be changed based on it. I've been saying stuff like that for ages already. I'm not sure we have any options beyond fixing the technical issues with the existing PR and just calling it good enough.
It's pretty grey and indistinct.
Being grey and this shiny seems like a bad approach since sometimes the whole plane flashes white.
Overall it seems to be too small, or built at a small scale. The details disappear at this distance. You can easily tell what the other bombers are. It doesn't fell like something that just scaling up the model will fix.
Here are some shots of it flying around. The old Likho is much easier to pick out imo.
How many of each type of Likho is in this picture? (Added airjets to old Likho for fairness)
Added airjets to old Likho for fairness
Commit that? It was supposed to have them AFAIK (for the new one I just changed piece name but kept the rest of the config the same)
@Anarchid @sprunk @GoogleFrog Sorry to ping you, but 3 days of silence implies that you haven't been notified.
I like the shape overall and the ball is looking good in the holder. My main concern is the model for the ball when it is fired, and the texture being very reflective and saturated. The gold bits look a bit too much like teamcolour for my liking due to their general brightness. Also the texture might be a bit too fine grained compared to other units, making it look like a shrunk version of a larger unit. Making the texture a bit duller, like Odin (although Odin also has a bit of a problem here), could fix almost all of this, I'm not sure. The teamcolour is quite decent though.
I might be worth trying increasing the size of the model by 10%. The hitvolume will need a bit of adjusting anyway. I am also not sure about the wings folding all the way up while landing. Retracting halfway into the sides seems better, just to help people recognise the unit when it is on a pad.
It is extremely bright/reflective
The whole model seems to be offset
The in-flight ball is jarringly large.
I feel like it is too gold, and that is going to look good with some teamcolours and weird with others. It looks a bit weird with player-green, but I also suspect this would be the type of thing that grows on me.
Does it look fine with gold as dull as Odin? I think we're at the point where the texture can be left as-is, and I'd get used to it and it would be fine. But when I run my "what would a real art director do?" algorithm, it says "There are large areas of non-teamcolour with much more saturation than the standard range for Zero-K units".
Actually, I can give an approximate answer to my own question:
That is dropping saturation by 18 "points" in Paint.net, where 100 points reduces everything to grey.
It is still noticeably gold, but the teamcolour sticks out clearly as more saturate, and it fits better with the rest of the units and environment. It is no longer weirdly bright.
I probably subtlety ruined the DDS somehow when exporting it, so I don't want to mess with the texture myself, but I think this slight toning down of the gold makes it fit a lot better so something like this would be good.
Here is my messed with file: likho2024-1.zip
What are these wiggly jagged white rectangles?
When they align with the camera, I am greeted by a rotating billboard and a Venetian blind effect. They are also pure-white from every angle.
I first noticed them because these spots appeared to be flashed red when the plane banked, due to the Venetian blinding.
It looks like the white squares only appear when it has no ammo, which is neat. Still, they blow-out my screen and flash when the plane turns. It is also a bit weird that they open when the plane is in-flight, what if they only opened when it was out of ammo and sitting on an airpad? And does it need the rectangles and lups effect? I think the idea of opening the flaps is a lot cooler than it ended up looking. A deep dark hole baked onto the texture could achieve the same idea without the visual issues.
Otherwise, shape, texture, overall looks good. I might want to fiddle with the projectile ceg a bit, but that can be left to me.