Topic: I attempted a pyro model

[SaladBadger]

I took a stab at trying to recreate the Descent pyro model used in the FMVs and the like with the intention of creating a proportion model for doing a new more accurate model for the game itself. I don't know how to proceed with texturing this mess...

There are some deliberate errors atm like the lower wings clipping with the vents on the side. This is accurate to how the model is in the original game, strangely enough, so I replicated it for the moment to keep it more accurate (it's easy to resolve, though)

[Kaiaatzl]

Neato!

[Scyphi]

Pretty faithful recreation all right! 

Though the laser cannons seem slightly off...though it might just be the lighting and the angle.

[Matthew]

Looks neat! Curious if you're basing it off the rendered cutscenes or the in-game model?

[SaladBadger]

Thanks for the comments! All of it is based off of the in-game cutscenes. I think, from this project, Parallax used the same model across all the games. The ending pics in Descent 1, the Descent 1 PSX cutscenes, and the Descent 2 FMVs (and the pictures in the demo version, which are nicely in high-res in Destination Quartzon) all seem to use the same model, but Parallax was constantly changing it and upgrading it across the games so it's not 100% the same. But details are consistent, and some errors show up in all the games.

My main goal is to make a in game model that's much more accurate to the original FMV models. It wasn't possible for parallax to do so. The game imposed a pretty large size limit on the filesize of models (parallax's own toolchain wouldn't  allow a model greater than 32kb to be used), and the need to BSP slice that inflates the polycount tremendously. Adding all the nonconvex details would turn the model into a complete disaster with an excessive polycount. Not good. But with Rebirth, this isn't a big factor anymore. I tried once, here's the results of that:



It's nice, but... it's subtly wrong. Just subtly wrong enough that I don't like it as much as I could, so I built this model to try to use it as a proportion guide to get this model more accurate. I'll work on that eventually. I have also been working on my old Descent 2 Workshop toolchain with the goal to make the best Descent 2 editor I can.