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Prime's Skinning Monthly
By Prime on 03-30-2004
Skinning Monthly
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Introduction
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Welcome to the first instalment of Prime's Skinning Monthly. As you have probably guessed, this series will be in the same vein as the other "Monthly" articles by Kengo, Manquesa, and others. Hopefully I can do as good a job covering this area of JO/JA modding as they have done for theirs. For the two of you who don't know, "skinning" involves altering or creating new textures to be put on top of existing models. In a nutshell, colouring (excuse my silly Canadian spelling) the models. This is done for everything from characters, maps, weapons, vehicles, and so on. I will be focusing mainly on skins for characters, but I will also look at weapons and vehicles as well. First, I'd like to give a big thank you to the great staff here at map-review.com for allowing me to do this series. There really are some very talented people out there and I am keen on giving them some exposure, and this is a wonderful forum to do just that. So thanks to everyone here for giving me this opportunity. Hopefully I can deliver and not bore everyone to death.
Now before I begin my ramblings, I should probably introduce myself to the masses that do not know me (as it allows me to talk about myself, which I do so enjoy). I am Prime, at least to everyone on the Internet but my mom. I got into modding and in particular skinning in a sort of roundabout way compared to most people, I suspect. I am from a generation that at one point thought Pong was "uber cool", and a time long before "all your base are belong to us!" Because of this, I still get blown away from time to time seeing games such as JO and JA become a reality. All those old games got me interested in programming, as I wanted to be able to "do those cool things with computers". I started writing little video games as a hobby, which eventually lead to having to create art for them. When I first started out, stick figure hero against stick figure alien was about as good as I could do. But after a while I was able to create some decent but decidedly unspectacular art for my own games.
Being a huge Star Wars fan, when JO came along I was very excited. Then even more so when I found out about the possibility of being able to, in essence, create my own characters. It was a fairly easy transition going from doing the 2D art for my games to 3D skins for JO. That being said, I was amazed at some of the work I saw others turning out, and deep down in my bitter little heart I am still jealous of them. In the early days of JO I created a few skins for myself of made up characters, like my Jedi Qui-Zan Buuzza, and the droid AD-88. After finishing these, I released them out into the world on a whim, in case that one other person might want to use them. Later on, I was asked to work on some great projects like the Team 7 skins for Kengo's Occupation SP map. Since JA has come along, I have continued doing skins from time to time, mainly ones that are of interest to myself. Now that Knights of the Old Republic has come out, I have gotten into creating new skins for that as well. On a side note, when I create skins I tend to "cheat" in that I don't create skins from scratch, but take bits and pieces from other skins in the game and modify them to get what I want. Perhaps I shouldn't let that particular cat out of the bag... Anyway, one funny thing that has happened since I started skinning is that I have gotten a lot of questions about the technical aspects of skinning, the result of which are the tutorials that can be found on this very site. Anyway, that is entirely too much about me. You can wake up now.
Okay, I should really start talk about skinning. In my opinion, skins make or break a model. You can have an ultra-detail bazillion polycount model, but if the skin sucks then the whole package sucks too. Similarly, with a good skin you can take a sub par model and really make something pretty to look at, and I don't mean those skins of naked chicks. In this series, I want to give some exposure to projects that in my opinion are a cut above the ordinary. I don't really have a set criteria for what that actually means, I just "knows it when I sees it." However, I do look for skins that I think will add to the skinning community in one way or another. As you might guess, that eliminates most clan skins :) The skins I cover may be a part of new model releases, but I will be focusing on how good the textures are, not how good the model is. I'll leave that to others who know a lot more about that sort of thing than I.
Now let's get onto stuff that actually matters, like what is going on in the world of JO/JA skinning. Bon Appetit...
New Releases
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There are tons of new skins coming out all the time. Almost daily in the case of Jedi Academy. To put it mildly, not all of them are worth the download. But some of them are worth waiting for hours while your little 56k model struggles along. Here are some that I feel fit the bill?
I?d like to start with a pair of skins that have come from HapSlash. His Improved Stormtrooper and Sandtrooper exemplify what I love about Star Wars and what a great skin really does for a model. One thing that really worked for me in the original Star Wars trilogy was the lived-in feel of the movies. Everything looked like it was well used and weathered. It made it so much more real to me. HapSlash?s sandtrooper model captures that feel. The sand and grit that is part of the skin really make it look like the poor guy has seen better days. This, along with the excellent little details, makes this a required download. The improved stormtrooper is a great contrast to the sandtrooper skin. The stormtrooper has pristine armour and looks more detailed than the stormtrooper skin that comes with JA. The shading and shadows seem to accentuate the armour really well. Not only that, but the stormtrooper comes with a great E-11 blaster rifle, which has a skin with just as much detail as the trooper. I definitely feel it is an improvement over the original.
Next is a skin for another Imperial minion, Monsoontide?s biker scout. This is the scout trooper seen battling Luke and Leia on the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi. This model has textures that almost appear to be taken from a photo of a ?real? biker scout. The detail on the helmet in particular is quite well done. This package also comes with a new blaster, whose detail is also very good.
Next is a character that people have been clamouring for since JO was released, Anakin Skywalker. The one done by Kevin Coyle is by far the best I?ve seen. The robes are pretty well done, although they don?t have a lot of detail. But they are above average, especially the boots. The thing that really caught my eye was the face, which is an excellent likeness to Anakin. Overall, the skin as a whole works well, and considering the subject no doubt it have some extremely high download counts.
Romulus? skin, how shall we say, deviates from the normal subject matter. His George Lucas skin gets points for originality if nothing else. The skin itself isn?t particularly impressive, but it does have a decent likeness of someone you wouldn?t expect to encounter in a JA FFA. So for that alone, I thought it was worth mentioning. To top it off, it has some funny taunts that are actually sound bites take out of context from an interview. Good for a laugh.
On the JO side, InfiniteWarrior has done a nice reskin of the old JO Jan model. Nothing too complex, but he has skinned her in Asian-like clothes with a complex dragon pattern. I suspect that the texture for the cloth itself is applied from something else, but it works well and is a neat idea.
On the Horizon
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I am particularly excited about some of the projects currently underway because it really seams that the good are only getting better. There is some work going on right now that is truly of professional quality. So after wading through all the "when is it done?" and "bump" posts, here are some skins that have caught my eye?
As if his improved stormtrooper and sandtrooper weren't enough, HapSlash is currently working on an improved Imperial officer. The attention to detail in the face and clothing (especially the boots) is on the level of his previous work. Like the stormtrooper, it will be superior in my opinion to the original JA version. As a part of this package, he is also working on an improved version of the Imperial pistol. This model and skin is certainly one of the most anticipated projects in my eyes.
Antizac is working on something called the Leela JK2/JA universal woman project. This is a female character whose clothing textures are top notch. There are different outfits that all look great. The texture for the face is outstanding as well. In particular, the eyes are probably the most detailed of any model out there. From what I have seen so far, this could become the best female skin out there.
In a similar vein, Plasmacoolant is working on some female skins that use the female Human, Zabrak, and Twi'lek models from JA. They are dressed in colourful Asian clothes with intricate designs. The faces are well done, but the quality of the clothing overshadows them. There are appears to be a large number of clothing options for each of these characters, ensuring that everyone will find something to their taste.
Outside the Star Wars universe, Darth_Kitty is working on Snake from MGS and MGS2. The skins I have seen so far for this model are excellent, mainly for the clothing and equipment. Although they are mostly darker colours, you can still make out a great amount of detail. He has a big list of skins that will be included in the final release, and hopefully they all live up to the quality he has shown so far.
On the saber hilt side, alaris has been working on a hilt pack that features a huge number of hilts and swords. He has all the familiar character's hilts like Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Dooku, plus several others. The skins for these are extremely well done, particularly the attention to lighting and shadow. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any news on this project in over a month, and I hope that this work will not remain trapped on a hard drive somewhere like so many other projects have in the past.
Retro
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Ah yes, retro skins. I am not referring to skins of ABBA members, although some small part of me yearns for such things. Over time in this section I'd like to sift through the mountain of skins that have been released over the past few years and reflect on a few that really were outstanding or noteworthy, and perhaps somewhat overlooked. Certainly there was some great stuff done in the early days of JO, and maybe I can highlight some that you may have missed.
For the first go around, I thought I'd look way back in the archives and see what some of the earliest skins were for Jedi Outcast. I checked out jk2files.com, and the earliest I could find was the Darth Maul skin by Fetal IceCream, released on April 7th, 2002. This skin is the first in a very long, if mostly undistinguished, line of Reborn model reskins. The skin merely makes the default skin black and puts average Maul tattoos on the face. Since it was the first released, it has gotten 13724 downloads. Wow. Between all the "OMFG how du i git the duble lighsbr?" comments, there were a few comments saying they loved the skin. A nice start, but it is amazing how far things have come.
Spotlight
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I thought it might be fun each month to take one of the new releases (good or otherwise) and look at it in a bit more detail. Nothing too in-depth, but a little mini review of how I feel the skin works. It will give me a chance to rip into people that have more talent than me, and to cut them down so I can feel better about myself. Just kidding. While trying to decide how to go about doing this, I wondered to myself what I actually look for when it comes to skins, since I have sort of turned into a picky downloader. I came up with a few things, and I will review skins in terms of likeness, detail, originality, technical difficulty, extras, and my overall impressions.
For the first time out, I figure I will start with a skin that I feel everyone should have. HapSlash's Sandtrooper. Let's take a closer look.
Description
The sandtrooper is obviously a trooper made out of sand...oh wait, I have that wrong, don't I? Okay, the sandtrooper is an Imperial minion that braves the many sand environments throughout the galaxy, imposing the Empire's will. So really, it is a sandy stormtrooper.
Detail
The detail for this model is exceptional, and that has mainly to do with the effort to add the sand and grime. The skin would still be good without the stained appearance, but with it the skin truly makes the model appear to be a part of a real universe. The equipment the trooper carries also has lots of small detail features as well, which only helps.
Likeness
I can tell that it is a sandtrooper, so that is a good start. Beyond that, this skin is a very good likeness to the sandtroopers we actually see in A New Hope, in terms of their dirty appearance. So in that sense, the resemblance is even more accurate.
Originality
In one sense, a modified stormtrooper isn't original at all. However, to my knowledge no one has created an accurate sandtrooper before, and certainly not one of this quality. There are not a lot of characters from the movies that haven't been attempted yet, so the author deserves credit for doing one that hasn't, and one that people would want to use at that.
Technical Difficulty
In this category, I will be going on my own opinion (I have no one else?s) of what kinds of things are hard to do. In the case of this model, getting any sort of non-descript features like dirt and shadows actually looking like such is not an easy task. I can't believe how much I am going on about dirt, but it really is one of those things that are hard to make look just right upon closer inspection.
Extras
This model and skin comes with a nicely skinned blaster, so that is a plus. It also has the requisite red and blue team colours as well.
Overall
It is no secret I really love this skin. It really captures the look and feel of its subject, and makes it into a real character.
Closing
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Whew. And here I thought I wasn't going to be able to write enough. I hope that the first foray into my skinning monthly was worth the read, and that you will want to come back next month. I would be happy to receive any feedback (you can either send it to maroger@sympatico.ca, or post it in the forums), either about this article or what you would like to see in the future. Also, feel free to bring to my attention any skins you feel I may have missed.
Cheers, and thanks for reading... |
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