Title         : The New Improved Quake Guy
Filename      : Newplay.zip
Version       : 0.8 Beta
Date          : 24/08/97     U.S. 08/24/97
Authors       : Mdl           : iD and Astro
                               
Email         : Astro Headquarters - astro@gold.net.au
Credits       : God, iD and Rene Post (for qME)
           
Alpha Testers : Astro
Build time    : Bout 1/2 an hour

Note:  This is a BETA version of the New Improved Quake Guy. I hope to get
one of the best skin artists on the net to do an example skin for me. This is
the only reason why it is labelled a beta, as it has only a blank skin to 
work on.

What the enhancement does
-------------------------
This is probably the most important improvement in Quake models since the 
game's arrival on the net. Basically what this patch does is give the player
a skin that is 400% larger! That means a total increased coverage of pixels
by 400% on the player alone. I have tested this method on my brachiosaur
model and increased its skin size by 500%. Of course you will need to be a 2d
artist to get the most out of it, but Im sure when artists realise this there
will be an ever increasing number of skins appearing on the net for this
patch and every other model made in the future (and past?). This method works
on ALL models including iD's (of course) so if anyone wants to make a few new
skins for all the Quake models, Id love to see some.

Type of Mod
-----------
Quake C  : no
Sound    : no
MDL      : yes (including gib for head)
The head gib is an exaggerated example. You may use this or not. Its skin is
quite a bit larger! You'll see.

How to Install the Modification
-------------------------------
Just rename your original player to something like player2.mdl and the
headgib to h_player2.mdl then place the new files in your quake\id1\progs
directory. Of course you will have to make a skin for them both.

Author Information
------------------
After making the raptor model I proceeded to make a t-rex model for our TC
Jurassic Quake. With the actual size of the model I figured it would be very
difficult to skin nicely with iD's current skinning methods. So I figured
there must be a better way. Sure enough there was. When Rene Post released
his brilliant qME being able to resize the skin was a great enhancement.
Here is the theory behind my discoveries....

First when making a base frame you should now arrange your objects in a very
different way to what your used to. Traditional methods see people arranging
objects in close proximity in a "square" area. To improve pixel coverage you
now need to arrange objects horizontally even if it means all objects being
placed side by side. What this does is when you generate your model you will
be given a blank skin that is much shorter (and longer) than what it would be
if you arranged objects in the traditional square fashion. eg. In the new
player model a new skin was generated that was 312 pixels wide by 50 pixels
in height. You can now enlarge the skin (with qME) by up to 400% (in this
example) and also maintain the same aspect ratio while enlarging by doing a
simple calculation like this....

MH / CH x CW = NW
Values are as follows...
MH=Maximum Height (always 200 pixels) 
CH=Current Height (eg 50 pixels) 
CW=Current Width (eg 312 pixels)
NW=New Width (eg 1248)

Basically this equates to 200 (max height of a skin in pixels) divide by 50
which equals 4. Times this by your current height (312) and you have the new 
dimensions for your skin size. That is 1248 pixels wide by 200 pixels high
- 400% larger.

Things to remember are...
1. The maximum height of the skin is always 200.
2. The maximum width limit is always 3072
3. Skin width must be divisible by 4
4. There is a certain limit by which you can arrange objects in this fashion
eg I tried arranging the objects of the brachiosaur by placing the legs far
away from the main body of the model. Even though this gave me a very large
skin, when viewed in qME not all skin vertices were visible (they were there
but not visible). You may need to experiment a bit.

Visit the Jurassic Quake page at this address http://jurassic.mpog.com
This TC will have many more important discoveries like this (we have about 4
new improvements already) but this one was definitely the most notable. Be
sure to keep a lookout for a demo (non-playable) soon.

Regards Astro