<March 25, 2001>
================================================================

Model Name:		MajorMaxim

Installation Directory:	baseq3\majormaxim.pk3

Model Author:		James B. Gatzmer, aka _Goatman_

Skin Author:		_Goatman_

Bot Author:		_Goatman_, see below

Contact:		The_Goatman@usa.net

=================================================================================

Model description:
	"Danger Girl's big baddie Major Maxim was one of the very first characters
designed for the series even though he didn't appear in the story until issue #4."
This 7' tall enhanced neo-nazi gets his power from a serum created by Dr. Khamov
Von Kripplor.  The serum is stored in his backpack and supplied through hoses in
his face mask giving him super strength.

=================================================================================

Other info:
	While not an avid fan of the Danger Girl comic book, I do collect all sorts
of action figures, taking them out of the package and placing them all around my
computer.  When I first saw the Major Maxim action figure I knew I had to make him
for Quake3.  I modeled him many months earlier, but eventually I found time to
finish him when I became unemployed. ;-)  Look for Major Maxim's machine gun
replacement, available at http://www.polycount.com

Additional Credits:
	id Software, J. Scott Campbell, Andy Hartnell, & Alex Gardner, Cliffhanger
Comics, the Cliffhanger Comics website, MacFarlane Toys, Mt. Dew, and Hot Pockets.

=================================================================================

Author(s) notes:
	Well, I modeled this guy at a respectively high polycount intentionally.
I planned to chop him down as I saw fit later.  I had the original model down to
2034 with his duplicate head.  The end face counts became 1535 for high, 1093 for
medium, and 825 for low.  I know this is a bit high by most standards and if you
play the game with forced models, the high polycount becomes a bit choppy, in
which case I suggest medium or low.  But if you play the game without forced 
models, high detail shouldn't be to much trouble.  I run a 550 p3 with 384 mbs of
ram and a 32mb Oxygen GVX1 and high is tolerable.  I imagine a p3 700 or higher
will handle the highpoly version much better.

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"Known issues"

Mesh stuff:
	It seems I have a habit of making my models have a bit too much gerth.  It 
can be difficult to predict how the model will look within the game's perspective.
I admit that he should appear a bit thinner compared to his height (he's very tall).

Skin stuff:
	I tried desperately to show detail in the leather of the coat.  I did the 
texture at 1024 x 1024 and tried it in game at 256 x 256... unfortunately, almost all
the detail was lost, even after touching it up at that resolution.  I chose to leave
it at 512 x 512 because of this.  The backpack has a separate texture file at 128 x
128 to compensate.
	This is the first time I've tried using shaders.  I put a shader on
the eyes that fades in and out.  While I don't think this happens in the comic book,
it accents the glow of the eyes in game.  On the backpack I put a scrolling glow to
simulate the serum filling the tanks and traveling up the hoses.  I used some
artistic freedom on this as well, choosing how it would look in the game vs. how it
looks in the comic book.  Because of the way I mapped the hoses in repetition, the
shader doesn't fill the hoses from bottom to top, but it was a fair trade off instead
of using more texture space for a relatively low detail part of the skin.
	I also put a reflection map on the leather to reflect ambient light in the
game.  It makes the leather a bit shinier and adds a sense of realism to the
lighting.  I kept it as subtle as I could and put a mild rotation on it, so it isn't
completely realistic, but I think it turned out nice.
	I was going to do an M. Bison (from Street Fighter) skin.  I even started it.
But as I worked on it, it became more and more apparent that despite the similarities
in the characters, the differences were too great to justify the end result.  I
personally think (even though I'm not an avid Street Fighter fan) that M. Bison 
deserves his own model.  The biggest reason is M. Bison wears a cape and has huge
metal shoulder "pads" while Maxim has the trenchcoat and no visible pads.  I might
consider doing the M. Bison model later if no one else wishes to take it on.
However, I wouldn't be offended if someone with more skill than I, wanted to do a
Bison skin for this model.  I'm just not the one to try it.
	I've included wireframes of the both textures.  Any skins should transfer
well to the LODs.

Animation:
	I spent alot of time on the animations, trying to make them as realistic as
possible with respect to the limitations of the game.  I made the idle torso do a
little gesture if you stand still for long enough.  I became very frustrated with
the run/walk/crouch cycles, as no matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of the
twitching.  It's very mild and only really noticable if you are extremely close to
the character and paying attention to it.  With a total of 460 frames, this proves
to be the largest reason the model pack is over 6 mb.

Bot Notes:
	I used as many phrases from the Danger Girl comic as I could.  I had to make
the rest up.  Because Major Maxim uses a machine gun in the comic, I gave him
preferences and skills accordingly.  He will rarely use the BFG or Lightning gun and
will prefer the machine gun, shotgun or rocket launcher.  His skill with the machine
gun is excellent however, to compensate his use of less powerful weapons, so don't
think he's not a worthy adversary.  All three skill levels should play well, but he's
pretty hefty on Nightmare.  Each skin has a bot, including the CTF skins.  All bots
use the same bot files, just the names are changed.

Summary:
	Well, I think I'm getting better.  Despite a kind of high face count, I think
I've made alot of improvements compared to my JBravo and Flic models.  And this is a
pretty feature filled model.  Any comments are appreciated.

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"Game Info"

Construction:
Poly Count              :  1535 for high
			   1093 for medium
			   825 for low
Skin Count              : 5 DM, 2 CTF
Build/Animation time    : About 40 hours give or take.

Skins:
	One default, plus a denim and duster coat, just for fun.

Bot support:
	Three skill levels and chat dialog for all skins.

New Sounds:
	Sounds were captured from Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.  I changed
the pitch on M. Bison's voice to make it deeper and more robotic.  Seems to work.
Some of the sounds are modified default sounds.

CTF Skins:
	One Red and one Blue.  These are only slightly modified from default, making
the armband and backpack the most obvious changes.


Software used:
Modeled in Nichimen's Nendo.
Tweaked and animated in 3D Studio MAX 4.0 - http://www.discreet.com -
	with Character Studio and a bones/ik chain on the backpack
Exported with pop n' fresh's MAX plugin - pop_n_fresh@telus.net and Rodolpho Cazabon
Recompiled in Npherno's MD3 Compiler - npherno@sunstorm.net
Shaders by Q3ASE by rat@larian.com - http://www.larian.com
Bots by Quake 3 Bot Designer v1.3 - cricel472@hotmail.com - 
	http://www.q3seek.com/cricel/q3bd/ - with text modifications by me.
Photoshop 6.0 was used for the textures
SoundForge 4.5 for the audio.

Installation:
	Just put the majormaxim.pk3 file in your \baseq3 folder.

=================================================================================

Thanks:
	Thanks to id software, pop n fresh for his exporter, Npherno for his compiler,
Wrath for some helpful info and his bounding box file, the folks in #model_design
(especially III_Demon), Chris Glenn for his magnifying glass opinions and the folks
at www.polycount.com, especially rogue13, for all his great work efforts in the
community.

Groove is in the heart.

=================================================================================

* Copyright / Permissions *
	QUAKE(R) and QUAKE III Arena(R) are registered trademarks of id Software, Inc.
	Major Maxim is a character from the Danger Girl comic series published by
	Cliffhanger comics.  All rights reserved.  Please don't sue me.


This model may be freely distributed in any form, UNALTERED, which means, you can't
remove/change the readme file, other files, or add your own stuff to it and pass it
along.