Handle: Slyrr
E-Mail: gregfisk@attbi.com
website: http://home.attbi.com/~gregfisk/

BENDER PLAYER MODEL FOR UT2003:

He's loud, he's in charge, and he has "a dream to destroy all humans".  He's BENDER, the alcohol-fueled, cigar-chomping bending unit from Futurama, coming to you in Unreal Tournament 2003!  He joined the Tournaments in the days of the Liandri corporation and was so darn good at it, he's still alive today!

I'm fairly pleased with the way this model turned out, especially the ragdoll deaths.  His arms and legs really do bend now instead of having regular 2-jointed legs and elbows.

Anyone who downloads this model, be sure and send angry letters to the FOX T.V. network. They've treated FUTURAMA like a peasant treats his compost fork.  They don't advertise for it, they stuck it into a dead time zone, and they constantly pre-empt it in favor of showing the sports commentators rambling on about nothing AFTER the game is over.  And yet FOX is going to cancel the show 'because it's ratings are too low'.  It had GREAT ratings when it was on at 7:30pm!  If they want to get rid of a show, why not ditch that stupid "Malcolm in the Middle"?  The only reasons why Futurama has low ratings is because FOX is deliberately sabotaging it!  Sorry, but it's a great show, and FOX really dropped the ball with it.

Installation:  Just extract the files from the zip file to your base Unreal Tournament 2003 directory.  I tried using the UMOD program, but it caused many problems.  They should extract to proper directories, but just in case.....

bender.utx = UT3K/Textures
bender.ukx = UT3K/Animations
bender.u = UT3K/System
bender.upl = UT3K/System
bender.ka = UT3K/KarmaData

Attn: If you want to see Bender's DATA in the Player selection screen, then you must open your Xplayers.int file, (located in the SYSTEM directory) and add this line among the other player data:

Bender="Name:  Bender|Age:   N/A|Race:  Artificial Lifeform||Data:|Driven by a dream to "destroy all humans", this beer-fueled, cigar-chomping bending unit entered the tournaments in the days of the Liandri corporation. How has he survived so long? The answer is simple.  He ALWAYS wins. Deathmatch. Capture the Flag. Assault. Domination (regular and double). Everything. Always.||"

ONLY do this if you want to see Bender's DATA in the selection screen of UT3K.  Otherwise it will just say "No Data" like almost every other player model. (I don't know why you wouldn't want to see the data, but to each his own......)

Then just pick BENDER from the PLAYER screen.  The custom voice should be his by default. (anyone know how to replace death/pain sounds?)   

Technical info for the pedantically curious:
Polys: 3642.  (Note the chest opens!)

Skins: Default from the show with team colors.  Skinning has never been my strongest point, and I hope that someone with more skill (and gumption) will make "chrome skin" Bender, "glowing, pulsating exposed wiring/circuitry" bender, and others.  If they're good, I'll add them to future UTX updates....

Custom Sounds: Yes.  However, there are no instructions for getting custom death sounds to work.  Does anyone out there know how....? 

Animations: All original! Just so you all know, (blatent plug) Bender has twice as many joints as any other model I've seen (for bendable limbs) and animating him was no mean feat, especially since I couldn't use Character Studio with his custom skeleton.

This model was made with: 3DSMAX, and UnrealEditor3.

Knows bugs/issues:  For some reason, his hand twists a bit when shooting the larger guns.  I'm not sure why or how to fix it, but I will if someone can figure it out.  I tried really hard to iron out the kinks.  If you find any, tell me, as he CAN be updated.  As I said, I put custom deaths into the sound pack, but I don't know how to replace them!  In future releases, there are some things missing that I'd like to put in.  Among them, the death sounds and custom GIBS.  If there's anyone out there who knows how to code this for UT2003, drop me a line!

Special Thanks to:  Skullbox - who served as de-bugger supreme thru instruction on the www.planetquake.com/polycount messageboards.  To Fraggin_Phun for his voice pack tutorial.  And to Simon Mack for helping to get Bender's ragdoll up and running.  All hail Skullbox!

 ----- Set up UT2003.ini and MD5 database for running a server -----

To use the new Voice Pack/Model in online games, you must provide the <YourPackage>.u file and the <YourPackage>.upl file to the server administrator. The server administrator must put these in their UT2003\System folder, and edit the UT2003.ini file by adding the package to the [Engine.GameEngine] section, as follows:

[Engine.GameEngine]
CacheSizeMegs=32
...
ServerPackages=Bender
ServerPackages=BenderVoice

Very important: The server administrator must also rebuild the server's MD5 database by running the following command in a DOS / Command window in the \UT2003\System folder (many thanks to ZYX2323 for sending this information!)

For original retail version: UCC MASTERMD5 *.U 
For patch 2136 version: UCC MASTERMD5 -c *.U 

If you don't run the ucc mastermd5 command, servers with cheat/hack protection turned on will stop you from joining the server. All sorts of bad things will happen (trust me), including corrupt connection messages (often seen only after the first game). This is a standard restriction that affects all voice packs/models, unless the server has added the .u file AND rebuilt their master MD5 table (or added the packed to the existing MD5 database).
Here's hoping EPIC can make this a little easier for their NEXT patch.......

PS - this information was lifted from the VOICE PACK tutorial readmes - with due deference to Fraggin_Phun.

Slyrr

Unreal Tournament 2003 by Epic Games
Bender by Matt Greonig and the masterminds behind Futurama
Special thanks to the authors of the 1st amendment
Keep circulating the tapes......
