TCE - arms progress

I did not write any posts because I did not have good news to give.
I maded some animations for weapons (some completely new compared to those present) and with good results.
For example, for AK47 I had added another type of reload and a onother one in which the player can see the accessories mounted on the weapon.
Unfortunately I immediately fight with the error "ERROR: VirtualAlloc commit failed." when the map is changing. The Z_CQB_players and Z_CQB_Viewarms package wan't work together! (both in ET and in ET Legacy)
Until now I practically i'll go step by step and by elimination, to understand what generated it.
In the end I won my battle but the war will probably is a draw.

I avoid to tell the list of all the attempts I made and get to the point: there is a maximum amount of memory dedicated to all the player models and their animations (.md3 files).
This means that all the models of the heads + animations of the heads + the models of the arms + all the animations of the arms should not exceed a certain amount.
Originally, the game has one head for all the models of players with 400 frames + one model of arms with about 100 frames for each weapon. Realy a poor thing.
I made 5 heads with 400 frame animations and three arms models with 180 frame animations and I immediately had the problem "ERROR: VirtualAlloc commit failed.".

As you can see this limit is very, very, very penalizing for those who want to use the engine and make an inprovement with a good graphic level.

Since I can not touch the code I am forced to the following workaround:

- Reduction the number of heads from 5 to 4 and the duration of animations from 400 to 180 frames (for the moment I removed HD_IDLE4, HD_DAMAGED_IDLE2, HD_DAMAGED_IDLE3, SMILE)
- Elimination of any accessory for the heads (even the hair will be added via tag in .skin file)

- Reduction of polygons and vertices for models of hands and arms
- Reduction of variations of the arms models from 3 to 2 (sleeves + elbow pads will be unused)
- Reduction of the animations of the arms to have maximum 60 frames (since some are managed by the code such as drop/raise)

I have requested the of coroner's authorization to distribute the new version of CQB but without success so I will dedicate myself to TCE.
In any case, without a proper modification to the engine code, I'm afraid a 3D artist will never do a good job to improve the graphic content related to the players' models and the game's animations.

CQB - 3D first person view arms

I made some variations of the arms, reduced the number of polygons and rigged the models.


long sleeves & pads -->  polys:1470 , verts:826
long sleeves --> polys:874 , verts:448
short sleeves arms --> polys:374 , verts:408
hands --> polys:2260 , verts:1134

New Z_CQB_players package released

I think I've finally found out the problem generated by my package ("VirtualAlloc commit failed - Attempt to access invalid address"). I think that it could be linked to the amount of md3 that you can handle from skin files and to some variable not properly sized/defined ( maybe here --> tr_image, tr_model.c or cg_character.c).

For example, in tr_image I find the following lines:
if (strstr (token, "md3_"))
{
if (skin-> numModels> MAX_PART_MODELS)
{
Ren_Warning ("WARNING: Ignoring models in '% s', the max is% d! N", name, MAX_PART_MODELS);
break;

1) initially I had this error:
------ Server Initialization ------
Server: obj_snow
RE_Shutdown( 0 )
********************
ERROR: VirtualAlloc commit failed.
Attempt to access invalid address.

********************
----- Server Shutdown -----
---------------------------
RE_Shutdown( 0 )

I solved commenting on the last two lines in head04a.skin (tested on windows TCE/CQB + all tce maps + cqb_sample)

head, "models/players/hud/head04a"
teeth, "models/players/hud/teeth01"
eye1, "models/players/hud/eye03"
eye2, "models/players/hud/eye03"
//eye_patch01, "models/players/hud/head04a"
//hair01, "models/players/hud/hair01"


2) Then came this error:
LOADING... - classes
^1ERROR: characters/temperate/axis/soldier.char, line 4: unknown token 'skinGroup'
********************
ERROR: ERROR: CG_RegisterPlayerClasses: failed to load character file 'characters/temperate/axis/soldier.char' for the Axis Soldier
********************
----- Server Shutdown -----

I solved commenting //md3_beltr in body_s.skin (tested on windows TCE/CQB + all tce maps + cqb_sample)

..
//md3_back, "models/players/temperate/allied/acc/backpack.md3"
//md3_beltr, "models/players/temperate/allied/acc/beltr_pouch01_b.md3"
md3_beltl, "models/players/temperate/allied/acc/beltl_pouch01_b.md3"
md3_belt, "models/players/temperate/allied/acc/belt_pouch01_b.md3"
md3_legr, "models/players/temperate/allied/acc/legr_holster01_b.md3"
md3_legl, "models/players/temperate/allied/acc/legl_pouch01_b.md3"
l_legs, "models/players/temperate/allied/legs02blue_woodland01"
u_body, "models/players/temperate/allied/body01blue_woodland01"
u_rthand, "models/players/temperate/common/hands01"
u_lfthand, "models/players/temperate/common/hands01"


3) ET Legacy works but does not load some shader/md3 assets and I find these WARNING
LOADING... - classes
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s3.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: failed to register skin 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s.skin' referenced from 'characters/temperate/axis/soldier.char'
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p11.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p22.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p01.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p02.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p10.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p12.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p20.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/soldier/body_s_p21.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/medic/body_s3.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: Ignoring models in 'models/players/temperate/axis/medic/body_s.skin', the max is 5!
^3WARNING: failed to register skin 'models/players/temperate/axis/medic/body_s.skin' referenced from 'characters/temperate/axis/medic.char'


It could also be the cause for crash when using Z_CQB_Viewarms_sg552_20160208.pk3 that contains the arms and the sig552?
I used 7 parts in sg552rdsd.weap adding tags to make a compound weapon (and doing also animations to mount/unmount the sight/suppressor/foregrip)
part 0
{
tag "tag_main"
model "models/weapons2/sg552/sg552_view_main.mdc"
}
part 1
{
tag "tag_clip"
model "models/weapons2/sg552/sg552_view_clip.mdc"
}
part 2
{
tag "tag_slide"
model "models/weapons2/sg552/sg552_view_slide.mdc"
}
part 3
{
tag "tag_sight"
model "models/weapons2/sight/sight_view_reddot.mdc"
}
part 4
{
tag "tag_suppr"
model "models/weapons2/silencer/silencer_view_silencer01.mdc"
}
part 5
{
tag "tag_clip2"
model "models/weapons2/sg552/sg552_view_clip.mdc"
}
part 6
{
tag "tag_fgrip"
model "models/weapons2/grip/grip_view_foregrip01.mdc"
}

Is it a partial limit for individual characters .skin file or is a total limit? I don't know, but It would be nice to touch the code in such a way that these treshold are increased.

The package is pretty much ready and need to be tested. Maybe it's a good idea make some screenshots at the maximum resolution. In any case, it's better use the "seta com_ignorecrash 1" option to prevent that some crash reset the configuration at the low resolution. Maybe in the future we could include the full body model in the deploy menu, using cqb_menu_idle & cqb_menu_lookweap animations (cqb_common.aninc in the Z_CQB_animations_20150513) or use head animations like pain or attack sequence.

It would be great if coroner could check the code to see if he can change the limits of md3 manageable via .skin files

You can check my last package Z_CQB_players_20171109.pk3 here (completely replaces the previous one) -->
 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lkfbnqhn6vosmt1/AACeHjN55i_U9yX0iI6VToZZa?n=326867460

Blue Team - Arctic version

Here some variations for the arctic environment for the spec ops team.

Camo used:
Schneetarn [Germany]

All the variations of the textures I have made for the player models are about 1 GB (.tga) so will probably I'm forced to convert everything to jpg and/or to include only those actually used.
After I put a bit of order I will probably prepare two packages. The first one for the essential files and the other one for the extra textures.
Afterwards I will work on the heads with basic facial animations and I will make another additional package.
I would also like to complete the high-poly mesh of a knife I'm designing according to my experience (I'm a knifes lover) to print it in 3d.

Red Team - Arctic version

A render for the Red team - Arctic environment

Camo used:
M05 [Finland], PenCott-Snowdrift [USA], SnakePlissken
M05 [Finland], Kryptek yeti [USA], PenCott-Snowdrift [USA]

Blue Team - Desert version

Here some variations for the desert environment for the specops team.

Camo used:
AOR1 Desert(USA)

Red Team - Desert version

I fixed a UV mapping error of the hands and I did a render for the Red team - Desert environment

Camo used:
Khaki-Flecktarn desert(Ger), Khaki-Somalia (Ita), Flecktarn desert(Ger)-Khaki
3color desert(USA)-Khaki, Khaki-Flecktarn desert(Ger), Kryptek Highlander(USA)