Simple items

I would love to see the addition of simple items in Xonotic. To my surprise I discovered the lack of simple items, which is something I have always enjoyed using in arena style games. The current models looks terrible when using a low picmip and otherwise tweaked configs and simple items would really improve the overall game.

Does anyone else think it would be a great addition?

Everyone that played the quake or UT series would properly know what simple items are, but if not heres an idea of what they look like in QW.



*UPDATE*
* All models should contain only ONE colors
* Anything health related should have the same geometric shape & size, value should be displayed using different colors.
* All armors should have the same geometric shape, value should be displayed using different colors.
* Armor shards is up for grasp, but the one color rule should still be applied.

* Weapon and Ammo boxes should have the same geometric shape & size, but easily identified by both color and icon

I was actually already considering making such icons, so I'll probably give it another shot in the near future.

Hello cyan!

Like I stated it on ESR too (you might not read that, but anyway) simple items are on our todo list, there are simply two reasons why they are not in the game:

First of all, it needs code support, so you can force your pickup models client side, like player models (the CSQC background is now there, but this support needs to be coded). As it was not high prio atm, simply nobody did it. YET. Parts of the codebase needs to be rewritten anyway, and this issue will be covered with that too.

2nd: No media is present either, simply because nobody picked up the job yet.

If you have some coding skills, or you know how to create simple sprite models, feel free to make these models, and contribute your work. We can help you in any tasks you choose.

Hey Brutail

Its nice to hear its on the to-do list. I'm afraid I have no design nor coding knowledge, so I won't be able to contribute to the project at all, which sucks!

*Hust* learning is a skill everyone has *hust*

Making such sprites is really quite easy.

Edit: Get the open-source program Inkscape and make them out of simple vector-shapes similar to powerpoint drawings.

I think one of the best solutions would be to make screenshots of the rendered weapons, and placing those on a sprite.
The "damn small xonotic" version might already has those sprites, and only the textures needed to be replaced with higher quality ones.
Though like I said, simply replacing only those models is not enough, as it permanently replaces models (not configurable), and also, it's altering of core materials, hence considered cheating.

I'm certainly with C.Brutail on the replacement of anything being borderline cheating if it is not part of the official release. As is of course high picmip values! ;-)

There has been some discussion on IRC and I have been contacted by several community members asking what Simple Items should be like and I think the general consensus is the following:

* All models should contain only ONE colors
* Anything health related should have the same geometric shape & size, value should be displayed using different colors.
* All armors should have the same geometric shape, value should be displayed using different colors.
* Armor shards is up for grasp, but the one color rule should still be applied.

* Weapon and Ammo boxes should have the same geometric shape & size, but easily identified by both color and icon

* Weapon and Ammo boxes should have the same geometric shape & size, but easily identified by both color and icon

This will get very tricky, what's clear identifier for say, electro, crylink or hagar?

Personally, I don't think same shape for all health armor is crucial, Q3/QL has different shape for shards and there is no problem with that. There can be however some variations, likewise in nexuiz 2.5.2 health/armor items looked like 3d versions of simple ones with variations like eg. 100 HP/AP had ring around them.

* Weapon and Ammo boxes should have the same geometric shape & size, but easily identified by both color and icon

This will get very tricky, what's clear identifier for say, electro, crylink or hagar?

Thats been discussed and actually, I have no idea. It seems to be the biggest issue at the moment, coming up with some sort of icon or image for Xonotic only weapon/ammo

Personally, I don't think same shape for all health armor is crucial, Q3/QL has different shape for shards and there is no problem with that. There can be however some variations, likewise in nexuiz 2.5.2 health/armor items looked like 3d versions of simple ones with variations like eg. 100 HP/AP had ring around them.

Thats why I wrote shards and armor seperate.

How would you imagine creating simple items for Xonotic, raf? It seems like you don't like the ideas put forward.

I rather see the problem in the one colored weapons, as iirc. dropped weapons from dead players maintain the primary/secondary colors of their owner.

Models don't need to have shirt/pants colors, do they?

Just trying out a few things here. I think it's probably best not to cramp up to ALL the stuff quake dictates about simple items and just focus on making things as clear as we can get.

These are just a few attempts to see what could work, let's see who can name them all.

Also feedback is greatly appreciated.

I think the health ones are fantastic. I'd like to see the same concept done w/ the armor, replacing the '+' with your existing armor shape and changing the color to green. The shard's shape wouldn't even need to change besides the color.

I don't like the weapon ones. They are confusing with that front-on perspective.

Personally I'd think weapon ones should be more connected with shots it fire, eg. shotgun would have 2 or 3 shells as icon, nex would have a trail, RL - a single large rocket. I named a few weapons that trip me up in such context. Proposed chaingun one seems fine.

Ammo icon would be most obvious weapon icon using specific kind of ammo contained in some geometric shape

... very nice ...

and kinda pretty too

.. i actually like your way of doing weapons ...

I'd agree that the front-view icons are harder for me to identify than the side-views would be.

I'd have the weapons icons replaced by the shots they do. Like for example Electro could be a thick beam with a roundish head going diagonally up from bottom right to top left, and two or three balls beside it bottom left. Crylink could be three particles with spread movement indicated by three lines coming from a spot bottom right of the icon and expanding towards top left corner. Hagar coul be three little rockets travelling parallel with trails. Mortar would of course need an arch trail in some way, Nex could be just a glowing beam, Rocket launcher would be obviously a (flying) rocket, maybe with a short trail but the rocket would need to be bigger. I tried to put some of my ideas into a graphical concept, but I discovered my limits rather immediately.

The health items seem just fine for me, though maybe they could orientate themselves more towards the Xonotic items rather than Nexuiz items?

You could also indicate "weapon" pickups by a frame around the icon and "ammo" pickups by no frame, to make the difference immediately visible.

You could also indicate "weapon" pickups by a frame around the icon and "ammo" pickups by no frame, to make the difference immediately visible.

Isn't Quake the other way around? Given that this is a quake-inspired feature we might want to follow that design.

I agree with above for the same reason.

Some VERY crude examples of icons I have come up with.

For fireball, generic fire symbol would do.

I like the above one. Put frames around them and they'd make good weapon icons. I imagine the ammo icons would match the color of the weapon icons to indicate that that's the type of ammo they use.

Gonna take a guess as to what those Icons are.

Top row:
Shotgun, Machinegun

Middle row:
Electro, Crylink, Nex, Lightning Gun/Arc Cannon

Bottom:
Mortar, Rocket Launcher, Hagar, TAG Seeker, Mine Layer

The health ones are really good. I also like that armour one! Can you do a 50a and 25a so we can see how they look? agree with nifrek you can just change the health shard to green for armour shard pretty much Good work.

I've heard the thread was shown tp a certain icon maker, who said he'll look into the task soon

Gonna take a guess as to what those Icons are.

Top row:
Shotgun, Machinegun

Middle row:
Electro, Crylink, Nex, Lightning Gun/Arc Cannon

Bottom:
Mortar, Rocket Launcher, Hagar, TAG Seeker, Mine Layer

All correct.

Where's the poll? I want to vote Hell Yeah!