Type: 		
Unreal Tournament 2003 Multiplayer Pluggin Model


Name: 		
Exoslave


Release Date: 	
11th July 2003


Author:		
Ian Waugh    


E-Mail:		
gundam@btinternet.com 
waugh_ian@btinternet.com


Homepage: 	
G-net
http://freespace.virgin.net/ian.waugh/index.htm  
(no longer updated)


Files:				
exoslaveAnim.ukx
exoslaveTextures.utx
exoslave.ka
ExoSkeleton.u
exoslaveUPL.upl
exoslave.txt


Instructions:	

To install the model Unzip the listed files to you UT2003 directory:

\Animations\exoslaveAnim.ukx
\Textures\exoslaveTextures.utx
\KarmaData\exoslave.ka\
\System\ExoSkeleton.u
\System\exoslaveUPL.upl


If you already have an ExoSkeleton.u (from the neofin 1.1 model), you can overwrite it with this one with no harm.

If you wish for a bio for this character you manually have to edit some files. This is only recommend for people who know what they are doing.

Pluggin player models can only be seen during play of UT2003 if they have been installed on that PC.
This is a general limitation of UT2003, not specific to exislave.

Edit the UT2003/System/AngelInterceptorUPL.upl file in notepad and find the bit that reads
	Portrait=exoslaveTextures.exoPortrait, Sex=Female,
and change it to read
	Portrait=exoslaveTextures.exoPortrait, Text=Xplayers.exoslave, Sex=Female,

Then edit  the UT2003/System/XPlayers.int and something like the following line to the bottom of it.

exoslave=Name: Exoslave|Age: 19|Type: Baseline human/slaved Exoskeleton||Data:|Petite Niaomi always wanted to fight in the Tournament, and had been training for it since she could walk. But when her day to fight came, she was turned away from the arena by the last test. She had been defeated by the "You have to be this tall to frag people" sign. Next morning she returned, sporting a MK3 Exoslave power assist suit and, after tearing the sign into 27 pieces and kneecapping ths steward who sent her home the previous day, she entered the arena, tall and proud.||
  

To make sure the model can work online, the species for exoslave is set to SPECIES_Merc by default, but in that ExoSkeleton.u file there is a custom species called ExoSkeleton. This species mixes the Bot and Merc sounds, effects and gibs, so you get sparks and blood when you shoot it and bot parts and human organs when you gib it. 
You can change the species to the custom one by a simple edit (use windows notepad) of the UPL file UT2003\System\exoslaveUPL.upl and change the bit that says 
	species=xGame.SPECIES_Merc
to read
	species=ExoSkeleton.SPECIES_ExoSkeleton

The problem with this is that unless the net server has the ExoSkeleton.u file installed on it, it will reject yours (a security measure to prevent possible cheating) and you will get the default model instead. So basically online play with the custom species is going to be impossible most of the time. If you are only going to use exo for bot matches, use the custom species if you like, but if you want to use it online, leave it as Merc. You could even make 2 upls if you like, an offline and an online verion. The choice is yours, but changing the species is only recommend for people who know what they are doing,

This model can be freely distributed as long as this text file is included, unmodified.

If you want to install the model on your server for pushing to clients follow this tut :-
http://unreal.epicgames.com/UT2003/tutorials/push/



Description: 
Exoslav
A petite (by UT2003 standards anyway) girl in a sightly kinky outfit riding a powered, jump jet equipped exoskeleton. Since its an exo skeleton slaved to the rider's movements you get exoslave. 


Influences:
Its a girl in an exoskeleton, vaguely shirowish. The design is original, but sort of influenced by a couple of pictures in Intron Depot, but made to work with UT2003 . The girl's outfit again my design, is a bit SM/fetishistic, but that sorts of fits with the master/slave sort of theme, and again its a bit of a Shirow tribute. Plus there is a seems to bit film Aliens going on in there as well.
           
                 
Model Info:	
Vertices   	: 2431
Polygons      	: 4578 tris
Skins       	:   Body  		1024x1024
                    head   	 	1024x1024 (actually the whole of the girl is the "head" skin" )
                    Screen		256x256  Shader 
					With 	256x256 32bit diffuse map
						128x128 env map
						128x128	env alpha map
                     Red/Blue team Colour version of body are included
Rig	   	: Custom CS Biped plus many additional bones for the girls limbs, wings etc
Animation      	: Hand made from scratch (78 sequences)
Karma           : Custom Karma
Sounds          : Mixed UT2003 Female Merc and Bot sounds if you use the custom species, 
		  Standard fem Merc otherwise.
		

Model Notes:	
At 4578 it's poly heavy, but there are really two complex figures in there, the polies aren't wasted. Actually the player models supplied in UT2003 go up to 3419 polies and they designed to work with fairly low end machies. I've done plenty of testing, and at the most have seen a 1 fps drop in frame rate compared to the standard ones. Plus I've run bot matches with 8 of them running around, and it all remained perfectly playable on my 1.4 athlon. UT2003 models get 3 levels of LOD automatically.

The design is a bit odd, but it had to be made to work with UT2003, hence the exo's skiny spine mated to the girl's so twist look would work and the odd arrangement of the legs to make sure it have a lot free movement for fast running etc. The wings where attached to the pelvis so they stay extended during jumps even when you fire. 

There is a custom death skeleton for when you fall in the Lava or get hit by the ion cannon, this is really just a distressed exo with a grungy texture with a modified UT2003 female skeleton attached. This is essential though, as exo's karma causes UT to crash when it tries to apply it to the standard death skeleton. It also looks better.


Skin Notes:
The skin was built with every trick I know. A baked GI skin was used as the base (with the model tessallated to improve the shading), this was cleaned up, and then planel lines drawn and turned into a bump map and these where baked on to the skin. On top of that colour and grunge layers and other effects. Plus a few photo's of car and bike bits where used, this all brought to together with a not insignificant amount of hand painting. I haven't added much detail, but I think there is enough, It gets it impact from the shape and bright colour contrasting with the dark bits. A lot of the UV map on the exo is mirrored as there was a lot of skin area to cover.

A GI bake was used to start the girl as well and her face started out as a half a photo photo of Winona Ryder (but you  can't really recognise her now) and a lot of the folds leather on the gloves and leggings was culled for several photo's , but again much painting was also required. The girl's skin is seperate to the exoskeleton, it is the "head" skin in UT2003, the exo is the "Body", which gets the team skins, so you can skin one without having to do the other if you so wish. She has a simple UV map with no mirroring and few seams, and there is little detail on the model,so you can paint almost anything on her. Some people have complained the face is ugly, but I disagree, I  think she is not unattractive and got an enigmatic and slightly cruel look to her which goes with the Master/Slave theme. 

There is a two pass environment and opacity shader on the exo's canopy. This is the third material, and it does not seem to get made invisible when you use the adrenline invi combo or turned green when you die and fade. I thought epic had changed UT in the latest patch to make it so extra materials get these effects, but I can't seem to get it to work.

The overall skin is pretty bright, and combined with the large model, means you can see it from miles away, this ain't a camper's skin :)

I do intended to do a more modest and pratical outfit for the girl when I get the time.

If you want to do a skin for this model a skin development kit is available at  http://www.btinternet.com/~gundam/exoslaveSDK.zip



Anim and Rig notes:
The rig is my own and all the anims where done my yours truly also (78 sequences, I don't have a life). 

The rig  is basically a CS Biped, which works the head, the body and the exo limbs/hands/feet, but extra bones have been added for the  wings and the girls arms, hands, legs and feet and boobs. The girls limb bones have IK set on them, and the IK controller is linked to a dummy, which in turn is linked to the exo limb. The result of this is that if you move the exos arm or legs, the girl's limbs move with it automatically. But Max 3.1's IK is pretty crap, so i've had to step in and adjust things more that I would of liked to.

The run anims are a lack a bit of weight, but since UT2003 models run so fast, big slow stompy movement to convey wieght is not really an option. They also slide a bit, sorry.

The specific taunt anim is a bit crude. Sorry if this offends.

The appears (to me anyway) some tweening problems when going from one anim to another with the girls feet and hands sometime rotating oddly. I can only aussume this is some sort of UT issue, the anims work fine in Max and UnrealEd.

The karma is custom for this model, the girls limbs have there own karma joints, so they detach from the exo and flail about by themselves, but it is not possbile for the girl to fall out of the suit completely.



Other notes:
There are paticle effects on the jumps and double jumps, these use the smoke trail from the flak shell you give the impression of jet exhaust. They are faily subtle but added a faily nice effect. These sort of effects can easily be added to models in UnrealEd with no scripting required.




Tools used:  	
Mesh			: 3D Studio Max R3.1
Mapping and rigging 	: 3D Studio Max R3.1 and Character Studio 2.2
Skins			: Corel Photopaint 8.0 
Animation               : 3D Studio Max R3.1 and Character Studio 2.2
Exporting		: ActorX	
Compiling and Tweaking  : UnrealEd 3.0 
Scripting		: Windows notepad and Umake



Thanks to :
Many thanks to the posters who frequent the Polycount message board( www.polycount.com) who beta tested it. 
Also thanks to the Unreal developer network ( http://udn.epicgames.com/ ) and Unreal Wiki ( http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki ) for much usefull documentation.


Other:  	
I sometimes can be found as "Seburo", late at night playing UT2003 on various UK servers or on the European Planetside server. 

	
Get the exoslave wallpaper here
http://www.btinternet.com/~gundam/exoSlavePimpJPG.jpg
