Handle: Slyrr
E-Mail: gregfisk@comcast.net
website: http://home.comcast.net/~gregfisk/

Special Features:
Custom sounds added for idle and taunt animations (and they're lip synched!)
Custom ragdoll
Special themed team colors (fire and ice)
Custom sound pack (with distinctive cries for attacking, distress and summoning)
All Original animations + eye blinks, jaws, tongue & claws

Deinonychus Saevus: (dyn-ON-ik-us) PLAYER MODEL FOR UT2004:

	The Liandri Tournaments continued to grow in popularity, so much that new games were added to the already grueling ordeals that players and androids had to endure.  The addition of Onslaught and the return of Assault were bad enough, but when Invasion became a staple in the tournaments, the Liandri committee members were faced with a new problem.
	The severe nature of gameplay in the Invasion ladders pushed many participants past endurance, both mentally and physically.  Most of the popular players and droids were afraid to even sign up for the new game types, and those few who did play were so traumatized by the experience that they had to be placed in permanent recovery.
	Dr. Krevanjelo Nuste, creator of the Junkyard Mech, decided to take a hand in creating a non-mechanical fighter for the new game types. He scanned the archives of genetic material labs, and came to the conclusion that a dinosaur would be the best foundation to begin with.
	While the thought had already occurred to several others, previous attempts to bring dinosaurs into the Liandri games had met with dismal failure. Dr. Nuste studied the previous attempts and found out the reason why. In almost every case, a larger predator like the Tyrannasaur was used.  Of course, they had to be reduced in size to meet game requirements, and contrary to being frightened, enemy players were often emboldened by a miniature dino since they lacked the size and power of the real thing.
	So Dr. Nuste decided to use a smaller predator, man sized, that was still fierce and powerful.  In the end, there was only one logical choice - the Velociraptor.  Setting to work at once, Dr. Nuste combined the genetic traits of different species of Velociraptor and came up with a suitable hybrid.  It combined the size and strength of the larger Velociraptor Antirrhopus with the agility and speed of Velociraptor Mongoliensis. He found that when his Raptor tried to hold the needed weaponry in its clawed hands, it would overbalance.  So he grafted a cybernetic housing on it's back.  The housing was linked to the Raptor's nervous system to respond naturally with the Raptor's thoughts and instincts.  An electromagnetic coil was put at the end of the housing which would automatically interface with the grip and firing mechanism of any weapon which was locked onto it.
	The experiment was a thunderous success.  Finding that Deinonychus had been reclassified as a species of Velociraptor, Nuste gave the title of Deinonychus Saevus to his creation and secretly turned it loose in the arenas.  Deinonychus promptly beat the stuffing out of everyone else in the tournament ladders.  Liandri committee members protested, saying that Nuste's creation was TOO well suited for the games, and lobbied to have Nuste remove it from the arenas.
	Nuste sent a brief reply that said in essence: "If you want him gone, then go in and get him - I'm not going anywhere near that thing!" 

----------------------

Notes: While not exactly 'original', the Deinonychus has always been a favorite of mine, and I think it's organic flow and fierce appearance make it an excellent gaming model.  If the movie versions are even close to the real thing, the raptor represents a high point in predatory evolution.  Look at those teeth - look at those claws - you think this thing eats honey and berries?

Of course, game mechanics for a 3D shooter like Unreal Tournament means that it's hard to get such a model in game and make it convincing.  No matter how you slice it, you can't have a dino 'holding' a gun and make it look cool.  A dinosaur holding a weapon or doing anything that isn't in keeping with it's nature makes it look silly.  The famous 'Fang' model for Quake3 did a good job by putting the gun into the dinosaur's mouth and having it 'spit' its shots at foes, but it still didn't seem natural.  How would it eat, or bite?  The weapon housing seemed a good solution, allowing the Raptor to weild the guns and weapons while allowing it to move naturally and not seem too unbalanced.


Installation:  Just use the UMOD wizard, and the proper files should be put into their proper places. But just in case, you can also manually put in the files to their directories:

RaptorSkins.utx = UT3K/Textures
Raptor.ukx = UT3K/Animations
RaptorVoice.u = UT3K/System
Raptor.upl = UT3K/System
Raptor.ka = UT3K/KarmaData

Then just pick the Deinonychus from the PLAYER screen. 

Attn: If you want to see the Raptor'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. Note that if you want to be able to use the model in a SINGLE PLAYER GAME as a team mate then you must put the info into your Xplayers.int file or the game will CRASH when you try to select him:

Raptor="Name:  Deinonychus|Age:   N/A|Race:  Dinosauria||Data:|Deinonychus Saevus (the savage terrible claw) was bred by combining the DNA of several different species of Velociraptor. It combines the best traits of predatory evolution into a fearless, vicous killing machine who doesn't fight in the tournaments to win trophies - it fights because it enjoys it.||"


Technical info for the curious:
Polys: 3400. 

Skins: Default and team colors - with red having a fire theme and blue having an ice theme.  I hope that skinners with more skill and more time will take the effort to make several different skins for the Raptor - different colors, patterns, stripes and so on.  Seeing a whole flock of these things with distinct colors and skins as a team on a server would be pretty cool.

Custom Sounds: Yes. Well, yes and no.  I culled the sounds from all three Jurassic Park movies.  Users may find this challenging because I didn't add english commands and orders.  Instead, I used the movie noises that raptors made for attacking, calling for help and so on.  If you wish to know what the Raptor is trying to tell you, then you must familiarize yourself with their distinctive calls and cries.  Or in a pinch, you can read the text translation when their portrait pops up.

Animations: Custom skeleton - All original! Custom bones added for blinking eyes, twitching claws, thrashing tail and roaring jaws - all to make him as 'alive' as possible without going overboard.

This model was made with: 3DSMAX, and UnrealEditor3.  The skinning was done in Photoshop and UED3.

Knows bugs/issues:  For some reason, in UT2004, custom models do not appear 'normally' in the SELECTION screen of the player settings menu.  I haven't been able to determine why this is so or how to fix it, and even the folks at EPIC seem puzzled.  Either they are scaled too large, or they are too 'close' to the screen - I can't tell which.  This has happened with each model I've made or converted to UT2004.  Also, the WEAPON placement and alignment for new models is off as well.  Normal weapons are held normally, but the NEW weapon meshes (link gun, AVRiL, etc) are slightly too high and too far 'in'.  This doesn't seem to be an issue with the model itself, but with how UT2004 was designed.  Hopefully the wizards at EPIC will address this and make a patch that fixes the UT new weapon alignment and the selection menu view.

Also, due to the way UT2004 seems to be hard-wired, when the raptor holds AKIMBO weapons, the left arm is twisted.  I can't figure a way to resolve this, given that the raptor's body doesn't have a 'normal' left arm.

Special Thanks to:  Skullbox - who again served as de-bugger and advisor thru instruction on the www.planetquake.com/polycount messageboards.  Also thanks To Fraggin_Phun for his voice pack tutorial. 

 ----- 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=Raptor
ServerPackages=RaptorVoice

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.  
For more questions/updates on getting custom models into multiplayer servers, check his tutorials at:
http://members.rogers.com/fraggin_phun/UT2003_VoicePacks.html

Slyrr

Special thanks to the authors of the 1st Amendment -
Keep circulating the tapes
