Stars looking cool...
what shrooms? 

Does it have the reset xform option?

In the latest versions it appears as both a utility and a modifier. Not 100% that it'd fix the issue you mention though.

Thanks for the starfield :)

The shrooms I requested a while ago for my RMQ map where the player gets poisoned by spores and has to stagger around drunk... 

i really like how you're building animations with polygons like that. gives much better results than animated skins! 

mfx: The mushroom can be found in the model archive, or on the front page for the next few days.

ijed: I don't have a backup version to test reset xform on, but thanks for the tip - I'll give it a shot next time.

necros: Yeah, although the interpolation you get in modern engines is a double edged sword. It makes nicer visuals, but you can introduce glitches if you aren't careful. On the starfield it was important to keep the stars at 0% scale when they move from the edge of the screen back to the centre. Otherwise interpolation would give away the magic trick; you'd get away with it on simpler engines.

I may be taking it too far though, I was planning how to make an LCD digit display using just polygons. That's probably much better done as a sprite instead, no interpolation needed or wanted. So yeah, maybe time to take a break from all this base-tech content and make something other-worldly... 

does gmax have maxscript? cause it could probably be done with a bit of scripting and some funky rigging. 

Yeah, there's maxscript. The way I'd do it is model a plane with each lcd segment carved into it. Then inset a duplicate polygon into each segment. You can then scale this inner copy to 100% when the light is on, or 0% when it's off. It's just that's a lot of fuss and a lot of polygons to create something that appears to switch from on to off. A sprite would be 2 triangles, and actually switches on and off instantly, which might be more appropriate. 

Last time I posted about QME I included a teaser of a model, and I am aware I still haven't delivered on it. I'm gonna post a teaser for another model today, but I have a three-step plan for making it up to you guys:

Step 1: post the teaser along with a useful article on palette swapping your skins.

Step 2: release the newly teased model just as soon as a few more skins are done

Step 3 will be coming a bit later...

Here's the article and teaser:
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/palette-swapping-with-qme/ 

So as teased, here is the button model:
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/button/

It's a attempt to do the kinds of tricks seen on the monitor models, but in a way that non-base maps can use instead. I have a much more esoteric model which also satisfies that goal, I just need to resurrect it a bit... 

ohhh that's clever!!
maybe try using your normals randomizer on effect faces? 

It would have been great to add an extra layer, but changing normals don't have any effect on fullbright pixels as they don't have any shading you can change! A variant model which uses different colours on the Q would benefit though, and it would be pretty easy to script because the vertices you want to affect are easily located on the skin... 

Wow that is really nice, I am glad to see you do some medieval themed models. The only thing that bothers me is the light pattern on the buttons, I would prefer it to glow, the rotating feels odd because the button front lacks depth. 

The same method could be used for cracks with fire in them, for a trippy dimensional rip effect. 

Sock: Yeah, I was trying to go with two different animations to convey the different states - the back-and-forth pulsing animation is meant to be saying "I'm tapping my foot here - shoot me!", while the rotating animation says "I'm doing some work right now, try later". If you don't like the rotation then the pulsing animation should hold up by itself. If you do need a version which lets you switch between two different coloured pulsing effects, I could probably knock that up pretty quick... 

Ive once played a map/mod/game containing ogres with nail-shotguns + nice sprite-based animated explosions, any idea what mod is that? thanks 

The problem with your three state button is that players assume it works like a light switch, it is either on or off. Having a third state is just confusing because the buttons in quake are two state devices. I can certainly understand the frustration of wanting to show more visual information but the states really do have to be different. A glow or rotate effect are too similar and will be lost on most people.

I do like the design of the Q on the front panel, it look cool. :) I especially like the bottom two versions on your page where the Q is linked to seam edges across the front surface. 

probably bastion/marcher. 

would probably best be visualized with a lever, because you can immediately see that it has more than two states if touching it only moves it to the middle.

If you want to communicate that the button is unavailable for a certain time after it has been pressed, you should also keep it in the depressed state until it is available again. That is pretty clear I would think. 

Has three state buttons and Quake itself does as well 'while pressed' for both. 

Unpowered is a state that you don't get in standard quake, yeah. I think the tristates would be more understandable in practice though, because you'd see a reaction (or not). The unpowered button would be inert until some external force turns it on, it doesn't move when you press it (you might need a text message when they try to push it like "Looks like you need to activate this first...").

Once it's been switched on, the brighter colour and animation should attract your attention back to it, and now it just works like any other quake button. You'd learn what the final colour mean by using it, the colour at the same time that the button moves - in response to the player using it. It then returns to the middle colour once it has moved back out, which is a convention players already recognise.

If you were using it as a direct substitute for quake buttons you'd probably just choose two of the frames you like and swap between them, so you might go with unpowered and ready (a la "+1mtlsw" buttons) or ready and activated (a la "+1base" but in medieval). That stuff about the animations was more thought-process waffle than actual expectation of how the player would understand the visuals....

If you only need two colours, you can also use the combination of "unpowered" and "activated" - the interpolation between them will not pass through the colour inbetween. Then again at that point you might also just edit the skin, and get the more preferable pulse animation. 

the colour changes at the same time that the button moves 

I said I was going to make up for teasing with models I hadn't released in three parts. Here's part 3: get you guys to finish the model instead! Kinda...

I teased a model of a torn poster a while ago:
http://tomeofpreach.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/qme-pal.png

One of the reasons I haven't released this model is that I'd like to have a good selection of skins to go with it - it's a pretty flexible model with lots of scope, and once you've released it you've missed the chance to add more. Also, my skins aren't always the best part of the models.

So I thought I'd try an experiment today, see if I get a response. I'm gonna link the model here on func_ but not put it on the blog just yet. If you want to play around with the model and try making your own poster, dive in and grab it. If you make a skin you'd like to offer for the final release, then please e-mail it to me.
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/models/poster-prerelease.zip

Few quick notes: The model comes with two frames, the torn pose pictured above, and the plain poster below:
http://tomeofpreach.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/mutation.png
It is possible to create a skin which works for both poses, but don't feel obliged to, creating a dedicated clean/torn skin often works better.

The top 2/3 of the skin is taken up by the front of the poster, and the back of the poster takes up the remainder, rotated 90 degrees. The backside of the poster is there because this model is part of the window-kit pack, you can paste it on an invisible window to give it some presence, like in "tangerine dream".

The first skin on the model is a bit bright and weird, but there's a good reason. It's been painted with the colour of the player's trousers. This lets you use the trick from
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/palette-swapping-with-qme/
to quickly create a base texture with the colours from any palette row.

Don't feel obliged to use my template though, in fact wildly different skins are what this is all about. Mine have a tech lab/base feel but if you can create some lovely medieval wanted posters, or elder runes on human skin, more power to you! 

I love that poster model. I was going to have a torn poster secret ala Duke 3D on my base map but I decided 7 secrets was enough (plus I will probably revisit the homage at some point) 

This some time today, leave it open for a bit longer? 

We're talking weeks here, don't hurry. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/925h5udfr0xxmvb/ijed_posters.zip

Lovecraft
Biohazard
Explosive
Tin Tin
Flat Earth
Prodigy
Quake

Each has a _torn version. It's possible that fullbrights will rear their ugly head on a couple since I haven't tried them out in engine yet - I tried to avoid this issue but it might have got past me.

I'd suggest including a 'on floor' frame and possibly a 'big' one as well.