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This project from the usual saran wrap covered in goo effects which is a shame as they surely have a lot of texturing talent. 

Aw hell. I was logged in at QuakeOne and I even tested it but wasn't thinking to log-out. Me -1.

Attempt #2:

3. http://quakeone.com/~images/news/reforged2.jpg
4. http://quakeone.com/~images/news/reforged3.jpg
5. http://quakeone.com/~images/news/reforged3.jpg 

 

scrag's not bad. i mean, it's not really what i would have imagined it, but it's good work.
sadly, these high res textures just underline how much texture misalignment the original id maps had. :S 

at all IMHO. 

Everything looks wet and/or coated in vaseline. I appreciate the effort but the specular and/or normal maps are cranked way too high. 

What is the guiding general aesthetic of these textures? 

I'm just spreading the information of the massive amount work these two have done over several months.

I occasionally read the thread and look at the screen shots. Beyond that, I have no special knowledge of the project except it is refreshing to see that kind of effort being invested in a Quake project.

[In the last 6-12 months, a rather high level of texturing/skinning work has cropped at QuakeOne.com by various members. Fragger for instance. And zyxlx. And few others too.] 

Hey, lookit. Shiny turds. Made more clearly turd like by the shininess... 

 

There is something not right about those textures and skins. Everything is either too shiny or has over the top shadows. Some of the textures have been done really well but a lot of them in the screenshots have extremely heavy black lines. Also what is up with the death knight, he has some strange stain down the front of him.

Sadly most of the screenshots at Quake1 are locked unless you register (probably not a good idea because no one outside the community can see what is going on). The screenshots on the mod site are nice but again far too shiny. Maybe it is a default setting with dark places engine? maybe there is something wrong with the specular maps, not sure but they should fix it.

I can see an incredible amount of personal time and effort has gone into this project but they seriously need to get a wider audience critiquing their work, otherwise it will not get any better. 

I must say I prefer the approach that Starbuck took with the base textures. Just make them look like the originals, but better quality. 

they do have a lot of talent and the website is pretty flashy and theme-appropriate. I agree in general that the in-game rendering is where things seem to go bad. Some theories:

1. impossible to create normal/specular maps that actually look good in a quake engine? No, tenebrae looks pretty good, at least in some shots. Maybe the problem is everyone uses really intense specular maps?

2. quake .mdl skinmapping is so bad that any attempt at a high-res texture will accentuate the terrible stretching, which is sort of hidden by low-res skins.

3. darkplaces/etc. lighting just can't look that great, and it's maybe because the doom3 lighting model is fundamentally bad for aesthetics (i.e. too stark, too many pitch-black areas, no illusion of diffuse light)

4. the maps they pose these models are badly lit, and results in ugly lighting on models. 

1. i wanted to mention this but i forgot, but it seems people always go into over-drive with normal mapping and specular levels. you have to remember that they are just part of the texture, not center stage.

2. quite possible. there's some stretching fairly visible even with the normal low res skins. also, the meshes don't work for the new textures as they were designed primarily to convey a shape not to fill out a normal map.

3. they seem to be taking screen shots in stock id maps with that coloured lighting pack someone did. the coloured lighting pack is complete crap because most of the lights are way over saturated colour, and other times it's like a disco in there.

4. and stock maps have a lot of texture mis-alignments which show up more in high res textures (the scrag screenshots is a good example of most of this) 

http://quakeone.com/reforged/dknight.html
http://quakeone.com/reforged/Bestiary/ogrea.jpg
http://quakeone.com/reforged/Armory/snail03.jpg 

ogre looks the best of the bunch so far. he doesn't seem covered in saran wrap!

also, hate those stupid 'lava' weapons from rogue pack. :P 

...are like jelly dicks. Funny to look at, but would you want one? 

Too much contrast and lack of dynamic range in texture detail (maxed out everywhere). 

I'm suspecting the quake models are way too low poly to work with the harsh shadowing? 

Maybe someone could try implementing parallax mapping or something even better to see if it helps with the harsh lighting. But wait, the volume shadows would still use those huge polys, right? Maybe disabling self shadowing is the way to go. 

High-Poly project on the go? 

Re the screenshot above: it looks as though I need to be wearing 3D glasses to appreciate it fully :-) 

Honestly I think the monsters so far look really good. The HellKnight, yes, is probably a little too shiny to really be covered in dried blood and gore, but still looks really good. The Scrag looks great, but I imagined the spikes coming out of the sides to be more bone-like. That pic of the ogre is awesome :D 

and having hiqh quality textures under an open license sounds great. Agree that NMs seem a bit over-the-top in some of the shots, that plastic look ain't great. Still room for improvement.

But I think it makes no sense to more or less blame these guys who for Quake's lighting, low-poly models or misaligned textures. (Use them to make new maps with great lighting and proper texture alignment instead!)

Hope they keep up the good work and read some of the suggestions in here. 

everything is covered in gold. surely the makers can see this? if it's like chrome armor or something, then it doesn't look too bad. but the ogres face is not so good.

if they can less the goo look, this could be a pretty fkn cool project