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ZUMLIN                                                            v1.0    16-Feb-98
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Zumlin is a plugin player model for deathmatch play in Quake2. It is an entirely new
model with all 20 animations, a new skin, a new weapon (and skin), a player icon and
a story explaining his existance in the Quake2 story.

Author:

    Rowan "Sumaleth" Crawford

    Email:                  sumaleth@starfury.apana.org.au
    Fun Web:                http://impact.frag.com
    Work Web:               http://www.animagrafx.com.au
    Cool Web Hosters:       http://www.frag.com

    Past Quake Projects:    Quake Rally, Quess     (mods)
                            Morbo                  (Plugin Player Model)

Installation:

    The zip file must be extracted into the location of your quake2/ directory
    (ie. NOT into the quake2/ directory - the one before it). The paths in the
    zip are quake2/baseq2/players/zumlin/ so if you don't unpack into the right
    location it won't work.

    Once extracted, Zumlin will automatically appear in the player selection
    field of the Multiplayer Options menu (*). Of course, it's only the other
    players that get to see you as Zumlin so it really only works in multiplayer
    games.

    The server will not automatically send Zumlin to other players who don't have
    him (unlike skins in QW which have that feature), but if someone is using
    Zumlin and you don't have his model, you will just see them as the regular
    Quake2 player models.

    (*) Please note that there is a little problem with Quake2 and PMP's whereby
    if you have any files in the /quake2/baseq2/players/ directory which AREN'T
    real player model directories, then Q2 usually won't let you select additional
    players from the Multiplayer menu. So if Morbo doesn't show up for selection,
    just check there are no files in that directory.

    Don't send bug reports please and please don't email me saying you can't get
    it working.

Whats it all about then?

    Zumlin is my second PPM, the first one being Morbo which is available at
    the Impact web page too. Whereas Morbo was more a learning experience (hence
    I kept him fairly straightforward), I was fairly keen to do a lot more
    with Zumlin, particularly in the area of animations.

    The character is actually one of the baddies from a commerical Q2-engine-licensed
    game I tried to get off the ground towards the end of 1997 which ultimately
    didn't prove possible. At the time of closing the project down I had modelled
    16 baddies for the game, of which Zumlin was one of the main ones. Once the
    PPM concept took off I decided to resurrect Zumlin as a PPM since he was most
    suitable of all the baddies for the PPM format.

    Specs:

        Polygons:   629 Zumlin
                    63  weapon
                    691 TOTAL
        Frames:     198
        Animations: 20

        For comparison:

         Male:      590 + 72 = 662
         Morbo      449 + 51 = 500

    Programs Used:

        Modelling:  Lightwave Modeler
        Animation:  Lightwave Layout
        Skins:      GraFX2
        Utils:      qdata  (special Lightwave version)
                    qME    (misc testing)
                    JAWmd2 (excellent for testing the skin while working on it)

    Zumlin was tested ingame exclusively using Ridah's Eraser bot (also available
    on the Impact web page).

Important Stuff:

    Zumlin and all associated files are copyright of Rowan Crawford. Quake2 is copyright
    of id Software.

    You are free to spread Zumlin far and wide although you are not allowed to make
    money from Morbo in any way, shape or form.

    Everyone is completely free to make additional skins for Zumlin, in fact I encourage
    it! You can even use my skin as a basis if you like, as most people do with the
    Quake skins. Please don't send me skins you have made for Morbo, instead send them
    to the various Q2 skin pages like:

    http://qwcentral.stomped.com        - Dragons skin packs
    http://www.planetquake.com/q2pmp/   - Quake2 Player Models Pack
    http://bodyshop.logicquest.com/     - The Body Shop

    I promised in the Morbo readme that the base skin for my next PPM would be easier
    to work with, and while it definitely is, it's still a little tricky in places.
    His alien form should open up numerous possibilities for some really cool skins
    though.

    Also note that I'm actually planning to possibly rearrange the base skin somewhat
    to get it to fit into 256x256 instead of the ~320x200 that it currently is. This
    is because 3DFX cards can't handle textures larger than 256x256 so they actually
    scale larger textures down. This unfortunately gives a pretty noticable drop in
    texture resolution in the game, but NPherno (of NPherno's Skin Tool and NME) is
    writing a program that will allow moving around and resizing of the base frame with
    the texture res intact, so if he manages to pull that off I'll be using it on
    Zumlin (and Morbo) and releasing updates.

And In Closing...

    Phew. Zumlin turned out to be just as much a learning experience as Morbo was
    but ultimately I think he works really well in the game, offering another
    alternative for those players who prefer something that fits into the game.
    Have fun.

    Thanks to everyone who helped out.

- Rowan 'Sumaleth' Crawford

