Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

The pearlescent shader can be used on models?! I can't wait to see what people make with it!

Looks like I'm gonna be modeling my notebook that I use to sketch out models, it has the same effect on the cover.

Sooo about the "custom skins are breaking the game" thing going on right now...

Clearly the CS visual direction is restricting them immensely. Feels like they can barely expand at all when it comes to player models, because of how good/bad they would blend with some of the environments. Basically right now, they're stuck in a situation where they want to add more variety to player models but none of them can be "too camo", "too saturated", "too dark", "too bright", "too contrasted", "not contrasted enough", have a "too small silhouette", "too big silhouette" etc. etc. otherwise it affects gameplay.

Another side effect of this is that some models become strictly better/worst than others and players will only use the good ones, which defeats the whole purpose of adding variety to player models in the first place...

I'd like to go straight back to what I said a few weeks ago; A possible solution to this whole nightmare would be to add some kind of UI/lighting/post process effect thing that makes any character model stand out against any background, essentially bringing all character models back to the same level in terms of balance:

Quote from MikeGon

On 9/16/2019 at 4:45 PM, MikeGon said: player models don't stand out against most environments. Maps need to be brightly lit and look like a fckin empty art gallery on primer just so people can see that guy walking in front of them... other games employ technique like lighting player models in a different way than the env, adding post-process effects like contour lines, and UI displaying target's name/health and what have you. I'm sure there's a tasteful solution that's possible here

I think now would be a better time than ever to make that leap since it's trending atm. It's a case of ripping off the bandaid, it would hurt on the short term and some gamers will be pissed, but it would make the game better. Look at Overwatch here for instance:

I'm not saying CS:GO should look like this, but notice how this "red outline + name + health bar" combo allows them to release skins in any freakin style with emissive/dangling bits n' shit with zero impact on gameplay, as long as it remotely resembles the character.

(btw I'm not saying that CS:GO needs to look like Dora the explorer just that it needs some kind of feature like this done in a subtle way that make sense for CS:GO)

and btw this guy looks like a fckin furby lol:

Quote from MikeGon

35 minutes ago, MikeGon said: and btw this guy looks like a fckin furby lol:

Dont talk about Johnny Depp like that, hes sensitive

Quote from MikeGon

8 hours ago, MikeGon said: Another side effect of this is that some models become strictly better/worst than others and players will only use the good ones, which defeats the whole purpose of adding variety to player models in the first place...

I'd like to go straight back to what I said a few weeks ago; A possible solution to this whole nightmare would be to add some kind of UI/lighting/post process effect thing that makes any character model stand out against any background, essentially bringing all character models back to the same level in terms of balance:

Which is basically what we were doing in 1.6. The choice of characters was to allow players to choose the skins that would blend the most in the environment, and give the sense of “realistic combat”.

I’m totally averse of any artificial way to highlight players in CS, it’s simply not the kind of game for outlines etc. If something like that was implemented it would disrupt so many concepts of the game, like off-angles wouldn’t be a thing, cos you see the enemy anyway… it would become a “laser tag” game. Considering the lethality of CS’ guns, it would be like target practice and only the player with the fastest reflexes wins, instead of encouraging playing smart.

(Btw that spot on the grates of Overpass was an off-angle before this Operation.)

Also the risk of introducing game breaking bugs… it took months and pros whinging for so long to fix the smoke grenade bug, I can imagine stuff like that coming back if we add post-process to the player models.

What they do in games like Overwatch is fine cos the firefights go on for a while, the players are bullet sponges, they have all the items and buffs, regeneration…

I’m not against revising what has been released, but everything needs to stay very natural and realistic.

Personally I think Zool's solution is best, the color changing just has to be modified to not affect weapon skins.

The player skin still looks 'cool' and allows players to show off, but it also keeps the game competitive, and adds an interesting new form of customization for community maps.

Also, it means Valve can't be lazy with their skins by making recolors, each model can have something unique about it.

Quote from DMU222

8 minutes ago, DMU222 said: Personally I think Zool's solution is best, the color changing just has to be modified to not affect weapon skins.

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The player skin still looks 'cool' and allows players to show off, but it also keeps the game competitive, and adds an interesting new form of customization for community maps.

Also, it means Valve can't be lazy with their skins by making recolors, each model can have something unique about it.

I disagree, the point where we allow mappers to easily make Player Models atrociously bright colors is the point where we might as well give up and give enemy players a red inline. Besides that, every reworked set of player models has been brighter then their original versions. To me at least the easier solution would be to make a console command to disable enemy player skins as apposed to going through every single player model set and setting up certain materials to be tintable and then adding a parameter int he KV file for tinting them.

Unpopular opinion here, but I prefer it if player models are at least somewhere in the realm of reason, Neon green and hot pink are not colors either side would wear.

Quote from fewseb

2 hours ago, fewseb said: To me at least the easier solution would be to make a console command to disable enemy player skins as apposed to going through every single player model set and setting up certain materials to be tintable and then adding a parameter int he KV file for tinting them.

I don't think Valve would ever do this. The whole point of having custom models is that other players see them. To make a profit, Valve needs players to be jealous of the skins other players have.

Quote from fewseb

2 hours ago, fewseb said: Unpopular opinion here, but I prefer it if player models are at least somewhere in the realm of reason, Neon green and hot pink are not colors either side would wear.

I don't think any serious map would have crazy colors. Most mappers care about the vision of their level, trying to fit with a modern time theme. Having the option to make crazy colors would still be great for community game modes. Imagine, every single pair of players in DZ has a color assigned to them, allowing you to easily distinguish who is on who's team.

Also, allowing for recoloring would probably allow mappers to make levels with more interesting color palette. Right now, the map pool trends to being very white, since there aren't any white player models. As a mapper, having the option to give player models brighter colors can be allow the community to make darker levels.

Quote from DMU222

6 minutes ago, DMU222 said: Imagine, every single pair of players in DZ has a color assigned to them, allowing you to easily distinguish who is on who's team.

They can already do that, in the DZ showmatch 2 majors ago every team had a unique colored jumpsuit, that just doesnt work for gameplay since the bright orange is needed to actually see the enemy which id argue is more is more important then being able to tell who is together.

Quote from DMU222

8 minutes ago, DMU222 said: Valve needs players to be jealous of the skins other players have

You know I keep seeing this get petaled around, but when has anyone ever actually been "jealous" of skins that arnt the ultra rare red tier from obscure collections. Valve has also already lost any chance of Agent skins being valued do to their implementation. The highest priced one on the market isnt even 20 dollars and the free skins havnt even begun to be dropped yet. Me personally I dont buy skins to make other people jealous, I buy the ones I like to look at. The fact of the matter is by the time this operation is done, everyone will have at least 1 skin of each rarity and they will all be worth pennies. That also means everyone will have a skin equipped except for new players which just means this problem will get worse as time goes on.

The new CT skins in general are just less compatible with maps. Skins having a variance of colors will let them have something to make them stand out, regardless of environment.

Quote from mtchromatic

1 hour ago, mtchromatic said: The new CT skins in general are just less compatible with maps. Skins having a variance of colors will let them have something to make them stand out, regardless of environment.

This is because the grand majority of CSGO player models are designed to contrast the differnt areas of the body. The body is separated into a chest, arms, hands, legs, feet, head and core face.

In that phoenix model for instance, Tan arms blend with the pink shirt while it contrasts with the white vest. The black mask allows for the core face to stick out. His legs are dark and contrast with the vest but his feet are light.

Of course you have models like the pirates which dont separate hands from arms very good or the anarchists whose feet legs and chest all blend together, but most of them follow the above system.

Now you look at the phoenix Enforcer skin and it just gets ruined. Dark tan boots meld in with dark brown mud on the grey pants which then go into a dark grey body followed up by a dark grey head. The only thing that breaks this up is a light grey phoenix symbol on the chest and the exposed skin.

Of all the new seal skins only the two Times mccoy one has any contrast. All the other skins are various shades of green camos with dark tan or green vests and pouches McCoy has light blue elements that break up his head from his chest and his arms from his chest but thats it. The old seal team models had black equipment to contrast their camo uniform.

It should not have come as a huge shock that literally adding camouflaged guys to CS would, uhm, make seeing them more difficult

Quote from FMPONE

1 hour ago, FMPONE said: It should not have come as a huge shock that literally adding camouflaged guys to CS would, uhm, make seeing them more difficult

I mean its not like camo'd models wernt already in the game, they just were done right. The phoenix have urban camo pants but those are off set by bright colored vests and shirts. The pirates have green camo pants but have bright head-wear and white shirts and shoes to make them stick out. The current seal team models have black equipment, hands and boots that both allows for their core-face to to be highlighted but also counters the camo. The new seal team models have almost no contrast which by it self is bad, but then they also have camo with no contrast which results in them blending in.

The worst part is Valve already learned this lesson early on in the game. Back at the early launch of the game, Seal Team 6 had tan bags and helmets along with clear visors which made them blend in easily. This was especially apparent on aztec. Valve updated this tan gear to be black and for the visors to either be black or have a bright color (yellow or orange). One of the anarchist models used to have yellow highlights that got switched to blue because the yellow made it blend in with some areas of office. The elite crew had headwear that matched their shirts making their heads hard to find. All of this was fixed by Valve early on.

and yet now it seems like this whole operation was handled by new people to the cs team. The player skins are such a bizarre mishap that could have been done right.

The fuck are you guys talking about? Valve never learns.

Additionally they only have balls when it comes to inventing ways to generate revenue (case in point).

If Valve has to go down the route of highlighting player models somehow, the two elegant/acceptable solutions I see would be to apply a bit of black outline, alike cel-shading in Borderlands, or slightly lighting up the player.

I must not be the only one, interestingly enough 3kliks has visualised both in his latest video last night… I just didn’t get round to post it here first yday ?

I just crested 1000 hours in CSGO SDK. - you'd think that's enough time to finish a map? Apparently not

Those numbers aren't important at all. Try setting yourself small goals and working off a list.

Quote from Freaky_Banana

On 11/29/2019 at 9:48 AM, Freaky_Banana said: I just crested 1000 hours in CSGO SDK. - you'd think that's enough time to finish a map? Apparently not

Think you need to set the language to English to achieve that ?

Wow, the american teams keep their choke attitute, both Liquid and Evil Geniuses got two-zeroed today. Mousesports even 16-0 EG on Nuke

wish I had put more money on Mouse now

Warowl is making a map and gives a shoutout to mapcore.

Quote from Freaky_Banana

On 11/29/2019 at 4:48 AM, Freaky_Banana said: I just crested 1000 hours in CSGO SDK. - you'd think that's enough time to finish a map? Apparently not

If that's a lot, I uh... I think I have a problem...