Seeking help to restore Flying Drexl

[JCarter426]

There's an unused flying drexl model in the game files, c_drexlf. It's fully animated, but not textured:

 

 

I'm trying to restore this, but frankly I don't have the patience to texture the whole thing from scratch. I tried piecing it together with the other drexl model's texture but it's never going to look as good as what some of you out there could manage. So I'm looking for some help, a collaboration of sorts. I've already adjusted the UVW mapping a bit to be more convenient, and I'm willing to handle anything else in the modeling and scripting areas if necessary. I just need a texture artist better than myself who can fill in the missing pieces and smooth out the edges.

 

There's no real urgency to this - it's just one of my many side projects - but I have some things in mind for it in the future, so I figured I'd put the word out now.

[ZM90]

Fascinating!  It's always wonderful to see new cut content be discovered.  Unfortunately I'm not good at textures so I can't really help you there but LDR or SithSpecter may be able to help you if you would like to ask them.

[Mutilator57]

Nice find! The thing I love about these games is that there are always more things to discover, even after a decade or so of digging.

[newbiemodder]

A nice retexture of this model does exist. I forgot who actually did it over at Lucasforums, but it was in conjunction with Logan's ROR mod. I borrowed the texture back when I was working on my Onderon expansion. The .tga files exist within the download files for the ROR demo mod.

[134340Goat]

Ah, I remember finding this a few months ago while screwing around in KSE and switching models. And here I thought it was just my crappy computer not displaying the graphic

[VarsityPuppet]

I have the textures from RedRob and some animation rigging from Khrizby. PM me if you're interested. What I once upon a time was interested in doing was having them fly around the skies on Dxun, but I think the only way to do it would be to make them animated placeables.

[JCarter426]

Ah, I didn't realize anybody had done anything with this already. Truth is, I disregarded the model myself for a long time. When I first thought it I just thought "what am I going to do with a grey drexl?" Didn't think texturing it was worth the effort. It wasn't until yesterday that I thought of something to actually use it for, and of course by now all the old networks are in the dark. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, guys.

[Sith Holocron]

Shooting those things out of the sky would be a lot more interesting than blowing up ships in the Onderon mounted laser cannon portion.

[InSidious]

Isn't there also a boss flying drexl model?

[VarsityPuppet]

There is but it would need to be rigged with animations and possibly remapped to fit the texture

[redrob41]

Isn't there also a boss flying drexl model?

 

 

There is but it would need to be rigged with animations and possibly remapped to fit the texture

Both the flying and boss models use the same uvw map, and the textures that I came up with years ago work for both. I made a green version (same color as the in-game baby drexls) and purple version (to match the old comic book appearances). The wings have a bit of transparency to them, so that they look like a thin skin.

 

If someone could ever get fully animated models working in-game, I'd be more than willing to include my textures.

 

Here's video of Khrizby's animation test with my textures applied. Anytime the creature "freezes" it's because the animation is missing.

 

[DarthParametric]

If someone could ever get fully animated models working in-game

The most practical way would be to duplicate some of the existing animations and rename them to whatever the missing ones are. Although that might not be super great, depending on what animations are missing.

[JCarter426]

Yeah, looking into the animations is going to be my next task. I think I could work with the few flying animations it has now, but it might be possible to grab some more from the shyrack models so I'm going to look into that. I've also been working on getting motion captured animations working with the game models too, through Autodesk MotionBuilder, so if I can find some winged ones I'll give that a try too.

[redrob41]

mostly what the flying model is missing are the attack, hit\defense (or maybe ALL combat) animations. Khrizby added a single claw attack, but I think that it would also need a double claw (power), bite (flurry), and tail whip (critical strike) attacks.

 

IIRC, the boss model doesn't even "walk" properly. It just moves backwards like a big, static box. I think that it was intended to be grounded (like it was in a cave, and couldn't fly) and move like a slithering snake.

 

Because they don't have legs (more specifically leg bones), I doubt that just copying animations from another model will work. You might be able to copy some of the arm bone and wing bone animations. I wonder if the different creature sizes will make a difference?

[VarsityPuppet]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Drexl

 

Judging by the wiki page, seems like they were supposed to be the size roughly of a Krayt dragon. There are also images of individuals riding them for reference. Overall, it certainly seems like the "Boss" Drexl is closer to an adult Drexl size

[134340Goat]

Sorry to bump, but just wanna say it would be pretty fun to see it as a new mod (hell, possibly incorporated into an RCM update someday) with it in the background of the sky during the battle of Onderon, sort of like that flying manta ray thingy on Dantooine in the first game. Or -

 

 

Shooting those things out of the sky would be a lot more interesting than blowing up ships in the Onderon mounted laser cannon portion.

 

This would actually fit in with the story point that the Sith are controlling various beasts. But I'd imagine it'd be difficult to replace the lasers and explosion graphics. So being in the background would be a more likely pseudo-restoration

[Gguy]

those beasts look fierce, i would love to see them fully implemented!

 

From what i read on the wiki, Darth Bane flew a drexl FROM Dxun to Onderon, could this also mean some may have lived on Dxun?

[VarsityPuppet]

They have lived on Dxun, indicated I think by some of the Tales of the Jedi comics from back in the day

[newbiemodder]

There was once some form of land bridge connecting Onderon to its moon, Dxun. Several species of animals migrated to the moon, That's why both places have common fauna and flora.

[superSzym]

Actually Drexl originated from Dxun as stated in Tales of the Jedi and Darth Bane: Rule of Two.

[Gguy]

You could place 1 or 2  of the big ones on dxun one day, maybe like some sort of boss creature

[Malkior]

Just FYI, the Beast Riders fly Drexl, so if they had an encampment somewhere near Iziz where they weren't just thugs (Seriously, how could the entire tribe be working for one boss), you could then have a quest to return them (if they've run away due to Iziz's increasing tension or were somehow stolen..)

[N-DReW25]

Just going to leave this video right here.

 

 

At 0.43 there is a flying Drexl that has a purple skin in Freedan Nadds tomb. Looks like Drexl where supposed to be the Sith's beast instead of the Boma's