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The Case for Reforged Resources on Hive

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Kyrbi0

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I'm not sure I agree.

More importantly, I think this is something that should (& could) really be decided by The People. What does the Site as a whole feel about the a Resource section should be about? A museum/hall-of-fame for only the best & most creative? An art-collection for the fanciest works of art? Or a warehouse of meaningful & useful resources?
 

deepstrasz

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More importantly, I think this is something that should (& could) really be decided by The People. What does the Site as a whole feel about the a Resource section should be about? A museum/hall-of-fame for only the best & most creative? An art-collection for the fanciest works of art? Or a warehouse of meaningful & useful resources?
We've been over this before. Modellers like Murlocologist wrote about the possible decline in originality and raising of rips, edits and other stuff.
Also, let's not mix Substandard with Approved. I'm not for it. If you do it for one resources section forum, then you have to do it for all. I'm not gonna be approving maps because they're useful. That way all maps are useful if they're fun to many people. We're not after popularity. We're trying to have a quality site, at least I hope we still are.
 
We've been over this before. Modellers like Murlocologist wrote about the possible decline in originality and raising of rips, edits and other stuff.
Also, let's not mix Substandard with Approved. I'm not for it. If you do it for one resources section forum, then you have to do it for all. I'm not gonna be approving maps because they're useful. That way all maps are useful if they're fun to many people. We're not after popularity. We're trying to have a quality site, at least I hope we still are.

I think we should have a mix of substandard and approved, new ones like Moonman suggested. Why would there be a decline in originality if there was a rise in edits, geomerges and so forth? There will always be people who want to push the boundaries of what can be made, and when there are a lot of different good material people will get inspired to create something awesome. Lots of great resources might set the bar high and attract a lot of people.

And speaking of useful resources, we should definitely support these as they can be awesome for a lot of people get better maps even if the resource is not original. For example, the Fire Golem or Night Elf Captain by Vulfar are just edits but the result is amazing, I now got a lot of new ideas as I now know that I can configure VFX in a model, and the night elf is great for my map and it gave me new ideas for battle cutscenes.
 
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To my knowledge, hiveworkshop was never meant to be a repository to upload every single resource into. It was meant to represent quality. I am not saying Reforged edited models are not high quality, but the measure of quality should not be popularity or perceived usefulness. , as mentioned by several users here. If that was the case, every single edit of the blizzard campaign would be approved here, since there is an strong desire among many players with changing 1-2 models and then submitting the blizzard campaign to hiveworkshop.


The creativity requirement is necessary in my opinion, otherwise there would be a flood of resources.
 

deepstrasz

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I think we should have a mix of substandard and approved, new ones like Moonman suggested.
I support Moonman's idea with being able to make both Substandard and Approved models visible on choice as shown in his example image. I am against the elimination of Substandard so that simple edits, no matter how useful, won't make it to Approved.
 
To my knowledge, hiveworkshop was never meant to be a repository to upload every single resource into. It was meant to represent quality. I am not saying Reforged edited models are not high quality, but the measure of quality should not be popularity or perceived usefulness. , as mentioned by several users here. If that was the case, every single edit of the blizzard campaign would be approved here, since there is an strong desire among many players with changing 1-2 models and then submitting the blizzard campaign to hiveworkshop.


The creativity requirement is necessary in my opinion, otherwise there would be a flood of resources.

I dont think thats necessarily true I remember the whole "usefulness" discussion being raised ages ago and it was determined that usefulness can get a resource approved. I dont think it applies to maps but for models for example if its something a lot of people will want or need then its usefulness outweighs the simplicity.

For example its why we allow screenshot icons of resources to be approved because they needs icons and not everyone can make hand drawn icons or has the time.
 
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I meant, that the Thrall model is not a custom made model and it has non-original animations thus creativity and originality is pretty close to 0 unlike a custom classic model that only has unoriginal/ripped of animations. Sure, many if not most use ingame textures as well but the shapes and polygons are original.

This just goes to show that you may not be knowledgeable enough to be making such statements. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of approved, high quality model-edits use almost entirely Blizzard meshes (polygons / shapes), not just the textures and animations. Some are unique and original, sure - -Grendel and PROXY, for example, rarely, if ever, rely on Blizzard meshes, yet modelers like myself, General Frank and many others use a mix of Blizzard meshes and custom meshes - in some cases, predominantly Blizzard meshes, actually. You can modify, twist, turn, cut and re-texture Blizzard's meshes sufficiently to blur the line between what is fully custom and what is an edit. I don't want to toot my own horn too hard or anything, but I doubt you'd be able to tell, for example, which parts here are custom, which are based on Blizzard models, and which Blizzard models those were (for the record, much of this is based on Blizzard's work):


upload_2020-8-7_17-29-55.png


Frankly, with all due respect to you, deepstrasz, I would appreciate it if some model moderators and site administrators chimed in on this issue as well. This is clearly a big issue for many people and something that can hurt the future of the Hive as a site for modding Reforged. With the current mish-mash of Classic and Reforged models, it's even hurting purely Classic users who want a way to separate the two types of models and not be cluttered with models that are of no use to them.

Now that I've read the whole thread, I can say that I agree wholeheartedly with everything Handclaw and Moonman said. Some models are simple enough to be considered Substandard and should remain there because of an obvious lack of changes from the original form, although, I would say that, that exceptions should be made for exceedingly useful yet extremely simple models. I'm not talking about an Acolyte with a staff, I'm talking about something that is deemed to be useful to a great deal of people and yet isn't very different from something that already exists in the base game. A good example of that from Classic would be the Villager with RPG animations (Villager with many sets of animations for handling different weapons, super useful for RPGs with attachment-based gear). I suppose a working Thrall on foot model fits that bill for me as well, if Reforged simply lacks a working version of it.

And moreover, since @Archian said that himself and Ralle are "working on it", I'm extremely optimistic for the situation to improve. However, I would like to voice my hope that the design for the resource sections (and the rest of the site?) will be shared with the community and be open to the community's feedback before being published into the live version of the site. One key issue with Hive 2.0 was that we had no real idea of what to expect, and many things were changed for the worse in a way that the community at large disliked and had a hard time dealing with. This hurt the community and drove people away. To this date, as is made evident by this thread as well as many others, the resource sections (and model section in particular) are extremely difficult to navigate for both new and veteran users and the filters are both overly complex and yet somehow insufficient. The design that Moonman proposed in his edited first post is clean and fantastic and I hope it is taken into consideration when re-designing the model section. It would resolve many of the issues.
 

deepstrasz

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its something a lot of people will want or need then its usefulness outweighs the simplicity.
frutistand.png
For example its why we allow screenshot icons of resources to be approved because they needs icons and not everyone can make hand drawn icons or has the time.
They can be allowed in Substandard. What's the big deal anyway?

You can modify, twist, turn, cut and re-texture Blizzard's meshes sufficiently to blur the line between what is fully custom and what is an edit. I don't want to toot my own horn too hard or anything, but I doubt you'd be able to tell, for example, which parts here are custom, which are based on Blizzard models, and which Blizzard models those were (for the record, much of this is based on Blizzard's work):
You are right. Your example applies to the Warcraft II model edits of Tamplier777
Frankly, with all due respect to you, deepstrasz, I would appreciate it if some model moderators and site administrators chimed in on this issue as well.
I'm only expressing my opinion, nothing more. But because I'm not at the same level as you guys on modelling, doesn't mean I will stand aside risking improper changes extending to Maps.
I'm also concerned by the lack of comments from more resource makers and mods/reviewers.
 
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I remember how people wanted ''anything goes as long as it is useful'' rule in Icon section. Now that you can post almost anything and it will get approved, section is inactive and irrelevant. It has more reviewers than it has active icon makers. And no one is wondering why in the times when wc3 is getting new audience, new patches, reforged version and overall support there are no active icon makers.

One of the reasons being that for the last few years website was changing itself in favor of simple resources gaining more attention. A trend of equalizing useful resources with quality made ones while not compensating the removal of rewarding for high quality resources.

First, moderator ratings were gone so you couldn't sort out anything by reviewer's rating, then DC was gone, then substandard was made accessible to all users and then rules changed multiple times in different sections to make it even easier for simple resource to be approved.

The result of quantity before quality tactic speaks for itself, site is losing activity, both when it comes to resources and even when it comes to amount of feedback and ratings given. It seems that lowering of criteria for approval and removal of rewards (DC, reviewer rating...) resulted in decrease of motivation to make a high quality resources, not to mention you can't filter out complex models from simple ones because ratings are irrelevant as well.

I am against hiding resources which function and don't break site rules, however substandard does not hide them, it subordinates them. Substandard can't be put in the same bin as approved resources, nor should those categories be equalized in importance, because approved comes first - substandard comes second. Therefore, to avoid applying classic criteria on reforged and having majority resources in subordinated section, reforged should have own sections for models, maps, icons, spells, textures... with own criteria for each one of those sections.
 

Triceron

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The result of quantity before quality tactic speaks for itself, site is losing activity, both when it comes to resources and even when it comes to amount of feedback and ratings given. It seems that lowering of criteria for approval and removal of rewards (DC, reviewer rating...) resulted in decrease of motivation to make a high quality resources, not to mention you can't filter out complex models from simple ones because ratings are irrelevant as well.

Reforged is a vastly different boat that needs to be addressed on its own value system.

Quality will always be a subjective issue, and I don't think we should assume that high quality, custom made resources will be made available for Reforged in any high capacity. A custom model to the standards that Reforged has set could easily take month(s) to produce for a hobbyist. That wouldn't even guarantee a quality result. And so far, I don't think there has been even one custom Reforged model here.

As someone who does make custom models, I feel like the criteria of a geo merge vs custom model is absolutely moot. I don't see the point of reserving approvals simply for high quality custom content considering Reforged modding is in its infancy and isn't comparable to the assets creation in SD WC3. I don't think it's in the community's best interest to only reserve for custom models which may or may not even happen since the barrier-of-entry for Reforged models being approved is so low that there's simply no incentive for people to make the switch over.

I understand the fears that geo-merges could become the 'standard' and the bar gets lowered; but consider that bar for Reforged does not exist when no one's made custom models for Reforged so far. We should be addressing this as though there was no bar at all and raising it up as we move forward, not assume that the quality standards set in place by SD WC3 asset creation (custom content over geo-merge) applies across the board. I personally think that in its current state, Reforged Assets/Modding exposure is being affected by quality control. I wouldn't even be aware that people were working on Reforged models had it not been for the MMO-C WC3 megathread.
 
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That's why I suggested reforged content to have own sections. So criteria can be tailor made specifically for them regarding current state and overall quality of those submitted resources. If geoset merge is the best thing modders can create for reforged, than it would not go to substandard in such section. Staff delegated for reforged section would need to be well informed about technical aspects and know where to draw the line to have balance between approved and substandard reforged resources.
And site staff would need to come up with new version of Director's cut or similar if such section would eventually see reforged models which go beyond geoset merges. But that's why it is important to keep the criteria fluid for reforged modding which has just begun, something you cannot do in already well established section like existing model section.


Murlocologist, how would you feel if, upon Searching for something, the "Substandard" resources were no longer hidden/partitioned but instead appeared at the end of the list (i.e. after all the "Approved" ones)?
Substandard resources could appear if searched for, however not in mix with approved resources and not through default option. Priority needs to be given to approved resources.
When user enter the ''Search...'' field bar, below ''search resources only'' could be an option ''show approved resources only'' which is selected by default. User would need to deselect it to have all resources appear, with results sorted so that approved ones always come first, regardless of custom sorting options.
 

Ardenaso

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perhaps, make a middle ground for "approved" and "substandard" and change the names and description so it goes like this:

Top Quality -> Approved -> Substandard, where the good things in "substandard" is put into "Approved" and the ones in "approved' is put into "Top Quality" and then the bad things in "Substandard"
 
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perhaps, make a middle ground for "approved" and "substandard" and change the names and description so it goes like this:

Top Quality -> Approved -> Substandard, where the good things in "substandard" is put into "Approved" and the ones in "approved' is put into "Top Quality" and then the bad things in "Substandard"

We used to have a "top quality" section when moderators gave resources 1-5 star reviews, with some resources getting the rare acknowledgment of "Director's Cut" (6/5). I personally liked the system, but I suppose there's a reason it was done away with.
 
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There is an issue with that, though. When the Substandard section was introduced, all previously Rejected models were given the label. There is an unfortunate plethora of non-functional, buggy, extremely simple and otherwise unfitting models in the section sitting alongside some real gems that some moderator in 2009 thought needed to be red instead of blue and the author never complied. It was a strange decision to include that section to begin with in my opinion, but now that it's around, something should be done to make a clearer distinction between good, functional models, and wonky, broken models.
This issue is even more pertinent when it comes to Reforged models. There is still time to undo all of the damage without too much grief.
 

Rui

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I can only speak as a mere user of the model section, as I lack the background for much else. Most of the time, we're looking for something specific and do not search based on quality. This plus art reviewers' tastes and considerations being too controversial and/or inconsistent across the board caused the moderator ratings to go away, if I correctly recall.

The tendency to scrap everything and/or oversimplify is something I dislike in contemporary approaches to problem solving. You've probably heard me tell this tale 10 times, but, back in my day, I avoided inconsistency by grouping together a band of testers, and setting the moderator rating to the average of all testers' ratings. No section can complain more about the effort this endeavour demands than the map section, which happens to be the one I moderated. Certainly the model section (and others) could have followed this approach more easily, instead of just erasing moderator ratings and propagating that change to all sections. Perhaps another flaw in our premises is that all policies have to apply to all sections.

But hold on, if users search based on usefulness, why should ratings and quality count? Because, as @Murlocologist put it, mingling everything together discourages hard workers. Also, and this happens to be old news, I'm pretty certain this topic has been debated a few years ago, having the community concluded that people (artists more than most :p) need that tiny ego boost every now and then.

EDIT: Also, I can't stress this enough:
And moreover, since @Archian said that himself and Ralle are "working on it", I'm extremely optimistic for the situation to improve. However, I would like to voice my hope that the design for the resource sections (and the rest of the site?) will be shared with the community and be open to the community's feedback before being published into the live version of the site. One key issue with Hive 2.0 was that we had no real idea of what to expect, and many things were changed for the worse in a way that the community at large disliked and had a hard time dealing with. This hurt the community and drove people away.
 
Did nobody mention yet how Reforged geomerges are all created 4 times for each level of detail? In classic Warcraft 3, if you wanted to edit a model such as the Peasant, there were 3 copies. There existed a low quality peasant MDX, a medium quality peasant MDX, and a high quality Peasant MDX. It did not matter, though, because custom asset developers had no way to import a low quality version of their model so nobody made custom models based on the low quality peasant MDX from Blizzard for all these years.

Now, on Reforged, they did away with that system and every model file has all of its different versions together in the same file, and it dynamically swaps between them (sometimes rendering half of one and half of the other) based on camera distance, if I'm not mistaken. So, you guys are drawing this line in the sand between geomerges and non geo merges, meanwhile I have uploaded geometric merges of Reforged assets like the "Owl Moon Priestess" which for some unexplained reason gets "Approved". And yes, I had to create the model 4 times for the 4 different possible camera distances, as well as building the computer program to blend the character animations of the owl wings flapping and the Moon Priestess shooting her bow at the same time.

The notion of "geo merges" versus "custom models" is a notion from 2005 that was informed based on what tools we had at the time. There was literally a piece of computer software called Oinkerwinkle's Geoset Merger. And so, it made quite a bit of sense to say, if you just clicked merge on this program, you did not do effort and somebody who really needed that could just click it themselves.

Do we even have a computer program to make Reforged models that are not based upon modifications of existing assets? I, for one, am the author of a computer program that is like an over-engineered hybrid between Oinkerwinkle's Geoset Merger and some actual modeling tool used by artists -- and I constantly get requests for features from people from different sides of the spectrum.

So, for me, animation blending became about as easy as geometry blending several years ago because of the program I wrote. People are right to question that "fixed" thrall model that I made. It actually did not take me that long to make, I basically spent probably an hour and just imported the attack and spell cast animations from the existing Thrall character onto the dismounted thrall campaign cinematic model that only had stand and walk animations, if I recall. But, on Reforged the animations are all torn apart and overcomplicated, and so when I do a transfer using my tools that were built for SD models it will glitch out and I think I did spend some time doing frame by frame animation edits by hand in the animation editor tool to reposition thrall's hammer in each frame of the attack because the transfer of the position of the hammer failed and it's not linked to his hand like it was in the old days. I'm starting to forget what I did, honestly.

Shouldn't we be informed by the tools? If there is literally not any computer program that someone can use to "make a custom model" that would not be substandard, maybe we should make a new Resource section that is intentionally empty and stays empty until Blizzard releases their Reforged Maya Exporter software and a tutorial of how the Reforged models were made, similar to how they released the War3 Art Tools plugin used to create all the characters in the 2002 game, and all the documentations about how to use it?

I mean, we're creating this distinction that is based on 2005 software and trying to apply it to Reforged models. Actually, someone correct me if I'm wrong -- IS there a tool that can make a Reforged model from scratch at this time? I mean, I know it could theoretically exist, but does it? Did Taylor Mouse's 3ds max exporter do that, basically? I guess I should go actually rent 3ds max for $2000 and find out if it can, but I never did that yet.

Edit:
I checked the Windows last-modified timestamps on the custom Thrall model's files, and it took 1.5 hours to complete this model based on the first copy of the model's modification time to the last copy of the model's modification time. Should we record the time used to complete a model and hide them if the time is less than a certain number of hours?

If it helps you to ask yourself, "What's new here? What level of effort was Retera going to in those 1.5 hours?" then take a look at the image below. This is an animated GIF of one of the early versions of that Thrall model that I still have -- essentially this is what I had after running an animation transfer on the file, and bringing in the spell cast animation from the mounted campaign thrall hero. You can see that his legs float around as though he was swimming and his hammer levitates out of his hand, and his torso seems to stretch unnaturally. These are the kinds of things that have to be fixed after one of these transfers to make the model look usable, and I would also argue that the version I uploaded to the Hive still looks a little disjoint in game and probably should have had a "Stand Ready" animation to prevent jumpy transitions between Stand and the Attack/Spell animations. So, maybe this IS a good example. Is this a substandard level of effort that does not work properly that should be hidden to favor people who redraw Thrall in his entirely using some kind of Maya thing that might take them literal days to do? Why are we even comparing those? And does the software to do that 3D artist work actually exist in this community yet? I mean, if there is anybody who would not have noticed, it would be me, because I'm a sucker for writing my own code. I'm just curious.
zzzzzthralltransfer-gif.361493


Humanly modified custom animation as it actually appears in the Hive upload:
171128-8b413a8fe37ae8d0881ef8911a3e510b.gif

Meanwhile we have things like this that are, what even is this, something that took literal days to make? He claims he made this in MdlVis. I'm not an MdlVis power user, but can that tool even make new triangles? What, did you sit there for a week clicking in 3d space to draw vertices to make this happen? So, I get that obviously if someone is going to use the thing I uploaded, which can be made in an hour, versus something that probably took a memorable chunk out of the author's human lifetime, comparing them is almost senseless. But do I think somewhere, somehow we should have simple, easy access to either one of them for people who want it? Sure.
 

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@Retera Wasn't aware of previous geo-merges were so damn easy compared to what we do... well that settles it for me.
Any uninformed opinion such as ¨time or effort spent doesn't matter¨ by those who know little of Reforged changes, is of little worth (except the aesthetic opinion on the models themselves).
End results and community reviews speak for themselves, so an appropriate team of Refroged modellers should be set to review them.
Not only will this remove extra work from SD reviewers, who already have a lot to do, it will also be based on knowledge of new textures and new struggles for the models themselves.

Of course we should wait for new category features from Hive moderators first.
 
Well, it's not necessarily my intention to trigger anybody. If this gives you a better mental image, here is a 6 minute video where I used my 2005 toolset to make a Militia with Footman Head. In my opinion, no one would argue that this is how to do a "basic geomerge":


We can't use these same tools for Reforged obviously. This was using Warcraft III Patch 1.22 from my backups.

Now, I would go a step further (and maybe this gets into a more debated/controversial topic) to say that the model made in this video, if I upload it right now, would be marked as substandard for obvious reasons and most likely no one is going to argue because we can tell just by looking at it that making it took 6 minutes.

And to be honest, 6 minutes was longer than I expected, obviously I have gotten rusty. It actually took 20-30 minutes because of the DLLs I had to install in my System32 folder on Windows 10 to make this old junk run.

Edit: Model is now uploaded to the model section. Will it be substandard?

Militia with Footman Head
 
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I am not convinced that I know what I want from this discussion just yet. More so, I hope that I am providing accurate information where possible to stimulate wise decisions.

Edit: I guess what I mostly want is that we have something good in a few years, let's say 2025, so that this game technology is still one that's fun to be around with lots of good assets available. And just the other night some guy was telling me that there are not any Reforged models. But I mean, I've made some.

I probably shouldn't even be a part of this discussion and should work on making a better model editor for the community. Retera Model Studio should probably be marked as substandard until I release the next version to the official tools page that supports Reforged, and I was really hoping maybe I would get that done this weekend.
 
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deepstrasz

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I probably shouldn't even be a part of this discussion and should work on making a better model editor for the community. Retera Model Studio should probably be marked as substandard until I release the next version to the official tools page that supports Reforged, and I was really hoping maybe I would get that done this weekend.
Retera's Model Studio is obviously not Substandard. It's the best thing we've got (since it has chances of being updated) and the only thing for Reforged modelling right now.
Edit: I guess what I mostly want is that we have something good in a few years, let's say 2025, so that this game technology is still one that's fun to be around with lots of good assets available. And just the other night some guy was telling me that there are not any Reforged models. But I mean, I've made some.
Why wouldn't we? You can see a lot of creative folks coming in for Reforged.
Don't worry, change is happening. The important thing is for it to happen properly.
 
Retera's Model Studio is obviously not Substandard. It's the best thing we've got (since it has chances of being updated) and the only thing for Reforged modelling right now.

Why wouldn't we? You can see a lot of creative folks coming in for Reforged.
Don't worry, change is happening. The important thing is for it to happen properly.

Alright perhaps I should once again repeat my point, that not all geo-merge models should be approved and that there really are substandard models:
- Either because they are just simple request edits that were uploaded just for someONE
- Or because it's just that, a very simple edit, not even properly textured and what not
I'm simply saying that no geo-merge models policy is very bad atm., since currently there seem to be no reviewers who can even determine what has been changed and what wasn't.

The reason we decided to open the thread is to talk about Reforged models future in general.
Currently and hopefully not forever, custom model makers face a terrible issue for Reforged: the most important texture (Normal) doesn't work (it's what gives them 3D appearance as well as improves material ORM texture's look).
The issue is Reforged itself being made in a very old engine that barely is capable of making any of the HD models work (just 6+ MB file size will break them.. it's very, very antiquated).
So for whatever time it will take, months or years, we will ONLY have geo-merge models, everything else will look flat or out of place, unless extremely tedious manual editing of MDL files will be done (takes days as far as I know)... and even then, they don't look equivalent to native Reforged models.
 
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Main problem is that more casual people consider these models second coming of christ just because of excessive "fidelity" stuff they use as base for copypasting/geomerging. They are not made from scratch and that is main reason they go to substandard. For me its non issue i used hundreds of models from substandard for my projects. I agree that it should be renamed to "Accepted" or be the main submission board. If something is truly bad then it should be in "Need/Awaiting update" section. Current main submissions should be something noting their high quality and craftsmanship for all works done from scratch that are there.

My side tangent would be as of conseqeunces of Blizzards inappropriate approach is that newbies create horribly polygon heavy models and we have tons of 60k or even 100k polygon/triangle models which is insanely bad for an rts game performance wise, especially with wc3 having issues on massive custom maps with og assets as it is, but that's mainly fault for bad direction and lack of thought put to it by classic team in terms of art and consequences it will have. If they done it right we probably could still have single section for both hd and sd custom assets, and we would have many more people onboard, and not split in the community....but its whole another thing altogether.

Reforged assets should have their own section that shouldnt mix with classic assets because it just makes it hard to browse either, and then it just should have its own subcathegories for "Featured/Recommended" models and "Substandard/Submissions". Having them in one bag is bad for everyone involved.
 
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Main problem is that more casual people consider these models second coming of christ just because of excessive "fidelity" stuff they use as base for copypasting/geomerging. They are not made from scratch and that is main reason they go to substandard. For me its non issue i used hundreds of models from substandard for my projects. I agree that it should be renamed to "Accepted" or be the main submission board. If something is truly bad then it should be in "Need/Awaiting update" section. Current main submissions should be something noting their high quality and craftsmanship for all works done from scratch that are there.

My side tangent would be as of conseqeunces of Blizzards in appropriate approach is that newbies create horribly polygon heavy models and we have tons of 60k or even 100k polygon/triangle models which is insanely bad for an rts game performance wise, especially with wc3 having issues on massive custom maps with og assets as it is, but that's mainly fault for bad direction and lack of thought put to it by classic team in terms of art and consequences it will have. If they done it right we probably could still have single section for both hd and sd custom assets, and we would have many more people onboard, and not split in the community....but its whole another thing altogether.

Reforged assets should have their own section that shouldnt mix with classic assets because it just makes it hard to browse either, and then it just should have its own subcathegories for "Featured/Recommended" models and "Substandard/Submissions". Having them in one bag is bad for everyone involved.

Couldn't agree more, that a real nuanced and educated opinion regarding the limitation/changes of Reforged.
I for one like the models being higher quality, and the LODs should technically help potato-computer to survive... usually I got 144fps on ultra in a 1440p resolution.. but somehow cinematics drop to below 30, which is insane.
And yes the maps being max. 256MB atm. just shows how bad the decision to release Reforged on an ancient engine was.. how are people even going to make multiple custom races in 1 map?

EDIT: Not sure if it fits on this thread but I'd like to add suggestions for Reforged icon and model sections:

- Whether a similar section list as I suggsted will be implemented of not, Reforged icons preview should be uploaded at 256x256 resolution instead of the SD 64x64 one. This will not only help distinguish them on the first glance, the quality will also be seen right away.

- Reforged portraits have different lighting, angles, animation and have to be split bacause the game usually can't handle all of it being in 1 model. If it's technically possible, it would be great if the portrait's textures don't have to be uploaded a 2nd time. It artificially increases the pack's filesize (up to almost 200%), and could scare people off.
 
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Another thing that makes all of this harder is when we have models that we cannot even upload to the Hive even though they are a valid file, just because of bugs in the Hive. Maybe that's a bit of a tangent, but if any site developers are reading this and spending time thinking about these problems, please take this technological problem into account: I have this custom MDX model for Reforged that I made to represent the Chaos Space Orc, and I have been trying to upload it to Hive for several months whenever I remember, but I'm never allowed to upload it. There's nothing wrong and the model works in game as far as I know, it's just that the Hive won't accept it. I know that I could modify the model to poke holes in how the site works until I made the model legal for upload, but I am ideologically opposed to modifying the model file binary itself to work around site bugs.

For anyone reading this who wants to attempt to upload it, feel free to modify model in any way, if you do upload it please note that it was a model edit created by Retera unless you substantially modify it or whatever, but here are the files for anyone who wants to do testing:

(Essentially, the model refers to in-game textures in the same manner as the in-game models, which is by using the .tif extension to refer to .dds files, and then the game engine swaps the file extension at runtime back to .dds. So the Hive wants me to upload the .tif files referenced by the model because it doesn't work like how the game parses the models and it doesn't swap .tif to .dds on the fly. But when I try to upload blank files in place of the .tif textures the Hive erroneously asks for (literally they're in-game textures), the Hive says .tif is not a legal extension. So it becomes this chicken and egg problem where there is no button to click or option to use to get around the problem.)

Edit: I know it is slightly off topic, but when we are discussing the case for Reforged resources on the Hive, it is perhaps also relevant to know that some of the Reforged resources are not getting uploaded because of bugs in the site and not because of a lack of resources.
 

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Ralle

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I intentionally wanted to wait before making changes related to Reforged. I want to see what we need and not act before I know it. We have the Reforged tag in each section so if we decide to create another section, we can easily filter by that tag and move everything. People wanting only reforged things can filter by that tag and see only those things. In the future we will be able to exclude everything by a tag and see everything except reforged. So please use the tags.

---

About the purpose of the resource sections. There has always been a balance. It's hard to strike but it's there. There are two purposes:

1. To keep resource makers motivated to keep spending the time creating new resources and to keep them feel appreciated. I have heard countless times if their high quality work is watered down and put on the same shelf as lesser creations, why should they spend the time making good things when everywhere they look is worse things.
I can understand this view, but have always been of the opinion that if you're creating things to be appreciated, you are motivated by other people and not yourself.

Tons of simple edits and rips seem to demotivate high effort and creative creators.

2. To have as much variety and options for map makers to pick from.

Basically anything that works goes. If the quality is low on somethings, they might pick something else. It really depends on the map which can be useful and which cannot.

---

So basically. Substandard is here to give map makers the rest of what they might want. Approved is here to motivate the high effort creators.

The name substandard is however mostly marketed as "something might be broken but this is still useful". Which is not properly targeted.

One idea I've had was to merge Substandard and Approved but give all currently approved resources a different sort of stamp to show that this lives up to our expectations in the resource section and allow to filter by only these if you want.
 

Kyrbi0

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YES.

I know this isn't entirely on topic (i.e. please stop hiding "Substandard" (& stop putting all the RF stuff into "Substandard", thus hiding it)), but I've been dying on the "kill the name Substandard"-hill since it's inception.

If we aren't renaming it, combining them would be great. Go ahead & include the "extra-special" tag as something to strive for (though it sounds a lot like the old "moderator reward for excellence", i.e. "DC"), but personally I love that option.
 
I wouldn't remove substandard. It's just that there are amazing models, good models, useful models for like 1 guy, and bugged/bad models.
Latter one should stay where it is or just in the wait until approved section, while accepted and great models should be visible at all time.

Let's take my Emerald Nightmare models again, they imo should not be visible, because they are a request and not really a model. Same goes for every extremely simple edit like adding a weapon to a guy.
But if it's something liked by the community and useful, no need to hide it...

If there truly are creators who feel bad if someone who made a less awesome model than they did, also get approved (sounds silly doesn't it?), just give an extra mark of approval, that way they would show higher in ¨Relevant Models¨ section (if a system like I suggested would be implemented).
 
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It should have two separate sections that are easily accessible, Maybe as some kind of a tab that swtiches between Wc3 and Reforged assets on top. I agree about getting rid of "substandard" assets being hidden. However models from both RF and og wc3/classic wc3 should not be mixed at all, just because it makes it more problematic for people to browse through when they look for things more relevant to them. In a bit less imprefect world where wc3 was properly remastered and artstyle remained mostly the same and was more like war3hd, it probably could remain unified as one, same as most of our community, but blizzard ruined that chance. Its up to us to make sense of things and fix everything as much as possible nad make it as convienient for everyone still standing by and creating for Warcraft III to find things they want for their maps.
 
Reforged Beta Succubus Variants with Whips

So this upload is an upload of literally a Blizzard-made model removed after the Beta, do we know why it is substandard?

For example why is Necronage not substandard then?
Necronage

This necronage doesnt event include the Beta texture whereas mine does in a comment in case someone wanted the accurate version.

I have no quarrel with the model reviewer who tagged it, I am simply more interested in the matter of policy. The guy is probably just doing what he was told, but I'm wondering why he was told that.

Sometimes it really does look like an anti Reforged conspiracy if you look at it a certain way.
 

Archian

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Many resources were in general wrongly moved to the Substandard category when we upgraded to Zenforo a long time ago. To this date we still find resources that shouldn't be in that category or vice versa.

We are currently working on a re-design for the resource categories/sections and will provide more information for that later.

This resoruce clearly should be in a Reforged section (which are under development). The true answer is that all Reforged assets are currently without a proper home in our Resource section. For now, all we can do is add the tag "Reforged" so that we can easily move them all to a section exclusively for Reforged assets once it's up and running.
 
I see the addition of Reforged models and textures was added, great to see we're moving where we want to be!

Hope mods will read this one:
Also suggesting to add Reforged Icons section, and remove the restriction to make icon previews for Reforged 64x64, since their quality should be seen in full size as 256x256
 
Sorry for being naive and unknowing, but as of right now I don't know what the difference is between a normal icon and a reforged one.
A few small differences:
- Classic players will still be able to make use or Reforged icons, even if the borders will look slightly different (so more of an aesthetic issue there).
- Reforged users can obviously only exploit HD icons because of the larger resolution (SD 64x64 ones will simply look bad near all the 256x256 ones).
- HD are not only larger, but are saved in DDS format and therefore don't show up in Object Editor (at least now), so their path has to be copied for use.
- Finally daring to repeat myself: HD icons should be separate because it makes search easier for Reforged users, as well as allows uploading in full preview 256x256 without upsetting SD ones.
 
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IMO another point is that the categorization should be inverted.

Currently it's: Resources -> Models -> Reforged Models
I believe it would make more sense the opposite way, i.e. Resources -> Reforged -> Models (akin to how it was for Sc2 resources back in the days)

My reason for this line of thinking is as follows: From a user perspective, I imagine most people are either interested in resources for a SD or a HD map, whether it be models or textures. It makes (for me) little sense in assuming that a person is first and foremost interested in a model, and secondarily interested in whether it's in HD or SD.
 
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IMO another point is that the categorization should be inverted.

Currently it's: Resources -> Models -> Reforged Models
I believe it would make more sense the opposite way, i.e. Resources -> Reforged -> Models (akin to how it was for Sc2 resources back in the days)

My reason for this line of thinking is as follows: From a user perspective, I imagine most people are either interested in resources for a SD or a HD map, whether it be models or textures. It makes (for me) little sense in assuming that a person is first and foremost interested in a model, and secondarily interested in whether it's in HD or SD.
Majority of people who use resources come in looking for a specific type of thing first, i.e models /skins/ icons, so it might be better to keep the type of resource as one of the few choices users make when searching for things (how it currently is) as posed to at the end.
 
Not sure if I have exposed this idea before: how about the Hive automatically generates icon variations (DISBTN, PASBTN, etc.) from a base icon (64x64 or 256x256) that the user submits?
Quite an interesting idea, although there should be macros for that, and even if just regular saves it would take like 30 seconds to same in all formats.
But it could be useful for an icon pack.

Then again, priority is making it work as it is for both Reforged and Classic users.
 
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