Texture size reduced to match the body size, so now it really shouldnt be too heavy at all. I think everyone who can run the game can use this zealot and wont notice any drawbacks in performance.
---------------
ITS IN THE GAME NOW! but no pony tail yet.......
The detail isn't too noticeable while playing but you can definitely tell that it looks different. You see what looks like an organic head instead of a robocop helmet.
Ponytail coming soon(as soon as the M3 exporter supports it)
Anyways, so far it runs very well and no lag. Texture size has been reduced so it should run even better now, even though it already ran perfect. -------------------------
I found out that i COULD extract animations if i didn't do major changes to the animation or rigging. This means that the zealot still can't be made into a unit sadly
However i was able to do this little thing
Before:
After:
So to anyone who missed their zerglings looking like dinosaurs(cuz i wasn't really with the flat facedness) there ya go
Instructions: To use this ling use MPQeditor and open "patch.SC2Archive" which is located in Starcraft II Beta/Versions/Base15655/
Then navigate using the MPQeditor to Mods/Liberty.SC2Mod/Base.SC2Assets/Assets/Units/Zerg/Zergling/
rename the Zergling.m3 file to something like ZerglingO.m3 just to have it as backup
and drag in the downloaded Zergling.m3 in there. Now start up the map editor and see if it worked for you.
This ling should be able to be used in ladder games and stuff(i'm assuming) in replacement of the regular ling. Again, u wont notice unless u really zoom in, but then again, this thread is really only for those that care, if you don't care, then stay out. Imo this ling looks a bit more like the portrait because in the portrait the ling isn't so flat faced. -------------------------
So i'm not too pleased with the look of the zealot in SC2. It's fine while I'm playing i guess, but its when i zoom in that i just don't like the way it looks. I realized that it was especially the head that i didn't like too much. So since i was super bored i decided to try something out.
This is the zealot model
So what i did was i took the model of the SC2 zealot portrait and replaced the original zealot head with it and this is what it looks like.
I lowered the quality on the portrait head for obvious reason and got the vertices count to get close to the original zealot. If i tried i could probably get the poly count to be almost the same.
Anyways, there's a lot of different interpretations of what a zealot looks like. If you google it you'll find that the zealot look varies. However i like the zealot in the portrait more than the zealot that i see when i zoom in. I like the edited one a bit better because he seems more organic and less blocky robot. The dreads are a nice touch too.
Now as with most visual things, its very based on opinion, so which one do you guys think looks best?
I understand if you just like playing and don't really care what units look like when you zoom in, thats why i posted this in the general. So if you really don't care at all then don't vote.
I'm trying to keep lowering the head vertices without lowering the detail too much, but no matter how much i do it will still be at least slightly more demanding than the original head. Still though, i'd like to think that i could get it to the point where it would be ok to use it as your default zealot model in real games.
Sweet, looks a lot better. I think the lower poly count is due to performance, but try it out in the Map Editor and see what happens, would love to see the result.
On June 22 2010 23:31 sluggaslamoo wrote: Sweet, looks a lot better. I think the lower poly count is due to performance, but try it out in the Map Editor and see what happens, would love to see the result.
i WOULD try it, but i'm not sure how to go those extra steps. I get an error when trying to export SC2 stuff. But i will try to learn so i can see how it works out.
for those who didn't know this stuff was possible:
lol thanks but i didn't model it. I simply modified a few things such as resizing the shoulder and lowering the poly counts and filling some gaps and stuff.
Speaking as a 3d modeller myself: Of course it looks better if its taken from the portrait, even if you reduced the polycount. Without the polycounts to back it, it doesnt even make sense to make a topic like this. What is the poly count difference between the 2 heads?
And I am not sure about the purpose of this kind of thread. Try and make Blizzard re-make the model/uv/text/riggin? We could easily go model by model just pin pointing stuff that could be better, and better, and just continue doing that until the end of time. There are deadlines and needs for approvals in the industry people.
Jibba: wtf kind of comment is "are you female?"? What does this have to do with anything? Its the second time Ive heard that kinda shit, as implying females are the only ones with creative artistic input.
On June 22 2010 23:46 ZeroCartin wrote: Speaking as a 3d modeller myself: Of course it looks better if its taken from the portrait, even if you reduced the polycount. Without the polycounts to back it, it doesnt even make sense to make a topic like this. What is the poly count difference between the 2 heads?
And I am not sure about the purpose of this kind of thread. Try and make Blizzard re-make the model/uv/text/riggin? We could easily go model by model just pin pointing stuff that could be better, and better, and just continue doing that until the end of time. There are deadlines and needs for approvals in the industry people.
Jibba: wtf kind of comment is "are you female?"? What does this have to do with anything? Its the second time Ive heard that kinda shit, as implying females are the only ones with creative artistic input.
chill, he's mocking the other thread about german girl drawing zealot haha
On June 22 2010 23:46 ZeroCartin wrote: Speaking as a 3d modeller myself: Of course it looks better if its taken from the portrait, even if you reduced the polycount. Without the polycounts to back it, it doesnt even make sense to make a topic like this. What is the poly count difference between the 2 heads?
And I am not sure about the purpose of this kind of thread. Try and make Blizzard re-make the model/uv/text/riggin? We could easily go model by model just pin pointing stuff that could be better, and better, and just continue doing that until the end of time. There are deadlines and needs for approvals in the industry people.
Jibba: wtf kind of comment is "are you female?"? What does this have to do with anything? Its the second time Ive heard that kinda shit, as implying females are the only ones with creative artistic input.
well I'm in bed now so I can't check the count really but i checked before and it wasn't that big of a difference after lowering the count real quick. And I'm sure there's much more optimizing possible. I'll update with the counts when I wake up.
Well the purpose Isnt to get blizz to do anything really. As much as I'd like a zealot that looks a bit more organic to be standard, the furthest this is probably gonna go is becomming a custom model for ppl to download. I just wanted to know if other people felt similar when zooming into a zealot.
Very cool, but I definitely want to see what an ingame shot would look like (if that's possible. I don't know the first thing about how to make any of this work haha)
just wanted to throw this guy up as reference to what the concept art looks like and what they based the 3-D Zealot after
So obviously more detailed is better, but keep in mind that the above picture you showed is the bare bones model of the Zealot, therefore it went through a lot of modifications before it was even put in the game, and even more modifications after that.
That being said, your model looks good, and definitely improves on what you put above. You should do more models lie that of the other units.
I like your modified one and voted for it... But i'll be honest, I would hate to try ruing the game with about 30 of those modified high geometry guys runing around. Can you say LAG? :-)
Speaking of a Starcraft 2 Zealot, I think they are more effective against zerglings because they use a downward/upward/sideways slicing motion as opposed to a double-stabbing motion. Thoughts? I didn't want to create another thread about this because I'd probably get banned, LOL, but since we are somewhat on the topic of the zealot here haha. :D
On June 24 2010 16:09 uberdeluxe wrote: obviously the protrait head looks better, but in game the non portrait has hair and it doesnt in the pic u have
if it did have hair/was an in game shot it would probably look better
yeah the thing is, the hair is a separate model. So in game, both models would have hair.
On June 24 2010 16:12 selboN wrote: Did you do that in 3DS?
I would try running it in Starcraft 2 before worrying about optimising.
Graphics Cards usually prefer to render in triangles regardless of what flags you set. Even if you set the GL_QUADS flag for example (pretty sure SC2 uses OpenGL), the graphics card may render 2 triangles to create that quad. Vertex buffer objects or batching, means that rendering a bunch of vertices should be pretty fast anyway.
If it lags, I would just focus on removing as many vertices as possible and have 2 versions, pretty sure the map editor allows for a low poly and high poly model depending on the settings the player sets.
But yeah don't unless it becomes a huge performance hit.
On June 24 2010 18:49 sluggaslamoo wrote: I would try running it in Starcraft 2 before worrying about optimising.
Graphics Cards usually prefer to render in triangles regardless of what flags you set. Even if you set the GL_QUADS flag for example (pretty sure SC2 uses OpenGL), the graphics card may render 2 triangles to create that quad. Vertex buffer objects or batching, means that rendering a bunch of vertices should be pretty fast anyway.
If it lags, I would just focus on removing as many vertices as possible and have 2 versions, pretty sure the map editor allows for a low poly and high poly model depending on the settings the player sets.
But yeah don't unless it becomes a huge performance hit.
cool thanks for all the advice.
I'm currently a bit stuck. I combined the head with the body and re rigged it perfectly so all the animations work and everything. However, i get an error exporting it form 3ds max. Its either something dumb i did or the exporter which is in its early stage is messing up.
I hope i can figure it out soon to finally use it in-game.
If anyone knows how to get past m3 exporter errors please let me know!
Finally i was able to get it in-game, but unfortunately there is apparently no way to export animations yet(let me know if there is) so i only have it as a doodad for now.
On June 25 2010 05:04 used man wrote: In case anyone here didn't know this, the unmodified model came from the old zealot portrait. Obviously, i prefer the new model, and the new portrait.
oh, I had no idea, I'm guessing it belongs to that placement zealot I saw in the mpq file that had a complete different body look.
On June 25 2010 05:04 used man wrote: In case anyone here didn't know this, the unmodified model came from the old zealot portrait. Obviously, i prefer the new model, and the new portrait.
lmao his head looks like a golfball. Welcome to Epcot!
On June 25 2010 05:04 used man wrote: In case anyone here didn't know this, the unmodified model came from the old zealot portrait. Obviously, i prefer the new model, and the new portrait.
lmao his head looks like a golfball. Welcome to Epcot!
On June 25 2010 15:40 Xapti wrote: There's a reason units are low detail (pow poly in particular).
Maybe in 5-10 years when people have better PCs people can make better models, but for now it seems like a bad idea to me.
the thing is that its not that much higher in poly count. I think its the texture that makes it look that good. But i'll definitely have to try it in-game to see how it runs, but so far ive put a bunch of them as doodads on a map and the game runs fine for me.
Even if you scrollwheel all the way in, you can still barely make out the features on the smaller units like rines, lings and zealots. The updated head looks awesome if you're looking at a blown-up model like that, but in-game, the one they have is sufficient.
Props on the modding work though. With higher-detail models like this, I could see mappers making entirely new games out of SC2 (in the genres of action or even FPS). Starcraft units are way too cool looking not to.
I think the reason that they didn't make it look more like your version is to keep polygon count down. Yours would probably cause a lot more lag in game, and Blizzard's rule has always been gameplay first.
On June 25 2010 21:24 im a roc wrote: I think the reason that they didn't make it look more like your version is to keep polygon count down. Yours would probably cause a lot more lag in game, and Blizzard's rule has always been gameplay first.
That is absolutely the reason they had it low poly, but my edited version really isn't that much heavier. Of course, nothing is proven until i bring it into the game as a unit and make a bunch of them and have a battle and see if it lags.
The guy developing the exporter said that he will post an updated version in 1 or 2 days which he says should fix my exporting problem. Then we will see how good it runs. If it lags then i will keep optimizing it.
You've also got to consider that if you're viewing it from way up the texture will probably be mipmapped right down to a grey smudge, which would then be a waste of texture memory (unless you're telling me that they've just got a high-res texture there already with no detail in it? Which would be silly but mistakes happen). Also, subpixel-sized details could cause a lot of flicker if they start aliasing as the unit moves, so they might have just tried to create the impression of what you'd expect the character to look like from a distance, while keeping everything >1 pixel. Still, all to be proven by a test in the engine!
As Klumaster has mentioned, there is far more to consider when it comes to performance than just poly-count. As we push more and more into shader driven effects, the demand for texture centric resources grows ever higher.
The unit models in Starcraft 2 uses a multitude of textures amalgamated together outside the default rendering pipeline via .FX shaders. Diffuse, Normal, Emissive and Specular maps, just to name a few. In fact the default Zealot model uses ten textures in total, ranging from 64x128 to 512x512 resolutions, and that's just to get the look we see currently in game.
The Portrait model uses a further four 1024x1024 textures. Add in another eight textures for each and every texture already mentioned (Mipmapping) each a fourth of the total area of the previous (e.g. Base 1024x1024 image > 512x512 > 256x256 > 128x128 > 64x64 > 32x32 > 16x16 > 8x8 > 4x4 > 1x1) and you can start to see how things can get pretty resource heavy very quickly (both texture and "processing power"), especially in a strategy game like SC2 with multitudes of units, terrain and buildings being rendered at once.
All of that aside, would I like to see the new version in game? No all that fussed really. It would be difficult to fully appreciate the extra detail at the default camera distance. I'm quite happy with the current Zealot model, up close it may not look very "realistic" but I will take a stab and assume most players rarely stop to admire the view in the midst of a competitive game anyway.
Measuring a models suitability from just poly-count alone is like assessing a players skill in WoW via gear-score or from a SC players APM. It's only a small piece(some would say insignificant) of what really makes a player able to perform well, not the only piece.
On June 26 2010 05:40 Palm wrote: As Klumaster has mentioned, there is far more to consider when it comes to performance then just poly-count. As we push more and more into shader driven effects, the demand for texture centric resources grows ever higher.
The unit models in Starcraft 2 uses a multitude of textures amalgamated together outside the default rendering pipeline via .FX shaders. Diffuse, Normal, Emissive and Specular maps, just to name a few. In fact the default Zealot model uses ten textures in total, ranging from 64x128 to 512x512 resolutions, and that's just to get the look we see currently in game.
The Portrait model uses a further four 1024x1024 textures. Add in another eight textures for each and every texture already mentioned (Mipmapping) each a fourth of the total area of the previous (e.g. Base 1024x1024 image > 512x512 > 256x256 > 128x128 > 64x64 > 32x32 > 16x16 > 8x8 > 4x4 > 1x1) and you can start to see how things can get pretty resource heavy very quickly (both texture and "processing power"), especially in a strategy game like SC2 with multitudes of units, terrain and buildings being rendered at once.
All of that aside, would I like to see the new version in game? No all that fussed really. It would be difficult to fully appreciate the extra detail at the default camera distance. I'm quite happy with the current Zealot model, up close it may not look very "realistic" but I will take a stab and assume most players rarely stop to admire the view in the midst of a competitive game anyway.
I was recently able to get it in game as a unit. So I tested a battle and went smoothly. The reason I havnt posted it yet is because I can't get the ponytail to appear. Hope to fix that soon.
My comp is a little on the nice side tho, not amazing but nice. I'd like to see how it affects someone with a not so good comp. Although if the game already lags for u, this isn't gonna help.
The reason I havnt posted it yet is because I can't get the ponytail to appear. Hope to fix that soon.
Since the Zealot ponytail is treated differently to the rest of the model (physics applied to allow it to wave about based on the Zealots accelerated motion) the engine itself appends its own ponytail model to the Zealot. I think Blizzards Dev's refer to them as "Ribbons" (Ponytails, Corrupter tentacles etc). It's my guess that the engine just references a specific bone in the Zealots model and attaches the end of the "Ribbon" to it's position. I would assume you removed this bone when deleting parts of the standard unit to make way for the portrait head. So it should be an easy fix to just create a new bone in the position required, that shares the same name as the old bone before it was deleted. Try calling it "Star2Ribbon01" and see how that goes.
My comp is a little on the nice side tho, not amazing but nice. I'd like to see how it affects someone with a not so good comp. Although if the game already lags for u, this isn't gonna help.
I doubt anyone would notice any difference from just one model, I was more referring to the accumulative effect of adding fine details to every model and the performance problems you would have as a result. Just throwing it out there really.
The reason I havnt posted it yet is because I can't get the ponytail to appear. Hope to fix that soon.
Since the Zealot ponytail is treated differently to the rest of the model (physics applied to allow it to wave about based on the Zealots accelerated motion) the engine itself appends its own ponytail model to the Zealot. I think Blizzards Dev's refer to them as "Ribbons" (Ponytails, Corrupter tentacles etc). It's my guess that the engine just references a specific bone in the Zealots model and attaches the end of the "Ribbon" to it's position. I would assume you removed this bone when deleting parts of the standard unit to make way for the portrait head. So it should be an easy fix to just create a new bone in the position required, that shares the same name as the old bone before it was deleted. Try calling it "Star2Ribbon01" and see how that goes.
My comp is a little on the nice side tho, not amazing but nice. I'd like to see how it affects someone with a not so good comp. Although if the game already lags for u, this isn't gonna help.
I doubt anyone would notice any difference from just one model, I was more referring to the accumulative effect of adding fine details to every model and the performance problems you would have as a result. Just throwing it out there really.
nope, it didnt work for me
My guess is that its the dummies. I'm not sure what a dummy is but they look like green boxes surrounding some of the bones. The M3 exporter won't let me export anything but bones and a mesh, so i have to delete them in order to export. Its probably there that info gets lost. Hopefully with his new exporter version coming real soon this problem will be fixed.
Thank you though for the help
EDIT: nvm i just got word that its just the exporter that currently doesn't support ribbons. Just gotta wait for a new version
nvm i just got word that its just the exporter that currently doesn't support ribbons. Just gotta wait for a new version
Yep, I just stumbled upon your conversation with Nintoxicated01 over on sc2mapster.com just now . I tested directly importing and exporting a model with no manipulation beforehand and found that there were still no particle or ribbon effects, so I was beginning to assumed it was an issue with the importer/exporter. Good to hear the script will be getting support soon.
nvm i just got word that its just the exporter that currently doesn't support ribbons. Just gotta wait for a new version
Yep, I just stumbled upon your conversation with Nintoxicated01 over on sc2mapster.com just now . I tested directly importing and exporting a model with no manipulation beforehand and found that there were still no particle or ribbon effects, so I was beginning to assumed it was an issue with the importer/exporter. Good to hear the script will be getting support soon.
yeah, im not quite sure whether the next release will support ribbons though, since he said in the "future"
Updated OP with in-game unit shots. Pretty much done except for the missing ponytail.
I can see the new model is so great, even from the default camera view, it's noticeable, make the zealot be a zealot. With the performance problem (if there's any), i think you only have to slightly reduce just a little bit of poly count, like 4 pony tails and the face, decrease down the texture by half so it's not a waste of process memory because in normal game, there's no way we can zoom up close like the first pic in your 1st post to see how detail the texture is.
On June 26 2010 16:33 alucardme87 wrote: I can see the new model is so great, even from the default camera view, it's noticeable, make the zealot be a zealot. With the performance problem (if there's any), i think you only have to slightly reduce just a little bit of poly count, like 4 pony tails and the face, decrease down the texture by half so it's not a waste of process memory because in normal game, there's no way we can zoom up close like the first pic in your 1st post to see how detail the texture is.
well so far no performance problem. Ive played replays with this model and it runs perfectly fine. The poly count has been reduced from the original zealot portrait, so its not very heavy at all, the texture however is twice the size of the original zealot texture so i WILL reduce that by half since as you have pointed out, zooming in that far isn't possible in real games. It will still look really good i think.
It only looks ugly because of the contrast of detail between the head and body. If all the units had that level of detail then there would be a significant performance hit for little cosmetic gain.
It's fabulous except for one thing: It doesn't fit the low poly of the rest of his body. The head is amazing, but then it contrasts with the rest of the low res body which makes it look a bit out of place. Perhaps decreasing a bit the detail on the head, or increasing the detail on the body would do the trick, and if it could change according to the game graphics options then perfect, perhaps blizz could even adopt it.
Am I understanding this correctly, btw... can we actually alter the apperance of any unit in the game as long as it's just apperance and not stats? That'd be awesome :D It even works in ladder games?
Seriously someone could make an entirely new race cosmetically that would just function like, say, terran practically?
On June 30 2010 01:10 Jenslyn87 wrote: Am I understanding this correctly, btw... can we actually alter the apperance of any unit in the game as long as it's just apperance and not stats? That'd be awesome :D It even works in ladder games?
Seriously someone could make an entirely new race cosmetically that would just function like, say, terran practically?
My head just exploded
Thats pretty much correct. Now idk 100 percent if this will work in ladder. I have no idea if battlenet will check the model files and see that they are different and then the game would crash for me for example. That being said, i've ran replays and the new model works in the game. So when beta comes back I will see whether it works through battlenet.
On June 30 2010 01:10 Jenslyn87 wrote: Am I understanding this correctly, btw... can we actually alter the apperance of any unit in the game as long as it's just apperance and not stats? That'd be awesome :D It even works in ladder games?
Seriously someone could make an entirely new race cosmetically that would just function like, say, terran practically?
My head just exploded
Thats pretty much correct. Now idk 100 percent if this will work in ladder. I have no idea if battlenet will check the model files and see that they are different and then the game would crash for me for example. That being said, i've ran replays and the new model works in the game. So when beta comes back I will see whether it works through battlenet.
You should try posting that on the official forums and see if you can get a solid answer.
Would be lame if they say its against ToS or something and start banning ppl.
On June 30 2010 00:07 psion wrote: It only looks ugly because of the contrast of detail between the head and body. If all the units had that level of detail then there would be a significant performance hit for little cosmetic gain.
Well so far there is NO performance gain, and the head really isn't high poly at all. It's almost all the textures that make it look that good. Anyways, i don't think every unit should get this, i just thought the zealot head looked way off from what it was supposed to be.
On June 30 2010 01:10 Jenslyn87 wrote: Am I understanding this correctly, btw... can we actually alter the apperance of any unit in the game as long as it's just apperance and not stats? That'd be awesome :D It even works in ladder games?
Seriously someone could make an entirely new race cosmetically that would just function like, say, terran practically?
My head just exploded
Thats pretty much correct. Now idk 100 percent if this will work in ladder. I have no idea if battlenet will check the model files and see that they are different and then the game would crash for me for example. That being said, i've ran replays and the new model works in the game. So when beta comes back I will see whether it works through battlenet.
You should try posting that on the official forums and see if you can get a solid answer.
Would be lame if they say its against ToS or something and start banning ppl.
lol i almost don't want to in fear that its allowed but they then disallow it after i show them the model. But i probably should. I think i might just do that
On June 30 2010 08:28 ZeroCartin wrote: So let me guess. That head texture itself has a 1024x1024 or 512x512 size. Am I right? whats the polycount? Is the head using the normal map?
Currently the texture for the head itself is 512x512. The head is also using its own normal map, emissive map, and specular map.
I have not gotten around to combining the textures so that it requires just one of each map. I'll probably get to that once find out if it'll even work on ladder. So far i have only tested it with in replays and through the map editor and games vs the computer. All offline though.
i havn't checked what it is currently, i can't remember if i lowered it anymore or not, but not that long ago the old zealot vertices count was 3130 and the modified one was 3856.
On June 30 2010 09:10 Orange Goblin wrote: It will be banned, guaranteed. And it makes sense to ban it.
It's easily exploitable.
I can only think of one thing, and that is that you make a unit like the ghost into a sphere so that you can more easily distinguish it from the marines in the enemies bio ball. Making it easier to feedback and stuff. However you can't make the model be visible when cloaked and exploit it in that way. Not that i know of i guess. You also don't have to worry about an opponent making their units look weird because only he will see them. But idk, maybe theres something im not thinking about?
On June 30 2010 08:28 ZeroCartin wrote: So let me guess. That head texture itself has a 1024x1024 or 512x512 size. Am I right? whats the polycount? Is the head using the normal map?
Currently the texture for the head itself is 512x512. The head is also using its own normal map, emissive map, and specular map.
I have not gotten around to combining the textures so that it requires just one of each map. I'll probably get to that once find out if it'll even work on ladder. So far i have only tested it with in replays and through the map editor and games vs the computer. All offline though.
i havn't checked what it is currently, i can't remember if i lowered it anymore or not, but not that long ago the old zealot vertices count was 3130 and the modified one was 3856.
That's what i'm talking about, 3130 and 3856 are not so different.
On June 30 2010 09:10 Orange Goblin wrote: It will be banned, guaranteed. And it makes sense to ban it.
It's easily exploitable.
I can only think of one thing, and that is that you make a unit like the ghost into a sphere so that you can more easily distinguish it from the marines in the enemies bio ball. Making it easier to feedback and stuff. However you can't make the model be visible when cloaked and exploit it in that way. Not that i know of i guess. You also don't have to worry about an opponent making their units look weird because only he will see them. But idk, maybe theres something im not thinking about?
I guess you haven't played older FPS games much. If I get this right you could make so called "spike models", have units (better yet, mains to spot spawns and expansions) with long (like, LONG) sticks protruding in multiple directions - that way you can pretty much see where they are in the fog without scouting much at all. Not quite as good as a maphack but up there.
On June 30 2010 09:10 Orange Goblin wrote: It will be banned, guaranteed. And it makes sense to ban it.
It's easily exploitable.
I can only think of one thing, and that is that you make a unit like the ghost into a sphere so that you can more easily distinguish it from the marines in the enemies bio ball. Making it easier to feedback and stuff. However you can't make the model be visible when cloaked and exploit it in that way. Not that i know of i guess. You also don't have to worry about an opponent making their units look weird because only he will see them. But idk, maybe theres something im not thinking about?
I guess you haven't played older FPS games much. If I get this right you could make so called "spike models", have units (better yet, mains to spot spawns and expansions) with long (like, LONG) sticks protruding in multiple directions - that way you can pretty much see where they are in the fog without scouting much at all. Not quite as good as a maphack but up there.
wow never thought of that... That would be really gay. I wish somehow they let us edit the models but limit the size of the mesh somehow..... idk. I'm a huge fan of customization. Hopefully blizzard will give an alternative to certain or all units including the zealot
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d69/pzea/Terrain048.jpg?t=1277531687)
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![[image loading]](http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d69/pzea/oldzealtextured.jpg?t=1277363397)
![[image loading]](http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d69/pzea/newzealtextured.jpg?t=1277363351)
![[image loading]](http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d69/pzea/newzealcloseup.jpg?t=1277363425)
![[image loading]](http://www.freakygaming.com/gallery/game_art/starcraft_2/zealot.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starcraft/images/b/b1/Zealot_SC2_Face.jpg)
