Imperial Officer Replacement

Don'tcha just love how sometimes the simple things can have a much bigger impact? Well, following on from the recently-released Quantum skin, Apollyon's presented us with this scenario.

Raven's Imperial model, while decent enough, had problems with being a little bland. I remember subtly pointing out on the review for Quantum, that the shader could be toned down just a wee smidge and applied to the other skins for the Imperial model. Apollyon went one step further and instead of literally acting on the advice, instead chose to apply the shader to the textures HapSlash developed for his JK2 Imperial Officer, thus adding one last element to the puzzle.

So, how does it look? Well, it looks as you'd expect it to look. The Imperial, complimented by HapSlash's excellent texture work, complemented by the textures having a shader applied that gives them a silky effect which is affected by the environment - something most skins lack, due to JA not having HDR lighting. The shader works so much better here than it did on Quantum, due to it being a more natural combination. Apollyon's not going to win any awards for high-tech, but the end result is a pleasing change from the baseJA resources.

To be honest, there's a mix here that you can't go wrong with. Star Wars authenticity in the Imperial Officer design; top-notch texturing from HapSlash; and a small shader which successfully emulates lighting effects that really should've been added in to JA's engine in the first place. I suppose as a result we should really call this a team effort; a collaboration of sorts, with Raven and HapSlash being the 'silent partners'.

Good news is, since this is a replacement pack, all the extras are included. Team skins, bot profiles, NPC profiles, they'll all use the base materials - and the changes will appear in singleplayer too.

So, if you're looking to upgrade your Imperials....

~ Kouen