-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
https://i.imgur.com/n9r75XL.gifhttps://i.imgur.com/x70QQhk.gif
These are the old animations. First is the throw/sword(changing it probably won't make much difference) and second is the spear, maybe it will fit the pierce attack with sword?
How are you going to add the frames to bifplates, manually? My spritemaker method won't work, because the dimensions are bigger, 119x119(the feather) and there is a lot of empty space that i can't crop(it would mess the origins).
Edit: You said that larger bifs are possible, what size? The frames can fit in 952x714:
https://i.imgur.com/WyZSTyr.png
11 actions(7+4 bow), 44 frames per spritesheet, whooping 528 in total.
I can help you with the bifplates if this size work for you and there is enough space for the shields&weapons.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Hi YanBG,
That looks great! I'm sure I can rejig the spacing for the final BIF, but I'll have to get back to you later, as I'm off to work soon.
The spear animation looks good for the sword thrust as it would fit the traditional 1-2 attack of banging with the shield then slipping the sword in - it will take some work with coordinates but I'm sure that would work out for the best Roman fighting animation ever seen in MTW-land :2thumbsup: I think the throw could do with being slightly more 'over arm' if possible at this stage.
Anyway, more over the weekend, gotta run now...
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
My saturday shift has been cancelled, so I have an extra day of weekend to play with ~D
Yan - I don't know if it's practical at this stage, but would it be possible to give the archers quivers on their backs? The image here shows how they were worn.
About putting the BIF together - I think the best thing is to use your usual technique at whatever size it comes out as. Then I can extract the frames as BMPs, make a multi-layer image in Photoshop and cut down the blank spaces then redefine the action rectangle co-ordinates all the way through the layers. Then I have a cunning plan to realise curved shields for the legionaries to get around the usual MTW limitation of flat shields. With a few extra shields and weapons, there is also a lot of scope here for various auxiliaries, so this is getting to be a really exciting BIF :2thumbsup:.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Quiver is possible, render time is negligible, do you want death animation for the archer? Also is the throw change still on the list?
Quote:
About putting the BIF together - I think the best thing is to use your usual technique at whatever size it comes out as.
Do you mean a spritesheet? Because originally i render in separate png frames. With a bit difficult to understand naming convention: all frames that are in the same bifplate start with the same number(it's not by animation), so you have 44 frames whose name start with 0 at the top of the folder. It's easier to select/import them all at once.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Hi Yan,
Thanks for the reply - I don't think there's any need for a separate death cycle for the archers, it's too fleeting an event to be worth the time and the plate-space. The throwing action would be very nice :yes:
Quote:
Do you mean a spritesheet?
Er, I don't really know - I've never been through the process from a 3d model before, so have no idea what's involved going that route, or the terminology ~D
On reflection, I think it would be best to have the individual files, thinking of how to compile the plates - that should make it pretty straightforward (if somewhat repetitive) to align the actions through all 12 frames.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Hello Guys ......
Amazing Yan !!
The Software & technique that you use is a godsend :bow:,
I'm actually doing quivers at present & its pixel by pixel :dizzy2::laugh4:
Ok onto my thoughts .......
I agree the spear animation is brilliantly suitable for the sword "bang & stab"
& I concur it will be best in MTW for certain .
I also agree again with Macsen re: The throw .....
It definitely needs to be higher/overhead or 'over arm' it is actually just a bit to low ...
Re: Quivers , Mac I'm glad you mentioned them !! :yes: ......
Yan , Im pleased you say quivers are "negligible" .
Having already seen your first piece of work back months ago :2thumbsup: & just only moments ago checked these Romans.
I point out the following .
Quivers are needed on
Walk2 ...............................Obvoiusly
Run2......................................" "
Stand2....................................." "
Shoot......................................." "
But are also needed on ....
Charge ........................... Charging holding his sword .... with quiver visible, so is clearly an Archer .
Attack 1 or 2 ? ................. As above , easily identified as just an archer in Melee with sword fighting .
I also recommend "if possible making" the quivers be full with bows .
I managed this by hand drawing single pixel lines/strokes .....( if its not possible to render its ok )
.......................
Yan > About those death Animations .... I agree with Mac , no need for new ones .
Macsen ....
I know it is a daunting task of porting these over into the 640x640 Bif Plates .....
but I'm confident the method you suggested above to Yan will work :2thumbsup: .........
( I can help if you get stuck ) but you should be fine :yes:
.... I have already had a quick look & I'm confident both Archer & Hastati should fit tightly but nicely into a 640x640 plate with room for shields & weapons .
I can draught up a jpeg picture of a 640Bif Plate with notes & explanation to show .
Ok I gotta go , Photoshop awaits for a few hrs.
To you both , this is exciting !!
cheers guys .
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Ok ....
Here it is roughly done up on Photoshop .
Roman png opened at full size & then cut & pasted over into the 640 bmp ...... ( so never mind the colour being out )
This is one possible design/layout for your consideration macsen ......
Attachment 19250
The Archer takes top 3 Rows .
>> TOP ROW - Walk x4 - Runx4 , Stand x2 (3 may fit)
>> 2nd ROW - 1 or 2 Stand - Chargex4 - Attacksx3
>> 3rd ROW - 1xAttack - Die 2 min - 4xShoot
The main Roman takes rows 4 & 5
>>ROW 4 -
Walk x4 - Run x4 - Stand x4 ........ these should ? fit across comfortably being narrower than the archer .
>> ROW 5 -
Charge x4 - Attack x4 ........................... should have spare pixels .
..........................
** Mac , the Pilum throw I believe will come from the the Charge at bottom ?
So I've drawn in the jav to illustrate it .... it should work well enough .
** LOOKING at the BIF TOp to BOTTOM **
We will have to reduce the height from 119 to 115 .....
Why ?
So we can get enough/more space for shields & weapons .
Some quick calcs 115x5 = 575 Leaving approx. 65 pixels ....
Mac , perhaps the Archer can do without a feather ? ...............if yes "problem solved"
If feather is required on Archer , we can clip 1 px from top & 3 from the shadows on base .
So a strip 65x640 for shields & weapons will be sufficient .......
That is if shields can be placed on their sides instead of upright ?
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Ok Macsen, individual files it is then(i won't have to combine them in plates, that you'll need to redo anyway ~D).
Hello and thank you Dimitrios!
Looking at BOWMAN, you are right he has 7 actions, 3 of them without the bow(dying, fighting, charging). As you know i rendered the 4 others with the bow as unique, but i didn't make charge because i figured that you can reuse the swordsman's one. The quiver addition would make that harder, we might need a fighting with quiver too?
Btw i thought about the quiver before, but ChHlBow doesn't have one. He dies with the bow in hand though, so there are some discrepancies(diversity) between the archers in the vanilla game.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Hello Yan
Great work once again.
Ok , Yes do a set with quivers for both fightings and charge also ........ (and ofcourse a set without )
This way we have all options covered.......
Yan , its good you made 2 sets of fighting animations , despite code only allows 1 can be used....( great for choice now and future mac Aux ptions)
About vanilla Bowman ......never did correctly .
The new bigger plates give us more space so more realism can be acheived .
All Bowman can do with these graphical improvements ive outlined .
Its just great timing all this !! ,......
As my vision for the Hellenic Archers gave me these ideas months ago & here we will see them on the battlefield !!
Great work guys , lets do this.....2017 is exciting !
Cheers
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Evening all,
Just back from thr pub so please forgive any spelling errors ~D
Gneral thought: don't really need any quivers in plates without bows: let's face it, if your sagis are fighting, you've got other things on your mind... and we want to make the most use of the BIF space and extra space for shields results in morre unit variety than extra details on sagis in melee. And the larger the final BIF plate becomes, the les reolution we getb on the battlefield.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
I haven't thought that bifs larger than 512x512 lose quality. CA's HlPlArHm has 10 actions, but there are no shields and i think 11 is the lowest we can go.
Which attack the sagis will use, slash or pierce? The updated throw probably won't fit for melee(i guess that's why CA didn't add separate animation).
Btw we should test the palette convertion and if the player colors show properly in game, i had some issues last time.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
No problems mac , this ones in your court .
But imagine how nicer it would be if the Archers did have their own charge and fight rectangles with quiver ....
But its ok , I figure that in the heat of the battle those in the idle/stand position nearby/behind will be visible , thus sufficient enough to differientiate them.
Anyway i just hope it al works on the 640's ... eg no resolution problems or other unforseens .
& I'll save myself time also on my Hellenics too .
So for the sake of resolution and more sheild variety , no quiver on charge or fight .
Onwards we go guys .
Cheers
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Quote:
Originally Posted by
YanBG
I haven't thought that bifs larger than 512x512 lose quality. CA's HlPlArHm has 10 actions, but there are no shields and i think 11 is the lowest we can go.
Oversized BIFs will lose a certain amount of quality because they are rendered as if they were normal size, and need to be rescaled in the unit_prod to restore them to the same size as other units in battle. I can't really quantify the effect but there is bound to be some.
As for the number of actions, it doesn't matter in the slightest - the BIF plates are purely images, and the actions page files define where the engine looks to find them - that's why more than one unit can be placed on the sheet, using different images. The individual units' actions will be limited by what can be defined in the actions pages, but this doesn't limit what can go in the BIF.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
YanBG
Which attack the sagis will use, slash or pierce? The updated throw probably won't fit for melee(i guess that's why CA didn't add separate animation).
Ah, knew I'd overlooked something ~D The sagis don't have shields, so the pierce animation may look a bit odd due to the 'front' hand. perhaps better include the 'slash' action after all :bow:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
YanBG
Btw we should test the palette convertion and if the player colors show properly in game, i had some issues last time.
I have a suitable palette, so will give it a shot soon...
EDIT: seems ok - no visible problems:
Attachment 19257
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
I added the quiver and was able to reduce the width of the files, they now easily fit into 720x720.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Thanks for that Yan - I've downloaded the RAR and have a plan of action for building up the BIF from the files. Just need to clear some calendar- and head-space to get it done, now. I'm really looking forward to getting some properly-attired Romans out in the field :2thumbsup:
I think I'm on top of the naming conventions, but I'll know for sure once I start building up layers in Photoshop...
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Great! Let me know, if you have any questions.
I'm not sure what is your method of importing them to photoshop, but i was thinking if it can automatically place them on a grid and i found this spritesheet generator: http://www.johnwordsworth.com/projec...erator-script/
I haven't tested it and i don't know if it will be of any use but you can keep us updated on the process. It's interesting to read your findings :)
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Evening all,
I have a few minutes for a quick drive-by post ~D
First I have to confirm PS does what I think it does with the 'Use all layers' function, but assuming it does, I'll compile each action/view into its 12 frames then each of the 44 separate 12-frame cycles can be cropped to their absolute minumum rectangle. The individual sizes will then be the basis for setting the actionspage co-ordinates as I juggle them all into a single 12-layer image. I reckon there's probably enough empty space to be able to bring it down to a 640x640, if not then it will have to go to 768x768, leaving loads of room for accessories. In short I'll be compiling it 'vertically' so the spritesheet route wouldn't be appropriate.
Anyway, my Saturday shift has been cancelled again this week, so I have a fairly clear weekend to play with it :2thumbsup:
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Hello Mac ..
Play with it & remember ... if Jupiter calls go on the warpath .
Divertion can help keep yr mind fresh ~:) .... as I can imagine the task ahead will take quite a bit of time .
I reckon they will fit easily into the 640's .... even with the huge backswing on the bow's rectangles ....
..... so if the deciding factor is miniscule between a 640 or 768 ,
Let me know & I can share my thoughts .
eg , say if we need a few pixels less width per rectangle over the bmp's size ,
we can snip a bit of the bows backend & do it , to make them fit them into a 640 instead of the larger .
Anyway , I'm busy also currently drawing bows & quivers into the HTW bmp's , which don't swing much at all compared to vanilla .
Enjoy yr weekend.
cheers
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
The BIF is coming together, and it looks like a comfortable fit on to a 640x640 (though maybe I shouldn't tempt fate by saying so ...)
However, I couldn't do what I'd hoped I could so it's taking a little longer than anticipated. Progress so far:
Attachment 19270
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Quote:
I couldn't do what I'd hoped
What is that?
Looks good so far. 5 more actions left(dying, both walk).
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Quote:
Originally Posted by
YanBG
What is that?
Paste a layered selection directly into layers - I think ProMo can do it, but there's no mutually-compatible layered format between the two programmes, so I stuck with PS. I haven't fully got to grips with editing in proMo yet, just using it for LBMs really...
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
I hope to get these chaps up and running over Xmas, but my PC is getting a bit unstable, I think it may be preparing to die... frantically backing up everything. I'd hate to have no PC over the holiday, let alone lose all the RCW data ....
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Back it all up mac !
My laptop began to get hotter than usual these past few days , so i put all the bifs & work on a dedicated thumb drive , so i have no mishaps .
Food for thought mac..:yes:
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
The problem is that my dedicated thumbdrive seems to be a major element of the instability - so it's going (very sloooowly) on to my Google Drive. I've also cleared up a lot of hard-drive space (too many mods, not enough room for pagefiles!) and defragged it... not sure I'm ready to try the thumbdrive again just yet - it took four attempts to get XP to load today, and I don't want the drive forcing me to do another hard power-down in case it doesn't come back at all next time I reboot.
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Then uploading to google is the way to go ....
I'll lihht a stick of incense and send out some positivity so all gets backedup .
Enjoy yr Xmas & yr days of from work .
Cheers
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
I seem to have the PC stable again... phew!
And to celebrate, the actions are all compiled and run smoothly in BIFreader :2thumbsup:
Attachment 19288
Plenty of room left for weapons and shields, and I'll get on to those soon...
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Great news ... On both fronts.
If you can ....post some screenshots , as im interested to see just how much clarity is lost by using the bigger bif plates.
Well done once again .
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
Next update:
making progress but still quite a bit to do - got the sagis working, though it shows up some indexing errors on the faction colours:
Attachment 19292
-
Re: Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion
They look very nice resolution & clarity wise , considering they are on the 640 Plate & supposedly lower in quality .
Nice work Mac & Yan !!
All the best for the New Year lads ~:cheers: