The Mythology Mod rises again!

[Bwian]

Assuming Silver Rusher is Ok with this, I would like to re-awaken this mod, and make it happen!

The plan is as follows:

A staged release of replacement 'Nation Packs' covering areas of classical and/or usable mythological creatures. Humans will feature, largely in terms of the Greeks. Their pantheon of Gods and mythology is one of the richer in terms of classival mythology, but I will not limit myself to merely that. If it fits and is balanced, I will use it.

I have already built up a set of skeleton warriors, including archers and mounted troops. This gives me a rough start, and has given me the chance to prove that I CAN make something.

Next, I want to work on some centaurs. These I have already begun to work on, using a revised ' mount' which lacks a head. I will then try to add in a vharacter model with no legs. The tricky part will be whether or not I can move the base location of the model without messing up the animation.

Planned are:

Skeleton / Undead
Centaurs
Amazons
Trolls
Ogres
Goblins and relatives
Dwarves
Demons ( lots of scope here! )
Barbarians
Chaos marauders

And any other fantasy / mythological race or characters which my fancy.

Each race will initially be built up specifically for single battles, with a campaign being a possibility once I understand the necesary factors and can design specific buildings / infastructure to support them. I will aim to replace one race at a time and plan to release them as 'Nation Packs'

These packs should be self-contained sets of units, plus amendments to the necessary files which will allow these races to completely replace an existing race. Hopefully, by doing it this way, I will reduce the overall burden and make it possible to release elements of the mod as I go along!

Well....thats the plan :D

For progress to date, check out my 'first modelling attempt' thread in 'general'.

Skeleton base unit, skeleton sword warrior, skeleton archer complete.
Skeleton cavalry mount modelled / textured
Skeleton riders underway.

To do:

Skeleton axeman
Skeleton spearman
Skeleton unit commander
Cataphract mount
Banner
unit cards

I also need to do some work on the stats. My assumption of the way these units would work is to have them basically unroutable ..... as long as the general lives. As soon as the unit leader goes down, the whole lot will run. This is meant to signify the loss of 'control' of these dead warriors.

In accordance with the advice on design documents etc. this information will soon be available, and a website will be set up to showcase the mod. I need to clear out some webspace first! Soon as that is done, I will post a link!

Any and all input, suggestions, advice gratefully received!

[hoggy]

excellent stuff Bwain looking forward to it. for your centaurs the coordinates for rider offset are in descr_mounts. Just tweak this to position your top half. Good luck.

[Bwian]

Thanks for the tip Hoggy :) That saved me a lot of messing about!

[Sundjata Keita]

This looks a very interesting mod, I like your skeleton warriors a lot. There are a few things I would like to know:-

• Who will be the senate faction? I would suggest having three demon armies and a leader army
• If you make a campaign will it be entirely fictional or based on a part of the world?
• Will it contain giant avatars like the other mod was going to?
• Do you need any help? I am happy to help with this mod (can't do scripting though)

The amazon army sounds really interesting and I was wondering whether this would contain realistic units as well as fictional ones, if so I might be able to help there as well.

P.S. Who are the goblins relatives? Could these be used as the senate factions in a campaign

[Bwian]

I am not 100% sure about the 'Senate' equivalent.

Demons are a possibility, as are high priests, Sorcerors or some such. I need to think about that. Maybe they could represent the classical Roman Gods

As far as a campaign map goes, I will start off using the original map. I haven't got to grips with the necessary steps invovled to make a fully functional map, so I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it!! Ultimately, I would like to have a fully fictional map. I don;t see it as a top priority though. First off, I need units that balance well and provide a good battle :D

Giant Avatars would be great..... if they are possible. I would like to represent the general as something a bit special!

Lastly...help is always welcome!!!! I will sit down this weekend and draw up a more formal 'design document' with some more detailed lists of what needs building. Meantime... if you want to start work on a set of Amazon troops...then go for it :D I will definitely be wanting them in the finished lineup! Drop me a PM and let me know what sort of lineup you had in mind for the 'ladies'.

[the fury]

what about, greek: manatuars, hydras, colosseus
norse: fire giants, ice giants, moutain giants
egyption: anubis, ill come back to more stuff, i cant think of all the cool stuff off the top of my head

[Al Khalifah]

Will this mod feature mythological type Greek/Human factions? I'm thinking maybe Troy could be a human faction.
Will any elements of Homer's epics be used for monsters in this mod? The cyclopes, the laestragones etc.

[Belatucadros]

well if you use gods for generals and you have a celtic faction(which you should) then Belatucadros would be a good name for a general because he was the god of war comparable to mars(i can give you more if you need)

[Bwian]

OK ... Gods for Generals might be a bit of a problem. I was giving this some thought, and I realised that the game mechanics assumes the faction leaders die.... Not a common practice for Gods. ( some do.... Osiris, Dumuzi and several other linked Myths invovle Gods dying and being reborn... )

I would need to be able to infinitely extend their lifespan somehow. Can this be done?

Anyway.... On the progress front, I have begun work on the website and the design document is growing steadily.

Additional SKeleton Army units have been put in game, and I now have skeleton spearmen, and 2 sorts of cavalry mount done. Next on the building front comes a selection of more heavily armoured undead warriors. These I have modelled but not yet textured. I also plan to adapt the textures for the Druid stock model to form a 'leader' unit for the undead soldiers. Ultimately, they will be fearsome warriors, but with very uncertain 'morale' to reflect the difficulty in controlling and directing summoned lifeless corpses ( I know...I work for the UK Post Office so I have some experience along those lines ;) )

Once I have the unit lineup a bit more concrete, simmoned creatures like these will possibly be used as a Mercenary faction. Troops that any side can hire.

[Belatucadros]

Well you could probly change the message that says you leader has died and say your leader has left.

for example the god got so betten(or tired instead of old) that he decided to go back to heaven or werever he lives in shame and pass the torch to his heir.

well thats my input just tell me if i am getting annoying

[Silver Rusher]

Yeah, this is all fine. I was already working on another mod, so the mythology mod I was planning to make would have taken up too much of my time.

[Belatucadros]

possible faction could be barbarian(celts)

They would have many units already in rome
*druids, maybe the could shoot fire or something
*wovles could be remodelled from dogs
*fanatics
*beserkers
*warband
*banshees
*Gaints

Your units look very good and i really hope this mod gets done

[Belatucadros]

ohh i guess i missed that you had already planned on doing barbarians,
Well anyways i still think those could be some good units

sorry about doble post, but i cant edit (if only i was a full member)

[the fury]

goblins do not belong in mythology, you should have people factions with some special units. like the greeks, trojans, norse, egyption, and just have them all have special units like centaurs, giants, anubis, and other such creatures

[Bwian]

Goblins don't belong in Mytholgoy.....er....beg to differ there :D

They don't belong in classical Greek Mythology, nor Roman, but Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Redcaps, and a whole host of other beasties populate the Northern European mythology.

Just to lay things out a little clearer :D

The plan is, to have each faction largely human based. There will be a core set of human units to represent the ordinary folks. Greek Hoplites, Roman legions etc. There may not be as many base units, since I am certainly going to have to pinch a few to make myth soldiers.

Each city will get one building that is able to 'recruit' or train these myth units. Hence you would get a Greek city raising an army of centaurs, or an egyptian city sending out Sphinx cavalry with a bunch of Jackal headed support troops. If I can swing it, ideally, these units should operate in the same way that Mercenaries do in the stock game. They are not dependant on populations etc to support, but are costly. At the moment, though, plans are being slightly thwarted by an inability to make larger than human sized units. Cyclops, Giants, Trolls and Ogres are needed to back up the selection...and this just isn't happening.

If I can't do this, my current unit plan goes out the window and a major re-think becomes necessary.

If I REALLY can't do the big boys.... I have a backup plan.

[hoggy]

Looking forward to this mod, sounds excellent! Vercingetorix was looking into the scaling problem at one point. I got stuck at the same point as you. I'm hoping either Vercingetorix comes up with a simple solution to creating completely new skeletons or CA releases a patch which makes skeleton.txt work (currently no effect in game). crossing fingers as it affects Blue Lotus, METW etc and a number of other mods too. Would be great to see those giant cyclops units!

[Bwian]

Hoggy... I have sent Vercingetorix a lengthy PM and posted a few bits and pieces over at TWCenter ...

He has gone through the steps I outlined, and got the same results. This is good news for us all...he wasn't aware that there was an issue around trying to re-size or relocate pivot points in a skeleton. He thought that the pivots could be moved in the CAS file and that the animation would then be applied to that correctly. As we found.....soemthing else steps in the way...and that has to be something in the skeleton.dat file.

Vercingetorix is going to investigate it :D

He knows more about this than anyone else...and I am hopeful he can crack it. Being able to scale a skeleton would be good....but being able to reposition a joint would be even better! Scaling would allow us to use the one biped and 3 quadraped skeletons to do most of what we need...with a bit of imagination...but a whole new skeleton arrangement would open up so many possibilities!

Whatever....the right man is on the case :D I got my fingers crossed!!!!

[hoggy]

Top stuff! keep us posted.

[Bwian]

Progress Update:

Skeleton units are done, and have gone out for testing. Final roundup included:

Basic skeleton 'peasant'
skeleton archer
skeleton spearman
skeleton swordsman
mounted skeleton on skeleton horse
mounted knight skeleton on skeleton horse

I also through together a ghostly standard bearer :)

Initial centaur model has now been done. Needs minor tweaking to smooth out the join. It also has a rather unpleasant 'death' since the human and horse part end up seperated..... I can deal with this. But it still looks a bit messy :D

Also tried out the MkI Cyclops :D He needs a lot more work to look how I want him to, since I want to mess about with the proportions a little. At around 10' tall, he's an imposing chap :D

[Bwian]

Little bit of progress to report today:

Having completed the Skeleton's and a quick 'standard bearer' unit for them, I have moved on to the next phase.

First up, we have a VERY rough go at making a big unit... the Ogre.



Textures are dreadfully rough, and the mapping has got screwed up at some point in the conversion ( need to solve this one.... ) and the model needs some tweaking to animate well...but he is BIG

Also on the building bloks are the Centaurs. This is the 'base' model. An armoured version is planned, along with an archer and possibly one or two others.

[RedSilver]

Bwian your doing some great work, I wish you all the best.

P.S those centaur are coming along great, and the troll is funny, but I can just invision the finshed one, Rawr!

good luck.

[soibean]

yea the idea is great and so far your first attempts look decent
if you smooth out the textures it could be beautiful

[shifty157]

the skins could use some smoothing but this mod looks like its off to a very nice start. Keep up the good work.

[shifty157]

Just wondering but would it be possible to make an entirely new skeleton and animations for the centaur? So you wouldnt have to try and work around the problem by mounting a human torso onto a headless horse. Its worth a look into.

[hoggy]

looking good Bwian, the distortion in the textures occurs when you have one vertice with two lots of UVs. You need to go into element mode and check each element is completely seperate from the polys around it - I tend to drag it away as a test, then undo. Each texture projection/set of uvs should be it's own element ie be seperate from the polys of the next. hope this helps

[Bwian]

I think I know what I did wrong. I don't actually model/UV map in Max. I only use it as a necessary evil for low poly modelling ;) When I imported this one, already mapped, I applied the skin modifier and rigged it all up so I was happy with the result. Then...I noticed some vertex anomalies. It seemed I had some duplicate verts from the import.... so I set the vertex threshold and 'wel d selected'

I think I done wrong ;)

That would create shared vertices along every 'join' on the UV mapping. If I had left alone, it would have been fine

Will re-do that one. The texture I painted up was rough anyway! I never was much good with Photoshop when it came to people texturing! I prefer more solid objects

Still....it proved the effectiveness of Vercingetorix's modified tool. It also looked REALLY sweet when the big green guy whacked down some peasants with his club

Anyway.. at present, we can't actually create a whole new skeleton. This is something that is still being looked at, I hope! We CAN scale the existing ones, and fit the mesh to it. You need to keep the body mesh in reasonable propertions, but you can scale up the thickness of the limbs. I need to improve the mesh around some of the joints to smooth the animation...and learn to paint skin

[Myrddraal]

Bwain, I think the human half of the centaurs should start lower down. Their torso is too thin. Make the human waist start where the strap is on the horses.

[Bwian]

Yep...Centaur needs a bit of work in that department.

This was just a rough first go to make sure I could do it. The next version will have a proper custom built mesh, rathe than a quick modification of the base horse and human.

I had trouble with the fine alignment of the horse and rider parts, which required some flexibility in the join area. The tapering you can see was partly as a result of this. As I get better at fine alignment of mesh for horse and rider, this will get neater

[Bwian]

Some new chaps lining up for a scrap....as Goblins should.




Angered by one to many 'goblin' jokes.... they take swift and bloody revenge.

[shifty157]

Those guys look hilarious. Nicely done.