Custom Elephants & Chariots [Archive]

Metal Storm

10-28-2003, 15:25

Hello everybody,
I wanted to reply in the Dungeon to a thread where barroca laid out somehow too info on Elephants and Chariots but I am unable to post there.
I do have several questions of a technical nature. I could really use some help from somebody who knows the technical side of the numbering of the positions relative to the bif pics.
I read the camera angles must be 0, 180, 60, 120 degrees. But, when I look at any of the horse mounts they appear to be on a camera angle looking down at the mount and not directly at it. So, that adds some confusion to my task.

So, I need to do the same relative angles and not just 0,180,60,120 to make it look good in MTW right? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Next question: From reading the Post it sounds like I can just put the elephant & chariot anywhere in the bif as long as I keep them in the same relative position in all 12 frames, right? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Next question: How do I assign the numbers to the bif pics to determine where a Run/charge or stomp/attack stand, or walk should be? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Next Question: The steeds all have 16 images per frame. The elephant should have these 16 position angles plus any attack motions correct? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

I am sure I have more or I will come across some the further I get into this. All help is welcome. I'd love to give the Carthaginians Some elephants in my Punic War Mod. Thanks

Gregoshi

10-29-2003, 06:37

Metal Storm, look at your group again. You are a Senior Patron and can post in the Dungeon. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif Therefore, I'm going to move this to the Dungeon - Alchemist lab forum.

Metal Storm

10-29-2003, 08:41

Doh http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

Thanks, Gregoshi I'm a bit clueless. I guess that's what happens when you stay up to 4am Modding MTW.

Good News to all elephant fans. I have successfully created a good 3D model of a war elephant with a carriage for a rider. I have already sequenced it for 3 standing movements and 1 really cool Elephant stomp It rears up on its hind legs and just slams to the ground I haven't taken the photos of it for the Bif yet because I still need some answers to earlier questions.
The bad new is this will delay my Punic War Mod.

Marshal Murat

10-29-2003, 12:21

Who bloody cares You are the first to attempt to make a war elephant, and its to be so awsome, you are definatly a modder born I'm getting this mod

Eastside Character

10-29-2003, 17:20

Quote[/b] ]I have already sequenced it for 3 standing movements and 1 really cool Elephant stomp It rears up on its hind legs and just slams to the ground
nice http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

barocca

10-29-2003, 20:42

almost everything you need to know is here,
animations in mtw, what. where, why, how to.... (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=26;t=10137)
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Metal Storm

10-30-2003, 04:40

Hey That's Great Thanks Barroca http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Metal Storm

10-30-2003, 08:10

If anybody wants to take a sneak peak at what to expect out of this war elephant I uploaded some images to my web page. The images are going to be for the 512x512 Hi res bif. The images you see are the actual size for the bif too. They lost some quality in the upload but you can get a good look anyway. Lost more work to be done on them but I am making good progress.

http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/mezzma1970/RomeMAIN.html

barocca

10-30-2003, 11:13

NagatsukaShumi

10-30-2003, 13:28

Extremely impressive Metal Storm looks like your going to make alot of people's dream come true.

flip

10-30-2003, 13:31

Very good work

hellenes

10-30-2003, 13:58

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
*struggles to say something*

The Blind King of Bohemia

10-30-2003, 14:42

If that looks as good in battle it will be fantastic

Just a shame I don't have any custom bif folders left http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif They'd make a great addition to my super mod. Only j/k http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Metal Storm

10-31-2003, 06:26

Thanks for all the Positive feed back. I appreciate it. I originally made a more detailed elephant but the amount of colors and detail made it a bit too obscure for my liking when I reduced the size. So, I went with a less detailed and less colored elephant. I just can't wait to get it finished. I can't believe I didn't do this before. I guess the amount of work involved or the fact that I have no Idea how to relate the bif pics to the Action page. I still don't I have a tut by Wellington from the link barroca provided in this thread but when I read it today my brain just didn't rap around it. I will probably have to read it 4 or 5 times more before it starts to make sense. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

I don't suppose anybody wants to drop everything and help create an actions page and stuff for it? I shouldn't ask quite yet as I have that tut I just need to go over it again. I have high hope that I will be able to understand it soon.
A quick update:
I have all the pictures for the elephant completed and just have to compile them into a bif then write the actions page and stuff.

Scipio

10-31-2003, 06:35

Wow very nice metal storm I didnt dream it to be that bautiful

Duke John

10-31-2003, 08:08

Good job, Metal Storm The elephant-crew are in for a wild ride

I've also made multiple new unit BIFs and here is my experience. I saw that you have your own modelling program so I will gladfully skip the modelling process except for the following notes:

Camera-angles
You should render the model at a horizontal angle of 22, 67, 112 and 157 degrees with the model looking to the right. In my experience I noticed that a vertical angle of around 29 degrees yielded results similar to MTW units.

Merging the renderings into a BIF
With my first BIF I did this manually, but Wellington wrote a program which automatically merges the renderings, either in PCX or BMP format, and crops them to the smallest possible size. The actionpage entries are also automatically generated.

I might be able to help you with this. In which format are the renderings and does each rendering contain one action at one frame? Also are you sure that all the elephant actions fit into the 512x512 BIF? If the renderings are as large as the one in your preview then I am almost certain that it won't fit, unless you have not done alot of actions.

Cheers, Duke John

Jeebus_Frist

10-31-2003, 22:28

Quote[/b] ] If you were wondering what's in the upper Left corner, I created a square Island where the Pope Is Exiled so he doesn't get in the way.

Bwahahahahahaha Serves him right

Beautiful looking mod. Your elephant is simply unbelievable, if it incoporates into the game smoothely I will be blown away http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Metal Storm

10-31-2003, 22:32

Hey Thanks Duke John,

I guess I'll have to email Wellington and see if he will let me use his Action page generator program. That would be awesome

To answer your questions I am using PSP and I used a Layer pallet to match each 12 frames. I added an extra green background (0 index green) and an additional layer to create shadows with each frame. Right now I am finishing the shadows and will be done within the hour. Once I complete a shadow page I just merge the 3 layers(shadow,greenbackground,elephant) for the frame. I save it into PSP format but once I load the MTW pal to each frame I was going to save it as BMP so I could create a bif.

I did each frame like in the bifs. All frame 1 movement from all 4 angles of all 4 movements in each individual frame.

Your totally right on with them not fitting. I realized that only just last night and had to reduce them even further. Because they are so thick (unlike horses) it was not easy to squeeze them in together. In fact, I wound up with only charge/run, stand, walk and die no STOMP http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
Just no room in the bif and I didn't want to sacrifice too much quality as I am not sure what they will even look like in MTW.
Thanks again for the help

Metal Storm

10-31-2003, 22:36

Quote[/b] (Jeebus_Frist @ Oct. 31 2003,15:28)]Your elephant is simply unbelievable, if it incoporates into the game smoothely I will be blown away
Me Too

Wellington

11-01-2003, 00:15

MS (and DJ),

1st - Wow Really nice nellie MS.

One potential "problem" you may have (having examined the animated JPG) is that when the nellie rears up it's trunk goes out as well. This means that the image rectangle that defines that specific action/camera-angle in the BIF will be quite large - and therefore when you have 4 such images (for all 4 camera angles) it may take up a lot of space in the BIF. You'll be surprised (or maybe not) by just how much space such an extended trunk eats up in a BIF.

I presume this won't be too much of a problem as Mount BIFs generally have a bit of spare space in them - but as a nellie should take up around twice the size of a mount (horse or camel) space-wise it's something to think about. I would think in terms of, perhaps, not extending the trunk too much which will save a lot of potential space.

Ok, you can resize via UM_LoTR or also via the parameters in Prod11 but you lose a little resolution either way.

Re- UM_LoTR (as DJ mentioned) feel to use it as you wish. It's not been generally released yet (special code for the ME:TW team project) but DJ knows how to use it and has my permission to pass it on. I hope to go back and re-hash this program in time but as present getting MTTM in a releasable state is taking 95% of my time.

DJ - please feel free to pass UM_LoTR (veresion 1.3?) to MS.

Anyway, nice to see this group has another guy who knows about new unit creation. With DJ, yourself and hopefully in time others, who knows what can be achieved with new units for MTW/VI - and as RTW is at least 12 months away I suspect MTW/VI will become the TW modders platform of choice.

Also the next 12 months is going to see massive new potential on this TW platform

Nice work. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

The Blind King of Bohemia

11-01-2003, 00:23

If this works, may we see Duke John utilizing them as Oliphaunts?

Metal Storm

11-01-2003, 02:14

Quote[/b] (Wellington @ Oct. 31 2003,17:15)]One potential "problem" you may have (having examined the animated JPG) is that when the nellie rears up it's trunk goes out as well. This means that the image rectangle that defines that specific action/camera-angle in the BIF will be quite large - and therefore when you have 4 such images (for all 4 camera angles) it may take up a lot of space in the BIF. You'll be surprised (or maybe not) by just how much space such an extended trunk eats up in a BIF.
You Hit the Nail on the head. In fact because of its width I could only have 4 action types fit, Run/Charge, walk, stand & die. I imported the Stomp to animation shop and looped around 12 frames over and over would look silly in battle. It would just go up&down up&down the whole time it was fighting. It would need more than 12 frames of action to make it look believable. So, like I said I dropped the stomp. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

By the way thanks for letting me use your action page generator. Could you or Duke John provide a link to where I can download it? Or perhaps email it to me? I'm eager to see it work in MTW. Thanks.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Metal Storm

11-01-2003, 02:18

Quote[/b] (The Blind King of Bohemia @ Oct. 31 2003,17:23)]If this works, may we see Duke John utilizing them as Oliphaunts?
That would be up to DJ, he's got my full permission for sure. Oh, are you asking him or me? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

Jacque Schtrapp

11-01-2003, 03:50

Coming soon Yippee

http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-70531/Tolkien/oliphaunt/oliphaunt.GIF

*cackles evilly*

Duke John

11-01-2003, 09:44

Oh, I will make my own Oliphaunts, that unit is nice oppurtuniy to model something different, and I'm not going to let that pass http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

UnitMaker v1.3
Download (http://chronicles.metw.net/files/UM_LoTRPRERELEASE(R1V3).zip)

I would advise against using UM to make BIFs, just use it to make frames. UM doesn't correctly apply palettes and when scaling down smoothes the edges of the soldiers. Also there are some problems with shields being put over die-animations.
So just take the 12 large frames with the DIX...txt file ( is the actionpage but needs some editing), apply your own palette, add your weapons and shields and then scale down the images for copies of the lower resolution BIF. The BIF should be made using bifreader.

Cheers, Duke John

barocca

11-01-2003, 14:45

that link is not functioning
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

_Martyr_

11-01-2003, 15:38

Fixed link (http://chronicles.metw.net/files/UM_LoTRPRERELEASE(R1V3).zip) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Metal Storm

11-01-2003, 18:13

Thanks, that's great. I just downloaded it and will take a look. I appreciate you letting me use this beta version.Thanks again http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Metal Storm

11-01-2003, 20:35

Wellington, you were right about the documentation. I feel like a Dummy reading through it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif Is it possible that either yourself or Duke John saved any of the emails you mentioned that helped decipher and how to use certain parts of UM? Specifically I am looking for how to create action and dead page cords. I've already got it in bif format but can convert each frame to pcx or BMP as needed. If you have any of those emails relating to Actionpage and Dead page could you pass them on? Thanks.

Wellington

11-01-2003, 22:49

Quote[/b] (Metal Storm @ Nov. 01 2003,13:35)]Wellington, you were right about the documentation. I feel like a Dummy reading through it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif Is it possible that either yourself or Duke John saved any of the emails you mentioned that helped decipher and how to use certain parts of UM? Specifically I am looking for how to create action and dead page cords. I've already got it in bif format but can convert each frame to pcx or BMP as needed. If you have any of those emails relating to Actionpage and Dead page could you pass them on? Thanks.
Unfortunately I don't have the E-mails any more.

The best way to learn how to use UM is by example, and the only examples I have are early versions of DJ's units 'Uruk_Hai' for the ME:TW project.

If DJ grants his permission I can send you these example images of Uruk_Hai - that I KNOW work with UM as that's how I managed to write and test it. You would then be able to see how UM processes such images and could then add your own images in a similar manner (using DJ's initial images as a guide to UM's naming conventions ect ).

Also the colour palette issues in UM have been resolved now, so I effectively have a later version (1.4) with the corrected code for these pallettes in the BIF.

If DJ's willing to have these early Uruk_hai sample images downloadable from the Org, I'll upload both UM1v4 and these images as an example to how it all works - as these examples ar'nt mine I can't do so without DJ's say so, and UM is a bit confusing (useless?) without examples.

Regarding the deadpage issues I also have a 2nd tool (BDP - Build DeadPage) that deals with the deadpage coords and the LBM plate.

Welly

The Blind King of Bohemia

11-01-2003, 23:58

Quote[/b] ]Oh, I will make my own Oliphaunts, that unit is nice oppurtuniy to model something different, and I'm not going to let that pass

Sounds great Will you be giving them more than 2 tusks? I now your mod is based on the book, but I thought the idea of the Haradrim putting spikes on the tusks as we see in the new trailer was quite interesting. Maybe you could think about that.

Due to space concerns, will you be able to add war towers?

The Blind King of Bohemia

11-01-2003, 23:59

Metal Storm

11-02-2003, 01:54

Quote[/b] (Wellington @ Nov. 01 2003,15:49)]The best way to learn how to use UM is by example, and the only examples I have are early versions of DJ's units 'Uruk_Hai' for the ME:TW project.

If DJ grants his permission I can send you these example images of Uruk_Hai - that I KNOW work with UM as that's how I managed to write and test it. You would then be able to see how UM processes such images and could then add your own images in a similar manner (using DJ's initial images as a guide to UM's naming conventions ect ).
That would be great. I would appreciate that a bunch