Modding News Roundup - Mexico Day of Artisans

An irregular column to gather up some of the recent events of the Org modding community. Got news? A mod update? Recruiting for your team? Has your mod been overlooked? Send Epistolary Richard a PM to get items included next time.

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Selection screen from the Fourth Age demo ; Foot Knights from The Crusades ; Tatars Archers from Ogniem i Mieczem ; Cuman Heavy Cavalry from Byzantium Total War



Modding News Roundup

CA axes Multiplayer Lobby Chat
CA has switched off the chat facility within the multplayer lobby. While The Shogun has said that this is only a temporary measure, many in the multiplayer community consider that this is a mortal blow as lobby chat is their foremost means of arranging games online.

[cf]Adherbal - mod leader of Chivalry Total War, a mod first intended and designed for multiplayer - reaffirmed his commitment to completing the Chivalry Single Player campaign and "finally showing all the hard work we've done to the public".


Miscellaneous Skin & Model Repository & Bits 'n' Bobs Archive
Sadly, there's been a spate of major mod projects passing on or 'going quiet' in the last couple of months. As a result, the Org has set up this thread to try and make sure that the entire effort of these projects is not wasted.

If you've made any skins or models for a project that now no longer looks like it's going to be completed, or even if they weren't for any project at all, please consider making them available to the community in the repository.

Any items posted in that thread can be incorporated freely within other mods, as long as proper credit is given. This to ensure that such great material isn't lost just because the original modder has left RTW modding and is no longer around to give his permission - as has occurred on several occasions this month.




New on the Scriptorium

An Intermediate Guide to Scripting from Epistolary Richard & Myrddraal
The follow-up to the beginners guide, featuring the basics of background scripts

Making Gloss Maps with Paintshop Pro from professorspatula
Adding reflections to your units with Paintshop Pro

[Bi] How to chance the faction names in Bi. from kagemusha


Mods Released

For BI

Attilla Reloaded's True Late Army Mod v3.0
Includes 95 new units for WRE, ERE, R-B and Sassanids, new recruiting system and new feature allowing WRE to recruit R-B units in Britania instead of their usual units.

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Rebel Commander
This mod allows the player to play as any of the emergent factions which are not normally available to be played. It allows the player to take control of these factions when they actually appear in the vanilla game - emerging after certain events or dates.

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For RTW v1.3
Fourth Age Total War Demo
The first official product from the Fourth Age Team, a demo custom battle including four factions and more than twenty new units.

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Extended Greek Mod v3.3.4
This ongoing mod, designed to give the greek factions the same depth as the Romans, has updated for 1.3. New units, new traits and more.

GrimSta's Thrace Minimod v1.0
A mod designed to make Thrace more balanced and enjoyable as a playable faction.

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Warmap v1.0
A new larger map with added Zones of Recruitment from IceTorque.

For RTW v1.2
Rome Total Realism patch 6.3
Bug fixes, upgrades and new features.


Latest Mod Previews & updates on the Org

The Wheel of Time - Units Preview: Illian
A glimpse at some of the units in Myrddraal's magnum opus.

Citadel - Introducing the Spanish Empire
GodsPetMonkey introduces the Spanish forces from the upcoming Citadel demo.

Jidai no Ran - development pictures
Prometheus shows off some of the awesome work for this Shogun-period mod.

Res Gestae - Latest map work

Chivalry High Era Sneak Peek
[cf]Adherbal lets slip a few screenshots from the future High Era of the game.

Age of Mankind: Total War Media Update
Lonely Soldier previews more units from this ambitious mod.

Antiquity: Total War preview: Egyptians
This new mod posts its first preview.

Pantokrator Hellas - unit previews


Some New Mods announced

The Ilsamiren Wars
An original fantasy mod

Validus Romanorum
Its aim is to make gameplay more historically accurate. The mod will redo completely all factions, as well as a new map.

Communal Italy: Total War
A mod set in medieval italy from 1200 to 1450.

Pantokrator Hellas
A mod focusing on the Hellenistic world starting in the 5th Century BC.

Renovatio Imperii - Justinian Reconquest
A new mod from the Roma Immortalis team - It will cover the period from 486 AD to 800 AD, from the last resistance of the ultimate roman kingdom (Regnum Siagrii) to the birth of the Holy Roman Empire by Carolus Magnus.

CrusaderTW


Mod Recruitment

Modding in a team can be an awesome, exciting experience allowing its members to develop a mod far greater than the sum of those it could individually.

The brightest, most innovative mods today are being produced by teams of modders - each working and developing in their own specialities. They can be great places to learn skills from the masters of the field, get to know new people and make those vital contacts with modders who you can then interest in your own modding ideas.

If you're keen to work with any mod team just contact their leader and see if you can help out.

Here are just a few mod teams recruiting for specific positions this month:

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Age of Vikings & Fanatics

AoVaF is looking for new members to help their 4 man team with campaign maps, scripts, traits & ancillaries and unit descriptions.

If you're interested in learning in any of these areas then you can find various tutorials on the Scriptorium

Age of Vikings & Fanatics is focusing on the viking raids, colonization and conquests in Northwestern Europe and modern Russia, though the map will cover all of Europe and some more. Check out this thread to learn more.

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Chivalry Total War

Chivalry is on the look out for an experienced or highly motivated (preferably both!) scripter to work on such exciting ideas as simulating Crusades and advancing through eras. Please PM [cf]Adherbal if you're interested.

If you'd like to start to learn about scripting check out this and this tutorial on the Scriptorium.

Chivalry Total War is the most advanced medieval mod for Rome Total War currently in development. They've already released their first period for custom battles and online play and are currently hard at work bringing making a single player campaign a reality. Here are just a few screenshots of their work.
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Metal Mayhem

Having spent months ensuring everything he wanted to do was possible for this revolutionary mod, Bwian is now looking to add new members to this small but most committed team - they're currently looking especially for experienced skinners and a text file editors but anyone with an interest should apply.

Imagine robots with lasers, plasma cannons, rockets, flamethrowers, spinning blades, and more battling it out on alien landscapes. That's Metal Mayhem! It will be making extensive use of new animation sets including effects for weapons, rockets, smoke bombs and more. Melee weapons will include animations for spinning discs, snapping servo claws, and ordinary 'thump' weapons. There'll be a completely new approach to tech trees, allowing every single faction to be completely customizable as the technologies you choose to research at the beginning of the game will affect which technologies you can research later on.

It's shaping up to be one of the most ambitious and most fun mods in development.

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**********Are you a modeller?*********

There is a huge shortage of modellers within the community and virtually every mod team desperately needs more (or even one!) as modelling is required to make any significant changes to units within the game. If you are a competent modeller you would be welcome in pretty much any project in which you had an interest, and you would be able to make sure that any personal project of your own could be completed and fail because of this lack.

The community strongly encourages everyone able to take an interest in modelling and you'll find several guides available to help on the Scriptorium.

The only programme currently able to create models for RTW is 3DSmax, however it is $$$ :sad:. A free 30 day download is available - however that's not nearly enough time to get useful results. You can extend the length of your trial by uninstalling it when not in use. Also, there are means by which models can be converted from the now-unavailable Gmax into 3DSMax, so if one team member has 3DSmax he can convert models from several different team members.

Previous Modding Updates
1 November 2005 - All Hallows Day

yet another well written summery of the recent events in moddingland. Good job ER.

Great work ER :bow:

Looks good. Would it be an idea to link these mod roundups on the .org homepage?

Thanks for the mention ER.

This is a great thing youve started so epople can easily catch up on anythign theyve missed.

Yes, this was very nice indeed.

Apoc

Thanks for putting me in :bow:

Now updated with November's mod previews and some new mods announced. Apologies for the delay.


Latest Mod Previews & updates on the Org

The Wheel of Time - Units Preview: Illian
A glimpse at some of the units in Myrddraal's magnum opus.

Citadel - Introducing the Spanish Empire
GodsPetMonkey introduces the Spanish forces from the upcoming Citadel demo.

Jidai no Ran - development pictures
Prometheus shows off some of the awesome work for this Shogun-period mod.

Res Gestae - Latest map work

Chivalry High Era Sneak Peek
[cf]Adherbal lets slip a few screenshots from the future High Era of the game.

Age of Mankind: Total War Media Update
Lonely Soldier previews more units from this ambitious mod.

Antiquity: Total War preview: Egyptians
This new mod posts its first preview.

Pantokrator Hellas - unit previews


Some New Mods announced

The Ilsamiren Wars
An original fantasy mod

Validus Romanorum
Its aim is to make gameplay more historically accurate. The mod will redo completely all factions, as well as a new map.

Communal Italy: Total War
A mod set in medieval italy from 1200 to 1450.

Pantokrator Hellas
A mod focusing on the Hellenistic world starting in the 5th Century BC.

Renovatio Imperii - Justinian Reconquest
A new mod from the Roma Immortalis team - It will cover the period from 486 AD to 800 AD, from the last resistance of the ultimate roman kingdom (Regnum Siagrii) to the birth of the Holy Roman Empire by Carolus Magnus.

CrusaderTW