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Re quivers etc - can you keep two copies of....................... already have ~;)
All being well I'll be able to combine them into a single oversize BIF later.......... all advanced on that aspect too ~;)
See .....
Attachment 19226
Attachment 19227
Wow YanBG, that was fast :2thumbsup: And it looks just the job - feather, mail and sandals are good as they are. The shoulder guards should remain as mail, imho, as that would be closest to the original armour.Quote:
Originally Posted by YanBG
If we use an oversize BIF plate we have more than enough space, so if you could include walk and run animations with the bow, too, that would be icing on the cake. For the javelin/pilum throw I'm happy to go with whatever you think looks best, now I know how to place items with BIFreader and don't have to rely on pre-exisitng co-ordinates :bow:
That's excellent work, thanks so much
Wow YanBG, that was fast :2thumbsup: And it looks just the job - feather, mail and sandals are good as they are. The shoulder guards should remain as mail, imho, as that would be closest to the original armour.Quote:
Originally Posted by YanBG
If we use an oversize BIF plate we have more than enough space, so if you could include walk and run animations with the bow, too, that would be icing on the cake. For the javelin/pilum throw I'm happy to go with whatever you think looks best, now I know how to place items with BIFreader and don't have to rely on pre-exisitng co-ordinates :bow:
That's excellent work, thanks so much
Awesome work Yan ....... so quick , well proportioned & cleanly drawn .
Im with Mac , shoulders as mail , but I would darken the sandals to black or very dark brown
I look forward to them , in the Roman Wars Mod .
cheers
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...
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:.
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:
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 ~DQuote:
Do you mean a spritesheet?
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.
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 .
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 ?
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
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.
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by YanBG
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.
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
I have a suitable palette, so will give it a shot soon...Quote:
Originally Posted by YanBG
EDIT: seems ok - no visible problems:
Attachment 19257
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...
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:
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
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
thanks yan
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...Quote:
Originally Posted by YanBG
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 ....
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:
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.
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
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...
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 .
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
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:
A little bit further along - correct palette this time, and with weapons added to the sagis:
Attachment 19294
Attachment 19293
Next job is to sort out the legionaries and some auxilliaries :2thumbsup:
Got the basics done on the legionaries, just have a few twiddles left to finish off. I'm quite pleased with how the 1-2 attack animation with the shield then sword-thrust has worked out :2thumbsup:
And in the process of all this, I've made a couple of weird discoveries related to placing units in the startpos file. Seems the game can be a bit picky about unit names. First off I tried to give the Populares a couple of units of First Cohort legionaries (Legionary2 in the unit_prod) with a valour bonus....
ie MakeUnit ... Legionary2 160 1 (ie 160 men with 1 kill) >> killed the startpos - not available at main menu
so I removed the valour boost:
MakeUnit ... Legionary2 160 >> startpos loaded, but the unit came out as 2 men with valour 8!
Aha! I thought - even though there's no space in the name, the engine interprets the "2" as a quantity of the basic Legionary unit, so I changed the name of the First Cohort to LegionaryB, instead:
MakeUnit ... LegionaryB 160 >> killed the startpos again!
The game works fine with these units, with the sole exception of putting them in the startpos. Any unit that goes in the startpos cannot have a name that begins with the whole name of another unit. I think I have the fix, but have yet to try it - basically I need to rename the basic legionary unit to LegionaryA, so that LegionaryB no longer contains the whole name of Legionary. I imagine when the startpos file is parsed, it stops as soon as it sees the first valid full name, then anything that comes after is assumed to be the number of men.
EDIT: yep, works fine with LegionaryA, the Populares now get their two experienced units of First Cohort legionaries.
Anyway, enough of that - here's a few screenies of the new legionaries in action:
Attachment 19296
Attachment 19297
Attachment 19298
Attachment 19299
More units are now working:
Auxilia classica - with suitably nautical shields:
Attachment 19304
Briton and Gallic auxiliaries:
Attachment 19305
Next will be revised Samnite and Batavian auxiliaries, once I have the spear animation sorted.
What can I say? I am in awe of your superior modding skills, Mac. By the way the shields look great. Thank you for all the hard work. Cannot wait to check out the Samnites with their spears and hopefully new shields.:bow:
P.S Thank you very much, YanBG for your great textures
Thank you, Leith :bow:
No need to wait for the Samnites, they're here:
Attachment 19306
They share the shield with the British auxiliaries, as they don't both appear in the same scenario.
And for the refreshed Batavians, here they are trashing some Celtic swordsmen:
Attachment 19307
Indeed, YanBG's 3D modelling skills are a real boon for the ancient battlefield :2thumbsup:
These all look awesome, I better go back and read it all now :)
Welcome Bob ,
Its good too see new members acknowledging the great work done by Yan and Macsen on these Romans .
Stay awhile and enjoy , much more coming in the future .
Cheers
OK, so it's been a couple of years since this thread was last dusted off and aired, but I thought it was time for a quick update after spending so long in Westeros.
So allow me to present our new animation, courtesy of @dimitrios the samian : here are two units of the new Arab swordsmen slugging it out for Palmyra and Nabatea.
Attachment 22174
I still have some work to do on weapon and shield coordinates, and then I can move on to the archers, spearmen and skirmishers :2thumbsup:
thanks guys ......
more to follow .....
Eventually this bif will be ported over into a 640 & i will add in a Slinger & Armoured Heavier type also
:2thumbsup:
Congrats, DTS, on such marvelous units! I wonder how many bifs you are planning to offer us. (the more, the better, of course)
OK, I'm totally confuzzled now...
The Arab swordsmen work fine, but the archers drawn from the same BIF, using the same actions and same weapon, cause a CTD when they are walking across the battle map. Absolutely no clue why.... almost anything possible can be ruled out. It would be one thing if it CTD'd at the very start of the battle, but they are fine for a few minutes, then suddenly it's gone. With no special event or action being seen. So far they've not managed to walk far enough before the CTD to engage the enemy, so the only action which hasn't been tried out is the shooting. So it can't be that.... or anything else.... but it's SOMETHING! AAAAGH :wall:
yes try Yans suggestion ....
I really hope you find teglitch macsen , seems like its a first
I've now thought of a couple more combinations of things I haven't tried, so I'll tackle them again tmrw. Currently I have it filed under 'just cos it's impossible, don't mean it can't happen' ~D
ETA:
:2thumbsup:
Attachment 22179
Not sure what exactly was wrong, but it was something in the unit prod that only happened when the archers were under the player's control, but NOT under AI control....
Anyway, I can move on to the next unit now...
... and the next unit is:
Attachment 22182
Arab spearmen (working fine ~D)
Wow !!!
they look so dam good :laugh4:
The Re-Modelled Slinger Animation !!
Attachment 22238
I have two totally New Hellenic to show soon .
Thracian done ! ...
I delayed him on purpose because i wanted to release my first 640 Bif .
So i added a Thracian Hoplite .
640 Bifs are the way forward , there is even room on the above for a Slinger ( 4xFiring & 4xStanding )
I have all the rectangles co-ords pixel perfect also .
PM me mac & i will arrange visa's for these blokes .
Attachment 22260
.... 512 Combo Bifs .....
The 1st of many ...
Here you go macsen , i combined the two Ptolemaic Pikeman into one 512 Bif ..... so we have a spare folder for the above Thracians .
I noticed our HTW Pikeman have the exact same animation for run & charge so by removing those along with 2 each of the dying triangles , we have enough room for their shields & spears .
I used the original Hellenic as the start point & erased the no longer required frames ( hence the spaces ) & added in the Nubians .
All rectangle co-ords done & pixel perfect .
I'll ship these Pikeman out with the Thracians real soon .
cheers
Attachment 22272