Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion

[dimitrios the samian]

[I]"Talking of elephants, too, I would like about three elephant folders.... but it ain't gonna happen, sadly...... "

Don't be sad mac ! ... It is very do able ... but more thought & experimenting & measuring bifs is required ......
but quickly to excite our palettes , if we separate the elephants from the riders (cloth will go with riders so we have faction colours ) we make enough Elephant Units we can save on folders , ..

eg:1 Bif for Elephant & (hoping)a Bif with 2 crews .... We extract 3 different Elephant Units from 2 Folders .

Now , Let us say we use 2 Folders for Crew giving us 4 Different Crews & the Beast in the other ......
We get 4 different Elephant Units from 3 Folders ......4 from 3 .

Add one more to the mix , so 3 Crew Folders & 1 Elephant Gives us 6 Different Units ! .. 6 from 4

Should be enough ...... perhaps that Armoured front line Beast can become a reality as could an Indian all Archer Unit to rain extra long distance death to its enemies ( for 2017 )

If we can make two types of Elephants we double our variety ....
More thought needed here , but its do-able & if need be to fit it in the bif , we just scale slightly downwards in the bif , then up them in the product file so they are larger on the battlefield .

On another front, it struck me that the African hoplites could be done quickly, and the reason is that the graphics are INDEXED......

Awesome , I just knew that Photoshop had the power to do but I never stumbled on it ! ... nice one !!

In fact I was so struck by the idea, I tried it out, and it took about an hour or so to get a rough and ready version done. As it was a 'suck it and see' exercise I didn't take as much care as I should have, but it pretty much works, and my 'Aethipioi epilektoi' are now in service to the Ptolemies. They are a bit paler than I wanted, and somewhat blotchy, but that's because I didn't do it precisely enough.......

The upshot of the method is that you only need to change each colour once, and not for every pixel on every body in every frame ........

Amen to that !! ...... once instead of ..

Practice & patience will be required to get thrifty on this one .
& I understand the instructions you have written , so with skin we may need to change four or five key colors then step back & look for the rogues & finish off .
No problems with shields & weapons , I make them come & go using the cut & move manoeuvre .

And the whole slinger question is not a distraction, no apologies required, DtS ......
Thnx

I think Yan's slinging 'action' looks far nicer than the original HTW version. If it could be applied to the existing bodies we have, that would be awesome.........

mmmmm , I wonder , it would be so nice , existing bodies & uniforms & scale , but don't think it can be done unfortunately .

As I've never looked at the 3D modelling side of things, I have no real grasp on what the tools can achieve. For instance, can Blender (or whatever) 'backload' the BIF plates to reconstitute a 3D model, or is that asking too much of the magical software fairy???......

I'm only new also as you know & once again it ain't possible (was the first thing I asked Yan) ........
but !! ...I been busy , cutting & pasting , adjusting & splicing & I have a much better Slinger .
Its made from what we have , so it retains the charm & style of the original Hellenics .
I played around today & got one frame done 12x , perfect & 2 hrs .
Its very promising ! ..... & I also have a Rodian staff Slinger that can come true if needed in the Hellenic Deluxe I would like someday .
[/I]