Ancient TW: GRAPHICS discussion

[macsen rufus]

My saturday shift has been cancelled, so I have an extra day of weekend to play with

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 .

[macsen rufus]

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

Do you mean a spritesheet?

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

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.

[dimitrios the samian]

Hello Guys ......

Amazing Yan !!
The Software & technique that you use is a godsend ,
I'm actually doing quivers at present & its pixel by pixel

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 !! ......

Yan , Im pleased you say quivers are "negligible" .
Having already seen your first piece of work back months ago & 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 .........
( I can help if you get stuck ) but you should be fine

.... 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 .

[dimitrios the samian]

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 ......




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 ?

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[macsen rufus]

Evening all,

Just back from thr pub so please forgive any spelling errors

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.

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[macsen rufus]

I haven't thought that bifs larger than 512x512 lose quality. CA's HlPlArHm has 10 actions, but there are no shields and i think 11 is the lowest we can go.

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.

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.

Which attack the sagis will use, slash or pierce? The updated throw probably won't fit for melee(i guess that's why CA didn't add separate animation).

Ah, knew I'd overlooked something 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

Btw we should test the palette convertion and if the player colors show properly in game, i had some issues last time.

I have a suitable palette, so will give it a shot soon...

EDIT: seems ok - no visible problems:

WyZSTyr.bmp

[macsen rufus]

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

I think I'm on top of the naming conventions, but I'll know for sure once I start building up layers in Photoshop...