First Modelling Effort

[Bwian]

Well...after much lurking, some reading of tutorials, and generally mucking around with files, I actually found some time to sit down and have a proper go at modelling a new unit for RTW.

I was pleasantly surprised how trouble free it was!

Four hours after I kicked off, here's what I ended up with :D



Yes .... they do look a little underfed ;) but that is entirely intentional!

edit: Aw...bugger. The pic won't show up. Copy the link and paste in into your browser and it will show up. Blame AOL

[Dark11]

wow for your first time that is really nice!...what did you use to model it?

[hoggy]

Excellent stuff! A pretty complicated model too, did you use alpha for the chest? Very nice.

[Bwian]

I do my proper modelling in Lightwave, but then convert over the mesh using 3DExploration.

Lightwaves a more 'natural' modelling tool for me, and it's UVmapping is so much simpler than Max! Oddly, though, when I export from Lightwave as a 3DS file, Max6 doesn't read it in cleanly. It doesn't see it as a mesh object...and when you fix that, you wave bye-bye to your mapping

Anyway...once I have that done, I import the 3DS into Max6 to create the finished article. I followed Hoggy's tutorial, and it all worked nicely!

Well...made one or 2 slips.... like accidentally renaming the whole mesh as 'primary weapon' which caused some interesting effects!!!! Then I forgot to assign the upper arm vertices ... but all went pretty much according to expectations :D

Of course....this leaves me with a big dilemma.....

Where do I go with this? Would be cool to do an Undead Army ;)

Eventually, I would like to start work on a full scale Mod based on the 'Conan' world, but I have MUCH to learn before I even think about starting that! First off, I can't find where the 'sprite' images are. When you zoom back, they pop into view. That needs sorting. Also, I want to do a proper set of low detail models too.

Anyway..it's a start!!!!

[Myrddraal]

Bwain, if your looking for a mod to practice your skills on, I don't know if you like the 'Wheel of Time books' hint hint

[Bwian]

thought the skeletons looked a little under-equipped.... so I made a 'warrior' version... here they are in action against a bunch of hapless Carthaginian peasant militia....



Archers are nearly done....and then comes the skeleton cavalry. I also need to make some unit commanders. Haven't decided exactly what do do with those...it's either got to be a sorceror type, or a skeleton lord. I'm leaning towards the wizard.

Myrddraal ... er... afraid I don't know those stories at all! Who's the author ?

[caesar44]

wow !!!

[caesar44]

wow !!!

let the dead conqueror

[Bwian]

Archers.....loose :D

[Myrddraal]

Book one of the Wheel of Time

I absolutely loved these books, its a huge series, one you never get bored of, I eagerly await the next one.

If you haven't read the books yet, then you might not be interested in helping me out, but what do you think?

Id certainly appreciate it, your models are amazing, even more so for being a first try.

[Duke Malcolm]

Magnificent, simpy magnificent...

[Silver Rusher]

Or, you may like an actual historical mod rather than petty fiction, in which case you will come to theCitadel: Total War mod. You can make a difference! And by the way, I'm drooling over those skeletons. I think this may just make it into the catagory of "Best Models for RTW ever". I don't think anybody has ever made anything so versatile.

[Myrddraal]

Petty? PETTY! I can't believe my ears! I wonder what Bwain thinks of that oppinion, seeing as he was thinking of doing 'Conan' mod.

Bah! Petty indeed!

Bwain, would you really want to work with someone who resorts to petty comments like that?

As you can guess, graphics artists are in short supply, and there is much demand.

Petty... I'm gonna be grumbling about that all week.

[Bwian]

Hmm...Petty Fiction ;) I LIKE fiction :D

Well, now that I have finally ( just about ) sobered up after new-year, I will check out my local library and see if they have any of the books. I think I ought to do that before I even think about making any 3d meshes !

In the meantime, I will start work on the skeleton horse .... and a skeleton spearman :D

[Frans Ubberdork]

I was wondering...any chance of posting the skellitons for download?

thanks,
Thomas

[Bwian]

I have made a couple more variations on the theme, and once these are finished, I will release them as a pack.

I have added a spearman, and also have made a skeleton horse. Just working on the riders now. I also am making a couple of more heavily armoured skeleton units.

Initially, I had made these units to replace other units, but I am now moving them all over to stand-alone status.

I am not sure, however, how to set up the stats and text file portions for a download. If I release the modded ones I have, that would over-write any other changes. Should I just release teh chanegd portions for people to paste into their own text files ?

[j4k3]

hey Bwian,

would you happen to know how i can swap shields? right now, all i know is to modify a weapon in 3ds but shield swapping or armor editing is new to me. a mini-tutorial with screenshots would be VERY nice.

thanks.

[Bwian]

When you say shield swapping, first let me explain how the shields are actually done :)

Each shield is basically a flat ( or slightly shaped ) object. Just a square in fact.

The 'shape' that you see is done through the use of an alpha texture. This is a clever method of making certain selected areas of a texture completely see-through.

So, to make a circular shield, you can either use hundreds of polygons to try and make it nearly round, or use hardly any polygons at all and draw a perfectly round shield. The alpha method is the one CA have used for RTW.

So... to make a shield, or to swap a shield, you are going to have to make changes to the texture. You would only need to change the physical mesh of the model if the polygons you had really didn't fit the effect you wanted.

If you need to put a shield on a model that doesn't have one, that can be done as well. Let me know what you want to swap from where to where...and I will see what I can do.

I plan to put together a set of tutorials just as soon as I manage to get done with working out how to make and modify the skeletal animation sets :)

[eadingas]

You can maybe contact guys from one of the LotR-based mods, and offer them your army for the Dead of Dunharrow unit.. or maybe there's a D&D based mod somewhere (if there isn't one, there should be!)

[Frans Ubberdork]

I would release the units with cut and paste .txt file that way anyone can use it without having to overwrite anything else. Just my thoughts. I hope you release them before you join a different mod team because I would like to play with them 8). I love big mods but...sometimes it is nice to have some quality units to play with without having to wait for a complete mod 6 months from now when "heaven forbid" I am burned out on RTW.

Thanks,
Thomas

[Bwian]

My plan is to work on little 'sets' of fantasy units, which I hope, one day, will grow into a fully fledged 'Mythology' mod. Unfortunately, since I can't seem to build units that are not human sized, this is severely limiting what fantasy creatures I can build!

I also intend to release each set as they are done....

[King Azzole]

Such talent... hope you use it for a nice mod.