WIP and help please: Elf Archer, for a wc2 mod

[Kalibanos]

Hello friends

Allow me to introduce myself, I am blablabla... yea, I know you are not really interested in that, but you might be interested in helping me <=P, I am working on a mod for Rome Total War (game which I got a few days ago, great game =D), the mod will be based on Warcraft before the Scourge and the Night elves, so it will be around Warcraft II, I am not a total newbie to modelling since I have modelled some starships and lightsabers for a Star Wars game, but I never really tried humanoid modelling, until now, I made a humanoid model from scratch with a geometry and polycount similar to the models found in RTW ( a generic human model which is to be modified into the different classes of infantry the mod will have.), but I am kinda lost with the skin modifier, I do know the basic handling of the modifier, but apparently I am doing something wrong, for the right arm deforms in a odd way, as if it was twisted all the time, and the torso texture also seems wrong I was wondering if I could get some help from the skilled modellers found in this community The model shown in the pics is a early beta of the Elf Archer, it uses default RTW textures, but in the end it will probably use textures made from scratch by me. The in-game pic is the one depicting the error, while the render is how the model is supposed to look like.

Odd right arm deformation.


Render.


I already tried checking if I made a mistake while assigning the vertices, but they all seem in place and asigned to the correct bones, I checked not only manually but throught the Weight Table as well, making sure that the vertices are only influenced by only the bone that corresponds to them.
Before I started the model, I did thought that because it is such a low poly model, I might have problems with the weighting, so I made the model as close to the original models found in RTW as possible, take a look at the wireframe renders.
I tried importing the .cas file generated when I export the elf archer, and while there is no error when importing, the uvw seems to be the only problem with the texture on the torso.
I tried assigning more vertices to the right elbow bone (the one that deforms oddly) and while it looks slightly better, the arm still looks as if it was twisted, when in melee combat, it looks ok, check the in-game pic.

While in melee the arm does not deform so badly.


Wireframe render if it helps.


Thanks in advance.

[shifty157]

Ok. For your arm deformation. Check to make sure that the mesh is positioned correctly over the bones. The joints must be exactly centered around each bone otherwise you will get odd deformations when the animations are applied.

For the texture problem. My guess would be that you should detach the torso from the rest of the body. Polygons that are attached on the model must stay attached on the texture. Therefore if you detach the polygons on the model you are then free to use a different portion of the texture. If you open up a stock vanilla unit you will find that the arms, legs, and head are all detached from the body so that they can use different areas on the texture.

[Kalibanos]

Oh my god, I wub u D=> that worked, you are definitly going to appear on the credits once I finish the mod =D.

[Ciaran]

Nice idea. I´ve toyed about with something similar as well, but as I´m completely new to modelling the only thing I´ve done so far is a bit of work on the world map. I can post it if you´re interested, though it extends the Warcraft II area and is, for a good part, my own imagination.

Do you have any other units done/in progress already?

[Kalibanos]

I finished the footman a few days ago, and the human mage is almost finished. Since the knight will use the same mesh as the footman, then I guess you could say that the knight is finished as well. The only problem so far is that I am not exactly good at texturing metal armor, I can texture clothes and skin, but not metal. A university classmate offered me to work on the textures tho. I have not been working on the mod because of another project for a different game, but hopefully I will finish it in 2-3 days.
Post a pic of the map you are working on =], also, if you have the original Warcraft II campaign map, then it will be of great help.

[Ciaran]

No Orcs so far? Are you planning to stick precisely to the units of Warcraft II? That´ll be very few...


Anyways, the official map is easy to find, for example here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:W...warcraftII.jpg

I´ve got actually two versions, both below:




As you can see, it´s the height maps. The first is in further progress than the second, I´ve basically made it by cutting from the Europe map, turning and twisting parts.

On scale, both use the same 255x155 pixels the RTW vanilla map uses, so on the first map the actual area of Warcraft II as on the official map is approximately 114x114 pixels (to compare, that´s an area from the French-Spanish border to the Baltic Sea coast). The second is larger (smaller?) in scale, here the actual WCII area is about 150x150 pixels (equals about the French Mediterrean coast to the northern map border vertically and from the Gulf of Biscaya to the Carpathe Mountains in Hungary). Just so you get an idea.

Personally, I think I´m going to work on the first (larger) map, because my basic idea is more of a "cliché fantasy" idea, and making use of more than just the two sides of Warcraft and the situation is about the beginning of Warcraft I, that is the first contact between the Humans and the Orcs. It´s supposed to have the Kingdom of Lordaeron (Senate) with the three "Houses" Azeroth (Scipii), Stromgarde (Julii) and Tirisfal (Bruti, to the north). Obviously, this will replace the original Roman factions, so they can get Court offices (senate posts), missions and, most important, the Marius reform. The Orcs will take the place of the Barbarians (obvious again, the barbarian culture has stuff like Warcry ability hardcoded, as well as, I think, a city building limit). Other factions are the Elves, the Legion of Doom (for the undeads) and a couple of other Human Kingdoms.

I say "will" but whether I actually will do something depends on a lot of variables, not the last of which is my laziness. Even progress on the map (and that would be my first priority, considering it´s the one thing I know I can do) is terribly slow.

[Kalibanos]

I will not stick strictly to Warcraft II units, for it will be kind of boring if you only had for humans around 5 different kinds of troops: peasants, footman, elf archer, knights and mages, and a similar number for orcs. What I am planning to do is to add some garrison units that will be weaker than the usual footman, but will be big in numbers, also "elite" versions of the generic troops, for example much better trained footman with improved damage and a nicer armor texture, or elf warriors similar to the blood elves found in Warcraft III, you get the idea.
I was also thinking of doing several "factions" as you mention above, for both orcs and humans, each with a unique troop, for example Lordaeron's Silver Moon knights. I am not planning on spliting the humans and elves into different factions, they will both be part of the "Alliance" along with maybe the dwarves.
I know I will need help with this mod eventually, mainly because I am really new to this game and have extremely limited knowledge of its engine. Do you know if something like the gryphons and dragons can be made on this game? It will be great if it can be done.

[Ciaran]

Do you know if something like the gryphons and dragons can be made on this game? It will be great if it can be done.

No, definitely not. At least they can´t be made flying and they can´t have animated wings. Perhaps they could be built on an elephant skeleton, but it will look strange. Dwarfs could be difficult, too, due to the fact that we can not change the underlying bone structure of the models. We can scale skeletons, perhaps you might want to take a look in the Scriptorium, there´s a lot useful information of what can be done.