Rehab Modelling!

[Darren_Shan]

amazing m8!

[Azorex]

Bwian, Great work!!! I came from the searching engine, and... oh, amazed, and much more!!! I have a question: is it will be a free models for use in perspective? I have a friends who makes a War-Immitation project (NONE_COMMERCICAL - people for people as is) on the one russian-language forum. Economics, policy, role playing and battle simulation. The last one is on the modifed R:TW-BI engine. Some kind of late roman imperia and fantasy races mix. Now solves a question about Undead units fraction and it model basis. If you have any interes on this - please, write here, or to the PM. Hope, my pore english will be enough for discussion :D

[Bwian]

Azorex ... drop me a PM and let me know exactly what it is you are planning and how my skeleton units would fit in.

[Bwian]

With the underfed boys all but done, I have turned my attention to some opposition for them!

For those of you familiar with Warhammer 40K ....here is a budding Chaos faction. Cue the Heretics!



more to follow....

[Azorex]

Bwian, it is done. Waiting for response.

[Bwian]

The 'green' party manifesto seemed to include mostly shouting and killing...



And the slogan 'Careless Orc Costs Lives' won them no votes at all.



Of course, it all came to blows....

[Bwian]

ORCS, ORCS, ORCS, ORCS ..... repeat until battle is over.

[Geoffrey S]

Excellent! Is this turning into a proper mod, or just practising to get into it again?

[Patricius]

This looks wonderful. I hope some sort of download will be available.

[Zapp]

Those look good Bwian.

I'm in the Warhammer - Total War mod, and our orcs need all new animations to work well, and we haven't got an animator that wants to do it. If you're interested, could you send one of your orcs so we can modify ours to work as yours?

Also, we haven't got any skellies, except for one model, and if you want, we would gladly use yours with all creds to you of course!
If you want to look at our work, here's some examples:

Empire troops
Orc BigUn
Chaos Khorne warriors

[Bwian]

The Orcs are achieved by a simple trick ....

The Orc needs to have shorter legs in proportion to it's arms, as we all know. You can't shorten the legs without a whole new set of skeletons which cannot be done. There are 'tricks' that involve HUGE numbers of animations and work ... or there is the way I have done it!

The legs are normal, and all animation sets are normal. All I have done is to extend the arms. This means that you cannot use the 'hands' at all. All the lower arm vertices are attached to the forearm bones. The weapons are also attached to the forearms not the hands. It works.

The only down side is when they stand at rest. The arms are held straight down, and looks a bit poor. You also can't go too far, since the arms will still bend in the elbow position and you are increasing the forearm only.

On something more sophisticatd than an orc, this would not look at all right...but I find it completely acceptable!

[Zapp]

Cool, thanks for those tips Bwian! We'll try that for sure!

And your undead then? Maybe I was expressing in a wierd way, but with

Also, we haven't got any skellies, except for one model, and if you want, we would gladly use yours with all creds to you of course!

I meant if you would like to help us a bit by giving us your undeads with full credit given back :)

[Alexanderofmacedon]

If you decided to make a proper mod out of this, it would be absolutely amazing my friend. Great screens. Keep up the good work.

[Pantsalot]

This should be with the warhammer:total war mod
as they're in the middle of making skeletons & orcs

[Lentonius]

those look amazing

Hey Bwain, ive been using max for over a year and i am now completely comfortable with aspects of moddling RTW models, but im not sure how to improve my moddeling skills so that i can create elements on my own instead of importing them from another model. Was there any tutorial sites you went to in particular to build up your skills?

Many thanks
Lentonius

[Bwian]

Pantsalot...er...why should this be in the warhammer mod? I'm not a part of their mod team, and I am doing this purely for my own personal pleasure.

Zap is asking...but I don't know what I will do on that score. I will discuss that via PM.

Lentonius...as far as modelling tutorials go, I am not sure what to suggest. I have been modelling on a variaty of packages for quite a few years. 'people' modelling is not really my strong suit, and is something I have been working on. I really cut my teeth on spacecraft, cars, planes and tanks for other sims. Also, I am not a Max user y inclination, so my techniques don't really 'fit' the Max way of working. I learnt to model on Lightwave, and STILL rate that a far better tool. But...Max is the 'standard' so I have to use it. The best advice I can offer is practice...practice...practice! Look at as many other models as you can find, preferably in wire-mesh view, and see how polgons can be used effeciantly, and where the texture is the better choice for an effect. Steer WELL clear of any tutorial that starts meshsmoothing a lot....and anything that is intended purely for render. Stick with low-polgon mesh modelling tutorials.

The best thing I ever did was to invest in a really good Max book. The manual is a daunting and dusty creation, and didn't focus on what I wanted to do. For a game like this you are only scratching the urface of Max's toolset, so look for something that focuses JUST on what you need to learn.Then...get practicing! You will produce a lot of rubbish....but you will get better as you get the 'eye' for polygons!

[Lentonius]

Thanks, i will buy a nice book from amazon now...

One thing, how do you view something in wire mesh view?

[Bwian]

What I did to get a feel for RTW models was to import lots of the stock RTW models into Max. Then you switch the viewport to 'wireframe' and you can see how hte mesh was built up. You can see the symmetry, and also how many polygons are used. Also of interest, is the way the mesh is divided up at the joints. This is important if you want the models to bend nicely and not distort.

I was more used to mechanical joints which required seperate pieces rather than single continuous meshes....so it took a while to get this right. When making human units for RTW, I still tend to use arms and legs from stock models as a starting point and reference!

[Pantsalot]

Pantsalot...er...why should this be in the warhammer mod?

well because u got orcs that can easily be edited into normal warhammer orcs
& those skeletons as well that r a part of warhammer

[Ciaran]

Holy blazes, I wish I could do something even a fragment as great in best health as you do for rehab, Bwian. By the way, what are you going to do with all that stuff? Make a mod of your own, or put it into the Repository, like your first skelletons (which I dearly love, by the way). I´m hoping for the latter, of course , not the least because of the bigger chance to be ever able to use them...

[Bwian]

The plan is, right now, to carry on messing about with stuff. The Skeletons are now almost complete. I just need to do the Strat Map models and hte unit cards for spies, agents etc. The banners need re-doing and the unit descriptions are still the gaulish ones. Then they are done. They make an almost complete replacement for Gauls, with very few actual value changes. This means you can still run a campaign with them! The only unbalanced unit is the mammoth skeleton, and this is not buildable in campaign.

It should be possible to release them as a complete faction for fun. Then do another faction...and so on.

I use JSGME to swap stuff in, which makes it easy to package and distribute.

The eventual end product will be a series of fantasy races that can be umped into a stock campaign for a bit of fun!

Pantsalot...these are NOT intended as part of someone else's mod. They are my work. I am more than happy to chat with the Warhammer team if they want to use some of my work....but it is NOT designed with them in mind. I am building what I want to build for my own enjoyment. If someone else feels they can benefit, great. All they need to do is PM me and we can talk about it. I am not joining their mod... nor am I working for it. Just because they can make use my stuff doesn't mean it goes in their mod. It's mine.... There has been much talk about IP recently, and this is EXACTLY the sort of situation that was talked about. The community does not dictate ownership or use of someones work. Thats the reward I get for putting in the modelling hours!

[Azorex]

The community does not dictate ownership or use of someones work.

Bwian It's great to hear that you think so... I'd like it, very. But many peple have disagreed with you - they need something more for they ambitions... Money. Avard. Respect in some kind. But Truly respection - when people makes someth. for people as is - simply because they can do that and they like to do this work. IMHO.

And that's why I've asked your "sanction".

[Pantsalot]

Pantsalot...these are NOT intended as part of someone else's mod. They are my work. I am more than happy to chat with the Warhammer team if they want to use some of my work....but it is NOT designed with them in mind. I am building what I want to build for my own enjoyment. If someone else feels they can benefit, great. All they need to do is PM me and we can talk about it. I am not joining their mod... nor am I working for it. Just because they can make use my stuff doesn't mean it goes in their mod. It's mine.... There has been much talk about IP recently, and this is EXACTLY the sort of situation that was talked about. The community does not dictate ownership or use of someones work. Thats the reward I get for putting in the modelling hours!

lol it was just a suggestion, u don't have to get on fire because of it

[Epistolary Richard]

lol it was just a suggestion, u don't have to get on fire because of it

Well, to be fair, it would have been better to make it clearer that it was a suggestion. Something along the lines of "Hey Bwian, it looks great. I happen to know that the Warhammer mod are doing orc and undead factions at the moment. If one of the team asked, would you be willing to let them use them in the mod?" might have made your intentions clearer.

[Bwian]

Pantsalot .... Like ER says .... your message wasn't exactly clear.

'This should be with the warhammer:total war mod as they're in the middle of making skeletons & orcs'

That comes across really pushy and implies I have done something wrong. I have been following some of the stuff on your Warhammer forum after Zapp asked to use my stuff, so I know what is going on there. All I can say is that a bit more detail to your post would have got your message across a lot better. You made a blunt statement and got a blunt reply. I spend all my working day dealing with misunderstandings, and when I want to make a point....I like to make it very clear! And if you thought I was riled...nope. I get nasty when I am really on fire!

Incidentally...it made no difference as far as my decision on the use of my models in the Warhammer mod. I have offered Zapp their use, but as they are. Not modified. I know that gives Zapp some issues, but that's the way of it.

Azorex....the same pretty much applies to your project. I am happy to let you use them in an 'as is' state. Let me know what units types you need, and I can let you know what I have to fit that list.

[Pantsalot]

I don't have much time so I do my messages really quick, so I can't
make my messages that much clear. It's hard to do when I go on 4
differnet websites & only got 5-10mins, but later this year then I will
be able to get a 2nd computer with the internet.
But sry if my message wasn't very clear but I had something important
to do because I had a business e-mail on something that I needed to buy

[Bwian]

No problem

[Bwian]

Hooray! The strat map models are done! Spy, diplomat, assassin plus general model for the units on the strat map. Haven't done unit cards for them yet....but I will next!

[nikolai1962]

Fantastic work

[Bwian]

OK...well, the skeletons are available for upload now.... but it runs to about 12Mb compressed. This includes some tweaked animations, which inflates the filesize some. There is a full set of meshes, skins, unit cards, descriptions and strat map models....Any ideas where I can upload this to?