Trick: How to get different visual variation within an unit

**Sundjata Keita** · 10-15-2006, 15:36

I'm fairly sure its been confirmed that there are different meshes that are interchanged between units but I'm afraid this trick would not be possible because of the skeleton limitations. The head mesh would only apply to one bone and not to the whole skeleton and so it would be impossible to skin the mesh so it would animate properly.

**shifty157** · 10-15-2006, 17:47

Yes its been confirmed in one of the blogs that the game actually swaps out different meshes which is very good news for moddability.

**Duke John** · 10-15-2006, 19:20

From a screenshot I concluded that the head part was skinned to both the head and torso bone.

Anyway, I just thought I would post this before I leave TW entirely. Do with this whatever you want.

**wlesmana** · 10-16-2006, 05:05

It's possible the neck is part of the torso and that is the object that has the skin modifier. The head itself might be just connected to one bone and no Skin modifier is allowed. I see this as the most logical extension to their game engine as it's practically the same system as the primary/secondary weapon swap.

Perhaps this is also why the torso is only one mesh (even with multiple textures): because it has a skin modifier?

**Myrddraal** · 10-16-2006, 22:49

From a screenshot I concluded that the head part was skinned to both the head and torso bone.

I think so too. They may just have a skin modifier on each mesh, which means you can use any bone you like...

**Myrddraal** · 10-16-2006, 23:19

Oh and btw:

Originally Posted by SEGA

• Improved individual units with different faces, clothing, armor and shields, swinging different weapons and riding various horses.

(bold added by me)

**shifty157** · 10-17-2006, 00:09

Yeah its already been mentioned by CA that shield and weapon meshes will be in seperate files and will then be attached to units via a text file. I believe they said that each unit can reference up to 10 different weapons and shields.

**Sundjata Keita** · 10-21-2006, 21:08

Originally Posted by Myrddraal

I think so too. They may just have a skin modifier on each mesh, which means you can use any bone you like...

Just going back to this point. Don't forget that the head bone itself is a child of the torso bone and eventually needs to be connected to the scene root or it would just act independantly. For this reason I would expect the full skeletal structure would apply to the head but this doesn't mean that the whole skeleton will be included in the file for the head.