Finally completed the animation file for Crossbowman. :D As usual, you need to use either the hacked Civ3Edit or Gramphos' Civ3CopyTool to create a new unit call Crossbowman. If you uses the hacked Civ3Edit then do remember to create a folder under Civilization III\Art\units named Crossbowman (Civ3CopyTool will automatically create the folder for you).

Just unzip the file and copy everything except the two pcx files to this new directory. The two pcx files are Civilopedia icons and they should go to Civilization III\Art\Civilopedia\Icons\units.

No file is being replaced here so you should be safe to install this new unit even if this is your first time ;)

The files in the zip are as follow:

CrossbowmanDefault.flc
CrossbowmanRun.flc
CrossbowmanAttackA.flc
CrossbowmanFidget.flc
CrossbowmanDeath.flc
CrossbowmanFortify.flc
CrossbowmanVictory.flc
Crossbowman.INI
Crossbowmanlarge.pcx
Crossbowmansmall.pcx

Kindly give some feedback on this animation, be it good or bad :D

And Merry Christmas to all Civers around the world !!:santa:

I am gonna download it anyway but is it animated in 360 degrees?

Originally posted by Gromit
I am gonna download it anyway but is it animated in 360 degrees?

Of course it is!! I did say animation right? :D

Cool, it's just that someone posted something a while ago either here or on apolyton and gave big slogans and stuff... the readme said that you had to go south to see animation.:king:

ehmm.... in my game it just shows up as a pikeman with either a big black or white box around himself... i copied the anims correctly.. will check it out with animshop tomorrow

sorry, i mislooked... it looks like a pikeman with a big box on the production box, and the active unit box

Here is a sample of the attack animation in GIF format. Good job dark sheer. :)

Hehe, it looks sort of like the infantryman shooting a crossbow in armor! I love it!

Hey, thanks alot, TF!!

I still need to get the transparency thing right to remove the box in the production que though ;)

Okay, I installed this properly, but when I started a new game this unit didn't show up in the Civlopedia. What did I do wrong? Thanks for the help.:confused: :confused: :confused:

Originally posted by Aias
Okay, I installed this properly, but when I started a new game this unit didn't show up in the Civlopedia. What did I do wrong? Thanks for the help.:confused: :confused: :confused:

Well, you still need to add an entry for Crossbowman inside the Civilopedia before it will appear in it :)

To see how to add an entry in Civilopedia, read the thread on modding in the Tutorial section of the forum. Without an entry in the Civilopedia does not affect the unit in the game though ;)

GREAT job Dark Sheer :goodjob: It looks great and not to mention is nice to see a new animation and unit in the game!

Originally posted by KALIROB2k2
GREAT job Dark Sheer :goodjob: It looks great and not to mention is nice to see a new animation and unit in the game!

I am glad you guys like the animation :D

In fact, I have lots of idea on new unit animation and for 2002 you can expect a number of new animations from me to fill the gap for FIRAXIS ;)

Next in my plan/projects are :

Horse drawn canon (+1 movement)
Truck drawn artillery (+2 movement)
Zeppelin (someone's wishlist)
Bi-plane (someone's wishlist)
Middle Age Swordsman/Foot Soldier (someone's wishlist)
Pioneer (I was thinking of a horse drawn wagon :D)

Thats just to name a few. Now I have no idea what these units' stats will be. Someone will have to come up with the stats. And if anyone have a wish list and can supply me with the necessary picture and stats (like what dannyevilcat has done for the Perry Class Frigate), and of course how these unit attack (for the attack animation, if I can get a picture of an attack), I will try my best to fullfill the wish ;)

One thing I have realised after three animation, a ship/vehicle is much much easier to do as compared to a human !! :lol: While I have to draw the Perry almost from scratch (I used the Destroyer as a base for color and also for size comparison), the movement is much more easier to manage as compared to the crossbowman. Considering the arms and legs movement for the crossbowman, heh. ;)

Another preview...

Dark Sheer,

I've searched far and wide and can't figure out if there's an easy way to get an appropriate icon to show up in the cuild queue. Does one add the small pcx to the existing file, then assign some setting where we tell the game where to look for a crossbowman build queue icon in that file? I can find no straight forward answer to this question.

THANKS FOR ALL THE GREAT WORK!

Originally posted by JeffNebraska
Dark Sheer,

I've searched far and wide and can't figure out if there's an easy way to get an appropriate icon to show up in the cuild queue. Does one add the small pcx to the existing file, then assign some setting where we tell the game where to look for a crossbowman build queue icon in that file? I can find no straight forward answer to this question.

THANKS FOR ALL THE GREAT WORK!

To make the unit shows up in the build que it uses the icon you select in the editor. To add a crossbowman icon you need to edit your Units_32.pcx file. To get a copy of the units_32.pcx that has a crossbowman icon, look for it under the Perry Class Frigate thread.

:king:

Once again great job on these units Dark Sheer :goodjob: , I was wondering what units you plan on making in the future and which ones have you finished so far?
Also this is more of a wish myself heh I was wondering if you could post the links to all the units you have created so far on these boards? It would make it alot easier to keep track of yours, since so many people have started creating units. Thanks if you could so this, and I hope its not asking to much. :)

Originally posted by KALIROB2k2
Once again great job on these units Dark Sheer :goodjob: , I was wondering what units you plan on making in the future and which ones have you finished so far?
Also this is more of a wish myself heh I was wondering if you could post the links to all the units you have created so far on these boards? It would make it alot easier to keep track of yours, since so many people have started creating units. Thanks if you could so this, and I hope its not asking to much. :)

Actually the links are all in my Signature :D

And I am currently working on a western bandit unit that I am converting from the Calvary. I am almost done with it except for death flc which I am expecting to complete by today.

:king:

Heh It was there all along? Boy am I feeling like a air head :crazyeyes But your working on a Western Bandit? heh that kicks @ss! A western unit, not to mention a reason to build the Calvary unit. Any chances of building any future type units? (Something to shoot for besides just normal old tank, maybe Vietnam Grenade Tossers? heh)

Originally posted by KALIROB2k2
Heh It was there all along? Boy am I feeling like a air head :crazyeyes But your working on a Western Bandit? heh that kicks @ss! A western unit, not to mention a reason to build the Calvary unit. Any chances of building any future type units? (Something to shoot for besides just normal old tank, maybe Vietnam Grenade Tossers? heh)

I would love to do all those varieties. :D Of course, since each flc take me about a week or so I can't make every single flc available immediately. Besides, I would also prefer to give other people a chance to create some units flc. After all I have already given them a tutorial to help them with. ;)

Hey Dark Sheer,

You are a God. I finally had the day off yesterday and had time to add the Crossbowman and the Perry Frigate. Love 'em! I'm using the Perry as a lighter battleship with 7 movement, available with fission. I'm using the crossbowman as the desperately needed footsoldier between swordsman, longbowman and marines.

It seems when my Crossbowman is in the build box, the top of the box gets cutoff, as if the blank space above the unit icon is too tall. I assume you've noticed this, but is there a quick fix?

THANKS AGAIN!

Hey Dark Sheer,

You are a God. I finally had the day off yesterday and had time to add the Crossbowman and the Perry Frigate. Love 'em! I'm using the Perry as a lighter battleship with 7 movement, available with fission. I'm using the crossbowman as the desperately needed footsoldier between swordsman, longbowman and marines.

It seems when my Crossbowman is in the build box, the top of the box gets cutoff, as if the blank space above the unit icon is too tall. I assume you've noticed this, but is there a quick fix?

THANKS AGAIN!

Just bumping this up, cause I'm still wondering about the transparency problem.

Dark Sheer,

Sorry to be a pest, but I love the unit and want to know if there's any fix for the various transparency problems.

I've now played a whole game with crossbowmen and their transparency covers up enemy units as they fight. You can't even see the enemy's health bar. Also when a picture of these guys appears in the info box on the bottom of the screen, you can see through the box into the terrain below it (e.g., a crossbowman surrounded by ocean tiles.)

I'm sure if you're using these guys, you've probably fixed this and I'd just really appreciate any help.

Thanks Again!

Is there no one out there who can help with these issues? I'll be your best friend... until you get the only source of uranium, that is.

I'll see what I can do about the trasparancy issue... Dark Sheer, if you don't want me to do this, just tell me.

Transparancy fix!

Dark Sheer, if you have a problem with me posting this, please tell me and I'll take it down asap.

Test

Thanks a bunch!! I never really take the time off to recompile this one. Or mabye I am just plain lazy? ;)

You just save my day. :D

Thanks so much! I will be patching this with much glee this evening.

Yeah. Dark sheer you are the booooossss !!!!

Thanks for your work. Me I am too bad in draw for doing correction of units animations. Continue.... :)

Dark Sheer, its the worst animation I have ever seen! You are not talented at all! This image sucks! (you know, you HAVE to have a little hostile critique on your thread sometimes :king: )

Just kidding :) I love your work, you are seriously, a good and talented artist.

On another thread of yours, I saw the "crossbowman building queue icon" that you made, but to be honest, I didn't like them that much. (This is not a joke now, hehe :)) Since all other icons are showing the units in their "default standing position", I decided to make one of myself for the crossbowman unit.

http://www.roguesix.com/special-pics/crossbowman-icon.gif

I hope this helps. It is transparency tested.

We are waiting for the medieval swordsman and other upcoming work :)

Just wanted to write back and say that the transparency fix works perfectly!

Thanks to all for taking care of those of us with enough knowledge to mod, but not enough to work on our own files. For a gamer like me, this is a perfect situation.

Here is a possible Civilopedia entry for the Crossbowman if anyone wants it.



#PRTO_Crossbowman
^
^
^[Crossbowmen] are excellent all round units in the ancient era.
^
^A city must have $LINK<iron=GOOD_Iron> in its $LINK<Strategic Resource=GCON_ResourcesS> box to build [Crossbowmen].
#DESC_PRTO_Crossbowman
^
^The first field tactics that proved capable of countering the knight were built around the bow and the crossbow. Both might be used in difficult terrain or from behind some artificial obstacle such as pits, stakes (as at Agincourt in 1415), or a trench dug in the earth. The $LINK<longbow=PRTO_Longbowman> was a cheap, low-class weapon originally associated with primitive social organizations such as the Welsh tribes.
^
^The crossbow, a much more expensive and sophisticated weapon than the $LINK<longbow=PRTO_Longbowman>, was typically employed by urban militias and mercenaries. The two weapons' technical characteristics were somewhat different, especially as regards the crossbow's shorter range, lower rate of fire, and greater penetrating power; as a result, they were seldom seen side by side in the same battle. However, both were capable of defeating armour, even the heavy plate worn toward the close of the Middle Ages, and were therefore useful against $LINK<Knights=PRTO_Knight> when properly employed. Proper employment meant selecting suitable positions and forming long, thin formations, sometimes in the form of a shallow "W" in order to trap attackers and enfilade them. Because formations such as these were difficult to move from place to place, the Crossbow was better suited for the defense than for the offense.
^
^Throughout the 15th century firearms and crossbows continued to be used side by side.

here is a new pediaicon for the corssbowman. the old one's crossbow was a tad too small.

here is a viewable image

I took the original FLCs and redid the palette to match Firaxis standards. This fixes the transparency problem and you don't end up with bits of purple in the animation.

I also took the Civilopedia PCX that Kal-el did and enlarged it a little and changed the color from red to blue to match the majority of originals.

Dark Sheer,

Excellent work on the crossbowman. I have been enjoying it for some time now. I was wondering, however, if you (or someone else) could add a shadow to it. It seems kind of odd being the only medieval unit without a shadow. If we could only merge the crossbowman with that shadow warrior guy...

Hey, wait a second... I heard somewhere that Vampires don't have shadows... Hmmmmmm...

Ah, shadow....I will try to add some shadow to it as soon as I get home. ;)

The original unit I have based on was the Pikeman and strange enough it is the only Firaxis unit that did not have a shadow. :D And since this was my second unit, I didn't bother to try and add my own shadow...hehe

Dark Sheer,

I never noticed that the Pikeman didn't have a shadow. I guess I really don't move them out of cities that often. But the crossbowman... he sees the world...

But there's no rush. I'm going to use it anyway. A shadow would just make the unit perfect, that's all.

Nice work on the crossbowman. I incorporated it into a mod I'm working on where I needed it to replace the longbowman, which I'm using as the UU for the English. {BTW: I'm hereby officially requesting your permission to use this when I finish the mod and put it up here for others to check out. I'll put a credit for ya in the readme, naturally} A couple of questions though...

1)I got the unit added, using the updated units_32.pcx file you provided in the Frigate thread {thanks again!}, and I also installed the two Civiliopedia images in the correct directory, but when I pull up the entry for the crossbowman in the Civilopedia, the image displayed is a greatly-enlarged version of the one in the units_32.pcx file (complete with that awful pink background) rather than the special 'pedia one. I also noticed that the small 'pedia icon has a blue background, unlike all the other units. How do I fix this? :confused:

2) I'd like to edit that units_32.pcx file to take out all the extra stuff I won't be using, and also remove the numbers that are beside the units. What program would you recommend for this?

First, you (actually anyone) have my full permission to use the crossbowman in any mod they like. He was my second unit animation created (first being the terrorist ;) )

As to the Civilopedia image, the original one done by me do not have a background problem as I modified it from the pikeman. I remember that later Kal-el did an improved version by enlarging the crossbow. So technically you should not have one with a pink background like in the units_32.pcx. Are you sure you are using the correct Civilopedia icons? :confused:

If you need to remove the additional icon, you can just use a program like Microsoft Paint that comes with Windows. All you need to do is to erase the unwanted icons. Do remember that if you have patch 1.21f installed then you no longer need to put the workers, settlers and leaders icons as the last eight. In fact, they SHOULD NOT be the last 8 or your in game icons will screw up....a complete opposite of the previous patch (1.16 and 1.17 requires them to be the last 8).

Hope that helps. :king:

As to the Civilopedia image, the original one done by me do not have a background problem as I modified it from the pikeman. I remember that later Kal-el did an improved version by enlarging the crossbow. So technically you should not have one with a pink background like in the units_32.pcx. Are you sure you are using the correct Civilopedia icons?
It's not using the 'pedia image at all. It's using the small one from unit_32.pcx...not sure why. Is there a particular naming convention or something for those large and small image files? I put both in the Art\Civilopedia\Icons\Units subdir, but noticed all the other files there have numbers in front of them. Is there a specific naming convention I have to use or something?
If you need to remove the additional icon, you can just use a program like Microsoft Paint that comes with Windows.
I don't know about other versions of Windows, but the version of Paint that comes with Windows 2000 Pro won't open PCX files. Kodak ImageVue will, but I can only VIEW them with that app.
:(

OK, I did some poking around on the 'net and located a program called UniView that will convert between BMP and PCX format. I then converted the units_32 file to BMP, made my changes, and saved it back as PCX. Then I went back into Civ3Edit and pointed the unit def for crossbowman to icon #66. Everything looked good at that point, so I saved and exited, then fired up Civ3 to check my work. The crossbowman shows up in the game and on the city build queue like it should (as before) but in Civilopedia, when viewing the entry I created for the Crossbowman, I get a black box instead of my picture.
:cry:
Also, when I view the index list, all the other units are displayed in small boxes, but (again) the crossbowman entry shows up as a small back box next to his link. Isn't there a file somewhere with pointers to the pictrures that I can edit to correct thisd issue?

Thanks in advance!

OK, I figured out the Civilopedia problem: Once I added an entry for crossbowman to the "PEDIAICONS.TXT" file, the correct picture came right up. However, now with my modified UNITS_32.PCX file, the game crashes whenever I build my first city while trying to switch to the city screen. All I did was tack the crossbowman icon to the end of that file. Ideas, anyone?

In reference to my previous post, I attached my modified units_32.pcx file. Maybe one of you experts can take a look at it and tell me what I did wrong.
:(

The palette for the units_32.pcx file seems to be messed up. I have corrected the palette. Try replacing your units_32.pcx with the attachment. :)

That seems to have resolved the problem. Is there a way to force MS Paint to load the correct pallette with the file? I couldn't tell it was off just by looking at it... At any rate, thanks a bunch for all your help!
:goodjob:
Now that I have the units set up like I want, I can start tinkering with other gameplay issues.

I just finished my mod and posted it here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=350177#post350177)

Thanks everyone for your help with the crossbowman unit!
:goodjob:

DS, it has been a while since you last released a unit..... Are you thinking of making anything?

Anyone have any suggestions for the proper stats (attack, defense, , movement, cost) and prequesites for this unit? I initially used 4 attack, 1 defense, and 1 move. I made the cost 1 more gold than the longbowman but the prereq tech as feudalism. Which means possible access to the unit before longbowman. I'm not really happy with these stats though and am open to better ideas.

Also, does someone have good sounds for this unit? Currently, I'm just using the bowman sounds but think that there should be a better thunk-sound when scoring a hit.

Similar to the above....

Crossbow: attack 4, defence 1, move 1, cost 40, no resources required, and ALL civs can build it (you'll notice that this is exactly the same as the Civ3 Longbowman).

Longbowman (renamed 'Yeoman'): attack 4, defence 3, move 1, cost 50, no resources required, English unique unit which does NOT cause a 'golden age' (in reality, only the English used longbows, but their golden age began in the 18th, not the 14th century).

The defence of 3 look a little high? I should do. What does a longbowman use to defend himself? Why, the same weapon that he uses to attack with...the longbow! Think how long it takes to cross two or three hundred yards/paces/meters while this bloke is loosing off some 12 volleys a minute at you! :eek:
(A crossbow is lucky to get off 2 shots a minute, so a defence of one looks about right for him)

Also, I like to give all units armed with ranged weapons a ZOC (to represent the fact that they can shoot at passing enemy columns without suffering any casulties themselves), AND, I like to give missle units a modest defensive bombardment with a range of zero (so that they can help protect their stack and, maybe, weaken or disrupt the enemy as they cross the killing ground.
So I give both these units a bombardment factor of 3 (which is less than the Catapult's 4), but the 'Yeoman', because of his rapid rate of fire, I give a rate-of-fire factor of 2.

I bet you wish you'd never asked now! :lol:

Maybe I'm being picky, but he looks like he's shooting little AIM-9 Sparrow missiles!

Great unit! Downloaded it straight away.

Great unit! Downloaded it straight away.

Congratulations, Aquatarkus! I believe this thread necro has to be a record. Or at least very near it.

Can we PLEASE start punishing poeple for this???

Is there no way to lock a thread after, say, 3 years of no one posting to it? Even if the file is missing, I would advocate PMing the creator or posting a new topic in Creation and Customization.

If the guy is gone you can PM him as long as you want... a new topic would be fine. I agree this is anoying, anyway I'd say: let it die again. Don't post and the thread necro will be forgotten in a week. That's what I usually do, except for this time of course ;)

Congratulations, Aquatarkus! I believe this thread necro has to be a record.

You are right ,Tank_Guy#3 !
Member Aquatarkus has now 3 post and guess now what his other posts are ???

People, it's annoying when someone bumps a thread like this. It's not against the site rules. If they do it deliberately or repeatedly then it is spamming. If someone just doesn't realise how old a thread is, it's a mistake. Deal with it.