My First Unit - Varangian Guard

I've been learning how to make units in my spare time for a little while now, reading the tutorials and tips from Utah, Kinboat and others, and learning how to make props from Bjornlo, Plotinus and others. But while I've made a bunch of models, I haven't found the time to animate anything - until now.

The Varangian Guards of Constantinople are some the best warriors from history, so they seemed like the best place to start. Here's a preview -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/20540/VarangianLarge.jpg

What do you think? The model is pretty much done, but it's taking me a while to work through each animation. Any suggestions? questions?

Looks great :)

Hope you will be making more byzantine units ;)

You can count on it Varwnos ;)

I'm on a bit of a Justinian kick right now, but Basil's is one of my favorite periods.

Nice, a guy just like you and me... ;)

Sweet! I like it!

It looks excellent - I'll certainly use it. :goodjob:

-Oz

I like him. :)

Could you post an image of how does he look at civ-scale ?

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

I like him. :)

Could you post an image of how does he looks at civ-scale ?

Sure, I'm still working on the animations, but I put this preview together ;) -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/20540/Varangian.gif

Remember don't hesitate to use the animation libruary if you can't get your own animations down pat. I can't get a sword to swing good for the life of me so I use Mosca's animations he uploaded for example. But wanting to make your own animations is an admirable goal.

I like how does he look and wait for him to be released very soon. :p

Remember don't hesitate to use the animation libruary if you can't get your own animations down pat. I can't get a sword to swing good for the life of me so I use Mosca's animations he uploaded for example. But wanting to make your own animations is an admirable goal.

Um, Mosca? Swords? Where? :hmm:

He looks great, but it's hard to offer general comments on how to animate him, since you probably know what an axe swing looks like. If you don't, I'm sure it's possible to find clips of such things on YouTube or elsewhere. One good tip for animating this sort of thing is just to pick up a broom or something and try it yourself. This should give you a good idea of how the body moves in such an action - not simply the arms but the torso, feet, and so on too.

If that's a two-handed axe, bear in mind that two-handed weapons are harder to animate than one-handed ones. There's a trick to parenting one hand to the weapon so that you only move one arm and the other moves automatically with it; let me know if you need info on this.

This looks as it can be a very nice first unit. Can't wait to see it finished. :thumbsup:

Love the detail on this guy. And see, your chainmail texture is the best yet ;)

Thanks everybody, and thanks Embryo, I appreciate that.

If that's a two-handed axe, bear in mind that two-handed weapons are harder to animate than one-handed ones. There's a trick to parenting one hand to the weapon so that you only move one arm and the other moves automatically with it; let me know if you need info on this.

Yeah I've noticed how hard it's been to get two handed swings right - even Kinboat didn't do it with his Landsknecht - but I'm determined to do it

The chainmail-shirt looks great :thumbsup:

For the swing attack you could use CamJH` animations with some modifications. :)

When do you start taking requests? :p

When do you start taking requests? :p

Hopefully after he adds Civ color to his medieval Slav units. :D

-Oz

Ozzy, I think he meant Rifleman ;)

This guy looks great! :D

You can count on it Varwnos ;)

I'm on a bit of a Justinian kick right now, but Basil's is one of my favorite periods.

I'm always on a Roman/Byzantine kick. I also am on a Justinian kick all the time, as the root of his name, is in fact my first name.

This looks great, hope to see more!!!

Yeah I've noticed how hard it's been to get two handed swings right - even Kinboat didn't do it with his Landsknecht - but I'm determined to do itI've never made a unit so I'm talking through my hat but would it make any sense to look at video of someone swinging a bat (baseball or cricket)? I know there's plenty of that around; there may even be a set of Poser poses or animations around somewhere.

Edit:I also am on a Justinian kick all the time, as the root of his name, is in fact my first name.You learn something new every day! I never knew Tank was short for Justinian. :p

When do you start taking requests? :p

Maybe after I get my first unit done :p

But seriously, feel free to ask. I can't say how often I'll be able to make new ones (not everyone's as productive as Wyrmshadow) but I'll probably only do ancient and medieval units for now.

Ozzy, I think he meant Rifleman ;)

Woops! My bad. That's what I get for thread jumping while "multi-tasking".

And, yes, this guy looks great!

Apologies,

Oz

Edit:You learn something new every day! I never knew Tank was short for Justinian. :p

Well, around this time the Byzantine Empire was reaching it's peak, so he was a tank. Basically unstoppable.

OK, maybe Belisarius was more "the tank" as he did the fighting, but still.

...after I get my first unit done :p

That's mostly why I asked ;) but I'm sure I could hand you a list when you're ready, does fantasy count as medieval??? :please:

Woops! My bad. That's what I get for thread jumping while "multi-tasking".

And, yes, this guy looks great!

Apologies,

Oz

Yeah, Quinn has it Ozzy. For a second there you had me confused. :crazyeye:

Edit: Blue Monkey your avatar is always so err.. interesting. :)
not in a bad way

Edit: Blue Monkey your avatar is always so err.. interesting. :)
not in a bad wayOT: Thank you. I also move every so often.

Your location also uses greek terms ussually. But shouldnt it be "semeio termatos"? (point of end)

The varangian guard looks excellent, Rifleman :)

Any new animations to show us? :)

Sure

Sorry, I got ticked off by a problem with my animations. It was like watching a scene from the Matrix - everything was in extreme slow motion :crazyeye:

Anyway, here's the Fortify -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/20540/Fortify.gif

What do you think?

Some constructive (I hope ;) ) criticism:

1. Fortify anims should be relatively short because long ones are quite annoying during gameplay when you have a dozen of such units on the map - ideally 10 frames @ 65 speed, which is the default for nearly all Civ3 units.

2. His fit are floating. You kind of have it right in the second half of the animation, but still for the most part they look like floating. Try having him raise his foot higher when he makes a step, while keeping the other foot in place, then the other way round.

3. His right hand and axe move unnaturally - it even looks like his hand breaks in the end, while swinging the axe randomly. It appears to be the common effect of automated animation with that sinusoidal graph. I forgot the name exact names :( but switching to the animation with straight-line graph should help.

I don't think that the animation is to long in this particular case, because there shouldn't be too many of them anyway - they are an Elite unit. Maybe you could do a shorter one and provide this nice animation as alternative in the final package.

Very promising.

I don't think that the animation is to long in this particular case, because there shouldn't be too many of them anyway - they are an Elite unit. Maybe you could do a shorter one and provide this nice animation as alternative in the final package.

Who knows though, this could easily be used as a viking berzerk (sp?) or some other common unit. I agree w/ the request for a shorter animation but I also like this one just fine (after an improvement or two ;))

Who knows though, this could easily be used as a viking berzerk (sp?) or some other common unit. I agree w/ the request for a shorter animation but I also like this one just fine (after an improvement or two ;))

considering that Varangians were Scandinavians, who migrated eastwards and southwards through what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine mainly in the 9th and 10th centuries I think it could be used also as a Viking.

There is a pretty good novel about Vikings fighting for the emporer (they weren't Varangians but their story is similar) called Byzantium :)

So yeah, he's Skandinavian, he's good for lots of things (besides, nobody's mentioned this but I think there are at least two other Varangians around)

Thanks for the input Embryo.

I know what you're saying about the length of the animation, but I disagree. I've looked at longer fortify's (like Kinboat's Cuchulainn, which is 30 frames long), and there's actually a restriction in the game which makes 10 frames ideal - every time a unit attacks, it fortifies first (unless it's already there). This "preAttack" animation only plays for 10 frames, so Cuchulainn - who puts his shield and helmet on before drawing his sword, doesn't get through much of his fortify. This Varangian's animation is only 15 frames. I don't think that's too long at all, and it flows into the attack animation really well.

On the feet, I'm not a big fan of how exaggerated most of the units' movements are, but I see how taking bigger steps might look good.

And on the hand, I think it looks natural. Poser, however, can make things look a bit unnatural. We can twist our hands 180 degrees with no problem, but Poser has some trouble with it - that might account for what you're talking about. But when flipping his axe around, I think this is how it would look.

Here's a fortify with him taking larger steps -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/20540/Fortify2.gif

He can definately be used as a Viking as well. At least a late Viking, like under Harald Hardråde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_III_of_Norway).

Rifleman, I like a lot your animation ideas and your attempts to present us a High Quality unit. Keep on moving !:goodjob:

The hand looks fine to me. The feet still look wrong though. It's not a matter of having him take bigger steps; it's a matter of avoiding slippage. In the first few frames, he moves both feet at the same time, which is impossible without jumping. His left foot, in particular, seems to slide from the starting position into the next position; pause there for a few frames; then slide again, before actually stepping. It's possible that this is just an illusion caused by the camera angle and in fact you've got him stepping. But each foot should stay exactly where it is unless it's stepping. If you want to move a foot, it must lift up en route.

The simplest way to do feet in fortifies is like this. First, get the end position all sorted. Then, choose one of the feet (say the Right Foot). Go to the key frames editor and select the box for that foot in the final frame. Use CTRL-C to copy it. Now go backwards, selecting the box for each earlier frame, and use CTRL-V to paste that pose. Do this until you get back to frame 5. So all the frames from 5 to the end are key frames, meaning that the foot doesn't move during that section. Now go to frame 3 and close the key frames editor. Raise the foot so its Y position is 0.2. The effect of this is that in frames 1-5 the foot is raised and steps into what will be the final position, where it remains for the rest of the animation.

Then do the same thing for the Left Foot. The only difference here is that you begin the animation after the other foot has moved - ideally you should leave a space of a frame or two between the end of the first foot's movement and the beginning of the second. So in this case you will want to copy the pose in frame 1 into frame 2, frame 3, and so on up to frame 6. If this is a ten-frame animation, there will be three "unkeyframed" frames in between 6 and 10. If it is a longer animation, there will be more, so either begin the Left Foot motion later (so it ends on the final frame), or end it sooner by copying the pose of the final frame into some of the earlier ones, as with the Right Foot. Again, in the middle frame of the part where the foot actually moves, raise it up to 0.2.

Note that when you've set the feet like this, you need to move the Hip. For example, say he steps forwards with his right foot, and then back and to the side with his left foot. During the first step, the Hip should move forwards so it looks like he's putting his weight on that foot. During the second step, the Hip should move back and to the side, to your final pose.

This is just how I do it. You don't need to lift the foot so high during the steps, and you can make steps take fewer frames too (with just two frames in between the start pose and the end ones), especially for fast steps or short ones. But you do need (1) to make sure that feet lift when moving, unless you're deliberately going for a slide effect; (2) to make sure that feet don't "drift" from one pose to another, but stay where they are except for when the character is actually stepping; and (3) never to move both feet at the same time, unless the character is jumping, running, falling, or doing something equally energetic. Feet are actually quite simple to do as long as you take care over these things, and as you can probably tell from my units, I think that having characters step forwards during attacks and so on adds a lot of life to them and makes the movements look a bit more dramatic.

OK, I see what you mean. I had originally accounted for the movement of the left foot during the first step by keeping it at the same angle, and I figured that at civ-scale, and on terrain, these details would be lost. But I can see how adjusting things a bit might make the unit look better. How's this? -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/20540/Fortify3.gif

You'll notice that the left heel does move slightly during the second step, but you might also be able to tell that the heel raises slightly as well. This is the unit pivoting on the ball of his left foot while his right steps back.

That looks a lot better to me. There are a couple of small changes I'd suggest here, but feel free to ignore them:

(1) As the left foot is pivoting, I would move the left thigh a bit so that his knee is pointing more to his left. Experiment with the twist and bend options for the thigh, and you'll find that although the foot remains rooted in place, you can "swing" his leg around a bit. It might look a bit more natural.

(2) Having his foot pivot like that is fine, but I would be inclined to have it pivot less while on the ground, and let it pivot more during the subsequent step itself. If you try acting out this animation yourself you'll probably find that pivoting your left foot that much is a bit tricky, and it's more natural to swing it around during the step. That's just how I would do it, though; it's still fine as it is.

WARNING: [offtopic]
Your location also uses greek terms ussually. But shouldnt it be "semeio termatos"? (point of end) Terma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terma_%28Buddhism%29) is a Tibetan word for hidden texts. I don't know if "termatos" has anything to do with that. I use semeio to refer to my interest ( & academic work) in the field of Semiotics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics) ( a field Aristotle helped to define by the way). My current self-awarded title (enough posts to qualify for deification) indicates that I am an avatar of a Tertön (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terton). So in a mashed up use of languages I don't speak (I've used Sanskrit combined with Gnostic terms borrowed from Greek also) I'm hinting that I'm looking for obscure cultural signs down the virtual rabbit-hole. So how would you say "searcher for hidden meanings in obscure texts" in classical Greek anyway?

"We now return to the thread already in progress ..."

How's the unit coming along? :)