This is a thread for me to showcase some of my new unit designs and works in progress. Feel free to offer suggestions and criticisms, and also suggestions for new units you'd like to see. I'll post more here as my projects progress.

Wraith.
The wraith is really starting to take shape, thanks to Darques help with the mist.
It just needs sounds and a few tweaks and it's good to go.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/D2Wraith.gif

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/frontprofile.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/frontidle.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/frontangry.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/frontstrike.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/sideidle.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/sidestruck.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/sidedefeated.jpg

Beholder.
I'd almost forgotten about this guy. I've got some work to do on him yet, and then I'm going to set up his laser eyebeams... fricking sweet.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/Beholderanim.gif

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/rigprofile.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/bfrontprofile.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/toocloseforcomfort.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/lookatme.jpg

Reserved for future use.

Reserved for future use 2.

The beholder looks just like the old game Eye of the Beholder, great work and D&D here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/216497400

I like the Wraith also, (if you add red eyes for lasers). Looks great. See my avatar.

You do great work.

Great to see the Beholder again. ;)

The wraith looks awesome win.

Awesome work, winddelay. I think its a good idea for the wraith...give him some red eyes.

that wraith is insane!

it's amazing...

great work win! that wraith is spectacular.

im not sure if you guys would be able to use this, but im making a giant psychic frog thing (called a Slann) for the warhammer mod:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/71834/SLANN.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/71834/Slann_1.jpg


i just need to animate it now, but thats proving a lot more dificult than i immagined :(

I've done a little researching on the slann myself... They're a master race in the lizzie hierarchy. Your model is a spitting image. Nice work. :goodjob: that chair looks awesome too.

If I were you I'd build a good rig for that instead of trying to fit it to any of the civ rigs... It looks like you might have one started, but if not I'd suggest something like this.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/SLANNRIG.jpg

The dots being where I'd set the pivots for the boxes. The lime green box would give you a good spot to attach effects for the floating chair. And when you're setting verts and envelopes for the head, if you give the body part ownership of the head verts up to about the chin, it'll give it a nice blubbery look when the head moves.

I'll definitely have to finish up that tut for you on reflection maps. That would look nice and slimy with a good reflection on it.

If you have any questions, or run into any snags setting up your rigs or animation, feel free to PM or IM me. I've usually got max running anyway, and I've figured out quite a few of the things they don't really spell out perfectly in the tuts.

thanks for the tips win!

ive tried countelss different rigs all of which fail miserably at making the animations i have in my mind work.
i havent tried that one though so ill give it a shot.

how do you set a pivot point for the boxes? and what do you mean by "attach effects for the floating chair"? as in animations? or something like the effects you put on the wraith?

yeh, refelcion maps would be nice for him :D
and dont worry, ill probably have a tonne of questions for you in a bit ;)

thanks for the help! (sorry bout hi-jacking your thread ;) )

No prob... here's a quick overview. Forgive me if I go over stuff you already know.

To set up a good rig, you make the boxes pretty much where you want your jointed parts to be. You set their pivots by clicking on the middle tab in the side menu, and then on affect pivot only. Make sure you're set on move, as opposed to rotate or scale.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/pivot.jpg

It's best to move it around in the side or front viewports, or at least not in perspective, because it'll go all over the place in perspective if you're not careful.

Then you have to set up your linking. You click on this button here,
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/122690/lionking.jpg
And then click on boxes to drag them to the box that will be their parent. I try to always have the body be the main parent, and then link that to the MD. so it would go hand>forearm>upper arm>body, head>body, attachables node>body, etc.

You can attach attachable effects in max by making an attachable dummy like you make for sounds and effects. It's a lot like you would do in nifskope to a pre-made model. I've only tried this once, so I'm not an expert, and probably have to work on it a bit more myself. This is for if you wanted to put a light, looped effect or a billboard on a model. The effect on the wraith isn't an attachable though, it's just an animated mesh. I've really got to get darque to show me how he does that. :) If you wanted to light an animated mesh, then attachables are the way to go.

If you're never set up anims before, make sure you have the motion flow scematics from the example files that come with the civ max tools on the tutorials page. There's copies in the civ units folder as well, if you did an unpak. Sharicks tutorial does a good job of showing how to set up the ec codes in the civ animation manager maxscript, so make sure you read that a few times.

I can probably answer any other questions you have. It's a really good Idea to read the tut's a lot. It took me a while for it to sink in.

nice work you guys are showcasing here!
keep it up.
I never was a fan of any kind of beholder thing, but that wraith looks damn good! can we use it in FfH for the phantasm? :D

Here is that wraith ingame:
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/10/9839/wraith.jpg

Here is a preview of what the new orc units will look like:
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/10/9839/orcswordsman3.jpg
Great job on the model winddelay! :goodjob:

No problem. Thanks for the help with the texture.

Nice. I like it a lot.

Are there any other units that are planned at this time? Ya know, that would be generic enough to fit into this thread?

Right now we are focusing on the orc lineup. Other planned units can be found in the Beta 2 thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=257291).

Ok. Cool. Thanks.

Here's a pretty good start on the heavy armor for the orc. I need to do more detail work, and get the helm looking a little better.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/931/heavyarmororctmie2.jpg (http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7193/heavyarmororcys3.jpg)

Looks good so far, man.

Here is a rendering of winddelay's latest unit, the Eye of Gruumsh:
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/10/9839/EyeOfGruumsh.jpg

Wonderful!

That is a very viscious and sweet looking unit.

I saw this before and I still am almost dumbstruck by it.