http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222155&stc=1&d=1248514500

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222159&stc=1&d=1248516472

Welcome to the Dune Wars Art Thread!

In this thread I'll be keeping you posted on what is going on in terms of Dune Wars art. I'll keep the second post updated with what is currently being worked on.

In terms of suggested art direction, the Butlerian Jihad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad) means that there shouldn't be any robotics or computer controlled stuff (except for the Ix). Everything should look like it could be purely mechanical/clockwork driven. For me, Dune is almost as much fantasy as it is sci-fi. There are plenty of sci-fi mods out there so this is one way to make the mod stand out as unique.

The overall aim is to eradicate anything that doesn't feel like Dune. We want Dune Wars to feel like a turn based strategy game set on Arrakis, rather than a Civ4 mod...

Dune Wars Creations

Sandworm by me

SHAI-HULUD: Sandworm of Arrakis, the 'Old Man of the Desert','Old Father Eternity,' and 'Grandfather of the Desert.' Significantly, this name, when referred to in certain tone or written with capital letters, designates the earth deity of Fremen hearth superstitions. Sandworms grow to enormous size (specimens longer than 400 meters have been seen in the deep desert) and live to great age unless slain by one of their fellows or drowned in water, which is poisonous to them. Most of the sand on Arrakis is credited to sandworm actions.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219804&stc=1&d=1246565415

Fremen Fedaykin and Naib's Chosen by Lord Tirian and myself, adapted from a number of models including seZereth's Govannon unit

FEDAYKIN: Fremen death commandos; historically: a group formed and pledged to give their lives to right and wrong.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222114&d=1248475384

Thopter, I adapted this from the original mesh (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=bc7ead8b45952ab8822054a0a020bf4a) by Katase, texture and additional work by Lord Tirian

ORNITHOPTER (commonly: 'thopter): any aircraft capable of sustained wing-beat flight in the manner of birds.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223997&stc=1&d=1249812161

Sardaukar adapted from Dawn of War Commander model by myself

SARDAUKAR: the soldier-fanatics of the Padishah Emperor. They were men from an environmental background of such ferocity that it killed six out of thirteen persons before the age of eleven. Their military training emphasized ruthlessness and a near-suicidal disregard for personal safety. They were taught from infancy to use cruelty as a standard weapon, weakening opponents with terror. At the apex of their sway over the affairs of the Universe, their swordsmanship was said to match that of the Ginaz tenth level and their cunning abilities at in-fighting were reputed to approach those of a Bene Gesserit adept. Any one of them was rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad military conscripts. By the time of Shaddam IV, while they were still formidable, their strength had been sapped by over-confidence, and the sustaining mystique of their warrior religion had been deeply undermined by cynicism.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223995&stc=1&d=1249812161

City Screen by Koma13, with some art support from myself

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222157&stc=1&d=1248515484

Reverend Mother by Lord Tirian and myself, adapted from Chuggi's Geisha unit, Birth of Arrakis Cityset by Lord Tirian and Windtrap by Lord Tirian

REVEREND MOTHER: originally, a proctor of the Bene Gesserit, one who has transformed an "illuminating poison" within her body, raising herself to a higher state of awareness. Title adopted by Fremen for their own religious leaders who accomplished a similar "illumination."

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222163&stc=1&d=1248517631

Unit Banners by me

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222160&stc=1&d=1248517155

Sandstorm by me

CORIOLIS STORM: Any major sandstorm on Arrakis where winds across the open flatlands are amplified by the planet's own revolutionary motion to reach speeds up to 700 kilometers per hour.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219154&stc=1&d=1246097937

_

............................

I've done some further work on the sandstorm. It is now animated - you really have to see it in action to get a feel for it. I'm going to try and make the animation a bit more natural.

If you replace stormcloud_sound_stormcloud_parent_stormcloud.kf with stormcloud_sound_stormcloud_parent_stormcloud_high .kf you will be able to see the lightning fx. I'm going to try and get it so the storm is low to the ground but we still have lightning.

Also, I can't find any thunder sounds in the game so if you know where I can get some let me know. The sounds referenced by the original blizzard don't seem to exist which is wierd. There are also atmospheric thunder sounds referenced in Audio defines that don't exist.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218661&stc=1&d=1245740335

Civ4ArtDefines_Unit.xml:
<UnitArtInfo>
<Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_SANDSTORM4</Type>
<Button>Art/interface/units/sandstorm.dds</Button>
<fScale>0.2</fScale>
<fInterfaceScale>1.0</fInterfaceScale>
<bActAsLand>0</bActAsLand>
<bActAsAir>0</bActAsAir>
<NIF>Art/Units/sandstorm/sandstorm.nif</NIF>
<KFM>Art/Units/sandstorm/sandstorm.kfm</KFM>
<SHADERNIF>Art/Units/sandstorm/sandstorm.nif</SHADERNIF>
<ShadowDef>
<ShadowNIF>Art/Units/01_UnitShadows/UnitShadow.nif</ShadowNIF>
<ShadowAttachNode>stormcloud_parent</ShadowAttachNode>
<fShadowScale>0.1</fShadowScale>
</ShadowDef>
<fBattleDistance>0.35</fBattleDistance>
<fRangedDeathTime>0.31</fRangedDeathTime>
<bActAsRanged>0</bActAsRanged>
<TrainSound>AS2D_UNIT_BUILD_UNIT</TrainSound>
<AudioRunSounds>
<AudioRunTypeLoop/>
<AudioRunTypeEnd/>
</AudioRunSounds>
</UnitArtInfo>

My Dune 1984 Special Edition has arrived. It is remastered so the quality of screen captures should be good. I'll redo Irulan first.

Banners

I've wanted to improve the banners for a little while. I've basically done two things:

1) I've a adapted asioasioasio's Modern Flag NIF to be a more medieval squarish banner. I think this suits the Dune heraldry, but it also means that the flags are not as distorted and therefore look better.
2) I've gone through the flags to try and improve on them. There's still a bit more work needed on these - the Atreides and Harkonnen can be improved.

I find the flags largely indistinguishable. If you are reworking them, I also suggest to make the flag background colors the same as the player color. That way, it will be easier to tell who is the owner of some incoming unit. I had also suggested changing the playercolors to make them more different; for example, there are two almost indistinguishable white colors, and two almost indistinguishable greens, and two browns. Changing those first and then changing the flag colors to match would help.

Yeah, I was thinking of reviewing the player colours at the same time. The Atreides really should be green for example. I'll try and get the flag colours consistent with the player colours as far as I can.

the flags/banners looks awesome - really like the atriedis flag -its like in the book!

Banners and Team Colours (or Colors if you prefer)

Here's a run through of my updated banners and team colours.

Atreides
Team Colour: Dark Green
The books describe the Atreides banner as green and black, but this doesn't look very attractive. Also, green seems to be the more dominant colour, from Dune Messiah: "a yellow robe trimmed in Atreides green — yellow for sunlight, green for the death which produced life." I've gone for a dark green with a red Atreides hawk on a white shield.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218962&stc=1&d=1245963069

Harkonnen
Team Colour: Orange
I haven't verified this myself, but apparently the Banner of House Harkonnen is orange according to p.233 of Dune Messiah. In the books the Harkonnen symbol is a griffon, but Westwood decided a ram was more appropriate. I'm using a ram symbol you may well recognise for now as it seemed to work well, if anyone objects I'll find a griffon.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218955&stc=1&d=1245963588

Bene Gesserit
Team Colour: Yellow
The colour choice was purely to keep a range across the spectrum for easy recognition. The illustration is by Mark Zug (http://www.markzug.com/) the same guy who did the picture used in the existing flag.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218954&stc=1&d=1245963833

Fremen
Team Colour: Royal Blue
Again I chose the colour more for spectrum spread and recognition. The blue matches the top half of the flag. I like this one as it has the desert dunes in the background.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218956&d=1245963012

Sietch Tabr Fremen
Team Colour: Tan
Got a new copy of the worm graphic from Google Images and adjusted it so that worm is more in the centre. The tan matches the tan in the top half of the image.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218961&d=1245963054

Spacing Guild
Team Colour: Turquoise
Just an improved version of what we had. I'm quite happy with how the nebula in the background worked out. The team colour matches the nebula.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218959&d=1245963035

Ordos
Team Colour: Middle Green
Didn't change the colour on this one as I don't think it is too similar to the Atreides green. I could always make it lighter.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218963&d=1245963054

Corrino
Team Colour: Purple
Gold lion on purple background - a bit of a no-brainer for the Imperial House.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218964&d=1245963066

Bene Tleilax
Team Colour: Magenta (Bring on the old school computer colours!)
A colour more chosen for distinctiveness. The icon is again from Emporer with another nebula background.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218958&stc=1&d=1245964425

House Fenring
Team Colour: Red
Red was now vacant with Harkonnen going to orange. Count Fenring is an assassin and that's about all we know. I've gone for something heraldic looking from an army crest - it's a sea serpent with a dagger/sword and wings by the looks.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218957&stc=1&d=1245964669

Finally I have changed the barbarian symbol to something that should work both for the Smugglers and Native life:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218970&stc=1&d=1245965181

I've done buttons too as you see below and attached all the necessary files for you to try out the new banners. The art defines XML goes in XML/Art and the Civilizations one in XML/Civilizations, the color xmls go in XML/Interface.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218971&stc=1&d=1245965059

Banners and Team Colours (or Colors if you prefer)

Here's a run through of my updated banners and team colours.

These look great. Is it possible to use white instead of one of the two greens? The others seem easily distinguishable from each other and from the desert terrain colors. (Thank you for not using any browns.)

I could change one of the greens to white, but I'd rather try and make the two shades of green really distinct. Two reasons, 1) I think both Atreides and Ordos should be green theme-wise and 2) I am conscious that Keldath is planning to add more Houses at some point in which case it is good to have a distinct colour in the bank. To be honest, if we have 15 houses it is going to be quite difficult to keep all the colours really distinctive.

I'll try and tweak the Ordos colour and flag to make them more distinct.

your right d,
i am planning on 15 houses :).

Sandstorm

This is the finalized version of the sandstorm.

+ Scaled to four different sizes for the different strengths of storm.
+ I have tweaked the animation to keep it interesting.
+ The occasional lighting flash should now be visible.
+ Added thunder sound effects
+ Reduced the volume of the environmental wind sounds as I thought it was a bit high.

Let me know if I have missed anything in the attached RAR.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219154&stc=1&d=1246097937

your right d, i am planning on 15 houses :).

I really think we should get the unit tree straightened out and make 8 *interesting* houses before adding more houses. Most of the UU/UB in the game are so far up the tech tree, I have never even hit them in any of my games. The only one I have used is the Sietch UB since it gives +1 movement.

This is the finalized version of the sandstorm.

Excellent! You mentioned lower poly count versions of spice. Is that uploaded already? And if you have the screenshots for any better LH, please upload those. It sounds like a 1.2.1 may be coming today. I'm not convinced the crash is due to the python, but if I can add back in some of the effects without any crash appearing, there may be a 1.2.2 shortly after that.

I really think we should get the unit tree straightened out and make 8 *interesting* houses before adding more houses. Most of the UU/UB in the game are so far up the tech tree, I have never even hit them in any of my games. The only one I have used is the Sietch UB since it gives +1 movement.


I agree with you that we really need to make the existing houses play differently and be interesting to play. There should be more UUs per house IMO. I think Keldath is planning to focus on that more once we have the core Dune mechanics sorted.

Excellent! You mentioned lower poly count versions of spice. Is that uploaded already? And if you have the screenshots for any better LH, please upload those. It sounds like a 1.2.1 may be coming today. I'm not convinced the crash is due to the python, but if I can add back in some of the effects without any crash appearing, there may be a 1.2.2 shortly after that.

The optimized spice is posted below. I have Dune 1984 LHs for Irulan, Duke Leto and Stilgar (as much as I don't mind Berkoff's Stilgar) which I can give you for 1.2.2 as well - just need to make buttons.

I noticed that your new LHs (Ghanima, new Leto II, etc) seem to a bit thin horizontally in game - I don't suppose you have the original source screengrabs? It would be good to get the aspect ratios consistent...

Refined Spice

A new version of the spice.

+ All textures are now 256x256 rather than 512x512 for performance.
+ I have added a second variant for every tile so that the edges of patches are more varied.
+ Minor refinements to colour and effects.

The one problem I would dearly love to fix is where the edge of the tiles sometimes have a transparent line. This is not because there is actually a gap - all the tiles actually overlap slightly - it is because for some reason from certain angles the transparent edge of an upper tile is 'seeing through' the non-transparent part of the lower tile to the desert. You will noticed if you use Ctrl-Right or Left arrow key to rotate the view that the spice is pretty much seamless then.

I've tried to fix this in a number of different ways without success. I may see if some of the graphics gurus around can suggest something, but until then this is the best I have.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219179&stc=1&d=1246114208

I noticed that your new LHs (Ghanima, new Leto II, etc) seem to a bit thin horizontally in game - I don't suppose you have the original source screengrabs? It would be good to get the aspect ratios consistent...

Apparently even when following instructions I suck at that. My screen grabber gives me 720x480 which is severely squished. So I expand by 120% horizontally and save as "part 1". Then I crop/shrink to 64x64 for the button. Then back to "part 1", stretch another 120% horizontal, and crop/expand to 512x512.

Is there a step I have missed?

All my useful original screen grabs are here:

http://jendaveallen.com/fury-road/outgoing.zip (19MB)

I'll try and tweak the Ordos colour and flag to make them more distinct.

If you leave the flag the same but tweak the color slightly, just send the rgb value, or the one altered xml.

Apparently even when following instructions I suck at that. My screen grabber gives me 720x480 which is severely squished. So I expand by 120% horizontally and save as "part 1". Then I crop/shrink to 64x64 for the button. Then back to "part 1", stretch another 120% horizontal, and crop/expand to 512x512.

Is there a step I have missed?

I think if you'd used 128% instead on 120% they would have been perfect. I do it this way:
1) Select an area of the original making sure the height is 1.28 times width and crop.
2) Resize to 512x512.
3) The button should just be a cropped square of the original image resized to 64x64.

I'll try and redo them from your originals.

I've attached the three I've done so far.

If you leave the flag the same but tweak the color slightly, just send the rgb value, or the one altered xml.

OK, updated colours for Ordos. Also toned the magenta down a bit.


Amended/New Player Color Infos:
<PlayerColorInfo>
<Type>PLAYERCOLOR_DUNE_MAGENTA</Type>
<ColorTypePrimary>COLOR_PLAYER_DUNE_MAGENTA</ColorTypePrimary>
<ColorTypeSecondary>COLOR_PLAYER_BLACK</ColorTypeSecondary>
<TextColorType>COLOR_DUNE_MAGENTA_TEXT</TextColorType>
</PlayerColorInfo>
<PlayerColorInfo>
<Type>PLAYERCOLOR_DUNE_ORDOS_GREEN</Type>
<ColorTypePrimary>COLOR_PLAYER_DUNE_ORDOS_GREEN</ColorTypePrimary>
<ColorTypeSecondary>COLOR_PLAYER_BLACK</ColorTypeSecondary>
<TextColorType>COLOR_PLAYER_LIGHT_GREEN_TEXT</TextColorType>
</PlayerColorInfo>

-----------
New ColorVals:
<ColorVal>
<Type>COLOR_PLAYER_DUNE_MAGENTA</Type>
<fRed>0.902</fRed>
<fGreen>0.196</fGreen>
<fBlue>0.902</fBlue>
<fAlpha>1.00</fAlpha>
</ColorVal>
<ColorVal>
<Type>COLOR_PLAYER_DUNE_ORDOS_GREEN</Type>
<fRed>0.310</fRed>
<fGreen>0.808</fGreen>
<fBlue>0.078</fBlue>
<fAlpha>1.00</fAlpha>
</ColorVal>


Change Ordos civilization to use COLOR_PLAYER_DUNE_ORDOS_GREEN as their colour.

Another pack of remastered Leaderheads - Emporer, Feyd, Leto 2, Scytale, Navigator and Alia. I am tweaking brightness, contrast and saturation as I go.

I'm going to get a more Fremenish Ghanima and I think I remember where to get a good Fenring. Also, I have the Emporer game videos so I can probably get a better Ordos one too. I think the Baron, Rabban and Paul can be improved from the Dune 1984 DVD too.

WOW D,

its funny,

i cant keep up with your updates,

i havnt reached a polished stable version for 1.2.

i have to see wgich part ctds it,
much work are ahead.

Well, it just means once 1.2 is stable there'll be lots of lovely graphical content to add! :)

I hope you're exam isn't going to suffer with all this debugging...

More leaderheads, new ones for Fenring, Ghanima and Roma Atani.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219218&stc=1&d=1246138846

I have collected all of the graphics updates and I can put up a graphics only, 1.2.1 patch tomorrow. I wish I could help more on the CTD. Each day seems to bring a different lead.

More leaderheads, new ones for Fenring, Ghanima and Roma Atani.Is it just me, or does anybody else has the feel that they're looking into the wrong direction? Somehow I think they should look to the left...

I did a quick mock-up - and think that a flip - plus moving them a bit to the right, which I cannot do without the source pic - would make them more like they're looking at you.

Cheers, LT.

I'm not sure that flipping makes that much difference - if they're not looking straight at you then there's not a lot you can do. I could have taken shots where they are looking more directly at the camera, but personally I'd rather try to get ones that capture the traits of the character/faction. I can upload the sources at some point if you want to have a go.

Since the TGA pack for Emporer:Battle for Dune I previously uploaded was difficult to browse I have converted the entire set to PNG making it possible to browse using the Thumbnail view in Windows. There are a number of potentially useful bits and bobs in there. A lot of the smaller images would still look OK when resized to 64x64 for icons. The conversion to PNG has made the transparent layer black, but you can always go to the corresponding TGA file for a transparent version.

PNG:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2uzymajyy4e
TGA:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?wymyyuww2tq

I tried out all the new flags. I think they are a big step forward. One thing I did to test, which you probably didn't, is to put one unit of each player and then zoom way out, to see if I can tell them apart. This picture shows DW side by side with vanilla. Even ignoring the teamcolor on the sails, the flags are easy to distinguish in vanilla. A couple of the flags in DW are similar, or don't show much info when zoomed out like this.

Fremen and Sietch Tabr are both pictures, rather than icons, and they just look like a brown spot when zoomed out. The two purple ones are hard to tell apart, and the three green ones are hard to tell apart. The other ones look great. It's low priority, but this is the view that I use most of the time to look at the strategic situation. So being able to tell quickly whose units are whose is helpful.

If you've been following along in this thread, you see there are many different posts with one or two graphics updates. Here is a patch over version 1.2 called graphics-1.2.1. It has the following graphics only changes:

* Spice graphics
* Sandstorm effect
* Flags and player colors
* Leaderhead pictures

http://jendaveallen.com/fury-road/dune-wars-graphics-1-2-1.zip

Fremen and Sietch Tabr are both pictures, rather than icons, and they just look like a brown spot when zoomed out. The two purple ones are hard to tell apart, and the three green ones are hard to tell apart. The other ones look great. It's low priority, but this is the view that I use most of the time to look at the strategic situation. So being able to tell quickly whose units are whose is helpful.

Well team colour on the units themselves would help, but this isn't always desirable. It may be possible to put a disc of team colour at the base of the flag which would make things more obvious. I can obviously also revisit the flags themselves at some point.

Thanks for putting together the patch.

wow guys - your making so much progress!

well done!

on the weekend ill continue on setting up a stable version.

The one problem I would dearly love to fix is where the edge of the tiles sometimes have a transparent line. This is not because there is actually a gap - all the tiles actually overlap slightly - it is because for some reason from certain angles the transparent edge of an upper tile is 'seeing through' the non-transparent part of the lower tile to the desert. You will noticed if you use Ctrl-Right or Left arrow key to rotate the view that the spice is pretty much seamless then.

I've tried to fix this in a number of different ways without success. I may see if some of the graphics gurus around can suggest something, but until then this is the best I have.


I'm no graphic guru but I had a similar problem with ocean terrain. I got it because I feathered/smoothed out the bottem left part of the terrain, leaving a (semi transparent) gap betweem graphics and borders.


And I have "graphical" problem too. I added unit graphics for my new melee fighters but one of them is not walking but moving like a rover :eek: . The other melee unit just works fine. Anyone knows why that could happen? I alread changed xml entries to SPECIALUNIT_PEOPLE and UNITCOMBAT_MELEE.

Yeah, I sort of need the semi transparency to disguise the overlaps. I might have another stab using no semi transparency at some point.

If you let me have the zipped up unit folder and XML for the unit I'll take a look. Also, let me know which animation set the unit uses if it's not included.

If you let me have the zipped up unit folder and XML for the unit I'll take a look. Also, let me know which animation set the unit uses if it's not included.

Thank you, I will upload it. I just steal some unit graphics from ffh2, maybe I forgot to copy some animation files. :dunno:

Ah, I have all the FFH2 stuff already unpacked. Which unit is it you are trying to bring over?

The unit is called "divided soul", inside sidar folder.

Yeah, know it - it's the one that looks like a ninja. I probably won't be able to have a go until tomorrow.

It should use samurai animations if I recall. You could try copying the samurai animations into the unit folder and see if that fixes the issue.

I already have samurai graphics included. If there is no easy fix, I will just look for another unit graphic.

It was a pretty quick fix, Koma. It involved changing the NIF so I don't know how this works in FfH2 (perhaps it doesn't). I've attached the unit folder and here's the XML I used:


<UnitArtInfo>
<Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_WARRIOR</Type>
<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Promotions/Shock.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/dunepromoatlas1.dds,7,2</Button>
<fScale>0.44</fScale>
<fInterfaceScale>1</fInterfaceScale>
<bActAsLand>0</bActAsLand>
<bActAsAir>0</bActAsAir>
<NIF>Art/Units/DividedSoul/JapaneseSamurai.nif</NIF>
<KFM>Art/Units/DividedSoul/JapaneseSamurai.kfm</KFM>
<SHADERNIF>Art/Units/DividedSoul/JapaneseSamurai.nif</SHADERNIF>
<ShadowDef>
<ShadowNIF>Art/Units/01_UnitShadows/UnitShadow.nif</ShadowNIF>
<ShadowAttachNode>BIP Pelvis</ShadowAttachNode>
<fShadowScale>1</fShadowScale>
</ShadowDef>
<fBattleDistance>0.35</fBattleDistance>
<fRangedDeathTime>0.31</fRangedDeathTime>
<bActAsRanged>0</bActAsRanged>
<TrainSound>AS2D_UNIT_BUILD_UNIT</TrainSound>
<AudioRunSounds>
<AudioRunTypeLoop/>
<AudioRunTypeEnd/>
</AudioRunSounds>
</UnitArtInfo>

Edit: Just noticed that sword on his hip doesn't seem to be visible - I'll fix that another time.

Thx, this is working now. :goodjob:

Main Menu

Decided to spruce up the Main Menu slightly. I have tried to respect the existing one. Both files go in Art/Interface/Main Menu. Any ideas for the loading screen?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219801&stc=1&d=1246563771

Some people enjoy doing icons, some do not. But I think one big missing element from the art standpoint today is the vanilla icons and the resource icons. In particular, some icons like the build pasture action button really throw me "out" of the Dune mindset.

The icons that pop up in the main map when you use ctrl-R are also all mixed up and do not really match what they represent. In 1.1.4, I changed the game mechanics of the resources and we may tweak the mechanics some more; but the resource graphics themselves are not planned to change. So there is no risk of any work being wasted.

I have been chipping away at some of the tech tree icons with screen shots from the movies, but I have run out. Some of the worst ones are fixed as of 1.1.4 so this is a lower priority.

Anybody want to take a crack at icons? I can make the xml changes around them if somebody sends dds files.

Decided to spruce up the Main Menu slightly. I have tried to respect the existing one. Both files go in Art/Interface/Main Menu. Any ideas for the loading screen?

The new dune letters are looking great!

When you say you've run out, do you mean run out of source material/screenshots? If so, here are a few stills I took from the Emporer videos when I was getting the Ordos LH. You may get one or two out of these.

The new dune letters are looking great! Cheers - that's probably my favourite scene from the movie. The arrival at Arrakis when you hear Brian Eno's Prophecy Theme for the first time and you get the amazing aerial shots of the desert. The atmosphere of the film is so good at the beginning, but by the end it just degenerates into a clumsy Toto electric guitar shambles.

Even more Leaderheads

Used identical shot for Rabban. Paul is no longer in a sandstorm and the Baron is going nuts.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219813&stc=1&d=1246573054

The gas effect for the spice appears to be visible everywhere, even places I haven't explored yet. Is it possible I integrated the xml incorrectly or missed a file?

I think it's just an engine thing. I might have to remove that effect and just leave the snaking fumes.

It's a trap! (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326670)[/Ackbar]

Eh, sorry about channeling Ackbar - it's just a windtrap for the mod! ;)

Cheers, LT.

Cheers man. Looks great! Right on que for me to include in the Water for Food test...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219974&stc=1&d=1246720124

I have installed 1.2.2 and the wormsign effect seems to have gone - the hump of sand and dust... anyone else got this issue.

Please turn on map display (ctrl-z). Do you see any worms at all? I have been turning the worm generation on and off for my experiments about scaring settlers, but I am pretty sure I did not screw up and turn it off in the release.

If you don't see worms at all, please check assets/python/DuneWars.py function onEndGameTurn. Is there a comment character # before the call to WormAdd? If so then I mistakenly released a development change. Remove it and worms should be back.

Somehow I've got a really old incarnation of the worm... Have I just screwed up my directories or what? :dunno:

Good news and bad news on the topic of making the storm into a map effect instead of a unit. I have some proof of concept. But I can't use the sandstorm unit which Deliverator has created, and I don't know enough about effects to create the right one.

In the BTS installation, there is a mod Gods Of Old, which has certain effects like plague and tsunami. The effects for these are in BTS/Assets/Art/Effects/Gods_Of_Old and BTS/Assets/Art/Effects/Sunami. There are no units around these effects, they are directly displayed on the map using CyEngine.triggerEffect(). I can do the same thing now. But neither of these effects does what I want. So far it is a proof of concept and most of the code still remains to be written.

The plague effect is too light and easy to miss, and the tsunami effect appears to last too long. When I move the plague, it does not leave a ghost behind. When I move the tsunami, it leaves a ghost for a long time, at least 10-15 seconds. The tsunami also has rain, which is obviously wrong, and lightning, which is pretty cool actually.

I don't understand the relationship between units and effects very well, and I don't know enough about nifs to tune either one.

Is it possible for some artist person to come up with something that doesn't leave a ghost but does look like a sandstorm? Lightning would be cool too.

Sure man, I'll take a look tomorrow. It may even be possible to adapt the existing Sandstorm...

Edit: It was really quick and easy to remove the rain and change the texture. The texture is the same as the existing Sandstorm (which was based on the FfH2 Blizzard). It will be easy to adjust the height, remove the shadow, waves, whatever. The main difference between this effects NIF and the unit NIF is the animation is effectively built-in to the NIF itself. This means that I don't think I'll be able to change the animation or have sound effects. Also, I am not sure what governs the slow fading out ghosts - I'd be a bit surprised if that was in the NIF itself since they look like different copies of the same NIF. Could be wrong though.

hey guys,
awesome art work so far ! really !

deliverator,

i was thinking about the opening screen youve made - really nice,

but,
how about making the "by kedath and friends" = by dune team, or just the names of the people taking part in?

after all, my part is getting smaller everyday...:)
just showing my appreciation...

I could just take the words off all together if no one minds - that would look better I think. 'Dune Wars Team' is a bit pointless and listing people could get all political. I reckon remove that phrase altogether - it will look classier.

sure, that good as well :)

It took all of 2 seconds as I was clever enough to keep a copy without the "by Keldath and friends". Here's the main menu image with it removed.

Sure man, I'll take a look tomorrow. It may even be possible to adapt the existing Sandstorm...

Edit: It was really quick and easy to remove the rain and change the texture. [...] Also, I am not sure what governs the slow fading out ghosts - I'd be a bit surprised if that was in the NIF itself since they look like different copies of the same NIF. Could be wrong though.

Looks great. I need help on the slow fading out ghost. When the storm moves, the effect in the new square appears immediately. But the effect in the old square stays unchanged for about 15 sec, then fades to 50% transparency for 5 sec, then disappears. My python is only displaying it at the current location. Are you sure there is nothing in the nif which governs this kind of long lifespan? The plague effect disappears quickly with the same python code. Maybe it is just the total running duration of the effect? There is nothing I can find which allows me to delete an effect which has been triggered. The Gods of Old code goes inside the redraw function in CvMainInterface.py and triggers the effect every 3 seconds, if I read correctly. It has a timer loop of 12 and it is called every 250 msec.

Could it be that the plague effect loops every 3 seconds and the sunami loops every 20-30 seconds?

Sherlock-Holmes-esque powers of deduction! Yes, the animation in the Sunami NIF runs for 30 seconds. The plague NIF doesn't actually have an animation it is all done with particle effects that just constantly disperse - one particle effect for the cloud and one for the skulls.

I've not worked with one of these NIFs with built in animation before, but I think I've found the Controller that is doing the work. I'll have a play and see if I can cut the time down. Whether that will make a difference I don't know.

david - you mentioned that you changed the harvester model - how about using the modern harvester model, instead of the current desert harvester improvement - it will be like the improvement is actually a harvester ..:)

Also, on harvesting. Why don't we make the Deep Harvester a Harvesting Carryall or Worker Carryall or whatever. It feels weird harvester builds harvester. It can just be a name and graphics change. Eventually, myself or someone can make a unit for it. Also, I really want myself or someone to make a unit like the harvester in the second post.

Carryalls are a later tech. The early tech is "supposed" to be primitive fremen, although we have to be a little vague on how primitive fremen got on-planet. The concept is that once you have carryall tech, you could drop off some other unit which is even more efficient at building/harvesting spice. But we have not worried about that yet.

i agree with deliverator,

maybe for early game the harvester can be called like a gatherer/spice gatherer,
build by a ecologist/spice scout/spice marker/spice seeker/evaluator (of spice) or something like this....

Ok david, try this Sunami NIF. I basically curtailed the animation after 10 seconds instead of 30.

Looking at it I can probably do all the swirling that we have with existing sandstorm if we want it more interesting. It may even support the thunder sounds too...

maybe for early game the harvester can be called like a gatherer/spice gatherer,
build by a ecologist/spice scout/spice marker/spice seeker/evaluator (of spice) or something like this....

We could delete the deep harvester altogether, since the worker can now travel on desert with the right techs. That would solve the problem of deep harvesters as scouts, since I hardly ever see the AI use a worker as a scout.

We could delete the deep harvester altogether, since the worker can now travel on desert with the right techs. That would solve the problem of deep harvesters as scouts, since I hardly ever see the AI use a worker as a scout.The deep harvester building harvesters is weird, I agree. Personally, I'd like to see the worker carryall, but I probably played too much Dune 2000/Emperor! :lol:

Another alternative would be making harvesters a cheap unit that can build a harvester improvement but destroy themselves in the process (like starbases in Final Frontier) - essentially, you drive your harvester to the intended region and then - *pop* - you tell it to harvest. You could even make the action fast as you the time to create it is already "contained" in the build time - big drawback though: Micromanagement hell and it will tie up a lot of the production.

Cheers, LT.

How about the Desert Worker can be upgraded to Worker Carryall when carryalls become available?

I know there is 1.2.2 patch but I can't find it. Anyone can point me to the link, please? :)

Sorry, I was trying not to make official patches. This link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8231225&postcount=2).

Thanks!

Sorry, I was trying not to make official patches.

I know but I finally want to check out Deliverator's 'water for food' patch which has 1.22 as a requirement.

Try it, but bear in mind version 2 will be completely different. Lots of refinements and changes. It may be releasable in another test patch tomorrow.

The water resource - the blue radioactive rice-field-blob - is hurting my head. Hence I tried to change it, now water is hard to do (a real splash would probably just look like the ground before... just darker - but that's not really distinct enough), but I took the oil resource, recoloured it and tweaked the transparency a bit. It looks water-ish now - it's far from perfect, but it looks neat, distinct and is better than the current one.

Stuff attached, uses oil animations (obviously), so link to the kfm-file of vanilla oil. Also added a new button that doesn't look like an ocean (also in the archive).

Cheers, LT.

Well, in the Water For Food v2 that I've spent most of the day refining I have an Aquifer/Groundwater resource that you build Wells on to get water.

I've made a nice icon and then made the 3D resource invisible. Very nice and realistic, but I expect people will want something to indicate there is Groundwater in the tiles. Maybe we could just have a few scattered rocks and pebbles just to say: "there is something different about this tile".

Edit: Also the dropship from here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279658) is ripe for adaptation into Dune Wars. Could be our Worker Carryall...

Very nice and realistic, but I expect people will want something to indicate there is Groundwater in the tiles....and no screenshot to show? Tease! :p

Cheers, LT.

Well, this is all I got since I'm currently running another autoplay. When I said invisible I meant it - the groundwater tiles have nothing in them. So you can only tell they're there by mouseover or turning on bonus icons.

Sigh. Yet another art request. I have the new implementation of sandworms working, so that a map effect appears for wormsign and the unit itself appears on an attack. But I have only a placeholder effect. I am using the original tsunami effect.

Is it possible to break off the default "sand hump" unit into an effect? Or at any rate is it possible to build a wormsign effect, whatever it may look like? It is unfortunate that my original implementation has a fatal flaw; it prevents settlers. The only way I can find around that is to use a map-only effect instead of a unit. I wish there were a better way.

I will upload the 1.2.3 patch and announce it on the welcome thread, in a couple of hours after some more autoplays.

Having looked at the Sunami effect I think it is possible to make a decent wormsign, probably even with lightning effects which will make koma happy. It may be better to go with the placeholder for now, that will make it easier for me to try things out since I don't have your Python code.

Did the new Sunami NIF I posted fix the fade out issue? I'd really like to know as it will inform what I do for both the map based sandstorm and worm.

Will the lovely worm unit ever be seen now? Will your map effect wormsign spawn it or something?

Did the new Sunami NIF I posted fix the fade out issue? I'd really like to know as it will inform what I do for both the map based sandstorm and worm.

I am not sure this solution is perfect either. The map effect code I copied from Gods Of Old triggers the effect every 3 seconds. But I observe that if I sit and watch for 30 seconds, the effect disappears and does not reappear. This does not match what the code seems to say. The tsunami animation runs for 20 seconds. If it were actually being triggered every 3 seconds I think we should see the first three seconds of the animation over and over forever. Instead we see 20 seconds of animation, once. I am not sure how the nif interacts with the trigger, but the plague effect seems to last forever while the tsunami does not.

When you have the opportunity, please download the patch and see what you think. It isn't convenient to have two versions of the mod in general, but sometimes what I do is make a zipfile of all the files in my mod directory which includes my local changes; then delete the mod directory; then re-install say version 1.2 followed by patch 1.2.3. After seeing what I wanted to see, then I can delete the mod directory and unzip my local changes.

Will the lovely worm unit ever be seen now? Will your map effect wormsign spawn it or something?

I think the worm is one of the best units I have seen. It is still there. In 1.2.2, there is a "unit" which looks like a round lump of sand until it attacks. In 1.2.3, there is an "effect" which looks like a thundercloud until it attacks. The attacking part is identical. When the AI determines that an attack is about to happen, it spawns a unit, which attacks and then dies.

Looking forward to trying 1.2.3 after I upload my water changes.

Does the 10 second animation NIF I made behave differently to the 30 second NIF? I can play myself once I get 1.2.3...

Does the 10 second animation NIF I made behave differently to the 30 second NIF? I can play myself once I get 1.2.3...

It fades faster, so the ghost doesn't last as long. So that is better.

Loading Screen

Had an idea for a new loading screen to set the scene a bit for the mod. Goes in Art/Interface/Screens/Loading.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=220253&stc=1&d=1246918138

With tubers gone, I find I sort of miss them, if only because they made the surface of the planet more interesting. In 1.2.8, which has the majority of stuff that will form 1.3, the planet looks quite bare and dull. What can we do about this?

Perhaps we can make some rock formation features, that have no gameplay function but are purely cosmetic to make the 'land' areas look more interesting? What do people think?

hey deliverator....

i told you guys having muchrooms or something like this is nessesary...

i spoke with david,
and suggested to have another brand of salt or a desert mineral - there are plenty of that we can use -
like rock salt, phosphates, and such,
we can use the sma elooks of the salt, with another texture, thats all,
should be nice.

Yeah, I think some sort of surface mineral deposits might be the way to go. I think the only reason the rocks with lichen idea was dismissed was because there weren't suitable graphics. There are few resources out there that can probably be adopted to some kind of harvestable rocks. I'll add it to my list...

we need this new feature to have art that wont hide the units on them.

why not using the salt/ice nifs?

Yeah, the icebergs are very nice. Maybe I can edit them to make them look a bit more interesting and rocky. I want something not too flat because it is the flatness of the terrain that is bothering me right now. I'll make sure that no units are obscured - don't worry. I've have a play around sometime soon.

cool d',

you can make the nifs a bit more thick, and use only certain nifs - there are plety of models there -perhaps you can filter some out.

i always like the look of the soostone (without an improvement ofc course), maybe you can use it for something.

This is very rough, but it shows you what I am planning for my knife fighting Fremen unit. Whether this will be the Fedaykin or an earlier unit I don't know yet. I have stitched together a mesh from sezereth's Govannon unit, and a couple of others. This needs further refinement. The body will obviously be wearing a stillsuit - I plan to copy the 1984 film stillsuits. I'm planning to use the archer knife fighting animations. It does mean they have to have two crysknives rather than just one. I'm planning to do a nice glow effect on the eyes too. This will be looking much nicer the next time you see it. Lots of work to do...

With tubers gone, I find I sort of miss them, if only because they made the surface of the planet more interesting. In 1.2.8, which has the majority of stuff that will form 1.3, the planet looks quite bare and dull. What can we do about this?

Mushrooms just does not feel like Dune to me. I am glad they are gone. Here are some suggestions for making the map more colorful.

* Eliminate brown as a color on the existing features and improvements. For example, the village tileset is almost invisible on arid terrain. Many of the bonuses such as burro weed are also a similar color.

* Add more resources to the map. More clusters, larger clusters. Once 1.3 comes out I will re-run my bonus-counting statistics to see how much we can improve this before boosting beyond what a typical vanilla archipelago map gives. Since groundwater seems much more important to growth than other bonuses, this may increase the map contrast without making the game play too easy.

* Add a map graphic for groundwater. I think this is important for gameplay without requiring resource hovers (alt-r) anyway. I will experiment with a small, medium and large oasis graphic; or maybe there is a better one.

* The terraform counter described in the "arrakis terraforming victory" thread will help, but not for the early game.

The current (lack of) artwork for groundwater forces you to play with resource hovers (alt-r), and some players may be confused until they figure that out.

What do you think about using the oasis art as the art for this bonus? It is easy to convert a feature art into a bonus art. Please see attached screenshot for an example. It looks a little weird to have an oasis on a salt pan, but perhaps this should be prevented by the xml anyway. That is, remove jungle as a featureboolean from the aquifer bonus. The well improvements look OK on top of the oasis art (not shown).

It may also be worthwhile to swap the deep well and shallow well graphic since the shallow well is bigger and more impressive looking. Making the well artwork some other color than brown would definitely help it to stand out.

I'll do something about groundwater, villages and wells on the weekend. I'd still like to try doing some sort of rock formations feature or something. I find the flatness of the terrain more weird than the lack of colour, you don't expect too much colour on a desert planet.

hey guys,


i was thinking - is it possible for you to remove the steam effects of the spice? cause i think it can mount slowness on game speed - the more texture the slower it gets....
the spice is cool enough without the steams as well, i think.

Yes, I can do that. The fact that it appears in the dark areas of the map is another good reason.

hey guys,


i was thinking - is it possible for you to remove the steam effects of the spice? cause i think it can mount slowness on game speed - the more texture the slower it gets....
the spice is cool enough without the steams as well, i think.

I agree. We should pay more attention to performance. Dune wars mod is already very very slow on my pc (AMD Athlon XP 2600+ :cool:). Though I'm not sure it's resulting from artwork or the python stuff. Can't play on maps larger than small. :(

I'll look to create a more optimised version of the spice and the sandworm, and we can see if there's an improvement.

yes koma,
my motto was always - fast performance,

the high num of python, + all of the art - cause slowness,
this makes the game very unplayable.

i dont want to get like rise of man that its really slow....


***
deliv,
also - maybe reducing the use of nifs for the alt model, theres a lot of it.

we need to put more emphesize on this issue.

alt model? You mean the spice?

Now that I think about it could be also that RevDCM mod. A few days ago David suggested making a dw version only based on 3.19 vanilla + some selected features (jImprovement...). Maybe I will try this out to see how much impact it has on performance.

yes koma,
my motto was always - fast performance,

I like your motto. :goodjob:

sorry, ment the salt nif's.


****

sound addon uploaded !


*****

koma13,

i thought about this,
but loosing revdcm will mean letting go on pleny of things , like dcm, that is a must have, bug screen, the font files,
the interface.

i like it to much.

take my overlord mod, there , i used revdcm, by i was always tried to use as less art as i can, no duplicated buttons, not city arts, no building art - most where monuments, mostly the unit art was the most diverted.
and it worked really well and the slowness was much much better,
the sdk part and rev dcm isnt adding that much wieght, from expericne i sya this.

most of the stuff that adds weights, is the arts. so we need to skim down parts we can.

Now that I think about it could be also that RevDCM mod. A few days ago David suggested making a dw version only based on 3.19 vanilla + some selected features (jImprovement...). Maybe I will try this out to see how much impact it has on performance.

That sounds like a good idea. There are a lot of features in there that we're not using.

On the salt graphic, I don't think the iceberg nifs are responsible for slowdown since they are unchanged from vanilla, and are not very big. We can go through and review all the art for performance, it will just take a while...

i changed art for cottages->cities , and green house, but i forgot to ajust the sizes...

so its a bit large.

i need to rescale all improvements, some are too big.

I agree. We should pay more attention to performance. Dune wars mod is already very very slow on my pc (AMD Athlon XP 2600+ :cool:). Though I'm not sure it's resulting from artwork or the python stuff. Can't play on maps larger than small. :(

It would be interesting to see if this is due to graphics or python, since people often blame python. But I am not sure exactly how to separate them. If you turn off most of the python by adding a return early in DuneWars::__init__, that also disables the code which places spice, sandstorms, and sandworms. I am sure that would run fast but it does not prove much.

It would be interesting to see if this is due to graphics or python, since people often blame python. But I am not sure exactly how to separate them. If you turn off most of the python by adding a return early in DuneWars::__init__, that also disables the code which places spice, sandstorms, and sandworms. I am sure that would run fast but it does not prove much.

On the other hand, we could identify which graphics may be causing a slowdown by selectively disabling them in the python. I have given these instructions a few times. In function onEndGameTurn, comment out StormAddSubstract to remove storms, WormAdd to remove worms, and BlowAdd to remove spice. Removing BlowAdd will dramatically affect gameplay, so a before/after runtime comparison may not be quite fair.

Citysets Ideas and Reference

Since Lord Tirian expressed an interest in doing some work on the city sets I have taken some stills from Children of Dune of the city of Arrakeen. The CGIs guys have made it a mix of several different architectural styles. These shots are not a specification, just for ideas/general feel. I think we want the biggest city in the latest era to look more like this than something super-futuristic. There are a lot of citysets out there that might be ripe for adaptation.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=220601&d=1247243268

For the earlier cities, my best idea is to imitate the carved cave dwellings they have in Cappadocia, Turkey:

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/11/42/4f/the-goreme-open-air-museum.jpg

If you search Google Images for Goreme you'll find lots of examples. In the Dune book sietches seem to made by a combination of natural caves and human carving so these seem like a good fit.

In the worm rider thread we took a brief detour into city sets. Koma posted a screenshot at this link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8251528&postcount=18).

That looks really cool, and also it looks like a real cityset. Is that an existing civ4 city set? Then let's just recycle it.

It would be interesting to see if this is due to graphics or python, since people often blame python.

I think it depends on your computer. I have a halfway decent gfx card, for me the cpu is the bottleneck.

If you turn off most of the python by adding a return early in DuneWars::__init__, that also disables the code which places spice, sandstorms, and sandworms. I am sure that would run fast but it does not prove much.

And if we replace the graphics with some empty placeholders? This should ease the task for the gfx card but should not make much of a difference for cpu (well, particles maybe but we can disable them via graphic option).

It would be interesting to see if this is due to graphics or python, since people often blame python. But I am not sure exactly how to separate them. If you turn off most of the python by adding a return early in DuneWars::__init__, that also disables the code which places spice, sandstorms, and sandworms. I am sure that would run fast but it does not prove much.The empty graphics things is a possibility (just a nif with nothing in it to display).

Additionally, a rough guide to the cause is often the type of slowness: Long turn times usually indicate that a lot of computing is going on, lags during scrolling over the map or on looking at certain regions (like with a lot of units/effects etc.) tend to indicate graphics. That's of course not a hard guide, just a pointer.

Cheers, LT.

I can try some experiments tonight but I don't know how to make an empty nif. Is there one around?

Here's a NIF which everything deleted from it - pretty much empty.

I think removing the constant particle effects from the worm and the spice - which I'll upload tomorrow is going to make a significant difference to performance. But I'm sure there are other things...

Hey, just dropping by to show how the early city set looks so far. Bear in mind that this is still a work in progress, things that will be done on it:

-> better texture that doesn't look like old bacon
-> shadows will be added
-> some extra variety
-> need to tweak the LSystem-file a bit more to reduce repetitions

Any impressions so far? Things I should totally change? Or happy with the direction? Give me feedback, guys, that's my first cityset I'm doing, after all!

Cheers, LT.

Looks good so far. This is just the basic cityset, right? So a separate project will be required to make the "ethnic" versions of all the tech tree buildings like granary, etc?

There is a request to greatly reduce the number of buildings. I think we have thinned out the early buildings enough, but the midgame and lategame buildings haven't been studied yet. So if you do start on the tech tree buildings, let's sync up and make sure the less important buildings go last.

Good stuff LT. Looking good for your first cityset. :goodjob: I get what you mean about the bacon! :lol:

1) Can you change the underlying paved tiling? It feels a bit advanced for cave houses. Something a bit rockier would be cool.
2) I think it makes sense to work on the city sets for the different eras right now. We don't yet know whether buildings will be culled, or changed to fit Water for Food like Food Warehouse -> Reservoir. Koma is reviewing early units, but there don't seem to be any explicit plans to review buildings. It is sensible to avoid things that may be subject to change right now.

Looks good so far. This is just the basic cityset, right? So a separate project will be required to make the "ethnic" versions of all the tech tree buildings like granary, etc?Yep. Also, right now the city set is universal to all civs. Down the line, it might be possible to make city sets that differ between some civs - but that's a looot of work.
1) Can you change the underlying paved tiling? It feels a bit advanced for cave houses. Something a bit rockier would be cool.Okay, will try to do that once I get the texture on the caves right - then the ground could sort of blend in with the caves, making the caves more like something that's connected to the ground than buildings on top of it.

Cheers, LT.

Okay, will try to do that once I get the texture on the caves right - then the ground could sort of blend in with the caves, making the caves more like something that's connected to the ground than buildings on top of it.


Can't you just remove the ground texture so we see the normal terrain graphics as ground?

That looks really cool, and also it looks like a real cityset. Is that an existing civ4 city set? Then let's just recycle it.

I got it from Mare Nostrum mod but originally it's from geomodder's ethnic artstyle.

Can't you just remove the ground texture so we see the normal terrain graphics as ground?
Easy enough - and seems to work out pretty well with my updated texture, see the screenshot (also, feedback, please - shadows will be done last, because that's the drudge-work).

Cheers, LT.

Cool. Could you put a few smaller rocks and boulders around the bases of them to mask the join with the ground?

Cool. Could you put a few smaller rocks and boulders around the bases of them to mask the join with the ground?Could... but then you'd see the join of the rocks and boulders with the ground, no?

Cheers, LT.

I mean a few very small ones around the base of each house.

I mean a few very small ones around the base of each house.The main problem is that the height maps of Civ can be very... odd. That would lead to floating rocks - or they would need to extend into the ground a fair bit - which would make you see the transition again (that's also the reason why all stock CivIV buildings are going into the ground so deep) - or to rocks that are below ground - and hence don't mask the transition, or worse: I would need to place big rocks, where the transition is pretty visible again. At least my tries ended up with that problem.

So I decided to use the ground texture again, just adapted to my needs. Now it blends fairly well with the buildings - they don't look very out of place, I think and I'm fairly happy with it.

I deliberately chose the rather muted colours, that way it should blend in on any dune wars terrain pretty well - more colourful and vibrant tries ended up looking odd on darker terrain.

Stuff attached!

Cheers, LT.

Very nice work mate. I have a few local graphical changes that I'm thinking of bundling into a patch. I'll be sure to include these.

I'm determined to get my first human unit done for Dune Wars. I've made good progress on the Fremen Fedaykin today (this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=220518&d=1247173647) is where I started). I suppose this is quite an obscure unit to start with, but I'm hoping various components of it can be reused in some way. In particular the stillsuit. I spent quite a while trying to get the eyes to glow blue, before I realised there's no way anyone will ever be close enough to see the eyes (unless we implement the camera Python linked below). Anything with cloaks is hard to get perfect - I've not done any custom animation for it so it may look a bit weird at times. Just needs the texture improving on the jubba cloak, legs and knife and the whole thing brightening up a bit then it'll be done. If you fancy giving it a texturing over LT, I've attached the files. Otherwise I'll tidy it up myself.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=220711&stc=1&d=1247331534

I'd be really happy if someone could implement the Camera Controls from this Python (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218503&d=1245604065) for panning 360 and tilting the camera. It will enable me to get some much more interesting screenshots for promo purposes.

I'd be really happy if someone could implement the Camera Controls from this Python (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218503&d=1245604065) for panning 360 and tilting the camera. It will enable me to get some much more interesting screenshots for promo purposes.

I am confused. Where did that CvEventManager.py come from? It has some camera controls mixed with some really old DuneWars python I wrote. Perhaps this is a file you locally modified. If so, as far as I can tell, the part you added is the section of code from line 239-273 only. You can just paste this into the current 1.3 version of CvEventManager.py. All of the Dune Wars code has been removed from that file and is now in a separate file, DuneWars.py, using a nice capability of BUG.

If I have missed something, let me know, but it seems just pasting the camera code into the current file should do what you need. I do not modify CvEventManager.py anymore so there is no opportunity for clashes.

Yeah, that file is from when I tried to get it working a while back. I put that section of code into CvEventManager.py, but it seems like something intercepts the hotkeys, because it has no effect in game. My guess is BUG is getting in the way somehow.

OK, now I understand. Give me a little while and I will stick that into DuneWars.py itself.

Just needs the texture improving on the jubba cloak, legs and knife and the whole thing brightening up a bit then it'll be done. If you fancy giving it a texturing over LT, I've attached the files. Otherwise I'll tidy it up myself.He's cool! The texture is pretty good already, just some rough spots - I'll fiddle around with it tomorrow, but there are just some finishing touches one can do, I guess (the parts where the cloak and the hood are connected mainly).
+ Included new Birth of Arrakis cityset from Lord Tirian, but it's not working yet. I think further XML changes are required...
Crap. I included the wrong file! The file I've included is the XML for plots, not cities... :blush: I attached the right XML file, the other one (the one I gave you before) is unchanged from the original dune wars file. Sorry!

Cheers, LT.

He's cool! The texture is pretty good already, just some rough spots - I'll fiddle around with it tomorrow, but there are just some finishing touches one can do, I guess (the parts where the cloak and the hood are connected mainly).


Cheers, he could certainly use some polishing. It would be nice if there wasn't such an obviously split between the upper body and lower. Sadly (or perhaps not), there aren't too many below the waist stillsuit moments in the film. Have you ever used texture paint in blender? It's pretty hand for airbrushing over dodgy joins and the like...

In the movie, they distinguish the Fedaykin with red paint/blood/whatever it is - see attachment. Might be a good way to get a bit of colour on there. We should keep a 'clean' stillsuit version though too - as I'm sure they'll be other units need them.

Crap. I included the wrong file!

No problem. I think I'll just reupload 1.3.1 with this file.

The cityset is working fine now - I've updated patch 1.3.1 to include the fix. They're really fun - I think this is about as good as you can do for a Sietch within the confines of a Civ 4 cityset. Good work again LT. :)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=220745&stc=1&d=1247351093

I'm determined to get my first human unit done for Dune Wars. I've made good progress on the Fremen Fedaykin today (this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=220518&d=1247173647) is where I started).

Great work :goodjob:.

I guess, the FfH2 assasin was the base?

I guess, the FfH2 assasin was the base?

Well, he's a real mongrel. The head and cloak is from sezereth's Govannon unit, the arms/sleeves are from the Inquisitor, the torso came from one of my existing Colonization units, the knife is from the Archer unit and the face scarf I cut out of the existing Dune Wars Scout. Once you can cut-and-shut units like this in blender the possibilities really open up...

Ok, I tried my hand at the Fedaykin. I'm really happy how the stillsuit turned out (there's also a version without the red goo applied), the knife looks more like bone or something now (it should be a Crys knife, after all) - the arms are okay (just a bit brighter) and the cloak - I think it's better than before, but the matching of the seams (even with Blender texture painting) kills me.

I've done slight changes to the nif (some UV mapping on the stillsuit), so make sure to use the right nif-file (if not, don't worry, it's just stuff below the waist).

Cheers, LT.

Nice work man, nice work. I think I'll make some final tweaks, make the cloak colour match the sand a bit more, etc and then its good to go. The idle animation is slightly weird in that the knife sticks in mid-air while he fiddles with his hood. I may see if there's another one around that doesn't distort him too badly. I went with the Vet Swordsman anim from Colonization because the knife animation on the vanilla Archer is really sloppy - the knives are floating in space more than they're actually in his hands. I may try and do a knife stabbing animation at some point - custom human animations are probably the hardest though...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=220796&stc=1&d=1247398514

wow! those fremen look so cool!

I think I'll make some final tweaks, make the cloak colour match the sand a bit more...Totally! I only looked at it in nifskope/blender... and now seeing the in-game shot, the yellow of the coat looks like an oilskin, which is not really the right clothing for a desert! :lol:

Cheers, LT.

and now seeing the in-game shot, the yellow of the coat looks like an oilskin, which is not really the right clothing for a desert! :lol:


:lol:
I want a "I know what you have done last summer"-fisherman-unit :D.

Anyone knows where I could get an ancient (egypt/north african) looking archway? :)
Image should be in standard resolution (eg. 1024x768).

Is Google Images not doing the business?

I wasn't sure which keywords to use. But 'Marrakech doorway' gave me some doable results. Now I have to look for a dunish looking city silhouette. :crazyeye:

Here is an early preview of the city screen:


http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/820/civ4screenshot0011.jpg

The return of the screen maestro! It looks really great. A few points:

1) In the 1984 film they went to amazing lengths to make sure they never showed the sky as blue. According to Herbert there is not enough moisture for the sky to be blue. Making the sky a deep red/orange colour like in the main menu pic might be a good way to get around this. Plus it says 'alien planet' more than 'day on the beach'. Alternately, you could have it fade to black with stars up there.

2) I also think there should not be grass on the dunes. Can that be painted out? I can do it if you like.

3) Are you planning to change the food (water) bar to blue and the build bar to some other colour? That would be great.

4) I some point I need to improve the water drop icons and gamefonts, and fix the bitten bread that I missed.

I'm happy to help in anyway you need... :)

In the 1984 film they went to amazing lengths to make sure they never showed the sky as blue. According to Herbert there is not enough moisture for the sky to be blue. Making the sky a deep red/orange colour like in the main menu pic might be a good way to get around this. Plus it says 'alien planet' more than 'day on the beach'. Alternately, you could have it fade to black with stars up there.


You are right, of course Arrakis has a different athmosphere than earth, sky should be red or black.

I also think there should not be grass on the dunes. Can that be painted out? I can do it if you like.

They told me, it's sand verbena. :lol: Maybe you can help me with that? I could use that stamp tool but I often lose patient with it, resulting in artefacts. I will send you related graphics soon.

3) Are you planning to change the food (water) bar to blue and the build bar to some other colour? That would be great.


We should do this for main screen's city shields. In city screen I want to remove the food stackbar and replace it with a reservoir graphic.

4) I some point I need to improve the water drop icons and gamefonts, and fix the bitten bread that I missed.


The remaining bread icon is called 'FontSymbols.EATEN_FOOD_CHAR'. If you don't find it, I can change this to a water icon with python.

Other things I want to do:
- cut out upper side of the archway again to make it look more clean
- make all changes optional by adding new switches to the bug option screen allowing you to return to the old/default graphics

They told me, it's sand verbena. :lol: Maybe you can help me with that? I could use that stamp tool but I often lose patient with it, resulting in artefacts. I will send you related graphics soon.

I'll have a go. I've had plenty of practice with clone brush. The reservoir idea sounds cool.

wow koma13!

i'm speechless about the city screen.

its amazing, never even thought one would change the looks of the city screen.

Here is an early preview of the city screen:
W

ow, that looks really great :wow:.

Where/how do you do that?

Here's a little teaser of the bonus overhaul I am currently working on. As you can see Arrakis will now have fauna as well as flora. Quite a large number of bonuses will be replaced with something else. I am reworking improvements too. I'd like to get the patch out in the next couple of days.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=221045&stc=1&d=1247608354

wow.

you guys never cease to amaze me with your skills.

with this rate, and the art work you guys are doing,

we will have here a mod with uniqe art,
and who knows?
maybe we'll get bigger then ffh2? huh....

Well, keldath after mocking the current barrel cactus - I thought I should try and do better. It was actually harder than I thought for something so simple.

I think FFH2 has a bit of a headstart on us... ;)

Here's a little teaser of the bonus overhaul I am currently working on. As you can see Arrakis will now have fauna as well as flora. Quite a large number of bonuses will be replaced with something else. I am reworking improvements too. I'd like to get the patch out in the next couple of days.Kangaroo mice? They're *cute*! :love:

Cheers, LT.

Kangaroo mice? They're *cute*! :love:

Cheers, LT.

They're meant to be Desert Hares. :lol:

Nevermind, perhaps I can call the resource Desert Mammals instead. Hopefullly, there not too cute for people to build hunting camps on. May need your help tidying up some of these resources and improvements since you (seem) to have knowledge of the mysterious LPlotSystem.

May need your help tidying up some of these resources and improvements since you (seem) to have knowledge of the mysterious LPlotSystem.I wouldn't call it "knowledge", it's more like hitting it with a stick until it starts to behave! :lol: GeoModder is, I think, the real expert on that stuff.

But I think I can get stuff working, if you need some help - just tell me. :)

Cheers, LT.

How the mighty are fallen... rather than making badass killer units, I now spend my time making flowers and fluffy cute animals. Watch this space for the forthcoming My Little Pony Mod. ;)

Nevermind, perhaps I can call the resource Desert Mammals instead. Hopefullly, there not too cute for people to build hunting camps on.

I find it a little hard to visualize hunting enough small mammals or birds to make a difference in health or water for a whole city. I recall a reference to seeing a single kangaroo mouse in the books, but one could argue that was a spiritual vision rather than a normal part of the food chain.

I can see that the animals might be another marker that terraforming is happening; but do you plan to make them one of the main resources for the early game?

I'll explain the whole new bonuses in full in one go when I've completed the patch. I will outline the canonicity (or otherwise) of each then. I've written short pedia entries for all so that each is well defined. The Fremen eat bird meat and grain wrapped in leaves and dipped in spice honey. The reasons I want the animals is partly for flavour - the fauna of Arrakis is totally absent and I want the planet to feel more alive. Also, representing hunting for survival in the early game feels appropriate. Desert Hawks and Desert Hares are the only two, improved by Hunting Camps and producing some hammers (fed workers work harder), some commerce (foodstuffs, furs and feathers are traded) and health (better nourishment). See what you think of the new complete package of bonuses - I'll either put it up today or tomorrow. If people hate aspects of it then they can be changed.

How the mighty are fallen... rather than making badass killer units, I now spend my time making flowers and fluffy cute animals. Watch this space for the forthcoming My Little Pony Mod. ;)

Can you reskin the horse so it looks like this (http://greywolf.critter.net/images/gallery/critters/2007-09-14-happy-pink-unicorn.jpg)?

Here's a little teaser of the bonus overhaul I am currently working on. As you can see Arrakis will now have fauna as well as flora. Quite a large number of bonuses will be replaced with something else. I am reworking improvements too. I'd like to get the patch out in the next couple of days.


The resources look great .:goodjob:

How the mighty are fallen... rather than making badass killer units, I now spend my time making flowers and fluffy cute animals. Watch this space for the forthcoming My Little Pony Mod. ;)

Can you reskin the horse so it looks like this (http://greywolf.critter.net/images/gallery/critters/2007-09-14-happy-pink-unicorn.jpg)?

:lol:

Perhaps a Dune Wars Easter Egg, the My Little Pony resource - +25 water +25 hammer +25 commerce... ;)

I have posted the patch with the new resources here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8268881&postcount=11). From a graphical point of view there are quite a few further refinements I want to make.

1) I need to fix things so that improvements sit well with the bonuses they are on.
2) On that note, I'd like the Desert Plantations to be Dune versions of these from Aymerick's Plantation mod for Colonization (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=320916):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219984&stc=1&d=1246727483
3) I'd like to have bees flying around on the spice honey. Perhaps the unhealthy city NIF could be adapted as it has flys.
4) I'd like to do a proper Prickly Pear cactus for the Baradye.
5) Rename Iridium to Uranium and change to orange colour and glow.

I'll probably hold off further work until I see whether people hate the new bonuses or not...

ow, that looks really great :wow:.

Where/how do you do that?

It's done in CvMainInterface.py.

I removed all city screen related panels. Then I replaced them by new ones and overwritten their panel style with real graphics. That can be done with 'screen.addDrawControl'. The challenge in it is to make sure it works for all resolutions, I had to split up the graphics into smaller parts.

Perhaps a Dune Wars Easter Egg, the My Little Pony resource - +25 water +25 hammer +25 commerce...

Ok, you all are eager to make that little pony mod and I'm sure it will result in some furore in the civ community but can we first finish the dune mod, please. :)

I'll probably hold off further work until I see whether people hate the new bonuses or not...

How could they hate them? They are beautiful :).

It's done in CvMainInterface.py.

I removed all city screen related panels. Then I replaced them by new ones and overwritten their panel style with real graphics. That can be done with 'screen.addDrawControl'. The challenge in it is to make sure it works for all resolutions, I had to split up the graphics into smaller parts.


...okay. To difficult for me, i guess :sad:.

City Screen

I've been working on the city screen, after Koma sent it to me and I'm really happy with how it's turned out. Most of the credit has to go to Koma for figuring this stuff out, and to an artist called Stefano Broli who did this amazing picture (http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs14/f/2007/113/7/d/Arrakis_by_lotonero.jpg). There are some lines where the tiles don't meet up - is it possible to fix this koma? Also, I haven't tested on different screen resolutions. It is probably inevitable that the moons will look squashed or fat on some resolutions. Hopefully not too bad though. Try it out and see what you think. :)

Download Link (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1m11mnw11tn)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=221283&stc=1&d=1247859546

Nice idea but sorry to tell this isn't working. :(


http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/3500/civ4screenshot0012.jpg


'Sky top', 'sky bottom left' and 'sky bottom right' are stretched depending on resolution. You can't put any aspect ratio critical things in it. Also I think the clouds (clouds on Arrakis? :confused:) make it much harder to read information displayed on top of them.

Yeah, I thought this would be the problem. I wonder if we can tweak it though. I can easily lower the dunes so that the black bits aren't there. Then I can make the moons slightly artificially fat on my resolution so that they are slightly less thin on yours. Also, I could just paint out the moons, but it would be nice to try and make it work.

I can darken the background further help legibility.

I'll tinker with the side panels and post a changed vesion.

Edit: Will be tomorrow now, I'll try a few things out...

Well, you can try.. :)

To understand which graphics have hard coded sizes/positions and which ones depending on resolution have a careful look at CvMainInterface.py lines 2414-2481.


For the other folks, here is a working version of the city screen, though it's much simplier:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jmdhvlnnemw

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5061/civ4screenshot0013.jpg

My dunes have no grass, so we could take them and put them with your sky until I figure something better out for it.

True, I updated my post above.

beautiful, just beautiful.


i haven't seen a single mod to alter the city screen like that.

excellent work.

Awesome work. This kind of graphic work really makes a game immersive for me.

Cheers,
Sword

Anybody up for a quick reskin? I am making the Reverend Mother unit, and I found this great female asian missionary by Chuggi. The only problem is the pattern on the robe is very complex and it's well beyond my limited skill to repaint. For extra credit, the chopsticks don't go very well. There are lots of funny hats in the miniseries which could be an inspiration.

It uses vanilla art/units/missionary/taoist/taoistmissionary.kfm.

beautiful, just beautiful.


i haven't seen a single mod to alter the city screen like that.

excellent work.

Thx :)

Let's see what Deliverator is coming up with. Btw, what is about making new graphics for the interface in main screen?

@Deliverator

I thought about the problem with aspect ratio. I think it would be best to cut out the moons and put them as extra layers with fixed sizes on top of the sky. This will make sure there're looking correct in every resolution.
I also noticed that small horizontal line/gap you're getting in the upper area of the screen. I think it's resulting from processing the psd file in Photoshop. I created the file in gimp and it doesn't seems to produce 100% compatible psd files. Try opening it in gimp and you'll see that line is gone.

Anybody up for a quick reskin? I am making the Reverend Mother unit

I'm working on the RM.

Edit: @Koma: So if I paint out the moons on the background sky, we could have two new images which are just the moon circles cut out with a transparent background? And then overlay them?

I was think out making it a more of a fade to black towards the top of the page, perhaps with a few stars. I've been doing every thing in Paint.NET saving the DDS in the format A8R8G8B8 so I don't know where the lines are coming from...

So if I paint out the moons on the background sky, we could have two new images which are just the moon circles cut out with a transparent background? And then overlay them?

EDIT:
Exactly.

Having stars sounds cool, though I'm not sure clouds are a good idea. They're suggesting rain.

I've been doing every thing in Paint.NET saving the DDS in the format A8R8G8B8 so I don't know where the lines are coming from...
I don't know Paint.NET. :dunno: I just can say, if I'm exporting the layers to dds with gimp I don't get those lines. When nothing helps I can try changing the panel positions in python but I would prefer avoiding it.

I think some clouds can be thought of as sand/dust, but these clouds are going a bit high for that.

Reverend Mother

I knocked this model up really quick as I am busy this afternoon. Myself or LT can refine the texture later. It is based on Chuggi's unit that david posted so the animations should be the same. I've always liked the outfits of the RMs from the 84 film so I've tried to emulate that.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=221341&stc=1&d=1247910028

hehe what an awesome rm :)

koma13, new main interface...how cool.

great work you guys.

Here's take two at the city screen sky. I've included the changed files only. The blue moon thing was just an idea - it would probably be better just to have stars.

Looks awesome! :goodjob:

..but :) you forget to include the upper arch graphics. They still have a red sky.

They are unchanged from my first attempt - so you can rip them out of there. I'm going to be offline now for a while...

Edit: still have them lines - maybe loading them into Photoshop and saving them again will fix them?

I knocked this model up really quick as I am busy this afternoon. Myself or LT can refine the texture later. It is based on Chuggi's unit that david posted so the animations should be the same. I've always liked the outfits of the RMs from the 84 film so I've tried to emulate that.I'll try to work on it a bit later today. :)

Cheers, LT.

Edit: still have them lines - maybe loading them into Photoshop and saving them again will fix them?


Really? On my screen it is looking fine now. Which resolution have you choosen?
But the brown arch sides are very low res. I try to improve that.

Cityscreen + unit: :goodjob:.

I knocked this model up really quick as I am busy this afternoon.

Awesome! Thanks. Patch 1.3.6 coming in about 5 hours.

Hi, fiddled around with the texture - I changed the dress marginally (I like the slightly baroque feel it has), replaced the bright white belt with a modest corsage, matched the skin colours, removed the distortion in the UV map (the eyebrows!) from the face and made the headdress look more like gauze. And removed the CREEPY eyes and replaced them with bluish spice-eyes.

Haven't tested it in-game - but since it's mostly a retexturing and minor nif-adjustments, it should work just as Deliverator's version above - but I guess he should take another look at it first - he may want to change things around and match the texture better to the intended surroundings (as with the Fedaykin), because you only see how they really look like after putting them into the game.

Cheers, LT.

Hi, fiddled around with the texture [...] Haven't tested it in-game

Ah ... help please. Neither yours nor deliverator's seems to work correctly in-game. I have put my artdefine section into the spoiler.


<UnitArtInfo>
<Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_REVMOTHER</Type>
<Button>Art/Units/revmother/revmotherb.dds</Button>
<fScale>0.46</fScale>
<fInterfaceScale>1.0</fInterfaceScale>
<bActAsLand>0</bActAsLand>
<bActAsAir>0</bActAsAir>
<NIF>Art/Units/revmother/revmoth.nif</NIF>
<KFM>Art/Units/missionary/taoist/taoistmissionary.kfm</KFM>
<SHADERNIF>Art/Units/revmother/revmoth.nif</SHADERNIF>
<ShadowDef>
<ShadowNIF>Art/Units/01_UnitShadows/UnitShadow.nif</ShadowNIF>
<ShadowAttachNode>BIP Pelvis</ShadowAttachNode>
<fShadowScale>0.85</fShadowScale>
</ShadowDef>
<fBattleDistance>0.35</fBattleDistance>
<fRangedDeathTime>0.31</fRangedDeathTime>
<bActAsRanged>0</bActAsRanged>
<TrainSound>AS2D_UNIT_BUILD_UNIT</TrainSound>
<AudioRunSounds>
<AudioRunTypeLoop/>
<AudioRunTypeEnd/>
</AudioRunSounds>
</UnitArtInfo>

With deliverator's unit, the cloak is visible but the rest of the body is invisible. It is just a floating cloak. A cool effect for a ghost, I suppose, but not what I was hoping for. With your unit, using the same fscale, I get a huge (bigger than the gameboard) flickering rectangle.

Both look fine in nifskope. Could you try ingame please?

With deliverator's unit, the cloak is visible but the rest of the body is invisible. It is just a floating cloak. A cool effect for a ghost, I suppose, but not what I was hoping for. With your unit, using the same fscale, I get a huge (bigger than the gameboard) flickering rectangle.Ah, the skin partitions in the Nif are messed up.

Tried to fix them, but no luck so far, something keeps screwing up during the export and I don't know what it is right now - will probably take a bit longer.

However, I made a version without skin partition data, meaning it won't have support for shaders and team colour (but it doesn't have that anyway) - but it works, tested it in-game as well. I updated the file in the post above with a working version. If you take the nif-file, it should work for Deliverator's texture as well.

Cheers, LT.

@ LT, Great, thanks. I have used your nif and your skin, and it is working fine.

In unrelated news, do you still follow the Super Spies thread? We had some cool ideas for enhancements. Well, I thought they were cool. But the AI for Super Spies looks pretty complicated so I had not tried to enhance it. Do you think anybody who knows the code would be interested in adding a few things? Please see this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8235913&postcount=47).

In unrelated news, do you still follow the Super Spies thread? We had some cool ideas for enhancements. Well, I thought they were cool. But the AI for Super Spies looks pretty complicated so I had not tried to enhance it. Do you think anybody who knows the code would be interested in adding a few things? Please see this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8235913&postcount=47).I'm afraid I'm not deep into the SDK - I started familiarising myself with it a while ago, but then a horrible hybrid of C and C++ programming became a major part of a project I'm doing for my course - which needs to run on an 2003 version of CERN's root framework (it's really a weird Frankenstein-program), so my Visual Studio is right now in a state where it works for that project... and I don't dare to touch it until the end of month (at that point, the program should be finished, I hope).

Plus, when coding became more important for my actual course, I have to say that it took the fun out of coding for fun, so I never really got familiar with the SDK for anything more involved than merging and really minor tweaks (like changing formulas etc.) - and the pretty tight way SuperSpies was done (hijacking the aircraft interception code) doesn't make it easy to unravel it to play around. Nowadays, graphics are more fun - because it's more "WYSIWYG" - instant satisfaction from a finished model. :blush:

Cheers, LT.

the pretty tight way SuperSpies was done (hijacking the aircraft interception code) doesn't make it easy to unravel it to play around.

Could you suggest which other people are still around, who may have knowledge/time/interest to poke around inside super spies? I can PM them.

Could you suggest which other people are still around, who may have knowledge/time/interest to poke around inside super spies? I can PM them.Glider1 has a pretty good grasp of it - he cleaned up TrojanSheeps original modcomp, changed stuff around a bit and fixed a couple of bugs as well for his mod.

Cheers, LT.

humm,
you guys want me to get the woc super spies in the game?

as for help - johny smith might help.

Super spies are already in the game. I am trying to find somebody who may be interested in doing enhancements for it, according to various ideas that Ahriman (mostly) had. I got the impression that johny smith was tied up with rapture lately.

Really? On my screen it is looking fine now. Which resolution have you choosen?
But the brown arch sides are very low res. I try to improve that.

1280 x 800 is my resolution.

Do people like the blue moon at the top? It is quite low res but I can make a better one. I might do two variants one with just stars scattered across the top and one with a better moon. Then people can choose their favourite.

@LT: Great work with Reverend Mother. Thanks for tidying it up and making it work. You're a fellow Doctor Who fan? Just the new stuff or the classic series too?

1280 x 800 is my resolution.


Can you send me your edited psd file after you finished your changes? I can set exact borders for (dds) files with gimp. This will surely eliminate that lines.


Do people like the blue moon at the top? It is quite low res but I can make a better one.
I like the blue moon very much. It gives a nice colorful contrast to the desert.

I might do two variants one with just stars scattered across the top and one with a better moon. Then people can choose their favourite.
We could make the moon only appears from time to time.

@LT: Great work with Reverend Mother. Thanks for tidying it up and making it work. You're a fellow Doctor Who fan? Just the new stuff or the classic series too?Mainly the new series - mind you, I'm actually a German but I'm doing full-time study here - around the same time the new series started, so it was my companion through my entire study so far - but this also means that I've never heard of it before. So watched some of the classics and while they're fun to watch... I guess things like that never "click" that well if you don't watch them as they're made.

For the Reverend Mother: Do you think it's worth the effort to make a shader version working? It doesn't look like an unit that would profit a lot from a gloss map, so I'm tempted to say: It works, leave it at that.

Cheers, LT.

I think she's fine as she is. Shaders seem to be mainly useful for metallic things. I want to get into particle fx more. There seems to loads of cool stuff you can do with that. For example we should convert this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10669) to make a city shield - it looks great. You seem to have a good handle on the particle stuff...

Yeah, I loved Doctor Who as kid in the mid-eighties. The new series is well done, but there are great ones from the old series that still stand up. The Talons of Weng Chiang, The Caves of Androzani and The City of Death spring to mind...

Can you send me your edited psd file after you finished your changes? I can set exact borders for (dds) files with gimp. This will surely eliminate that lines.

I haven't been using photoshop at all, except at the beginning. I extracted them into Paint.NET because that's what I know well. I could try and reconstitute the separate images back into the psd, but it would take me much longer than you since I don't know it well at all...

Anyway, I've remade the moon and added a few stars and I'm pretty happy with it. If you can find a way to eliminate the lines then we'll be done I think.

Edit: Noticed that the shadow fade on the right bottom bit of archway is missing.

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nmodtdyjzmx

I haven't been using photoshop at all, except at the beginning. I extracted them into Paint.NET because that's what I know well. I could try and reconstitute the separate images back into the psd, but it would take me much longer than you since I don't know it well at all...

Ok, I will care about the problem. I can recreate a proper image in gimp with your dds files. This will allow me to remove those lines. I will also try to make a more smooth transition between clouds and stars.

Another one of those small things that was breaking the Dune mood for me was the world picker. So my next patch will have a planet that looks more like Arrakis. Also, it might be nice to have another name for this script other than Archipelago... Arrakis is taken so what?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=221505&stc=1&d=1248014470

Here is an updated version of the city screen.

Can anyone try it and report if there are still visible lines in the upper part of screen?

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?4nzzqzzzkg3

The lines are still there I'm afraid... :(

Can the python be adjusted so that SkyLeft and SkyRight come down just a little bit more... or is it not that simple?

The lines are still there I'm afraid...

Can the python be adjusted so that SkyLeft and SkyRight come down just a little bit more... or is it not that simple?

Hmm. The lines coming from the upper graphics. In the middle of the screen (upper archway) there are no graphics below. Hence stretching them down won't help. Is anyone else is getting those lines? Maybe it's an driver issue. I can switch to all resolutions on my computer without any problems. :confused:

EDIT: ok, you can at least try to fix it for skyleft and skyright but this won't fix lines in the middle:

Look in CvMainInterface.py line 2421-2429. Change all '66' to 68 or 70.

I get the lines with all resolutions that I try. I'll try changing the Python.

Changing the Python numbers makes no difference.

Nevermind, I reckon we release it and see if it's a widespread problem, if it's only me that gets it I can live with it. It seems to have something to do with what happens when the panels overlap. I can play with the various different DDS subformats - see if that makes a difference...

Changing the Python numbers makes no difference.

Very strange indeed. :dunno: To me it is looking like a resizing problem (I used some very odd image sizes for those dds files). I have only an old 17"crt display, very forgiving to any graphical artifacts. But if these lines are really there I should at least be able to notice them in screen caps. What picture format you are using for civ4 screenshots? Jpeg?

A bit of a Repost from anothe thread on the Great Houses

Great Houses and Heraldry

House Wallach: Sable on a Pale (vertical Band), a closed book tenne encicled but a serpent vert

House Kenric: Party per cheron or and Vert (a feild of yellow overlaid with green in the shape ofa cheveron) in cheif (at the top) three bexants gules (red circles) fesswise (horrizontally) in nombril (bottom center) a rocket ascending argent

House Wikkheiser: Azure an Anchor with a anchor between alpha and omega white.

House Ophelion: Party per cross on 1 & 4 a lozenge (diamond), and a cross form sable on 2 & 3

House Delambre: Purple sheild witha Lazgun over a sheild wall over a harp.

House Tliopa'il :Argent a bend (diagonal band) in sinister (left) base a pentagon of the last, in dexter (right) a wolves head sable erased.


All of this was gleaned from the very rare Dune Encyclopedia which I have a copy of. I would be willing to Go over the book witha Fine toothed comb to help out with any missing info if wanted

Very strange indeed. :dunno: To me it is looking like a resizing problem (I used some very odd image sizes for those dds files). I have only an old 17"crt display, very forgiving to any graphical artifacts. But if these lines are really there I should at least be able to notice them in screen caps. What picture format you are using for civ4 screenshots? Jpeg?

You can't see them in my screen grabs? Weird. I have an LCD widescreen at home and an 19" widescreen at work. I can see the line in the screengrabs on both.

We need other people with LCD monitors to test out the latest City Screen patch (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?nmodtdyjzmx) and report whether they see artifacts and lines on the screen that look like they shouldn't be there - like in my screenshot.

@Shoju Genji: Thanks for the offer. I would like any info you can supply about Ecaz/House Ecaz. I have all the Dune Appendix stuff about Sapho, Semuta, etc.

You can't see them in my screen grabs? Weird.

No, no. In your screen grab of course I can see them. But maybe I can't notice these lines in game because of my display.
And being tired is bad for writing english. :)

I don't get what is different about these panels overlapping to where the dunes overlap with the sky. Perhaps if we make a transparent border around Sky Left/Right and make it bigger that would make a difference. I'll have a play at some point.

I don't get what is different about these panels overlapping to where the dunes overlap with the sky. Perhaps if we make a transparent border around Sky Left/Right and make it bigger that would make a difference. I'll have a play at some point.


Maybe this can help:

screen shot taken from DW_CityScreen.psd inside photoshop. Notice the gap:
http://s12b.directupload.net/images/090720/yf2ppw38.jpg

...but when I zoom in that gap goes away:
http://s7.directupload.net/images/090720/ab6qoznf.jpg

Screen shot in 1280x800:
http://s1.directupload.net/images/090720/p84pkh3z.jpg

Maybe it's a problem with anti aliasing or your graphic setting in civ4?
I'm sure there is a logical reason for that. We're in need of a pixel expert. :yup:

Maybe it's a problem with anti aliasing or your graphic setting in civ4?
I'm sure there is a logical reason for that. We're in need of a pixel expert. :yup: Not sure, but I think the clue is that it shows up on 50%, but not on 66.67%.

50% is a good zoom, 66.67%, however, is rounded (because computers are too stupid for non-decimal fractions :lol: ), meaning due to the rounding some pixels are "sort of there" (that's why 66.67% is a zoom that always looks terrible, whereas multiples of four (in zoom factor) always look "right", because it's a matter of chucking out every second pixel (x2), doing that twice (x4) etc. - can't do that for 2/3 properly). That's also the reason why .dds files must have sizes that are multiples of four - to make proper mipmaps.

The total height - in pixels - of the dds files comprising the background (desert-bottom-top) is 1154 pixels. That's not a multiple of four - I'm not sure - but I'd bet that the issue goes away once you get the total height of the .dds-files to a multiple of four. Or even better - a power of two.

Note: I'm not a pixel expert - that's more gut feeling and a bit of experience - call it an educated guess.

Cheers, LT.

hey guys,
what are the lines you are referring to?

what should i look for in the city screen ?

hey guys,
what are the lines you are referring to?

what should i look for in the city screen ?

Look closely to deliverator's screen shots. You will notice a fine horizontal gap/line in the upper area of the city screen.

50% is a good zoom, 66.67%, however, is rounded

I zoomed in to 100% and there is still no gap. :) Anyway, maybe you are right, firaxis always is using pretty conventional sizes for their dds files. Hence I resized them too (only 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024). Deliverator, can you please try again? :

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zdvxozymzoy

I won't be able to try for a couple of hours. Perhaps someone else can confirm?

humm..ok - where do i put the city art files?

dune wars\assets\art\Interface\Screens\City

Don't forget the pyton file (CvMainInterface.py) you can get somewhere above in the thread. :)

It was a good idea, but now I actually get more lines. Two sets on the dunes at the sides.

great thanks.

It was a good idea, but now I actually get more lines. Two sets on the dunes at the sides.Strange... I've run out of ideas (by the way, all versions - including the last - show up fine for me, running 1280x1024 (native res) on a LCD here).

Cheers, LT.

It's going in the next patch anyway. Maybe Koma's right and it's a driver issue.

ok ive checked the latest screen,

it looks so good,

i dont see the line at all on the latest files.

just a suggestion:
how about raising the bars of fod and city growth a bit above the window frame?

also,
how about making a bit of zoom out on the cammera of the city in the window - can be done via global info.xml - camera city zoom.

anyway, it look amazing just as it is.

koma13,
i even suggest you publish this in the art forum so other people can enjoy this wonderfull code youve made.

Thx keldath for your kind words. :)


just a suggestion:
how about raising the bars of fod and city growth a bit above the window frame?


When I'm back I will replace the foodbar by a reservoir graphic placed next to great persons. Then I can move up the production bar.

also,
how about making a bit of zoom out on the cammera of the city in the window - can be done via global info.xml - camera city zoom.

Yes you can do that. But make sure it works for all resolutions, especially wide screen could make trouble .

koma13,
i even suggest you publish this in the art forum so other people can enjoy this wonderfull code youve made.

Hehe, I can do that, but not today anymore. :D

It was a good idea, but now I actually get more lines. Two sets on the dunes at the sides.

Just strange. Let's see if other people report similar problems. Then you can start looking for similarities in configuration.

If you guys can tolerate the quality loss from resizing the dds files I would suggest using the last images I have uploaded (DWCityResized.rar). It just feels wrong having dds files with 144 x 53 px. Deliverator would have to use the old sizes of course but I am sure he knows how to manage that. ;)

sure koma13,


ok then for my next patch ill make sure ill work the camera.

enjoy your 2 week of civ vacation.

we will be waiting :)

Updated the Opening Post as a showcase of the latest and greatest Dune Wars art.

:goodjob:
I really think, the pictures should be in the welcome-thread. Nothing gets the people better to play a mod than pictures (and these sure do it).

Yeah, the welcome thread could use a bit of work, as much as I like keldath's train-of-consciousness prose style and the concept of a 'sun-forum' for Dune Wars. ;)

yeah i agree with you guys,

i think for version 1.4 ill add many pictures that will capture the dune theme and the uniqueness of our mod.

Sounds good. If you want me to take some good screenshots of particular things let me know...

Project Ornithopter

I've been steadily working on the Ornithopter for a while. I have now rigged and animated it using the hawk animations. I wasn't sure how well this would work, but it has turned out pretty well. One of the 'feathers' stick out a bit, but overall it looks cool.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222427&stc=1&d=1248729993

I know Lord Tirian was interested in skinning this thopter, so hopefully he will help us out... :)

It is now down to less than 2000 polys which considering it started at 29000 I'm quite happy about. The mesh can be tidied up and simplified further I'm sure. The body work is a bit of uneven mess. I haven't done a proper UV unwrap on it, perhaps you can have a go LT? Otherwise, I can do it for you to weave your texturing magic.

Also, the mesh needs something to attach the wing tips to the rest of the wing, as you can see from the screenshots. The original mesh (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=bc7ead8b45952ab8822054a0a020bf4a) from Google 3D warehouse has a little oval blob to hold them on:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222431&stc=1&d=1248730739

We have a number of Thopters we need create. In order, lightest to heaviest, they are Scout, Kite, Falcon, Buzzard, Eagle and Assault (I ran out of birds of prey).

There is also the Hawk Thopter (Atreides UU replacing Falcon). The Guild and BG Thopter UUs could well be changed/dropped. We can handle the UUs via reskins, so that would mean we need six thopter model variants.

My plan is once we have the basic thopter wings finalised, we can then graft the wings onto other chassis or customize different bodies for the different variants. For example, I'd like try putting the wings onto these two choppers from the EE2 future units set.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222425&stc=1&d=1248730757"]http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222425&stc=1&d=1248730757

If we use the same wings, we can then use the same animations for all the thopters. As well as making bigger and badder looking meshes for the heavier thopters, we can create variety with the skins and also more powerful weapon effects.

That's the plan. :)

The basic thopter unit is attached if you fancy taking a look LT. These are the art defines bits:
<fScale>0.8</fScale>
<fInterfaceScale>1.0</fInterfaceScale>
<bActAsLand>0</bActAsLand>
<bActAsAir>0</bActAsAir>
<NIF>Art/Units/basic_thopter/bird.nif</NIF>
<KFM>Art/Units/basic_thopter/bird.kfm</KFM>
<SHADERNIF>Art/Units/basic_thopter/bird.nif</SHADERNIF>
<ShadowDef>
<ShadowNIF>Art/Units/01_UnitShadows/JetFighterShadow.nif</ShadowNIF>
<ShadowAttachNode>BIP Koerper</ShadowAttachNode>
<fShadowScale>0.75</fShadowScale>
</ShadowDef>

It is now down to less than 2000 polys which considering it started at 29000 I'm quite happy about. The mesh can be tidied up and simplified further I'm sure. The body work is a bit of uneven mess. I haven't done a proper UV unwrap on it, perhaps you can have a go LT? Otherwise, I can do it for you to weave your texturing magic.Pretty bird! Downloaded! I'll do the UV unwrap, that way I can set it up the way I want it for texturing - plus I immediately see spots where I might be able to cut some polys without hindering the looks or could smooth the mesh a bit, let's see. I so want to get this bird textured and flying... but I have to ask for a bit of patience: It looks quite complex and I really want to do it justice, so it may take some time!

And oh, do you have some colour-scheme in mind? Part of me really wants to keep it in warm beige tones, but I'm afraid that might not provide enough contrast considering it's flying in a desert. Ideas?

EDIT: Out of curiosity: How did the bones get German names? :D
We have a number of Thopters we need create. In order, lightest to heaviest, they are Scout, Kite, Falcon, Buzzard, Eagle and Assault (I ran out of birds of prey).Can we get... an owl? I know that it doesn't sound that menacing - but they are actually scarily good hunters, so it might be a nice name for a recon/stealth-thopter...

Cheers, LT.

I'm sure you'll do a great job. Take as long as you need.

I did consider Owl Thopter - it is definitely appropriate for the desert. It just sounded a bit weird though. Maybe it's OK...

Edit: The hawk must have originally been done by a German artist for FFH2. I had to use Google Translate on 'Koerper', but you will feel right at home. :)

Colour scheme wise, it is sort of tempting to have everything in desert matching colours, but that could get dull pretty quick. I quite like the old Dune 2 colour scheme, the white/orange makes quite a nice contrast with the desert. A bit of a tribute to that game perhaps.

http://duneii.com/images/units/ornithopter.jpg

:cool: that looks like the next really awesome unit :cool:.

oh how awesome!

cant wait to have a new set for the thopters :))

great work!

Colour scheme wise, it is sort of tempting to have everything in desert matching colours, but that could get dull pretty quick. I quite like the old Dune 2 colour scheme, the white/orange makes quite a nice contrast with the desert. A bit of a tribute to that game perhaps.That's a nice theme, I'll see what I can do. Though I thought of making the wings team-coloured... I think it's a nice place to put it.

By the way, I'm going to put the wings and the disc above the main body on an extra texture to make it easier to re-use it for other models! :)

Also, the disc had way to many polys, I replaced it with a smooth 12-sided one, which works just as well, even on a Blender full-screen scale (and found some other bits and bobs to cut) - I'm at 1700ish polys now, with the same looks! Makes me happy!

Cheers, LT.

Sounds good LT. I would have used two textures too.

I decided the Ecaz leaderhead needed some work. Hopefully, he looks a bit less cheap 80s sci-fi now.

reall nice deliverator :)

Small update on the ornithopter: Still working on it. White textures, as on the dune 2 screenshot, look very bare - but I don't want yet-another-desert-golden thing - it might end up looking a bit cliché (though it does look good, I admit).

Instead, I went for a rather new approach for me: I restricted myself to a greyscale texture and tinted it with the teamcolour, with some fully teamcoloured spots and wings.

I've got one texture that doesn't look too bad - I'd say that the wing portion is as good as finished, but it needs more details for the main body (also, there are various exhausts, I need to find out how to attach the FF engine glows to it).

I also attached a screenshot, can you guys give some early feedback? Don't forget that the green tint is due to the Atreides colour, so other houses would have other tints.

Cheers, LT.

Looks great mate! Very nice.

The two tone team colour idea is a good one. It might look a bit ugly with some of the team colours I suppose, but hopefully more will look good than bad...

I guess the engine glows are an Attachable effect, so just a question of positioning the nodes and then having the right data in the dummy ATTACHABLES node. May be wrong.

What are you thoughts on weapon effects?

really nice texture lord tirian,

a weapon effect of some yellow beam busts can be nice :)


by the way - i think i can fix the lines of the grid that something appear on the spice.

The two tone team colour idea is a good one. It might look a bit ugly with some of the team colours I suppose, but hopefully more will look good than bad...I tested it a bit more... and fiddled around a bit, made the main teamcolour spots a bit larger and tweaked the tint a bit. I think I'm fairly happy with the look it has, it only looks a bit ugly for the Bene Gesserit, their yellow starts looking "dirty", the rest (see screenshot) seems to be fine - though you might want to play around with it a bit more, perhaps you can improve it a bit further - I assume I'm a bit conservative with the teamcolour tone on the main body. I also included a 512x512 version of the texture for you to fiddle with (beware: if you scale it down to 256, run a sharpen filter or something, otherwise the detail will get totally lost).
I guess the engine glows are an Attachable effect, so just a question of positioning the nodes and then having the right data in the dummy ATTACHABLES node. May be wrong.Was right! :goodjob: Note: I had a little trouble, because of the animation, so I added a new node as a "base node", all the engine effects are attached to that node (and use normal x/y/z coordinates, no rotation or stuff and move with the body), so if you add weapon effect nodes, I suggest adding them to the same node as well.
What are you thoughts on weapon effects?For the basic thopter, I think a normal machine gun might be okay - shouldn't start too fancy. Also, I think most units should stay away from energy weapon effects anyway, because I associate that with "lasgun".

EDIT: By the way, it runs on 1621 polygons now. Still a fairly heavy whopper... but every bit counts, no? The wing structure (including disc) has 750 polys, meaning combined with other Civ4-complexity models (which have an average of ~700ish, IIRC), one should get the equivalent of about two units. If thopters are all single unit models, it's still slimmer than a triple unit of navy seals or so, should be totally fine for most PCs.

Cheers, LT.

Niiiice unit :goodjob:.

I think, the crossing from the feathers to the wings could be a bit more organic, but that's a minor thing :).

The thopters look excellent. Great work and thank you LT.

I'll do the finalizing and add the weapon effects - I think I've got away with never doing that before so it'll be good to learn. For a single mesh unit I think 1621 polys is totally fine. Three vanilla warriors is about 2400 polys so for single units its only when the number gets above that I'd be concerned.

Meanwhile, I've been doing some Worm Rider tests - most of the remaining work is to come up with appropriate animations. Also, I think I'll actually texture on the worm rings rather than just rely on the shape of the mesh.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223165&stc=1&d=1249204279

Meanwhile, I've been doing some Worm Rider tests - most of the remaining work is to come up with appropriate animations. Also, I think I'll actually texture on the worm rings rather than just rely on the shape of the mesh.This looks... impressive! Almost too cool for just transporting people!

For some reason it gives me the image of a lone daring Fremen, riding a worm, crushing through a wall into a city, shooting lightning (well, worm-signs) and everything.

Cheers, LT.

Well, once the Fedaykin unit was done it was always my intention to stick it on top of the worm and make this.

It's interesting that the riders don't seem to be afraid of getting zapped by electricity. If the lightning is caused by static, surely there is still static when the worm is being ridden.

This looks... impressive! Almost too cool for just transporting people!

For some reason it gives me the image of a lone daring Fremen, riding a worm, crushing through a wall into a city, shooting lightning (well, worm-signs) and everything.

Cheers, LT.

I completly agree :yup:.

I have another texturing job for you LT, if you fancy it. As and when you have some time of course. :)

I've made a model for the Spice Harvester based on the one from the 1984 movie. The UV unwrap has not been done properly. Whilst I think having the harvester the same colour as the spice would be good for camouflage, it's not great for seeing it in game so maybe a more sandy colour might be better.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223181&stc=1&d=1249220628

Reference Pics:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219752&d=1246517739

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=219753&d=1246517739

ImprovementArtInfos XML:
<ImprovementArtInfo>
<Type>ART_DEF_IMPROVEMENT_DESERTREFINERY</Type>
<bExtraAnimations>0</bExtraAnimations>
<fScale>4</fScale>
<fInterfaceScale>0.4</fInterfaceScale>
<NIF>Art/Structures/Improvements/harvester/harvester.nif</NIF>
<KFM></KFM>
<Button>,Art/Interface/Buttons/Builds/BuildMine.dds,Art/Interface/Buttons/FinalFrontier2_Atlas.dds,3,3</Button>
</ImprovementArtInfo>

Both of these units are very cool! (EDIT: posts in between ... the harvester prototype is cool too!)

Currently in the game we have a family of five thopters: Scout, Kite, Falcon, Buzzard, Eagle. Once the first one is finalized, is it possible to make five variants that look successively bigger and badder? There are a few differences in the units now, although these may change: Scout carries cargo, and mostly the others just grow in strength and speed as you go up that list.

In the books, a maker hook is described as something you can easily carry, and the movies show them as something like 3-4 feet long, shorter than a person. Can the "strings" on the worm rider be shortened a little, so that they look more like maker hooks?

Also, in the extreme closeups of the worm, it is clear that having some sort of texture rather than plain brown would be helpful. I did not screencap any closeups of the worms from the movies, but it was a very rough scaley dark brown.

Currently in the game we have a family of five thopters: Scout, Kite, Falcon, Buzzard, Eagle. Once the first one is finalized, is it possible to make five variants that look successively bigger and badder? There are a few differences in the units now, although these may change: Scout carries cargo, and mostly the others just grow in strength and speed as you go up that list.

That's the plan - I roughly outlined it in the Project Ornithopter post, but basically it consists of using the same wings with different chassis to create the bigger and badder variants. I'm actually thinking this one can be the Falcon, and then we can make two lighter weight and two heavier variants. The only thopter UU I'd like to see kept is the Hawk Thopter for the Atreides - then we can have a customized texture for it.

In the books, a maker hook is described as something you can easily carry, and the movies show them as something like 3-4 feet long, shorter than a person. Can the "strings" on the worm rider be shortened a little, so that they look more like maker hooks?

In the 84 film I'm pretty sure that Paul uses ropes which is probably where I got that from. I think anything shorter might look a bit silly - I chose a length that looked like the rider is steering and not just hanging on.

Also, in the extreme closeups of the worm, it is clear that having some sort of texture rather than plain brown would be helpful. I did not screencap any closeups of the worms from the movies, but it was a very rough scaley dark brown.


Yes, the texture could use some improvement to mark out the rings better and look a bit more scaly.

ahhhh awesome!!!!

great art!


somebody have been quite busy !

the worm rider is great - perhaps you can attach the worm a bit more into the ground, so it wont float ?

Deliverator: Are there any thopter skins that still need to be done? I'm not bad at skinning and might do a thopter or two if any are open. However my color style and such will be heavily influenced by the Dune miniseries.

harvester>personaly I prefer the miniseries harvester, but the old one is fine. The color should be a base metal with plenty of sand dust in it. They wouldn't bother painting it in camo as the fremen have few thopters to spot them and worms cant see. If there arent too many polys on it perhaps it could be reduced in size and a few more are added because IIRC, more than one harvester was deployed to a spice field.

Right now, there is only one thopter model - the one LT has done a great skinning job on. I am planning to make models for the other thopter classes, but I'd like the colour schemes to stay consistent between them. There is a lot of inconsistency in unit skins right now, since the art has been brought in from a range of sources.

The unit list is volatile right now, but I'm hoping that we can still have the Atreides Hawk Thopter as a UU. This would basically be a reskin of the thopter LT has done, so I'm happy for you to do that if you want.

We can definitely use those with skinning abilities. Most of my skins tend to be cut and paste jobs from different sources, which is why I'm pleased that LT has been happy to do some great work on the texture side of things.

If you do want to do some texturing work for the mod then there are lot of units that are probably keepers that could use a more Dunish skin.

harvester>personaly I prefer the miniseries harvester, but the old one is fine. The color should be a base metal with plenty of sand dust in it. They wouldn't bother painting it in camo as the fremen have few thopters to spot them and worms cant see. If there arent too many polys on it perhaps it could be reduced in size and a few more are added because IIRC, more than one harvester was deployed to a spice field.Do you want to do a texture on the harvester? Right now, I'm a bit busy - I'm visiting my parents... so, meaning I only have access to an old 17" monitor with 1024x768 as maximum resolution OR my netbook... this + travelling around slows me down a bit, as working on graphics on lower resolution screens isn't too much fun! :crazyeye:

Otherwise, I'd be happy to give it a try, but I'm slowed down now, so no need to hog interesting texture jobs! ;)

Cheers, LT.

I'll try and have a trial skin done by friday that one of the better people here can touch up. I'll have to re dl all my art stuff as I have changed computers.