Ratha (Indian Chariot) Project

I don't think so. Except if Madeira has travelled through time.

No, tomorrow is friday, im sure of it!
sorry for the "out of subject", I hope to see this unit completed since the Indian civs have no Indian-looking Chariot..

All that OT is - since I'm a day late getting to everything & I'm only now starting the work on the new downloads announcement.

Blue Monkey said:

All that OT is - since I'm a day late getting to everything & I'm only now starting the work on the new downloads announcement.

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That is so funny!
Nice Avatar avatar you have there btw

Well, it's been some time... this is Sunday, December 20th, at 0300 hours, no data received, soldier. Where is my data? You're at risk of being court-martialled, son.

Takhisis said:

Well, it's been some time... this is Sunday, December 20th, at 0300 hours, no data received, soldier. Where is my data? You're at risk of being court-martialled, son.

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... sacks of unread letters stacked up yadda yadda coal & switches on back order yadda yadda reindeer down with the flu yadda yadda elves on strike yadda yadda ...

... I'll be in town before the three guys on the camels get their gps in synch.

care for some while you wait?

STAND TO ATTENTION! Soldiers are not allowed to have coffee at their will, private!
However, some Coke (NOT Pepsi) would be nice. Maybe you could send me an email with some e-coke in it .
Now, well... send it in whenever you can. but be reminded that I'm trying to finish that damned catapult (I need camera angles for rendering, please ask your teacher), I'm doing a TTD ap with some other folks, and I stilll have to study for an exam that is looming nearer and nearer.
So, post it ASAP so I can fit everything into my schedule somehow.

Takhisis said:

STAND TO ATTENTION! Soldiers are not allowed to have coffee at their will, private!
However, some Coke (NOT Pepsi) would be nice. Maybe you could send me an email with some e-coke in it .
Now, well... send it in whenever you can. but be reminded that I'm trying to finish that damned catapult (I need camera angles for rendering, please ask your teacher), I'm doing a TTD ap with some other folks, and I stilll have to study for an exam that is looming nearer and nearer.
So, post it ASAP so I can fit everything into my schedule somehow.

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1) I am ex-military from a family in which every male member for at least 4 generations has served in some national security capacity and don't appreciate your attempt at disguising a condescending attitude with such humor.

2) Since my instructor does not play Civ, let alone make units for it, there is no way he could know what camera angles, lighting, etc. are appropriate.

3) In the limited amount of time I currently have to devote to Civfanatics every moment I spend handling your importunate posts is time taken away from things, such as getting announcements done & posted, that take precedence over my own projects. Which therefore delays my ability to accomplish your request, which I heartily wish to do.

Blue Monkey said:

1) I am ex-military from a family in which every male member for at least 4 generations has served in some national security capacity and don't appreciate your attempt at disguising a condescending attitude with such humor.

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I apologise if any of my previous statments led you to believe I was being condescending. Believe me, that was not my intention at all.
Forumwarz has permeated a little into my way of writing, you're not the first to point that out. I might have overdone the sarcasm. Once again, I apologise. I'll try to get straight to the point without sarcasm or RP.

btw, you're not the only one who's in a military family. At least one member of my family, in every generation -except this one-, has been to a war, fighting "natives", Germans and what-not. But you Americans -I take it you're American, am I right? I'm almost sure you are- have different views on life from ours. That's one of the problems in online forums, people have different customs and sometimes there are misunderstandings, like this one.

Blue Monkey said:

2) Since my instructor does not play Civ, let alone make units for it, there is no way he could know what camera angles, lighting, etc. are appropriate.

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Ah... maybe... you could show him a unit, a screenshot... if not, it's OK. Really. No sarcasm, no pun.

Blue Monkey said:

3) In the limited amount of time I currently have to devote to Civfanatics every moment I spend handling your importunate posts is time taken away from things, such as getting announcements done & posted, that take precedence over my own projects. Which therefore delays my ability to accomplish your request, which I heartily wish to do.

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I've apologised above and am doing so again if my posts are importunate or have upset you in any way. I don't mean to cause any harm.
You can always delay the answer, or send me a PM saying something on the lines of "lay off, I have lots of things to do" and I won't get mad. Merry christmas to you, and here's hoping that I won't screw up again.

P.S.:As you are a moderator, you can edit anything if it's too insulting, I promise I won't be angry.
This forum (and civ in general) is not even the most important or time-consuming aspect of my life. It's... a hobby, if I could say that. I've been off here for almost 2 years. I'm more devoted to university and other stuff these days.

There's nothing worth reporting in what you said. Which I'd do, rather than try to moderate something said to me as a simple member. I'm not actually that upset at your posts. Just harried by everything at once - you should see how rightly upset people are by the long delays in getting the new creations announcement posted. You're second in line, then it's back to work on the steampunk project.

Yes I am a U.S. citizen. And, having lived in both NYC and Europe, I'm well aware that the majority of misunderstandings here are based in differing language and cultural perceptions.

I hope you're not too upset to want to continue work on the ratha with me. As to camera angles, it would be better to ask some other civfans - I know there are people who use Blender, although I can't think of who off the top of my head.

No sweat.
It was a good call to attention for me, too. I'm trying to hold myself together IRL. Family trouble (I've just spent an hour and a half doing "family talk" ehich, needless to say, gave me almost no new knowledge and no new ideas), university life, etc. etc.

I've got to mix this with Open TTD as well as studying, so fill it in whenever you can, and, if you can't, well, just post and it won't be too much of an issue.

Having spent about 3 hours on the phone yesterday convincing Amazon.com & my bank to play nice, and another 2 hours tonight dealing with people unhappy about my posting of the downloads announcement, this has been set back once again. Since I'm not Canadian or English I should have Boxing Day free.

Blue Monkey said:

Having spent about 3 hours on the phone yesterday convincing Amazon.com & my bank to play nice, and another 2 hours tonight dealing with people unhappy about my posting of the downloads announcement, this has been set back once again. Since I'm not Canadian or English I should have Boxing Day free.

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wtf? Just ban them and spend your time doing Christmassy things. Drink some daikiris!

Will be unable to do any work until about January the 6th.

Takhisis said:

Will be unable to do any work until about January the 6th.

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Yeah, it's going to be mid-week before I get back to this. So we're in synch, I think.

We're both out synchronisedly out of synch!

Just wanted you to know I'm working on this. I decided that it might be too difficult to throw a bunch of artwork from several sources at someone and just say "make it like that except for this". And I haven't found any single image that puts it all together nicely. So I'm making some crude drawings to accompany - showing fundamentally and simply what I want.

Key Elements
What's needed for a Ratha (as opposed to any random chariot):

• Wheels: eight-spoked. The four-wheeled ratha is the most distinctly Indian version.
• Chattra (parasol) - this is the single element that must be present in any chariot for the Indian “flavor”.
• Multiple horses (2 would be fine); the maker has a lot of latitude as to how they are arranged.
• Two riders: Always! Archer & Charioteer (driver).
• Possible Civ-color locations: a great deal of latitude here. Parts of the wheels, the chattra, places on the body, as well as the clothing of the riders & the horse caparisons.
  Civ Color locations
  
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Versions Needed
I want eventually to have an upgrade line including 3 versions. All of these can be made with wood or simple colored textures. for the Bharata Varsha mod I do need a special version of the Heavy Ratha - white or gold. & it's charioteer needs to be blue-skinned.

• Vedic Chariot is the earliest. Basically a standard 2 wheeled chariot with the addition of a parasol (chattra) & a pennant. This model could be set-up for a single horse.
  
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• Light Ratha. 2 wheeled. The chattra becomes more a built-in part of the ratha. I like the style with the curved wooden support. The top itself could be either cloth or wooden. There are versions with the pennant as part of the chattra & others with it on a separate standard. Either is fine.
  
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• Heavy Ratha. 4 wheeled. Many pictures show the chattra as a four-pillared roof. I think that would be unrealistic in combat, and would unnecessarily obscure the riders at the scale of a game unit. I would like to keep the curved single-support for the chattra. A 2 pillared version would also be fine. Because it is so heavy the model definitely needs to be set up for multiple horses.
  
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• "Special" Heavy Ratha: white or gold ratha & blue-skinned charioteer
  
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Earlier Models
A few brief notes on the previous efforts. This is only offered as a way of explaining my evolving concept of the unit(s). It is no way a criticism. The discussions with both creators were ongoing & the work put in abeyance in the midst of ongoing evolution.
Michaelus worked on a 2 wheeled version. You can see what I meant above about the 2 pillared chattra leaving the riders visible. & some good modelling of the yoke, etc. for the horses. I like the rounded front & the sloping line of the sides down to the back. I overlaid the symbol to show a texture I would like to see. It’s Sanskrit for “arya” - what the Indian nobles of the Vedic era called themselves. It would be used in reverse on the other side to give an impression of wings.

Quinzy’s model of the 4-wheeled ratha in early stages had a really large chattra. We had discussed simplifying it into a version replacing the main roof with something more like the smaller front part - that would open up the view of the riders. The top edges of the walls are really nice, but I wanted to see the front rounded, like Michaelus' effort (which was done after Quinzy’s). The arya symbol was also meant to be included. you can see how he made the body with a basic wood look. The two wheeled version could be done the same way. Only the “special” would need to be fancy.

• arya symbol
  
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Summary
If I could only have one version I think the heavy ratha (4-wheeled) is the most needed, since it is the most distinct from other chariot units These would be the key elements to include: 4-wheeled, rigid chattra (with pennant), curving walls, 2 riders, multiple horses.

Well, I'm back from 6 days out in a blue room with no roof and I'm feeling a bit dizzy, but now I'm back and am going to try in the next few days.
The basic structure is simple enough to do and can be done in a couple of nights, if I lay my hands on it. Im not good at cloth, so i'll make the basic shapes for the cloth parts and let you turn it into whatever you want. I've done lotsa wheels, elephants, a train (I can send you a couple of previews, IMHO they're very nice-looking).
I've never done horses before, but I can make a rough shape at least and let someone else work on them, I'll just send the .blend files over to whoever it is that's willing to cooperate and finish whatever it is I cant do by myself.
Let's do it nice and slow, this can be done. I'll upload previews whenever I can.

Hope the light wasn't too bright in the big blue room. Welcome back.

There are plenty of horse models around (in .obj format I believe). So since those can be imported I wouldn't bother making them. Just the shafts/pole for them to pull the ratha by.

The chattra can be thought of as rigid - it doesn't need to be treated as cloth in terms of movement. So the only cloth part is the pennant. A long narrow flexible triangle shouldn't be too hard to model.

Please take your time. It will be quite a while before I'm ready to use it - even though I'm chomping at the bit to see what you come up with.