Dwarf Unit Pack

Civitar

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Mar 23, 2014
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Switzerland


A collection of dwarven unit models, for use in fantasy mods. The base model is the dwarf from Battle for Middle-Earth II, which Nomad converted to a .blend file for me.:worship: Does not currently have teamcolor, but I might add it later to the models wearing a cloth tunic.

You may request any dwarf unit you like, just make sure it isn't already in the list above before you ask.
 
Hello Civitar,
currently I am working on a mod based on a new german fantasy tabletop RPG.
I can't wait to add your dwarven units. And I can't wait for you to add more non-modern dwarves. ;)
Love your work!
 
Thank you SepticStreets! My anticipated working week in the tobacco fields was cut very short (to half a day!) by a sudden rainstorm so I can get a few of these done today hopefully. Probably a Warrior (with a hammer) and a Musketman, maybe a Crossbowman and Archer too.
I am glad to hear that you will use these Dwarves! It's always sad when a fantasy mod doesn't use Dwarves.:(

NOTE TO SELF: Stop daydreaming about making twice as many units as possible!:crazyeye:
 
the following comment is very selfish:

I noticed something in your "unit-packs" civitar: you rarely change the colour of the unit's clothes ...
which make the differences between units very slight and often limited to weapons (if they don't have armor)
this is especially true for elves, gobs and dwarves
do you think (if you can't change unit-shape), you could propose some different skins ?, like red Axe on the body of dwarves axemen , or maybe they have leave-less shirts or something, to at least have a different perception than "same unit with different weapon".
I know that you create different skins... but IMO they have an homogeneity that many people might find good and even realistic, but that I find a complication for an easy game..

(btw the orcs have armors that are really different as they upgrade tiers, that it changes the overall feel of the unit, so I cannot do the same comment for orcs)

sorry for this. It's not really meant as a critic, but mostly as wishful thinking
 
Calavente said:
The following comment is very selfish
I... have to admit that I don't see why.
Calavente said:
I noticed something in your "unit-packs" civitar: you rarely change the colour of the unit's clothes ...
which make the differences between units very slight and often limited to weapons (if they don't have armor)
this is especially true for elves, gobs and dwarves
do you think (if you can't change unit-shape), you could propose some different skins ?, like red Axe on the body of dwarves axemen , or maybe they have leave-less shirts or something, to at least have a different perception than "same unit with different weapon".
I know that you create different skins... but IMO they have an homogeneity that many people might find good and even realistic, but that I find a complication for an easy game..

(btw the orcs have armors that are really different as they upgrade tiers, that it changes the overall feel of the unit, so I cannot do the same comment for orcs)
It's intentional. I do not change the body and clothing of the unit at all between differently-armed units. (Also the goblins and orcs are not by me - Nomad did them all by his loneself:D).
I meant to have all of the basic units look the same - notice that the only one with a different body is the Elven Heavy Swordsman, which I did for Éa and also because that armor was so frickin' cool! However the problem (which I noticed while playing Éa) is that if you have two elf or two dwarf factions, both of which use my models, then the units look identical and you literally cannot tell them apart. So what I am going to do (once I figure out how of course) is make all the green parts of the elves teamcolor, and do the same to all the leather parts of the dwarves (I'm also going to do some beard and hair color variants for the dwarves, but probably not for the elves).
Does that work for you?

PS: I would be making the elves teamcolor now if I could figure out the problem with my GIMP teamcolor skins!:mad: They always look almost completely black with only a small bit of teamcolor in seemingly random spots.
PPS: I'm also going to do some reskins of certain elves and dwarves to make heroes for Éa in case those interest you, but they won't be part of the unit packs in all likelihood...
 
I said "selfish" because it sounds a bit like a critic .. and I wanted to forwarn you of it... :D

whatever you do is good for me.

I never even thought that team-color did not appear anywhere ... :/ maybe on buclar for swords and on torso for axemen ? (thus I'll get my "different aspects between units")

I just still think it would be nice to have different skins (or even shapes) for at least different tiers of units...
like
light inf: warrior/archer/horsman
medium inf : swords/pike/crossbow/longbow/lancer
heavies : champion/arquebuse/knight/heavy bowman

like light get brown on brown,
medium get green/blue thingies on brown
heavy get red/yellow/gold thingies on brown tunique.
or something.
 
or maybe broadaxe dwarves could get "shaven head + tatoos" ?
 
The trouble is that I would have to completely rebuild the unit then - so the only differences between units is reskins. I might eventually have blond-, red-, and black- haired versions of all of the Dwarves, but adding teamcolor is my biggest priority with the textures atm. Also, you should realize that even if I do put in a bit of fancy goldwork or embroidery or what have you, it's never going to show up ingame.
And are you actually French (I mean do you speak French as a first/very good second language)?
 
or maybe broadaxe dwarves could get "shaven head + tatoos" ?

The problem with even minor skin modifications is twofold; first, Civitar and I do not delve much into custom art except for occasional color/shade transformations because that is a whole new arena (using advanced Blender/3DS techniques). We use existing art and suit it to the tastes of the unit. I was able to get away with making Orcs look unique because I layered new meshes over them (two different styles of plate armor, for example) or I completely changed the skin color altogether. Apart from that, every orc unit uses the same basic three meshes: loincloth, leather, or chain. I spent a lot of time doing the progressions so they wouldn't look similar, but was fortunate to have a lot of source material at my disposal - and a lot of time.

Second, Civitar's comment about separate civ's using the same units holds true - without Teamcolor, they will all look the same in-game. Teamcolor is the solution for this but it is somewhat daunting and problematic; I still haven't figured it out and Civitar is presently struggling with it as well. So, in the interim, my solution is to create new Orc color skins (I will do this for Goblins eventually also).

I am sure that both of us will eventually overcome the limitations that you describe. For now, I am just happy that we have Dwarves and other fantasy units to use; this was unprecedented for CiV until a few months ago! Thanks for your critique, we appreciate it and will hopefully address some of these shortcomings in due time :) .
 
Up Nomad! Actually shaved head/tattoos is OK since I am making Dwarf Slayers for WHFB, but they are not going into this.
Have you had any luck with teamcolor though? You use GIMP right?

I tried my luck at it once and I am having the same problems you describe. I have Gimp 2.8 but I don't like using it (which is probably why I can't figure out how to do Teamcolor); I use Paint.NET for most of my stuff because it is super easy to use, though not nearly as powerful.
 
The problem with even minor skin modifications is twofold; first, Civitar and I do not delve much into custom art except for occasional color/shade transformations because that is a whole new arena (using advanced Blender/3DS techniques). We use existing art and suit it to the tastes of the unit. I was able to get away with making Orcs look unique because I layered new meshes over them (two different styles of plate armor, for example) or I completely changed the skin color altogether. Apart from that, every orc unit uses the same basic three meshes: loincloth, leather, or chain. I spent a lot of time doing the progressions so they wouldn't look similar, but was fortunate to have a lot of source material at my disposal - and a lot of time.

Second, Civitar's comment about separate civ's using the same units holds true - without Teamcolor, they will all look the same in-game. Teamcolor is the solution for this but it is somewhat daunting and problematic; I still haven't figured it out and Civitar is presently struggling with it as well. So, in the interim, my solution is to create new Orc color skins (I will do this for Goblins eventually also).

I am sure that both of us will eventually overcome the limitations that you describe. For now, I am just happy that we have Dwarves and other fantasy units to use; this was unprecedented for CiV until a few months ago! Thanks for your critique, we appreciate it and will hopefully address some of these shortcomings in due time :) .
yep.. I know (or at least I expected that it would be complicated to do more than reskin), and I'm totally glad that even those units exists....
but I still wanted to at least "voice" that using those units, all your army looks so uniforms that in the end it might become bland. (that's why I proposed mainly reskins first)

The trouble is that I would have to completely rebuild the unit then - so the only differences between units is reskins. I might eventually have blond-, red-, and black- haired versions of all of the Dwarves, but adding teamcolor is my biggest priority with the textures atm. Also, you should realize that even if I do put in a bit of fancy goldwork or embroidery or what have you, it's never going to show up ingame.
And are you actually French (I mean do you speak French as a first/very good second language)?
-I wasn't speaking about fancy embroidery, but actual change of sleeve color or pants or skirt or a big Mountain / axe / whatever that is colourful on plate/shield/torso...
example (dwarves)
warriors get actual /
broad-axe get silver mail pants/sleaves and are mix of redheads and silver hair-silverbeards (2units in unit-group), maybe black tunic ? /
axe get a livery : red tunic with silver mountain on it and silver helmet (instead of brown-gray)
but I know even re-skinning is a lot of work.
-and yes, I'm actually completly french, why ?
 
@Calavente: You do realize that armies wear uniforms right?:D If you were thinking about coats of arms on the tunic for example, that is probably out since I'm doing that for Éa heroes (I'm trying to convince Pazyryk to include Dwarves in Éa and he said he might if Dwarf units appeared). Fancier dwarves will be available, just not as part of this pack. Also I don't want to do colors on the tunic because then I can still do teamcolor eventually...
I asked if you were French because I am expected to hate the French, living in Romandie as I do (I don't hate them though, any more than I hated the Italians when I lived in Tessin). I speak French too so it's nice to see someone who can speak one of my other languages...
 
I'll add them as one or two city states to start out. Maybe one could be type "mercenary" (so you can hire their units) with a specialty for siege units.

Heldeofol come before them as a playable race. And then I want to add werewolves and vampires. Maybe then. There is so much to do...

(The good news is that they will share Underdark mechanism with Heldeofol, which involves improvement of mountains. So that will make it easier.)
 
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