A Question About Unit Creation Resources - Does Unit Creation Have to Be Difficult?

I've recently returned to Civ 3 after a long break and have again started toying around with a small mod I started working on more than a year ago. This has in large part been inspired by Sandris's units, and frankly I've been astonished by how much one person can produce. But after thinking about it a little bit, I don't quite understand why such a unique talent is required for this kind of productivity. Having read utahjazz's unit making guide and having quite a bit of experience with Maya, it doesn't seem like it should take more than a couple hours to make a unit once a system is in place. Given a ready scene, paper doll and animations, it is only a matter of modeling some props and going through a bit of tedious rendering and storyboard/flic work. If using existing props, the process seems entirely straightforward, in large part even automatable.

So, naturally, my question is, is this system available somewhere? I've seen a couple of resources around but nothing that looks like the full package that Sandris and some others must be using. I'm interested in making a few bronze age units of my own, but I don't have much experience in animation and I would like to make units that match Sandris's as closely as possible. So, my main question is whether those animations are available anywhere? It seems like a waste to replicate effort when such excellent animations already exist.

I suppose my other point is more hypothetical, as I can't help but wonder what would happen if everyone had access to such a standardized setup. With this system in place, it seems that pretty much anyone would be able to make Sandris-quality units with only a modest amount of straightforward work. So is there are anything here I might be missing? Is there some additional difficulty that makes this impossible?

Thank you all for clearing this up for me.

To answer your question, no, unit creation does not have to be difficult. Indeed, it can be as straightforward as you imagine. If someone were simply going to combine the figures, props, and animations already available, the model could be put together in a matter of minutes. Currently, I believe that all the pieces are available to do this, but they are not packaged together in one location.

And, this is all predicated on someone having access to Poser.

Here's what's available.

1. Poser setups
2. Paperdoll
3. An assortment of clothing figures and props
4. Ready-made animations


All some one would have to do (in abridged form) is the following.

1. Download the available Poser setups, the paperdoll, the necessary clothing and props, and the necessary animations.

2. Create the model for your unit.

3. Apply the ready-made animation.

4. Render.

5. Make the storyboards, .flc files, etc. ... the tedious work.


Of course, there are limits with what you can accomplish without being able to model your own props and clothing figures. But, Sandris, I don't think models anything himself. He gets unique looks for his units by creatively using what's available, making use of transparency maps, textures, and so on. So, it's possible right now to make countless varieties of spearmen, swordsmen, archers and other such units. You just have to be able to work with what's available and be creative. However, it would be much harder to create catapults, chariots, and other such units for which there are not props and animations available.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=219186

The link above is to a thread where you can find some Poser animations that can be applied to any units you might want to create. I don't know how it's organized, so you might need to look through all of it to find all of the animations available.

I personally don't think it's wasted effort to make unique animations for units, though. There was a phase some years ago where I reused animations for multiple units, but I just didn't like the results—granted, they weren't the highest quality animations. Even though it takes extra time, I think it's worth the effort to create new, unique animations.

utahjazz7 said:

Even though it takes extra time, I think it's worth the effort to create new, unique animations.

Click to expand...

I'd agree! If someone could make animations for the aforementioned catapults and chariots for example, they in turn could be reused....

Yes, someone could do it in the assembly-line way described. I've done that myself when making lots of units with similar models and identical animations, such as the workers and settlers packs that I did. However, I didn't find it as quick or simple as suggested, and this for two reasons.

The first is that putting together models takes time. Even if it's just a basic man with a sword, and even if all the props and clothes are readily available, deciding which ones to use, what patterns to apply, and so on takes a while. Personally I find this the most enjoyable part of unit-making, but still.

The second and more serious is that all the stuff after rendering the images takes ages. Making a palette takes a long time, in my experience, and unless your units all have the same outfits you have to do a new one for each unit, and this is fiddly, time-consuming, and tedious. So is the sheer process of turning renders into Flics, even if you use Steph's tools to do it (and of course you do). Finally, getting the pcx images right takes a while. This is especially the case with the units_32 image, which most unit makers don't do right at all (it has to be done with red as the civ colour, but only some reds in the palette should be used, not others, or it looks a mess - Vuldacon knows about this better than anyone). These are time-consuming and as far as I know there are no easy short-cuts to doing them, at least none that is reliable.

Added to all that is of course utahjazz's point that if all units were made with identical animations etc it would be pretty dull. If you are making new animations then this takes a long time, especially if the animations are complex and you want them to look good (as you should). And if there are any unusual elements, such as cloaks or magical effects, that adds a whole new dimension to how long it takes.

Samarkada... Perhaps I am missing your point but it seems as though you are asking for the way to make Multiple Units Fast and easy with some sort of "Canned" procedures. That is possible and is done in various degrees but limits Unique animations.

Units can be as simple as a single Frame of a Rock that does nothing...but that is not an animation, although it could be a "unit".

I agree with all that has been said here by utahjazz7 and Plotinus... the difficulties are a matter of what you want to create and the level of the animations you want to do.

It is no surprise that many new Units use the same animations because after going through the difficulties to gain what is desired for any particular animation, it is far easier to simply apply the same animation set to another unit. This holds true especially for those who want serious numbers of units for Game creation reasons. Entire CIVs and Unit Lines. The Numbers become more important than the animations to some for this and other reasons.

This is all understandable but I do not like seeing the same animations applied to many other units...it just detracts from them because they cannot be unique other than different clothes, colors or added props.

It is all just a matter of what is wanted and how much someone likes creating it... IF a creator has a work approach that is held as something they enjoy and is "Special", then each unit made by them will be unique. IF not and all they desire are Units, a "knock it out" approach will do for them and those who have the same opinion. "Fill the Gap" so to speak. None the less, they too have to go through the "procedures" to make them.

Bottom Line... There are no Panaceas for Unit Making and Good animations require time and effort. This can be "difficult" if one does not enjoy the process but of course the procedures become easier and faster the more one understands.

Thanks uthjazz for the links; there's some great material there to get started from.

I've never really worked with palettes before, and it seems there's complexity there that I missed. I presume it's mainly picking out the civ colors that's time consuming?

It's just that Sandris makes it all look so easy, and it seemed odd that so few others are making ancient units.

The civ colours are easy - they're hardcoded into the game. What's time-consuming is picking out all the other colours that appear in the unit animations and ensuring that the palette contains them all, or at least enough of them to look good. Since the palette is 256 colours you might think that's a lot, but quite a few of those colours are taken up with hardcoded ones (such as civ colours, shadow colours, etc) and if your unit has lots of colours in it, it can be hard to do this well.

About automation of the process
1) There is currently no easy and fast way to make a civ compatible palette.
I tried to automate it, and turn a true colour storyboard to a civ 256 palette, but the result was not as nice as I hoped...
You can just try to find a method that works well. I have one that is relatively easy and fast, but still it takes time and manual work.

2) There are scripts around for poser rendering, and Sandris is using it. Basically, he starts the script before going to bed, and in the mording Poser has rendered several animations for several units.
of course, if you use similar animations for all your units and just change the models, it helps a lot.

3) I've made a new version of SBB, following discussion with Sandris. This version can create several animation at once.
So when Sandris has finished rendering 8 animations for 10 units with his poser script, he can turn all of them into storyboard in one time.

The remaining task is turning the storyboards to FLC. Currently, I can do FLC directly to storyboard. Perhaps one day I could do the opposite.

About Sandris work
Of course Sandris packs could give the impression it's "easy". And as seen above, there are a few automation that can make it easier.
However, I think what makes Sandris appart is his skill at making a model that is historically very accurate, that makes the units unique, and even at civ scale. I think his main strength is the gift he has to make the perfect level of detail in his modelling. Not too much, not too few. Just what it should be.

As far as making the palette, it normally only takes me a couple of minutes to make a palette.

As Plotinus said, the greater the number of colors in your unit, the harder it will be to represent all of the shades and hues of the original units with only 256 colors minus the hardcoded colors. But, I generally try to limit the variety of colors in a unit anyway—for aesthetic reasons.

Samarkada said:

It's just that Sandris makes it all look so easy, and it seemed odd that so few others are making ancient units.

Click to expand...

Well, there aren't too many people creating units at all at the moment.

There are only 160 Slots available for Unit Colors that can be added to the 256 color Palette for Units... The Others are CIV Specific Colors, Smoke/Fog and Shadows.

To make a Unit Palette...remove all Civ Specific Colors and Remove All Smoke/Fog and Shadow Shades from the 16 Million Color Storyboards. You then go through procedured to Reduce the Remaining Unit Colors to 160 Colors.
You add those Unit Colors to an Existing Game Unit Palette that Only has the Civ Specific Colors and the Smoke/Fog and Shadows on it.
You then apply that palette to your 16 Million Color Storyboards using "Nearest Color Matching" and save the Storyboard as a .pcx for use to generate the new .Flc

Depending on what animations you have for a Unit, you either use one animation that has All Unit Colors in it that all animations use or you add the Storyboards together on One Storyboard before making the Palette. The Point is to get the Best Representation of ALL colors for your Unit...then they must be reduced to 160 Colors for the Unit Palette.