Sailing Ships Reskins

Does anyone know the polycount on it? Or is there a download to it somewhere? If it's over 2000 I wouldn't use it.

I think some vanilla ships have over 1000 polygons, but none of them would be over 1500.

Also, I think the wide privateer looks good in game.

Chuggi said:

Does anyone know the polycount on it? Or is there a download to it somewhere? If it's over 2000 I wouldn't use it.

I think some vanilla ships have over 1000 polygons, but none of them would be over 1500.

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I have NO IDEA what the polycount is on it, or how to check it... what I do know is that I'm not using or not using it by some arbitrary "magic wall" of polygon counts...

I know for a fact I've had multiple nations using the model in-game, on a 4-year-old system (and most of that time with only 1GB of memory) and I've never once had a system slow-down during the age of galleons, then see the game pick up speed once the galleons are gone!

I've also never heard one bit of negative feedback that games were mysteriously slowing down whenever galleons were in-play in the mod from anyone else.

So if it's 10 polygons or 10,000 polygons, apparently this model's use in-game doesn't negatively impact my 4-year old systems' ability to play the game or anyone else who has given feedback.

To me, it's more about playability then poly-counting.

That's my 2-cents.

It's 6500 polys and about 1.5 meg of texture memory. It's a lot.

The thing is - as long as it is that one unit, most PC's will handle it. Somewhat recent ones probably will have no problem at all.
My computer is just a bit older (i think 6 years by now, but it was very good back then) and it does not like having a lot of such units in the game - the effects are very noticeable.
Because of how the engine and memory paging is working it is not a thing of "Slowdown when Galleon on screen" - it's overall usage of PC ressources. When those are stretched the slowdown may occur when actually loading/displaying something else. Also glitches and crashes at some points are more likely.

The trouble is - while one unit is fine, two is fine, three probalby fine as well, no one really knows when it is "too much". That's why general polycount budgests do exist and do make sense.

6500 ?! The textures can be resized though, and a modeller could remove half the polygons. But it may be better just to make another ship.

No it can't be resized (not a lot) - it not one huge texture, it's like 10 separate smallish texture files.

I had a look on the Pirates! ships before - cutting 1000 polys by just deleting stuff no one will see anyway is simle but not enought. To get them down to a "good" polycount making from scratch using the old for reference (and maybe texture source for baking) is most certainly faster than fiddling with this one. Reducing polycount is much harder than modelling something in low-poly right away.

Refar said:

No it can't be resized (not a lot) - it not one huge texture, it's like 10 separate smallish texture files.

I had a look on the Pirates! ships before - cutting 1000 polys by just deleting stuff no one will see anyway is simle but not enought. To get them down to a "good" polycount making from scratch using the old for reference (and maybe texture source for baking) is most certainly faster than fiddling with this one. Reducing polycount is much harder than modelling something in low-poly right away.

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Be carefull or someone will ask you for that.

Refar said:

(and maybe texture source for baking)

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JustATourist said:

Be carefull or someone will ask you for that.

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Refar, would you bake me some cookies please?

Here we go again: Russian Sailing Ships

Xebec is a strange choice for Russia, since proper frigates constituted the bulk of post-Peter I Russian navy. I see you're also using pre-Peter naval ensign, from the times Russia actually had no fleet.

JustATourist said:

Here we go again: Russian Sailing Ships

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In a way, I like the fact that you use different model for the ships, but in an other way, the carrack and Indiaman are UU, so it may be cool to keep their excusivity to Portugal and Netherlands.

Walter Hawkwood said:

Xebec is a strange choice for Russia, since proper frigates constituted the bulk of post-Peter I Russian navy. I see you're also using pre-Peter naval ensign, from the times Russia actually had no fleet.

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Yeah, I don't like the Xebec for Russia... it's more of a mid-east ship, not Russian.

Walter Hawkwood said:

Xebec is a strange choice for Russia, since proper frigates constituted the bulk of post-Peter I Russian navy. I see you're also using pre-Peter naval ensign, from the times Russia actually had no fleet.

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I did choose this ensign because I found a note in Wikipedia "1670s - 1857: No official flag used". I don't know if this is true, because I grew up in a part of germany where we did not learn one word about east europe history in school, because they wanted us to be conditioned in another way. That's why I choosed an early but unproblematic ensign.

Sure the russians did use many frigates, but as far as I read they used a wide variety of ship classes. I wanted to demonstrate this fact. Actually the MOW is allready a kind of heavy frigate, so I didn't want to use a second one. On the other hand I read (again in Wikipedia, I don't know if it is true) that russia did use the Xebec in their fleet, and russia and sweden were the only countries which used Xebecs in the Baltic Sea. So, if I want to use the Xebec somewhere it is more accurate to use it with russia than with for example germany or the netherlands, I thought.

C.Roland said:

In a way, I like the fact that you use different model for the ships, but in an other way, the carrack and Indiaman are UU, so it may be cool to keep their excusivity to Portugal and Netherlands.

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Please have a look at the attached picture. I tried my best to make the kraweel look different compared to the carrack. I made it broader and I changed the buildup at the bow. Also my suggested fscale is different. But you might be right anyway.

Anyway, the reskins are done and they are only suggestions. Noone is forced to use them. If there would be other anymated uints, I would perhaps go back at wort with the russian reskins, but at the moment there isn't much I can do.

JustATourist said:

Please have a look at the attached picture. I tried my best to make the kraweel look different compared to the carrack. I made it broader and I changed the buildup at the bow. Also my suggested fscale is different. But you might be right anyway.

Anyway, the reskins are done and they are only suggestions. Noone is forced to use them. If there would be other anymated uints, I would perhaps go back at wort with the russian reskins, but at the moment there isn't much I can do.

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It's both obvious and not obvious at all that you changed the unit for Russia... in other words, it's obvious now that you show it to us side-by-side, but I'd bet in-game at game resolution and scale, the difference is so minimal it would probably not be noticed. I do like the fact you did change the model though... having said that, did you change the "German Carrack" you did earlier in any way, or is it the same model as the Portugese Carrack?



In either case, I don't think it really matters... a lot of the central and eastern European countries used more "carrack-looking" ships then the standard caravel model... it may be a UU for Portugal in Civ4, but it is what it is when it comes to nations using similar hulled ships. I don't think the Portugese had an enforceable trademark on the Carrack!

JustATourist said:

I did choose this ensign because I found a note in Wikipedia "1670s - 1857: No official flag used". I don't know if this is true, because I grew up in a part of germany where we did not learn one word about east europe history in school, because they wanted us to be conditioned in another way. That's why I choosed an early but unproblematic ensign.

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From the time of Peter the Great and onwards, first unofficially, then officially, the following flags have been used as naval ensigns:

for merchant marine (yes, it is the current flag of Russia, but it first came to use as naval ensign

for the navy

Wolfshanze said:

It's both obvious and not obvious at all that you changed the unit for Russia... in other words, it's obvious now that you show it to us side-by-side, but I'd bet in-game at game resolution and scale, the difference is so minimal it would probably not be noticed. I do like the fact you did change the model though... having said that, did you change the "German Carrack" you did earlier in any way, or is it the same model as the Portugese Carrack?

In either case, I don't think it really matters... a lot of the central and eastern European countries used more "carrack-looking" ships then the standard caravel model... it may be a UU for Portugal in Civ4, but it is what it is when it comes to nations using similar hulled ships. I don't think the Portugese had an enforceable trademark on the Carrack!

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I used the same changed model for germany, the netherlands and russia (the countries along the cities of the hanseatic league). And I agree, the Carrack doesn't look much different from the the Kog, the Hulk, the Kraweel and whatever they were called. You have to take a very close look to decide which one it is. For example on paintings they all look allmost the same.

Walter Hawkwood said:

From the time of Peter the Great and onwards, first unofficially, then officially, the following flags have been used as naval ensigns:

for merchant marine (yes, it is the current flag of Russia, but it first came to use as naval ensign

for the navy

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Sorry, I can't open this pictures. Can you attach as a jpg?

JustATourist said:

Sorry, I can't open this pictures. Can you attach as a jpg?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Russia.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Naval_Ensign_of_Russia.svg

Does this work better?

http://flot.parus.ru/images/andrflag.gif
http://www.eurocup2008.ru/upload/iblock/5b8/rus-f.png

(in case it doesn't)

That's better, thanks. All right, I will go back to work.

You know, it may actually be better to switch the Caravel and Carrack around as UU. It was created by the Portugese in the first place, and Spain was the only other heavy user of the type.

Xenomorph said:

You know, it may actually be better to switch the Caravel and Carrack around as UU. It was created by the Portugese in the first place, and Spain was the only other heavy user of the type.

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Perhaps amongst Northern, Central or Eastern Europeans... but I'd say the Mediterranean Europeans and other cultures (MidEast/African) had more Caravel-like ships then Carrack-like ships. Probably just need to give Northern, Central or Eastern Europeans Carracks, and everybody else Caravels.

All right, version 2: Russian Sailing Ships

I have added skins with the naval flag requested by Walter Hawkwood. Personally I do like the flag better, which I have used first, but if people from russia can identify themself more with the new one, I can't argue about this. I also added a Caravel, A Galleon and a Frigate for those, who don't like my first choice. But this time the reskins are one minor changes to my earlier skins. I hope you like it more this time.