Cala Crazy Moagata Project

Dear All.

I'm currently trying to add righteously skinned Maogata units.

But I need you advices !

otherwise, i'll just reskin the lizard units without any rythm nor reason.

which unit should be of which "feline race"... with which weapon ?

I have already prepared an "easy to install" jaguar version.. that I can put easily on any lizard. (I can do the whole current maogata units in jaguars...)

I'm starting the "tiger skin"....
(and once I'd have done the tiger skin, I'll be able to re-do the jaguar skin in a better version)

I'll be able, IMO, to do a "white Tiger" version.

I should be able to do a lion/lioness version... but that will not be really fantastic as it will be a bit too smooth.

I should be able to do a Cheeta Version.

For the moment I cannot change the shapes much. However, I can add capes, pauldrons, change weapons ...Etc
And don't forget that I have the "were-wolf-reskinned-as-a-jaguar:


I'm considering the following:

- archer : tail chaser : jaguar javeliner
- longbow : shadow of the pride (Nycidian idea) : Jaguar / javeliner / with the trident of the beastmaster instead of the javelin... but that might be harder than what I think. (and maybe some armor / pauldrons)

- warrior : basic jaguar unit, with a club.
- Axeman : ..... : current unit, Tiger version (already has sword) / i'll try the "blue armor)
- Champion: Spirit of the pride : White tiger (as immortal), with 1 or 2 swords from the "Lizardmen Priest fo Kalsheck" : black curvy sword with red runes (I'll make them orange runes) with pauldrons... maybe a metal armor/half armor for the thorax

-fury : Jaguar Werewolf

recon
- scout : small Cheeta
- hunter : chaser : big Cheeta lizard hunter
- Ranger : Prowler : tiger "lizard ranger"
- Beastmaster: Stalker : tiger Werewolf

Adept:
whisper of mana: Lioness adept lizard with skulls and stick
Voice of Mana : Lion (how to do the mane?) Mage lizard... with pauldrons, maybe change the weapon.

mounted
- tiger
- chariot : ?? tiger with Boar ?
- horse archer ??? I have no current idea... because modding the nyxin seems hard (the .nif seems strange... and the nyxkin is only an horseman on panther and not an archer on panther.. and I couldn't find the art for the svart horsearcher .)
- war chariot ? ?, what can I do to make it work ?
- Knight : as existing : Sabretooth unit ? : maybe with some armor?


But I'm not sure it makes sense.
or I could do :
melee : lion
recon : jaguar
magic/mounted : tiger
archers : jaguar ?

or

tier I : cheeta
tier II : jaguar
tier III : Lion
tier IV : Tiger ? (save for horseman / knight) ?

any propositions ?
I can take some weapons from other units of the game : swap swords / hachettes / axes .. or javelin / pikes / lances...

i'd go with one kind of feline per unitcombat, that'll make for an easier visual distinction.

Yeah, that was how i always planned for them to be distinguished, one fur pattern per unit combat and then extra decoration (capes, armor, bling) for units further down the line. Didnt put that much thought into specifics into what pattern goes where, but i always imagined the hunters to be black.

As a sidenote, i always imagined them to be somewhat stocky, only being about 1,50m (or 5 foot, for you ancient measuring system users) but a bit broader. Not sure how much you can do in that regard though.

the weapons thing is obviously kinda a sore point, because they tend to not do that but for visual distinction you should probably do it

hehe, I had a hard time sleeping yesterday...
and I thought of a trick for the mane.

so :
melee : lion
archer : cheetah (they are quick : so 2 mvt is ok, and withdrawal is ok, but are weaker.... so they use ranged weapons..
recon : tigers... most fearsome hunter there is.
arcane: jaguar : jaguar were always mystical beasts..

for the "stockyness"... I can't do anything....
I already have a hard time with the large tail of the lizard model, and the long "noze" of the same lizard.
If I ever understand "blunder" (or at least take the time to do it) those 2 points are the main focus.

I know they should be un-armed.. but weapons are still nice

EDIT:
just so you can see where I am (+ the previous jaguar werewolf)

notice the thickness of the tail and the long "noze".

and for the tiger...it's hard and long to aligne all those stripes... so you have a half model

Okay,

Here are some news:
in fact, the Kha only have the one and only same model / animation. So I'm not sure how to use them... (I may use them later, or not);

then... I did some good.
I spent a LOOOt of time finishing that tiger : it's not like the spots on the jaguar: those stripes HAVE to be aligned... so, if you look on the right picture you get the result.

and on the middle picture, focus on the right side of the skinned lizard : you get to see the work.

however, I did an in-game try : mostly to see which animations were good with un-armed beasts... and there came an issue:
all those pretty reskinned lizards looked ugly : the stripes and the spots are TOO SMALL with regard to the size of the units in civ 4 !!!!!
so orange-ish lizards and yellow-ish (vaguely spotty) lizards... arg !

so I went quick and dirty on the "skin" : look at the left part ... and it gave a somewhat ok preview...
and
this is what happens ingame :

on the right, an un-armed scout with enhanced paws, slashing at a wolf.
on the left, my version of the "Voice of Mana" : a big bad Jaguar, with a few embedded mana jewels : on his arms (incrusted), on his thorax : jewel, and 3 on his belt.

(and it shows a warrior-based unit, with the scout animation !)

Here you can see that Voice of Mana a bit better: with the Prowler (ranger-UU) in action (I sould really move that cape a bit higher up the neck)


I'm thinking of going "all unarmed" for all those units (save ranged).. but I need some ideas for differentiation !!
.. and mostly animation changes ! so that I'm not always using the scout animation to hit on things.
(warrior & axe animation are no good... the unit hits two-handed ... when you are unarmed.. it looks real strange).

here are my ideas :

melee :
warrior : lion / ??
Amparasho (axe-UU): Lionness / unarmed /smallish-paws / blue armor maybe use a smallish buclar on left arm, or use it like "pointy arm-guards"? (knife or not ? the leader in Amparasho Blue has a badass knife... ??)
Spirit of the Pride : (immortal-Champion) Lion & Lionness team : huge paws; Metal "fish-skin" armor on thorax / maybe on legs ? / pauldrons / maybe cape ? werewolf head ?
Fury : reskinned Werewolf: redish fish-sking metal armor skirt. teeth-collar. Reddish-Lion / Big Pauldons ?

Recon
Scout : tiger smallish paws (remove the back-pack ?)
Chaser (hunter UU): tiger / stone-axe or smallish paws /... ?? what else : backpack ?? small dagger in left hand ?
Prowler (Ranger UU): tiger / cape / big paws or javeline ? / reskinned wolf head ? / hood ? / change tiger color : less orange / more orange ?
Stalker (Beastmaster UU) : grey tiger / huge reskinned Werewolf / with dino animals / and cameo skirt/ maybe with dagger at his belt.

Arcane
as is.
Whisper of mana: (adept UU): jaguar with a stick with 2 skulls. maybe a mana-pendant ? (no paws)
Voice of mana : Jaguar / reskinned Werewolf, with mana crystal embedded.

mounted
I propose to armor a bit those units:
Tiger : armored tiger. (a small buclar near the shoulder blade) to help differenciate it from non-sentient tigers...
same for Sabertooth.

I'm reserving myself on "Nyxin rider" and "cow-rider" (LENA proposer a wolf riding on a cow ... so I can change that into a tiger /cheeta or something... )

That looks nice.

for animations, couldn't golems work ? they are unarmed iirc (note that i may be saying something stupid, i don't have the slightest idea of how animation work in civ)

nice Idea ... I'll look into it !
a quick look in the xml :
swordman (for aurealis / Wood / bronze / Iron / Mithril / Nullstone / Ice elemental )
Incan Quechua (for Bone golem)
aztec jaguar (for clockwork golem) (or maybe a rework of it :/ ) but I can still directly steal the reworked one
but IIRC the clockwork golem gives mostly strait punches when fighting... isn't it ?

horror (flesh golem) ... does anyone remember how that animation moves ?

berserker (Gargoyles)


so 5 (well 3) new animations ideas thanks to Black_imperator + 2 confirmed (Lizards already used swordman and berserker, so I wanted to try them...

so now I'll have to check ingame how they move, select the one interesting, and hope that the lizard move adequatly when I change the animation style... [crossfingers] hope [/crossfingers]

just a preview of what an armored tiger could be :

(either as replacement of current tiger : Horseman .... or as replacement of chariot : as you might need a "workshop" to build that tailored harness : and then have horseman replaced by something else)

really nice to see them in action.
also good idea with the mana crystals for the voice of mana.

i am genuinely happy that people still care

look- at that ...
I made the armored tiger work.. (had to enlarge those shields so we can differenciate from normal tiger.

and after much tribulations... the cow rider worked !!

So I can hope to make :
Nyxkin / (maybe Sabretooth-rider / tiger rider ?)
Bear rider
Bison rider
Boar Rider
Rino rider
Mammoth rider
Elephant Rider
Cow/Bull Rider.


which of those are appropriate for sentient felines ???

Yo !
I worked on that snout (yeah, I remembered the right name...)


don't you find that the guy on the left is more "tiger-like" than the guy on the right ?

the issue is that I moved that snttu vertice by vertice, slowly (point of the 3D object) and I had first to spend some time to identify which vertices were related to the snout and rename them, and move them a little back... and the nif file didn't even keep the names on the vertices once I had to quit and restarted... at least the moved one were kept :/

however, I don't know if I'll have the courage to do the same for scout / ranger / adept /rider... etc.

it might be easier to keep the same model, but just change weapons and animation ... mmhh (and I'll have to check how it renders in-game .. ;to see if that is worth my time)

but if that works, I might tackle the tail problem

And I won't ever do it that way for the werewolf head: too many vertice in the front of the head: teeths and all. (the lizard is simpler : 20-30 vertices "only" for the snout)

ok, back to reskinning into lions and cheetas...

that looks great. how does it look in game ?

dunno

I haven't had time to test it ingame...
hopefully this evening

(I spent a lot of time reading tutos on nifskope to try to understand the tool better, and try to tackle model swap, especially for moving reskinned lizards onto a mount : nyxin / boar ...etc / for bison and cow it seems easy (as they are based on "knight" models (bones, mesh names...Etc), and the cualli mounted unit is also based on a knight model, so the naming convention is identical.
however, dwarven board rider / hornguard / elephant rider / bear rider are based on "conquistador / berserker / elephant rider " models... which do not have the same naming convention/bones... + the nif files are all messy.
so to do that I would need to dwelve much deeper into nifskope mastery before being able to do it.)

but I did the easy 80% of the work on a cheeta skin (the remaining 20% : eyes / muzzle / mouth / paws) will make 80 % of the work...

but it might be a good enough model with only adding the eyes.
(and I'll have to see if ingame we can really see the spots..or if, like the tiger, it gives a grayish feeling)

aAAAnd:
lookit !

I did : EARS

they are not really visible from the side... but from front and back .. nice
now, normaly that's all for today...

sooo.

ingame test:

here are the results:

as we can see, the cheeta is not bad... we can see the spot, somehow. I'll only have to add the eyes and black/redd-ish nose ...and done

but the smaller snout is not really perceptible... I'll have to try it smaller.
and the ears are invisible... they were more visible when painted.
I'll have to try by making them bigger.
or with more dark colors.
or painted AND in 3D so that all angles of vision are covered.

oh, and the warrior lizard is all wonky;.. I'll have to use another unit for playing the warrior.

that's all for today.

So, any more progress on that ? Those last screens looked good

thanks for wondering.

I advanced a bit... but I paused since november 3 or so. (you know: work, kids, wife... real life )
(I tried to learn a bit of blunder... but stopped half-way)
(I think I will not do the snout / tail re-shape soon... it's much work, and I'd have to do it for each units. It's in fact harder than I thought to copy-past the re-designed model onto other "bones"(to have different animations)... even if the models are all the same.)


I did that "reskin of werewolf into a tiger" ... it renders well atm... but reskinning the werewolf head was a real complicated work... the skin-map was strangely convoluted... so real difficult to add strips and all. (which was not an issue at all for jaguars...)

I added eyes, nose and mouth to the cheeta reskin.

I tackled the "ears" issue, so now it looks good.

I put a trident on the javeliner to make the "long-bow-replacement"... but I still need to give him some further weapons : armor or something.
(and i'm looking for an animation that would really "launch" that spear / javelin... the "mali-skirmisher" animation used for the illian javeliner mostly stabs...)

however, I didn't start to launch the Lion - reskin...
(I further have to re-do the ranger.. the cape is a ... so I need to change cape, maybe add a hood ... but that would Hide some features.)

however, if you really want I can formulate a "temporary" beta 1. with what I currently have and just add a generic "tiger" or "jaguar" or "cheeta" simple reskin for the units I didn't do yet. (essentialy : melee, fury, settler, warrior, Hero).
(Honestly, even in further version, I will not do the fort commanders or great people )


EDIT: hahaha that automatic censorship

No, i didn't mean to rush you ^^, i was just curious.

hello !

so I did not do much since beginning of November...
But I started again to work on this.
since last update:

I present you my work of november:

- the trident-thrower
- the Stalker (Beastmaster) (it's the orange-tiger) : ingame he is presented with accompanying dinos
please notice the tooth-collar

and here are the december additions:
- I polished the trident-thrower (LB-equivalent): please look at the shiny pauldron / the ears / and the semi-armor-harness.

- Please admire the early concept for CHEARSUL (hero wanabee, master of ice & water : 1 cold combat, + has "water infusion" magic ) He is supposed to be a lion on the icon... however, he is RECON, and unlocked at TRACKING... so that made sense to me to make him a tiger... and use the "Rishakim-leader" theme : Grey-Tiger !

please notice the icy-claws !!!
and normally the hand/claws will glow a soft blue.
(and, OK, I just changed the fur of the Stalker... but notice the different braclets .... )
My next step is to see if I change the collar into something else.
and especially to change his battle-skirt into something else.


If you think it unwise to have the hero and a leader have the same coloscheme, I can try to have CHearsul be a WHITE TIGER...
What say you ??? (2 questions: grey or white ? and which battle skirt ?

Looks great.

For the black grey or white question. Grey is fine if you don't use it much in the rest of the civ, otherwise white to better differentiate it.

For the battle skirt, i have honestly no idea. I feel that the green one misses something but i wouldn't be able to tell you what exactly. Maybe something brownish instead ?

and here is the reskin for lionesses... I still need to add those paws

(ie: warriors.
+ base for axeman I'll have to add some blue armor
+ base for champion : gauntlet/bracelet + dual pauldron / harness + maybe a white-ish cape
(and some of those'll be male with a mane)

then, for the fury, i'll need to reskin the same old warrior/werewolf-body ... but add an amor)



EDIT: for Chearsul, he is the hero... so there is only 1 unit like that.

but I might make him WHITE
so that I can keep the Grey, (maybe with a buclar on the back) to be commander/great general
and lion with white-ish mane and buclar on back for fort commander ???