New unit: WW2 Jeep w/ MG (Mar 16, 2005)

This is my second unit. Like my first one, it was made with Photoshop. I tried to take what I learned on my learned on my first unit and apply it to this one, but I'm sure there are still a few short comings.


Preview:


Civilopedia Icon:


Download here

I would appreciate knowing what you think of it. If you decide to include suggestions for improvement, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts; but keep the following in mind.

• I do my units my hand in Photoshop. Adding or changing animation details is very timeconsuming and quite difficult.
• My skills are still very limited. This is only my second effort. What takes the great unit creators a few minutes may take me several evenings. I am not looking to be the next great unit creator. I just like filling in making the occasional unit I want for myself that I can't find any where else.
• And finally, this unit is finished in my opinion. I will take your suggestions under consideration, but unless my mistake was considerable or the change is trvial, look for your suggestions to figure into future units not this one.

Why another Jeep unit? The only one I could find is the one by Kinboat. It was well made, but the unit did not at all resemble a WW2 unit. The driver and passenger looked like south american gangsters, or something along those lines. Also the Traditional white star was civ colored.

I thought it would be nice to have one that looked more traditional. And, while I was at it I decided to add a machinegun on the back; many Jeeps were equiped this way.


This unit includes

Civilopedia Icons
Units32 icon
Animation files
Sound files
Civilopedia.txt content
Pediaicons.txt content

What's different with this Jeep?
------------------------------
Kinboats model was used as a basis for this unit, but I changed every frame. I did 720 of 776 frames of animation over completely (old ones deleted and not used as a basis for the new ones). Kinboat's unit was based on an unknown persons original model. I reused some of sound files, but the original creator of these sound files is unknown. The attack sound I made myself.

This unit is different from Kinboats in the following ways:
The humans resemble WW2 infantry, also the humans are not as stiff.
There is a machine gun & gunner on the back.
The star on the hood is the traditional white color.
The animation is more detailed. 776 frames vs. 208.
I reduced the bounciness of the run animation (by changing the shadows)
I fixed shadow anomolies (like shadows on all 4 sides of the original)
Civ coloration is less intrusive. Civ coloration is from a flapping flag and uniform patches.
I redid much of the jeep itself. Such as the rear cargo clutter, an auxillary (3rd) headlight, the cockpit, lights, some surface texture, the windscreen and so on.

I think it turned out great - respect! Much, much better than your 262. You really have improved your skills!

The only thing that I would wish was that you turned your focus on units that haven't been made before. I would happily use your jeep if I wouldn't been using Ripptide's for ages.

Maybe you look here for units already done:
http://www.cdgroup.org/forums/tbs/civ3/viewtopic.php?t=5076

Here you can find the jeep as well:
http://cdgroup.org/forums/tbs/civ3/viewtopic.php?t=4579

Please don't get me wrong... I appreciate your work and talent. But it would be more wisely used when spent on units noone made before.

The only jeep I had found before was Kinboats.
If I had seen riptides, I probably would not have bothered.
I appreciate how gently you called me an idiot for wasting so much time. Diplomacy is so rare on these forums. I don't get you wrong. Your intial message was plenty kind, no need for the follow up. I prefer honesty. And, obviously honesty delivered with such diplomacy should never offend.

That said, I think Riptide (and Kinboat) is a unit creator at a skill level I don't even aspire to; but, I think my unit is significantly better.
Was it worth two weeks of my free time to make a better version of a unit that already existed? Clearly not. Was his "good enough", absolutely.

Do this:
download this unit, compare the unit animations with Riptides. I think most would prefer my take on this unit.

So my my two units I've released are not completely "new", but the ones I could find (after looking carefully) were lacking.
TVA22's ME262 was the right size, but the colorization and animation were slightly rough. I would never have done a new one if it had generic civ specific colorization rather then nazi logos.
I found Wyrmshadows to be pleasent to look at but larger then a bomber.
Since I love this airplane, and I could not find what I wanted from one of the many unit creators with more skill, I made my own.

With the Jeep, it was the same story. I really admire the jeep. It can literally drive anywhere. I have personally driven them all over, including up inclines it would have been difficult to walk. Kinboats basic model was very cool. But, it missed a few things in the design phase (mainly the humans) so after a while I decided I wanted a correct one enough to spend the nearly countless hours to make a better one.
I do think my jeep is better then either Kinboats or Riptides. But not because I am good. Rather the opposite. I am so lame at this that I have to spend so much time at it, that I catch a few details that the brilliant artists might miss.
For example, the MG jeep would have 3 humans. A driver, a spotter/aide gunner or occasionally a unit commander (typically a SGT) not just a driver and gunner. The MG in his unit is misplaced (much too far forward and off center). His MG lacks tracers. His unit is too large. It does not fit as well in scale as mine or Kinboats. I would have prefered my civ colorization to his. My unit has far more animation; it uses nearly twice the animation frames as his. The only series of his I like better is his fortify. I like my civilopedia much better.

Seriously compare the anims in detail and then decide. I have.

My next unit I want badly is a better modern machine gunner. But, based on the difficulty in animating humans with photoshop. I might try and learn poser first. (NOTE TO UNIT CREATION MASTERS, please do a modern MG and spare me the blood and sweat!)

btw: If you're already using and happy with ripptides, I don't think it is worth the bother to DL this. The unit may be better (depending on your tastes), but these units are so close I wish I hadn't bothered. Alot of work for so little change.

You're right, you delivered an alternative. I think many people will like it, so the work was certainly not useless.

OMG… you did this in PhotoShop… I’m astonished as to how this turned out; this has got to be the best work I have seen in Adobe.

Now I have version 7 and just can’t think of how you pulled this off… How many layers?

Sorry for the quick double posting…

I hate to break it to you, but I think the attack.flc file is corrupted; it crashes Animation shop and that usually suggests a corrupted file.

Your not the first that I have encountered this problem before, so don’t take it out on anything, I could be wrong about it.

Layers... must be close to 80. Hard to say for certain, since I had to save off layers and reload them repeated due to PS limitations. (I did it with PS 6.0.)
Was a labor of love. I love the willy, and wanted a better a proper MG unit.
Seriously, it took me 2 weeks of spare time.

I hope my next unit is with some better tool, but I have to say the learning curve on those render tools is daunting.

CrazyAce said:

Sorry for the quick double posting…

I hate to break it to you, but I think the attack.flc file is corrupted; it crashes Animation shop and that usually suggests a corrupted file.

Your not the first that I have encountered this problem before, so don’t take it out on anything, I could be wrong about it.

Click to expand...

I missed this comment. I will open it and check it when I get home from work.
I still have the storyboard, so recreating it (if needed) will be a snap.

I'll have this fixed by tonight.

Crazy Ace,
are you certain Animation Shop supports the non-standard FLC format that Civ units use? Are you able to open other units with this?

I ask, because I downloaded the file (Jeep_MG.zip) flicster and CivFlcEdit here at work, and even without civ installed, I could open and view the JeepAttackA.flc just fine. Animation played without any glitches. What sort of corruption are you seeing and where are you seeing it?
I suspect your application is not compatible with civ units or the zip (and or) file got corrupt on your end. Please try dl'ing it again or viewing it in an application which supports this file format.

Let me know how it goes.

Animation shop pro 3 supports every *.flc formats, while you may be able to open the *.flcs in Civedit or flickster, those programs however will not identify if the file has been corrupted.

I am able to view every other *.flc file to view even the Default, Death, fortify and victory.flc that came with the above download. I haven’t tested this unit in game so lets wait and see if anyone else accumulates this problem before rushing into accusation.

CrazyAce said:

Animation shop pro 3 supports every *.flc formats, while you may be able to open the *.flcs in Civedit or flickster, those programs however will not identify if the file has been corrupted.

I am able to view every other *.flc file to view even the Default, Death, fortify and victory.flc that came with the above download. I haven’t tested this unit in game so lets wait and see if anyone else accumulates this problem before rushing into accusation.

Click to expand...

Huh?? "Rushing into accusation"?? Where?

You reported a problem, I took you seriously and tried to do what I can to duplicate your problem without owning your specific application.
I DL'ed the same file from the same filehost and could not duplicate the problem. The next reasonable step would seem to be to speculate if it could be a problem on your end, would it not? Meaning either the viewer or the file.
This is hardly accusitory, but simple logic.

Fwiw, I am home now and DL'ed the file again so I could be certain to use the same file versions as you.
I again tested with the two FLC viewers I have, and I got the same results as last time. The file seems ok.

So, I pulled out the last FLC program available to me, Gif2Flc and made a few gifs of the flcs which should be corrupt if the flc is corrupt.
They extracted just fine.
For your viewing pleasure I present:


Default.flc


Fidget.flc


Run.flc


Attack.flc


Fortify.flc


Victory.flc


Death.flc

I am convinced the file is fine. Using the same versions of the files as are here for DL, I tested it three different ways and can not reproduce. I can think of no other test There is nothing special about the format of the attack flc. I made all 7 of the files exactly the same way.
If you are certain your copy of the attack flc downloaded correctly, and it sounds as if you are, then what is left to consider?
I wish I had Animation Shop, since then I could test it with that as well. Which version are you running of this? Perhaps I'll see if it can be had cheaply off ebay. I need a better GIF tool in any event.

Go here and D/L a trial version:

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Products/Display

Oops its suppose to say "Alteration" not Accusation, sorry about the miss up.

Thanks for the link.

So, I tested it and it was not your DL. But AS just didn't like this file. It took me a while to figure it out, but it had to do with the pixel-aspect-ratio. Not a setting I changed, but somehow Photoshop changed it on this one file and not the other six; It was changed from square (1:1) to 0.9 (9:10). I set it back to match the other files and AS now likes the file.
Strange thing is Civ, and all the other tools could not even tell it was changed.
I updated the file the link in the first post points to.

CrazyAce said:

I hate to break it to you, but I think the attack.flc file is corrupted; it crashes Animation shop and that usually suggests a corrupted file.

Click to expand...

This is only becasue civ3 flcs are diffrant then any other type of flc. Of course its not going to open becasue the type of flc Civ3 uses is completly unique (AFAIK). At least it shouldnt open probraly.

Nice unit.

vbraun said:

This is only becasue civ3 flcs are diffrant then any other type of flc. Of course its not going to open becasue the type of flc Civ3 uses is completly unique (AFAIK). At least it shouldnt open probraly.

Click to expand...

Sorry, you`re wrong. I use Animation Shop for viewing units, too. It works.

Yes, Crazy Ace and Ares de Borg are right.
Once I fixed the pixel perspective in the attack flc back to what it was supposed to be, the file is now viewable with the demo version (thanks crazy ace) of A.S.
I've no idea how this got changed in this one file, but the problem was in my file not in Crazy Ace's viewer.


---boring details follow---

Not that it matters, but I tested my local copies of this file, and only my "final" copy had this issue. So during some last minute tweak, I guess I fumble fingered some magic keystroke combo and caused this.
Amusingly even with the 10% off pixel perspective CIV, Flicster, CivFlcEdit and FLC2GIF all still worked. But, Animation Shop refused to load it. PhotoShop 6 loaded it without any complaints but PhotoShop 8 loaded it and complained (which is how I found the problem).

Photoshop behavior is sort of like god it works in mysterious ways.

Bjornlo said:

This unit is my second unit. Like my first one, it was with Photoshop. I tried to take what I learned on my learned on my first unit and apply it to this one, but I'm sure there are still a few short comings.


Preview:

Civilopedia Icon:

Download here

I would appreciate knowing what you think of it. If you decide to include suggestions for improvement, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts; but keep the following in mind.

• I do my units my hand in Photoshop. Adding or changing animation details is very timeconsuming and quite difficult.
• My skills are still very limited. This is only my second effort. What takes the great unit creators a few minutes may take me several evenings. I am not looking to be the next great unit creator. I just like filling in making the occasional unit I want for myself that I can't find any where else.
• And finally, this unit is finished in my opinion. I will take your suggestions under consideration, but unless my mistake was considerable or the change is trvial, look for your suggestions to figure into future units not this one.

Why another Jeep unit? The only one I could find is the one by Kinboat. It was well made, but the unit did not at all resemble a WW2 unit. The driver and passenger looked like south american gangsters, or something along those lines. Also the Traditional white star was civ colored.

I thought it would be nice to have one that looked more traditional. And, while I was at it I decided to add a machinegun on the back; many Jeeps were equiped this way.


This unit includes

Civilopedia Icons
Units32 icon
Animation files
Sound files
Civilopedia.txt content
Pediaicons.txt content

What's different with this Jeep?
------------------------------
Kinboats model was used as a basis for this unit, but I changed every frame. I did 720 of 776 frames of animation over completely (old ones deleted and not used as a basis for the new ones). Kinboat's unit was based on an unknown persons original model. I reused some of sound files, but the original creator of these sound files is unknown. The attack sound I made myself.

This unit is different from Kinboats in the following ways:
The humans resemble WW2 infantry, also the humans are not as stiff.
There is a machine gun & gunner on the back.
The star on the hood is the traditional white color.
The animation is more detailed. 776 frames vs. 208.
I reduced the bounciness of the run animation (by changing the shadows)
I fixed shadow anomolies (like shadows on all 4 sides of the original)
Civ coloration is less intrusive. Civ coloration is from a flapping flag and uniform patches.
I redid much of the jeep itself. Such as the rear cargo clutter, an auxillary (3rd) headlight, the cockpit, lights, some surface texture, the windscreen and so on.

Click to expand...

Dood, nice jeep. Gj Is it ok if I use this in my Halo2 mod for c3c?

Civilationisme said:

Dood, nice jeep. Gj Is it ok if I use this in my Halo2 mod for c3c?

Click to expand...

Thanks.
You do not need my permission (but I give it anyways) to use this unit.
All the units posts on here are released to the public domain. You have permission to use them any way you see fit. With or without the creators blessings.

Have fun, and good luck with your mod.