2 Leaderheads : 1 Celt and 1 Japanese

As I'm a beginner in leaderheads and start to work on leaders for Ethnic Mix More Mod, I think it will be better if i post my work now than at the next update of my mod. I'm pretty sure some of you fellows will bring me good advices and tips !

So here we are. I began to study a beautiful piece of work : William Wallace by Nitram15 :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=13974

So, all credits goes to him !

First, I was a bit surprised because in one way, it's easier than units but in the other hand, it's harder to get realistic work and play right with light ...

So, for my first try, I just played with elements ( cloak, beard, hair ) and just touch some pixels ( textures ) ... I find the files a bit too heavy so, hope to find ways to work on this part.

Here the result :

WILLIAM WALLACE



DOWNLOAD

.dds button is included


Based on this Wikipedia picture for hair and beard texture :




Who is William Wallace ?

Sir William Wallace (Scottish Gaelic : Uilleam Uallas. 1272 – 23 August 1305) was a Scottish knight and landowner who is known for leading a resistance during the Wars of Scottish Independence and is today remembered in Scotland as a patriot and national hero.
He defeated an English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, and became Guardian of Scotland, serving until his defeat at the Battle of Falkirk. A few years later Wallace was captured in Robroyston near Glasgow and handed over to King Edward I of England, who had him executed for treason.

more info here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wallace



Then, I decided to go a bit further and try something a bit more complicated. I used a great work of MethylOrange : Sun Tzu which is itself based on game's Kublai Khan to create a Japanese leader : Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Sun Tzu by MethylOrange : MethylOrange work
The fantastic hair and the awesome sword come from a LH by cfkane : Yamato Takeru here : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=301439

I still have some difficulties to handle with light in NifSkope but well ...

Here the result :

TOYOTOMI HIDEYOSHI



DOWNLOAD

.dds button is included


Who is Toyotomi Hideyoshi ?

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (February 2, 1536 – September 18, 1598) was a daimyo in the Sengoku period who unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, named after Hideyoshi's castle. He is noted for a number of cultural legacies, including the restriction that only members of the samurai class could bear arms. Hideyoshi is regarded as Japan's great unifier.

more info here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyotomi_Hideyoshi


Both of these works ( and future ones ) are of course works in progress ! More to come. About the backgrounds : well, I know my choice is maybe not the most popular but I prefer a kind of Art background with something culturally accurate rather than a photography. Hope this choice won't hurt.

Leaders when prompting to play :



- Will post more pictures of these leaders in game asap.

- Will post the xml asap !


By the way, as I plan to work on a new mod ( based on ancient cultures and civilizations, nothing to see with jet flights or tanks for instance ), I'm looking for some people which who collaborate. Anybody interesting ?

Those look really good, especially for a first effort.

One thing though; you should add an AlphaProperty to the beard on William Wallace so it looks more natural.

The Capo said:

Those look really good, especially for a first effort.

One thing though; you should add an AlphaProperty to the beard on William Wallace so it looks more natural.

Click to expand...

Thanks The Capo

mmmh ... an alpha property you say ? Going to see this. Thank you !!

Pretty nice - very nice as a first attempt. The Japanese one is definitely my favorite; the model itself looks more polished. My only suggestion for him comes in relation to his hair. The stringy hair used looks nice when he stands still, but from what I've seen of it on other leaders, it's completely inflexible when he moves. It also causes very obvious clipping with his shoulders. The leaderhead is by no means bad, but I'd consider swapping his hair for somebody else's, specifically Agueybana's from Colonization. That way, it will still be straight, but shorter and non-clipping. You'll get a headband with Agueybana, but I think your texturing skills could make it look Asian and pretty cool.

Great! Can I base William Wallace v2, on your LH? I will edit him. I very like the other one too.

Vrenir said:

Pretty nice - very nice as a first attempt. The Japanese one is definitely my favorite; the model itself looks more polished. My only suggestion for him comes in relation to his hair. The stringy hair used looks nice when he stands still, but from what I've seen of it on other leaders, it's completely inflexible when he moves. It also causes very obvious clipping with his shoulders. The leaderhead is by no means bad, but I'd consider swapping his hair for somebody else's, specifically Agueybana's from Colonization. That way, it will still be straight, but shorter and non-clipping. You'll get a headband with Agueybana, but I think your texturing skills could make it look Asian and pretty cool.

Click to expand...

Going to try the way you point. In the same kind of things I have to correct : the cloak of William Wallace and his right arm when moving.

Thanks for all these explanations !

Nitram15 said:

Great! Can I base William Wallace v2, on your LH? I will edit him. I very like the other one too.

Click to expand...

Thank you very much Nitram. Do what you wish. This William is because you did first a great LH !

Next step for this leader : solve my cloak thing.

Toyotome looks nice .

Only thing to mention: If i look at the picture, the head seems to be added artificially, it looks like a faked picture. Maybe it's an inconsistence in the shadows, or so, no idea .

The_J said:

Toyotome looks nice .

Only thing to mention: If i look at the picture, the head seems to be added artificially, it looks like a faked picture. Maybe it's an inconsistence in the shadows, or so, no idea .

Click to expand...

The face looks like that because the texturing on it is realistic, while the texture on the hair (which frames it) looks less realistic in comparison. That is my theory on that at least.

I really appreciate all your comments ... thank you !

Anyhow, I thought I had solved the beard fix of Wallace but not at all ... the beard is not fixed to the face as it should be

But even with more coffee, I'm too tired to have a look on it tonight. Will see that tomorrow

Thanks again !

Great! I am trying to add special shaders to my leaders. Does Toyotomi use one?

If you talk about the NONSHADER.nif file : No, he doesn't. You know, I'm still learning NifSkope

Do you have something in mind ?

You should learn shadering. I can help. Ekmek wrote a tutorial, I only need to find.

EDIT: Maybe you should make a Leaderhead Gallery.

I read tutorials with one hand and try creating something decent with the other hand quite a job !

You are definitly right : I have to do shadering. Asap I finished read and practice, I'll be proud to update Toyotomi

About a gallery ... much much too early ... I'm bad for instance. I have much to learn before even thinking about. But as I made many units now, maybe I should rather consider open a unit thread/gallery/something-like-this.

Did you see the last berbere units of Bakuel ? Gosh, this guy is a wizard !

Yes! I used some of his unit's parts, to make Miltiades as leaderhead.

I updated Toyotomi Hideyoshi here and in the database

No big update, I just enhanced the hair with new black hair texture, desaturate a bit the color of the skin and add a very few red color to balance the yellow

Otherwise, nothing more because of the lack of time and the fact that I still can't fix the beard on William Wallace face in NifSkope

I could help...

Thank you Nitram15 Sure you can help

This way, you'll have 2 good versions of your fantastic William Wallace For everything related to leaderheads, I prefer to be a modest assistant

Okay, I will help. I will post result on CivMod, okay?

Thanks for the link. Sure it will be ok

Okay. Do you want to be our French Moderator?