It's great that your getting stuck into some art stuff, LeBashar. I do have some comments/constructive criticism.
1. I like the style of your new Hornets, the textures do look like they could use a bit of sharpening up/refinement, but that could just be the image compression.
2. Thopters: I like the new Falcon Thopter mesh. It would still be good to get rid of the WH40K Dawn of War based units as they were quickly hacked together and look a bit out of place.
3. Suspensors: I think the existing line works pretty well to be honest.
4. Quad: Ironically, the trike was originally made from a four wheeled vehicle from the Worldshift game - now you have coverted it back
. I don't mind changing this, although your point about huge glass is not necessarily a problem in the Dune universe since there is
Metaglass.
5. Scorpions: I like your meshes. The easiest way to animate them is to rig them to existing Civ 4 tank skeletons and animations. The Coyote's
guide is probably the best resource to get you started here. Rigging vehicles is easier than rigging to human units (there are less moving parts), but like a lot of things in life it is only straight forward once you've figured out how to do it yourself and done it a couple of times. I can give you some pointers and possibly do some of the rigging myself if time allows.
6. Regarding "optimisation of textures files (multiple textures files are combined) to save memory and game speed". This is fine, but just make sure we're not losing quality as a result. Repeated DDS compression on textures can really compromise sharpness and quality.
7. I am not in favour of changing any of the banners. Some of the original reasoning is
here. The priorities when selecting team colours/banners was:
(i) Pick team colours that are distinctive and well spread through the spectrum.
(ii) Team colour should match the banner colour.
(iii) Use bright colours, if we use colours that are too close to sand/brown/spice then the graphics end up being too monochrome.
(iv) Team colour should have some thematic association where possible.
I don't like Orange for the fremen - specifically because we want contrast with the desert palette (iii above). Black for Corrino doesn't work because that makes them the same colour as the barbarians - I appreciate it is the colour of the Sardaukar but I think purple works fine. I prefer red for Harkonnen it just fits better - it says evil. Blue for Fremen has the association of water. I generally think that the banners have been settled for a while and I don't feel there is compelling reason to change them.
7. I don't really like replacing the Heavy Troopers with beret-wearing units. Berets don't really seem like appropriate combat wear for the harsh desert environment of Arrakis. Something more armoured and sci-fi looking would be better I think.
8. The general idea with unit art, in order to be consistent with our vague post-apocalyptic backstory, was to have the early units appear like ragged, rough looking survivors like the Soldier unit and units progressively become more uniformed, armoured as you progress up the tech tree. I was never a huge fan of the ninja units for Bladesman/Hardened Bladesman but I would still like some units that look less smart than the later ones.
9. Really all the melee units should use short stabbing swords rather than long slashing swords to be consistent with the Dune lore (to penetrate shields you need to stab slowly rather than strike hard and fast). The Charlemagne Short Swordsman animations are good for this but I never got around to rigging more units to that. If you find any base meshes that you'd like rigging to new animations I might be able to do it for you - not promising anything due to time.
10. It might be worth reading some of the original
Art Thread to understand some of the decisions that have been made in the past. Also, there is something unit art discussion
here.
My own unit art priorities are as follows:
High priority: (look out of place on Dune/repeated art used)
CHOAM Emissary
Zealot/Mujahid - differentiate - reskin?
Narcotics Dealer
Sardaukar Agent
Traitor
Kwizatz Units
Smuggler
Lower priority (has Unique Art but could improve):
Missile Trooper - reskin and have proper missile launching anim
Mongoose Trooper - bad mesh
Devastator/Re-Skin and button
Great Merchant - adjust to make more Dunish
Heavy Troopers
Anyway, good work with taking this on. Keep going.