Unit Requests: Medieval Balkans

[Blue Monkey]

The warriors on the image above are Russians and one Teutonic knight, and on the second one warriors are Mongols. Those images are taken from the Russian book about Mongolian and Teutonic invasions in Medieval Rus.

Yeah, I saw the cool pictures, but since the only cyrillic I can read = "restaurant" & "Aeroflot" I didn't know. I'm going to remove the images from my earlier post so no one else needs to bother with them in this thread.

 

[Plotinus]

[Micaelus] These units are looking great. You've obviously got the hang of putting the models together without any difficulty. I wouldn't worry too much about units looking too dark. Don't forget that in-game they will be viewed against darker backgrounds than that horrible magenta, and so they usually look a lot lighter, and the colours stand out more.

 

[Micaelus]

Here are the two spearman units. They are so very close to being ready, but there seems to be a slight palette problem. Despite eliminating Magenta from the storyboards before creating the palettes, some redish-pink pixels are left over, clinging to the units in some of the animations...they don't appear in the preview, just in-game.

I have touched them up quite a bit, but short of editing out each of the erroneous pixels by hand leaving some problems. If anyone who's been doing this for a while would like to take a look, I'd appreciate it. I'm hoping there's a technique that doesn't involve frame-by frame removal of the stray pixels. The zips are as if they were ready for general download, so if there are different files (like the storyboards) that would be more appropriate so you could help, let me know and I'll upload them.





About the preview animations: If you notice them being jumpy in the attack animations its because I had to paste those frames in individually and I may not have been as careful as I could have been. (This is because the attack animation was captured with a larger frame size to get the full extent of the spear thrust.)

Once the stray colors are edited out, these will be generally released to the Download database. For now I'm going to try and model the swordmen to get away from the picky technical junk

EDIT: Thanks to Embryodead's suggestions and a bit of color-replacing using Civ3FlcEdit, the palette issues have been resolved. The units are released at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=265320

 

[Micaelus]

[Micaelus] These units are looking great. You've obviously got the hang of putting the models together without any difficulty. I wouldn't worry too much about units looking too dark. Don't forget that in-game they will be viewed against darker backgrounds than that horrible magenta, and so they usually look a lot lighter, and the colours stand out more.

Thanks Plotinus! I appreciate it! If I may ask a simple question of you, or well anyone...with the Fortify flic, it appears Civ uses the second-to-last frame rather than the last frame as the one it holds when a unit is fortified? If that's so, what should be used as the last frame? If I do a 10 frame fortify from the default pose I have been ending it with the 10th frame as the fully fortified pose...and that then being the pose from which the attack starts. How should this be modified so the correct frame is held for the fortified pose?

 

[Plotinus]

I must admit I'd never noticed that, if it's true. I always assumed the final frame of the Fortify animation is the one that's held. So I wouldn't worry about it, since if it's actually holding the last-but-one, it doesn't look odd enough for people to notice!

 

[embryodead]

Very nice units, and I recognize the helmets I downloaded the files and yes, the palette has problems, which is why you get these stray transparent pixels. You have very dark - almost black magenta in the palette, and brown/reddish clothing, so that various dark areas of clothing and armor are using them.

I've uploaded an example of how I did it (the last 32 colors compared, mine to the bottom) - I use palettes without the dark magenta, using 7 shades of transparency, from pure magenta to the figure's shadow. The smoke spots are not needed either if you don't use smoke. Try constructing such a palette and apply them to your RGB storyboard, you should have no stray pixels problems.

It's not something most people do, but I found it necessary in case of units with lots of reddish browns.

EDIT: might also want to alter the hue of magenta spots in the palette slightly towards purple (which pulls it away from red/brown) - it's also in my example and works well. Picking the problematic colors from the RGB storyboard and adding them to the palette manually also helps. Much faster than replacing the pixels themselves manually, as you only do it once per unit.

 

[Micaelus]

First off, thanks Embryodead for the suggestions...I'll be trying them out shortly.

Secondly, my work load was light last night so I edited the models for the swordsmen and for the Byzantine pair. It was difficult finding a texture for the swordsmen's scaled lamellar armor so you'll see the Bulgarian and Serbian in one option and the Byzantine swordsmen in another. Which looks better? Would either show up well at civ-scale? Should the Serbian two-headed eagle appear somewhere on the swordsman rather than following the image so closely? Are the Byzantine shield designs (diagonal stripes and Chi-Rho) okay, or are there others that would be preferable?

I'd appreciate input if there is any...I'm more than happy to make accommodating changes.

Bulgarian and Serbian swordsmen


Byzantine Swordsman

 

[Partizanac]

If you ask me they all look amaizing as for Serbian swordsman if you'd like you could put the eagle at his shield... maybe create one with eagle for Serbian Empire and one without for smaller Serbian Medieval states (like Duklja, Raska, Travunia, Zahumlje and Pagania)

If you are to create one with the eagle, then I suggest a brown shield with red eagle

 

[egroen]

Love them!

These will help me 'flavor up' some of the many mannish civs in LotM --> Just not sure who will get them yet!

 

[T.A JONES]

Cool with all these units mybe you guys can make a mod about bringing your splintered country together like Canada did when Quebec got restless for the 20th time
Mybe your Gov will get civ3 designer to help and have take2 sponser 100 000 copies of Civ3 complete to share in all the schools.
Then like I said before we would closer to getting a source code to improve the lessons

I feel bad with whats going on latly in your homeland and I hope this mod helps a few ease the pain that comes with Losing so much realestate. In the gamew you will sew it back and attack nations that voted against you

Canada has not excepted their indepence so that should mean a bit. I mean their are countries with worth reps you could have supporting Serbia

Oh Make your to add Tesla as a great scientist unit.
Excuse OT

 

[Partizanac]

yeah seeing the "who recognized Kosovo" map, I see possibly a future WW3 (if it ever happens, hope it won't) split...

Cool with all these units mybe you guys can make a mod about bringing your splintered country together like Canada did when Quebec got restless for the 20th time

I've been thinking of creating a MEM Balkans mod, or MEM Serbia mod, but I'm still in "thinking" process

Mybe your Gov will get civ3 designer to help and have take2 sponser 100 000 copies of Civ3 complete to share in all the schools.
Then like I said before we would closer to getting a source code to improve the lessons

I doubt it will ever happen

I feel bad with whats going on latly in your homeland and I hope this mod helps a few ease the pain that comes with Losing so much realestate. In the gamew you will sew it back and attack nations that voted against you

Thank you. But there is nothing to sew it back, my country, my people and me are standing united in Kosovo is Serbia movement, and many country's have shown friendly faces towards us, and we're thankful, and we won't forget it

Canada has not excepted their indepence so that should mean a bit. I mean their are countries with worth reps you could have supporting Serbia

Yes theres Russia, Canada, China, Brazil, Argentine, SAR, India, Indonesia, Spain (these are just "in my eyes" countries with worth reps)

Oh Make your to add Tesla as a great scientist unit.
Excuse OT

Not a bad idea
no problem

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Maybe Serbia can build the Hikaro's Tesla Tank instead of Modern Armors? Follow up on that lol.

 

[Stormrage]

Awesome new previews! Woohoo!

But whats that strange thingy on the Byzantine Swordsman`s helmet?

 

[Blue Monkey]

Awesome new previews! Woohoo!

But whats that strange thingy on the Byzantine Swordsman`s helmet?

I was thinking the same thing, but I'm too ignorant at unit making to say anything about it.

 

[Micaelus]

In the pic that Varwnos/Ares posted here of Byzantine soldiers, the swordsman had a plume coming out of the top of his helmet. Thus, the black thing is a simple plume...show's up better in some angles than others, but probably is only a handful of pixels in civ scale, so I probably will drop it.

Also, for the civ-colored units in this set, I am thinking I will change the colors of the kilt, perhaps the shirt sleeves and pants. Should I add the helmets, boots, or shields to that?

 

[Blue Monkey]

If the plume was civ-colored it would show well.

 

[Micaelus]

While still working out the kinks in the swordsman animations, I made some improvements to the models. The Bulgarian will look largely as it does in the swordsman previews, save the red kilt will be turned civ-color. Below, as requested, are two versions of the Serbian swordsman, one with the imperial eagle, and the other not. Both have civ-color.



I also decided to get a more appropriate shield shape for the Byzantine swordsman and Sandris was kind enough to send this kite shield prop to me. I used the Chi-Rho again as its design. Also, I added some civ-color (I took the hint from the last round and have decided to do this right away ). I haven't decided yet whether the plume stays or goes.


And since I was still a bit frustrated working on the sword animations, I turned to the next task after these swordsmen are finished....Bulgarian and Serbian cavalry.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not think Byzantine cavalry are needed...there seem to be a number of units that are pretty close already created. But again, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Stormrage]

Some of that cavalry really lags behind todays quality standards. And you can never have enough Byzantine Cavalry.

The previews are awesome!

 

[Quinzy]

Woah man! Great stuff! Really great!

 

[Partizanac]

excellent stuff dude! can't wait for them to be released

I'm forever in your debt Micaelus

I only wonder what happened to @Balam-Agab and his project? (Serbian Archer) is he having some trouble with it?