ARCHIVED: Discussion Topic - Unit Lines

[KingArthur]

That sounds neat Balth

Try Lumley instead of HPL for more background - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Crow.

 

[Balthasar]

You're right - Lumley looks more to be my cup of tea, so to speak. I look forward to reading him.

Okay, the Vril will hence be known as the Chthuli. That was easy. We'll get a leaderhead request up ASAP. I found a neat gallery of Chthulu images, too, my favorite being of Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama.

 

[Takhisis]

On Cthulhu: Varwnos/Kyriakos is a fan of the painter Ntousakis. Well, look for yourselves…

Spoiler long post with pic included uoted :

He is an artist of the fantasy and horror genre, from Chania, Crete.

I am very impressed by some of his works, and might even ask him in the future to create the cover of one of my books

His site is http://www.nightmareforge.com/

This is one of the paintings i liked:

The Confrontation

Also, I'll try to get started on that Sail barge soon -RL's being a nightmare and I'm spending a few days on end at a time without even getting near my comp. Things are just beginning to get back to normal.

 

[Balthasar]

I'll try to get started on that Sail barge soon -RL's being a nightmare and I'm spending a few days on end at a time without even getting near my comp. Things are just beginning to get back to normal.

We appreciate your efforts Tak. If you need help or finishing/special effects, we have several unit makers willing to lend a hand.

 

[Takhisis]

I'll probably ask for help on somke/laser guns, but only after I've got the ship'shull and sails done

 

[Wyrmshadow]

If Wyrm gives the go-ahead; I'll give it a go.

@bathathasar (as some have called you ): keep me updated on the units from Spore. I'm not sure how much the game costs; if WS doesn't mind me doing conversions of those units, and if they are indeed possible to do, I could pick the game up. Looks like it can be gotten for $10 from some online sites.

Oh the things one finds when one just searches for his name.

The german deely is easy to recolor and animate. It can be done very quickly and with better results than a simple pallette redo.

As for SPORE... ROFL!!!!

R U poeple serious? That's like asking for someone to convert Civ3 units for use in Civ4. It's a completely different game engine and just doesn't work.

The way SPORE does it's creatures is AFAIK like this: The game engine has several dozen premade parts, you can put them together in whatever combination you'd like. The result is saved as a SINGLE .png file on your system. Somehow the game is able to decode that png into the game specific parts. That is how you are able to download new creatures from other poeple.. it's just a picture and the game decodes the rest. I once heard there is a way to export the model, but it involved programs I didn't have, so I stopped caring. You poeple are much better off trying to make the things from scratch than fiddling with SPORE.

 

[Takhisis]

...so you've never actually done it but you're saying we shouldn't try either?

 

[Blue Monkey]

Try Lumley instead of HPL for more background - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Crow.

Go Steampunk: That Darn Squid God.

 

[tom2050]

As for SPORE... ROFL!!!!

R U poeple serious? That's like asking for someone to convert Civ3 units for use in Civ4. It's a completely different game engine and just doesn't work.

The way SPORE does it's creatures is AFAIK like this: The game engine has several dozen premade parts, you can put them together in whatever combination you'd like. The result is saved as a SINGLE .png file on your system. Somehow the game is able to decode that png into the game specific parts. That is how you are able to download new creatures from other poeple.. it's just a picture and the game decodes the rest. I once heard there is a way to export the model, but it involved programs I didn't have, so I stopped caring. You poeple are much better off trying to make the things from scratch than fiddling with SPORE.

Seems there is some way of exporting Spore creatures as DAE Collada format (as you said). I have never used Dae format before; and in fact didn't even know it existed until you left the link to Google Warehouse and I saw it there. Guessing the game gives the option. And something like Blender may import them with a plug-in.

They would still have to be animated also. To animate from Blender or 3ds, some kind of structure or biped would have to be setup. Your probably right, might be easier to make one from scratch.

 

[Takhisis]

If you model it in Blender you can export it to some Poser-accepted formats…

 

[Balthasar]

As for SPORE... ROFL!!!! R U poeple serious?

OMG yes! Just trying to get some Barsoomian units, any way we can. You're familiar with Barsoom, that's apparent, and you've made some wonderful units for us already, so jump in anytime you feel like it. Thanks for the info on Spore.

 

[tom2050]

Well, if you don't mind Wyrmshadow, can we give it a shot!? We can pull a Spore = DAE Collada = Blender = Poser= Done! Phew! And credits to you obviously!

 

[Supa]

Go Steampunk: That Darn Squid God.

Added to my to-read list.

2. That the ancient inhabitants of Atlantis would have made sacrifices to the underground Chthonic races fits perfectly with our map, as they are directly under Atlantis, Mu and Lemuria on our map. They would control two resources, Vrill (which will eventually attract the U-ga to earth) and the Necronomicon, which enables powerful dark spells.

In the end, we only have to rename the underworld cities to associate them with the Chthulhi (Kalkar and Luthan are two obvious choices), and find an appropriate leaderhead for them (Chthulu?). As for the U-ga, we can add some Angels, to bring them in line with this and with ERB's description of them.

Depending on which aspects of the Cthulhu Mythos you're planning to bring and what quantity you need, there are a few Undergrounds civilizations, units and monsters that could work as Cthulhu Mythos: The Ghouls, the Chthonian and Shudde M'ell in their lost city of G'harne, Ubbo-Sathla, the land of K'n-yan and its alien people, N'kai where Tsathoggua lives, the cave of Yoth where the Serpent-People survive.

Unrelated to Underworld civilizations but connected to Undersea matters, there is also the Deep Ones, in their hidden cities (Y'ha-nthlei, maybe R'lyeh).

Bref, if you want to add some Cthulhu Mythos in the mod, there is plenty of choice.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Well, if you don't mind Wyrmshadow, can we give it a shot!? We can pull a Spore = DAE Collada = Blender = Poser= Done! Phew! And credits to you obviously!

Well at this moment I'd have to quote Blackadder Goes Forth.. as Capt Darling said to Capt. Blackadder in the 1st episode:

"Good luck against those elephants"

 

[Plotinus]

Second that. Sounds a nightmare procedure, and don't forget you'd have to rig the damn thing in Poser before you could do anything with it, which is an epic task in itself.

Making something from scratch is usually easier than doing a complicated conversion like that. In the case of these Barsoomian units, you would be much better off using existing Poser figures and perhaps combining them. For example, take one of the available DAZ animal figures for a torso, then parent some of Kinboat's Trolloc figures to it, making all but the legs invisible. Bingo, you've got a creature with several sets of strange legs, and you get started animating it. A Thark would be even easier - you just need two human figures, parent one to the other, make the head of one invisible and the lower body of the other invisible, and there you go.

Of course they would be fiddly to animate, but there's nothing you could do about that.

 

[Balthasar]

Bref, if you want to add some Cthulhu Mythos in the mod, there is plenty of choice.

Indeed; I imagine several nights' research just to acquire a reasonable city list. If I were to research new or replacement units as well it could stretch to a week, at least.

We are fortunate that we already have a unit line that includes many beasts found in Cthonic myth as well as the underground beasts of ancient (particularly, Greek} legend following on the association with Atlantis - Horned beasts, Minotaurs, etc. are representative types of these. There is a list of images of the ones we chose >here< see the Vril in the Underground Civs list.

It would be fairly easy to make a few unit substitutions (for instance, adding the Hydra) that would blur and enhance that line even more. Tom has added several units to the database in the past few months that might fit, for instance. We just need a little time to look into it.

RE Barsoom units: while I admire your can-do attitude, Tom, having both Plotinus and Wyrmshadow warning you against it must give you pause, at least.

But to complete this thousand piece puzzle we need tharks and thoats and banths and Great four-armed White Gorillas, gentlemen. Having shot down Tom's plan, perhaps you could team up on some basic models? We could all benefit from your experience and knowledge of this subject right now. Perhaps we should form a search committee to scour the vast internet for models.....

 

[tom2050]

Why jump the gun and shoot it down before it is even tested?

Well, it seems it isn't so bad afterall, there are ways to export a fully rigged Spore creature. Animations are a no-go, but fully rigged is possible. So only animations would have to be made.

But, I suppose we can just search for models elsewhere, doesn't make a diff to me.

 

[Balthasar]

I'm not shooting it down, Tom. And I don't think Plotinus is either, really; he was trying to suggest, I think, that it might be easier to make units from scratch. Understandable, since he makes some wonderful units from scratch, and knows that process well.

Since I made that post twelve hours ago and got nothing but crickets on the suggestion that the idea-shooter-downer participate in a solution to the problem, I say go ahead and try your idea. With your conversion experience, you may be the only one in the conversation who fully appreciates what the process really involves anyway.

I wish there were something I could do to help you. I could stop talking; that sometimes helps....

 

[Blue Monkey]

We move the robots from the U-ga to the Vril, and allow them to build Angels as special units, and only when they have Vril in their Resource Box. I would need a leader's name, and City name suggestions. The only units we'd need to add is angels. I think there's a leaderhead that would fit as well...

A good plan in outline. Except that the Vrilya are humans who chose to go underground, wear togas and metal wings powered by Vril. I'd flip it so the U-ga are built by the Vrilya. The attacks of tom2050's Winged Dryad are exactly right for a Vrilya (imho) since they favor the use of a rod that discharges Vril. I have The Coming Race on audio book. Only one or two cities are mentioned iirc, but there are several prominent personalities named. Given time, I could skip-listen & try to track them down for you.

Indeed; I imagine several nights' research just to acquire a reasonable city list. If I were to research new or replacement units as well it could stretch to a week, at least.

For Mythos cities you are probably best working from locations in the Dreamlands. Someone who has a copy of the map published by Chaosium* could give you a more thorough list.

*For obvious reasons there's not a decent copy on line. AFAIK. I stopped the search when Firefox needed to "temporarily allow Yog-Sothoth.com" . SRSLY.

Spoiler :

 

[Balthasar]

the Vrilya are humans who chose to go underground, wear togas and metal wings powered by Vril. I'd flip it so the U-ga are built by the Vrilya.

Yes. I'm suggesting the same thing: the U-ga (2016) are the descendants of the Vril-ya (1871). The two names could easily be etymologically http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=etymologically&ns0=1&redirs=0 related, particularly in an alien language. In The Moon Maid, the U-ga look human, live underground, and fly on artificial wings powered by "an unknown force". So we might say that, in the timeline of our mod, the Vril-ya haven't colonized earth's underground yet. Perhaps the events that begin our mod have changed their history too....

For Mythos cities you are probably best working from locations in the Dreamlands.

That's good. Plenty of city names to work with there.