ARCHIVED: Discussion Topic - Unit Lines

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Ozymandias said:
Who would make a thark? (Then I'll ask you what in Great Poseidon's name, "What's a thark?")
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Here's the down & dirty, Oz. To recap: two and a half years ago, when I first made the Lost Worlds Map (see the first post in the Welcome Thread), it was actually just an experiment to see how many different types of terrain I could get onto a single map. When I offered it to King Arthur, who had already established this Steampunk Scenario Project, we innocently decided that the "Mars" and "center of the earth" Civs would be based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom and Pellucidar, respectively, as he'd created fully developed civilizations in both locations in his books. We also put H..G. Wells' Selenites on the moon and Atlantis on the Sea Bottom. Recently, we've built a backstory that combines Burroughs' Ug-ya and Bulwer-Lytton's Vril-ya into another lunar Civ, and placed Lovecraft's Cthulhu in the underground tunnels that lead to Pellucidar. On the British Isles portion of the map are the British (of course), the League of Gentlemen, the Evil Secret Society, the Blackcoats, and the Gothic Union.

For more about this, see the first post of our Civilizations thread.
For a comprehensive look at all of the units we've chosen for these, see our Master Units post in this thread. I keep this post constantly updated, and it will be updated later today with a few of Tom's new airships, as a matter of fact.

The Barsoom portion of the map has become a full-fledged project in itself. In April, I redesigned that portion of the map to match the landscape of the Burroughs books. Because the Barsoom Civs are essentially city-states, we added 12 Civilizations to represent those races and kingdoms. Even then, some shortcuts were necessary, such as combining the numerous kingdoms that border the Toolian Marsh into the Toolian League. To keep their populations down, and their technology suppressed until the fourth era (when, presumably, they can finally be reached by spacecraft), only the green martians will be able to build settlers.

The Green Martians are called the Thark, Warhoon, and Torquas hordes, but, are collectively called "Tharks" by aficionados because that tribe is central to Burroughs' first Barsoom book "A Princess of Mars". We are currently using Orcs as placeholders for the Tharks, but we yearn for someone to make us a line of proper four-armed warriors.

We're also hoping that someone will make us some or all of the Barsoomian beasts as well. It's an ambitious and audacious request, but this whole project was ridiculously ambitious from the start, and we're nearly ready to go beta.

Our remaining unit requests, including Tharks, can be found on the first page of the Steampunk Units Request Thread (that, too, will be updated later today).

Karma has been chasing this project as well - just a little while after we'd decided to build our little version of Barsoom, Disney/Pixar announced that they'll be bringing Barsoom to the big screen with John Carter of Mars, a treatment of A Princess of Mars with William DeFoe playing a Thark. Beat that. I swear we came up with our project first.

A version of A Princess of Mars was made in the meantime with Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris, but it was cheap to the point of comical, surely made for a future MST3000 episode, should they ever re-start that brilliant franchise.

So that's why we're looking for Tharks. Blue Monkey's comment to you was a veiled reference to the fact that the only Civ unit maker who's ever actually made a Thark is Wyrmshadow (but unfortunately in a Spore format)...
 
I've been looking around to see if there is a way I can come up with something of a Thark. Adding 2 more arms to an existing AO unit is possible, because I did something similar when I added 2 more heads to the AO Hydra.

If I can find a unit that is somewhat similar in shape to a Thark, I can edit the mesh ahead of time to re-figure it to get something looking like they do.

Then I would be free to make multiple versions of the Tharks for the different types of them (green, red, black, white, or w/e color martians there are), and I could just add different weapons for each of them.

Of course, I haven't actually looked closely into it yet, but if a near appropriate model can be found, I should be able to do it (more quickly than converting Spore PNG images to Civ 3 models would be that is).
 
Well, a thark is a shark when mentioned by an Igor. ;)
 
I'm sorry I've been absent for a few days, guys; we had quite a large case break suddenly, and I am pleased to say that the argument "I can convince a judge, why can't I convince you?" still works like a charm.

Catching up: I like that Black Coat very much, Plotinus. It looks very much like a logo I made for the Black Coats Civilopedia entry for a recent update.

Oz: There was a Thark model available somewhere before; I saw it, but now I can't (damn google) find it.

Tom: It strikes me that, rather than add extra arms, it would be better to add another torso to create a Thark, as this 3D artist has apparently done to great effect. It might be easier to manipulate the figure this way as well. The added height won't be a problem, as they are described as being 12 -15 feet tall anyway. Late note after re-reading your post: only green martians have four arms; all the others have two.
 
I've looked around, but even for a price I haven't been able to find a model.

The best chance is perhaps a Poser model, but I haven't checked the Daz3d forums or related Poser forums. In reference to a model, I was going to browse all the Atlantica Online units, and if there was a model there that may be close, I could edit the mesh to create a Thark; probably alot of work to get done, but once I have it, it would be quick to make a whole ton of tharks. But I'm not promising anything here, because I haven't looked into yet.

EDIT @Balthasar: You may be right; because the body needs to be extended anyways.
 
There is a free four-armed Victoria for poser out there somewhere. I used to have a post with a link, but I can't find it. I'll try & track it down later tonight.

Plotinus at one point suggested using 2 models overlapping with part of each made invisible. 2 Kinboat PDMs?
 
If putting together a model or finding the animations is a hassle for Tom, I could probably do a Thark without too much difficulty if it were really essential to have it. The question would be how many Tharks you would want, and wielding which weapons.
 
How difficult or easy would it be to use the Victoria 6-armed figure and change it to an Alien looking 4 armed Thark? I wouldn't be able to do Poser well at all, because it's been soooo long since I have used it.

From wikipedia, looks like there are:
Tharks (martians) -
Red, Green, Yellow, White, and Black
If each has a particular weapon type (and either BM, Balthasar, KA, or any pro in Thark knowledge would have to let us know what they need), then possibly 15-20 total variations of color and weapon?

Also, you guys were looking for Tharks on the (Banth was it? the horse type creature)

I think I can make the horse type creature also, by using the AO Basilisk and reshaping it as all. So if I do both, I can place martians on the horse thing.

If I can work out a model, then it will be easy to make them all... because then I can just change the textures and re-render the already setup files. but it would be good to know more precisely what martians you need/want, and with what types of weapons. I don't know the Barsoomian thing that well, so it would be just guesswork for me, and I don't know what type of upgrade lineups you guys have planned for the mod (or in it already).

I believe I should be able to get something looking pretty close to a Thark by editing an existing mesh. I would give it a shot now, but am out of town. So will have to wait till Monday, and I'll do it then.

If you are going to do it Plotinus, just say the word, so we both don't do the same thing. :)
 
Plotinus said:
The question would be how many Tharks you would want, and wielding which weapons.
Click to expand...

Sorry, Plot, I really thought I'd posted a response to this question! I hate this week. Well, here's the response I apparently tried to dream to you (and to Tom as well):

The good news about Tharks is that they all look alike; even females look like Orcs from the neck up. So there are just two model types: male and female.

I can boil the green martians down to four warrior types, each with one upgrade; each successive level could use the weapons of those before it. Here's an idea of how it could go:

Kadar (guard) knife, spear - pike
Than (Warrior) knife, Sword, axe / Panthan (Mercenary) knives, Longsword, Battle-Axe
Padwar I (Lieutenant) Pistol, Longsword / Padwar II Rifle, Sword
Dwar (Captain) Rifle, Pistol, knife, Sword /
Jedwar (Warlord) Rifle, Pike, Longsword, Pistols

*perhaps you could pair the weapons animations (e.g., knife, sword) so that it would be easier to mix them....just a thought.

Other acceptable weapons for Tharks include chains, mace, net, trident. Only white martians are described as using Bows and arrows.

Females are non-combatants, though they carry knives for self-defense - they would be the workers.

Then there's the Chieftan - a ceremonial leader, taking the place of a shaman. He is not the political leader, however - that would be a Jed or Jeddak.

If I had to settle for just one, it would have a spear (defense), a pistol and Sword (offense) and perhaps a rifle (ranged attack).


Only green martians have four arms. All others (e.g., white, red) have the usual humanoid two.

If you convert the Basilisks into Thoats, Tom, see if you can make them much bigger, so that they can accomodate Thark sizes. Thark Thoats are described as being larger in the books.. They also have light-yellow hoofs....

Only Green or Red martians are ever seen riding Thoats; Black martians (Firstborn) prefer airships, and white martians would prefer Banths, if anything. We don't use yellow martians in this mod, as they live only at the north pole, but if we did, they would ride multi-legged elephants called Zitidars....
 
I had about 1 hour today to mess around with it, and have got something pretty close. I've decided to just add 2 extra arms, since it ended up being easier that way. I'll post a pic Monday, when I have time to add the teeth, and retexture it.

EDIT: It will look pretty close to the green martian shown in this link. I can give them whatever weapons u have shown above.

Doing something similar, I should have no problem lengthening the AO lion and adding 4 more legs to make a Banth. Might have a way to make a Calot. Thoats can be made quite large; as well as smaller if you need one for the (Red?) Martians.
 
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