[FfH II Art Team Blog]

[seZereth]

Just a question, though... why the Skull? (its head looks like a skull)

The Skull is there for several reasons,
most important, it is my "style", I really like it aesthetically.
second, a skull is a symbol, a the "cage", which holds a brain. So, as the Mud Golem is not only a pile of Mud, but a Golem, and thus in a strange way a "living" entity, I wanted it to have a head. But there was no need for him to have "flesh" or "skin" or whatever, so the most basic thing a humanoid head has is a skull to keep things in place, to give the basic shape. While everything else of the golem is rather less defined, the head certainly sticks out as being more elaborate. Just to symbolize, that the Luchuirp gave this piece of Earth a "live" (by enchantment, and not having free will, i know). So, it´s still a golem, not an elemental.
Hope that is fine with you.

Is the clockwork golem a breakdancer?

yes, he went to the same breakdance school as the aztec jaguar did. though it is not up to current NY style, it is still enough to entertain the luchuirp youth in peace times

Hail seZereth, I beg you for a decent ASSASSIN

I love Svartalfar but I had to replace the ancient spy with a Ljosalfar assassin... It's good but I need a darker (and with blades) model for my darkelf army.

Pleeeese!

Don´t worry, you will get it! But it really depends on my rl business.
(next is the Svartalfar worker, right after that Longbowman, Ranger or Assassin)

 

[thomas.berubeg]

The Skull is there, for several reasons,
most important, it is my "style", I really like it aesthetically.
second, a skull is a symbol for the "cage", which holds a brain. So, as it is not only a pile of Mud, but a Golem, in a strange way "living" entity, I wanted it to have a Head. But there was no need for him to have "flesh" or "skin" or whatever, so the most basic thing a humanoid head has is a skull to keep things in place, to give the basic shape. While everything else of the golem is rather less defined, the Head certainly sticks out as being more elaborate. Just to symbolize, that the Luchuirp gave this piece of Earth a "live" (by enchantment, and not having free will, i know). So, it´s still not an elemental, but a golem.
Hope that is fine with you.

well it is entirely your choice, but, to me, a skull does not fit the "good" luchuirp. How about a runestone or something in place of a head?

but, like i said... it is entirely your choice, and i'll live with what everyou do.

 

[seZereth]

well it is entirely your choice, but, to me, a skull does not fit the "good" luchuirp. How about a runestone or something in place of a head?

but, like i said... it is entirely your choice, and i'll live with what everyou do.

well, it is not a human skull. So, no necromantic or whatever intention.
It is just mud which forms to a skull.

 

[Grey Fox]

I would suggest prioritizing the recon units since thats the units svartalfar gets bonus for. After that the archer units. And of the Recon units I'd say prioritize the assassin.

 

[Rishardas]

Don´t worry, you will get it! But it really depends on my rl business.
(next is the Svartalfar worker, right after that Longbowman, Ranger or Assassin)

I love you so much

I would suggest prioritizing the recon units since thats the units svartalfar gets bonus for. After that the archer units. And of the Recon units I'd say prioritize the assassin.

Yes... I left Ljosalfar for the boring defensive playstyle, with Svartalfar I can attack a lot
For the ranged line I like the models in the Dark Elf Only Mod 1.1J, better than the repainted standard male model

Spoiler screen :

 

[xienwolf]

seZ, you said you would work on placing the Fanghorn style Ancient Forests or better in the game if someone figures out the roadcuts for you. Thus I present:

View attachment 185664

Above the city is your Ancient Forests redone with the also attached XML.

Below the city is the current Ancient Forests.


All that was needed was re-defning the Forests to be Tile Art Type TREES, and then attach the NIFs to each side/corner of the tile. At present they are all the same NIF, and could go for some variation if you decide to, otherwise they work as is.

EDIT: Might be cool to see if it works the same way with Graveyards and make them a feature instead of an Improvement. You could have a "Birds Scatter" type effect from them as well, where it groans like a mummy and some bats flap away or something


EDIT2: Ok, this isn't perfect, it doesn't work right for Scrubs and other things which were generated as a single NIF file, and for the Ancient Forests which are currently in the game it makes 4 copies of the Forest and centers it on the corners of the Tile (Can't really tell that in the screenshot because each forest is next to another forest. It's only obvious when you set a single forest in the middle of nowhere). But if the NIF files were modified to match up with the 15 Forest NIFs in base Civ (mostly just re-arranging the location of the trees) then it ought to work near flawlessly.

 

[Sureshot]

sweet will be nice to have svartalfar assassins and longbows.. and will be so nice to not have ancient forests block visibility of roads and the like heh

 

[MrUnderhill]

Oooh, it also looks like the old Armageddon Counter is back. But why is it red?

 

[xienwolf]

That's just something I did with Fall Further. It is red because it strobes red when your turn is done, as it is the new End Turn button. Though it doesn't get THAT red anymore.

 

[seZereth]

hmm, I think I already tried around with that xml stuff, but the problem is, that the road will randomly cut things in the forest and others not, I do not know how it is defined in the nif or where ever, so, it will cut pieces of trees and leave others blocking the road.
(and, as you said, after figuring that mechanic out, I will have to create 15 nifs for all possible combinations...).
It is still not that easy and I am too busy to investigate it, sorry

I would really like to hear a word from Firaxis about this, would save me a lot of time :/

 

[xienwolf]

Yeah, I was too tired when I findally poked into the NIF to see how involved that portion was. I expected a bunch of seperate Nodes, but what was there was just a single item and a shadow So sadly it is quite far from solved still. But we'll hopefully figure out SOMETHING sometime soon Happened to get too hopefull too quick since I didn't see the 4 tile application complication


The good news is that with the 6 NIFs you have on the current Ancient Forest graphics I was able to get it down to only overflowing onto the tile to the North of the square, and it reacts properly to roads/rivers. So at least that can be cleared up with the current version. Unless it was purposefully set not to react to reflect the ancient/sacred nature of the woods.

 

[seZereth]

Yeah, I was too tired when I findally poked into the NIF to see how involved that portion was. I expected a bunch of seperate Nodes, but what was there was just a single item and a shadow So sadly it is quite far from solved still. But we'll hopefully figure out SOMETHING sometime soon Happened to get too hopefull too quick since I didn't see the 4 tile application complication


The good news is that with the 6 NIFs you have on the current Ancient Forest graphics I was able to get it down to only overflowing onto the tile to the North of the square, and it reacts properly to roads/rivers. So at least that can be cleared up with the current version. Unless it was purposefully set not to react to reflect the ancient/sacred nature of the woods.

I didnt create the ancient forest, which is used right now. I only tried myself with the fangorn style one.
But see what you can do and submit it to Kael.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, it is the "royal you" to mean the team And yeah, I'll be toying with things as I get time to see what works. Need to download Fangorn and see what I can do with it as well...

 

[marioflag]

I have seen today a preview of Colonization and i have to say that the terrain is so much better than in vanilla civ, it's said though that the graphic engine is heavier so it will require for example pixel shader 1.1....Have you guys any plan to implement this new terrain at least as an option like for Blue Marble or does it require conversion of FfH2 to Colonization so it's not doable?

 

[Kael]

I have seen today a preview of Colonization and i have to say that the terrain is so much better than in vanilla civ, it's said though that the graphic engine is heavier so it will require for example pixel shader 1.1....Have you guys any plan to implement this new terrain at least as an option like for Blue Marble or does it require conversion of FfH2 to Colonization so it's not doable?

I cant discuss anything related to Col until it releases.

 

[xienwolf]

Attached is what I've managed thus far for the Fangorn style Ancient Forests. I couldn't get your mesh to split into the 4 pieces I needed using what I know in NifSkope, so I just swiped the DDS and applied it to some resize/relocated basic trees. The overall feel seems the same to me, but I haven't spent long with the base Fangorn to say that with any real clout. End result though is that the forests are very distinct from their neighbors and behave properly with coasts, rivers, roads and most improvements.

 

[Kael]

Attached is what I've managed thus far for the Fangorn style Ancient Forests. I couldn't get your mesh to split into the 4 pieces I needed using what I know in NifSkope, so I just swiped the DDS and applied it to some resize/relocated basic trees. The overall feel seems the same to me, but I haven't spent long with the base Fangorn to say that with any real clout. End result though is that the forests are very distinct from their neighbors and behave properly with coasts, rivers, roads and most improvements.

I'll play with it and try it out. Thanks!

I also got the flag switched around like you suggested and it does work much better.

 

[MacGyverInSpace]

I cant discuss anything related to Col until it releases.

Why, because you're just too unsure of what it'll be like or because you just dropped a hint? "Hint" as in "there might be more reasons to buy this than I thought". Maybe the team's NDA through technicality prohibits public discussion of unreleased Civ4 derivatives, or maybe the Lanun'll be in colonization.
-Civilization 4: Speculation Hits CFC right now.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Care to add some pics of that Fangorn + roadway cuts style ancient forest? Id like to see it before I decide whether to use it or the original fangorn in my modmod.


-------------
@MacGyverInSpace,

I'd guess that the NDA Kael and the team had to sign in order to get BtS early when they were working on the AoI scenario may give them early access to Col too, and definitely forbids them from revealing anything about it. Whether Kael plans to use anything or not, saying so could get him sued.

 

[Ksi]

You guys really went overtime for 33. Very good stuff !