Gary's Poser Unit Creation Thread and Workshop

[Gary Childress]

Beside the sten gun, do you also plan to make some British line infantry with rifle? You did marines, para, commando, but not line infantry .
If you do one, please make a desert version for Egypt.

1939 gear

1944 gear

Egyptian

Is the desert version going to be WW II or more modern? I can do a desert version of the sten gunner relatively quickly.

EDIT: I can do a desert sten gunner when I do the regular British infantry sten gunner if it will help. Otherwise it might be a little while before I can retool for the rifles. I plan on doing the Russian ppsh-41 next.

 

[Steph]

Is the desert version going to be WW II or more modern? I can do a desert version of the sten gunner relatively quickly.

Normally, the Egyptian screenshot is 1948... But for my mod and gameplay, I'd rather have a sten for 1945-1960, and a rifle for 1939-1945.
However, keep in mind I'd like them for Egypt, so avoid redhead pale British guys!

EDIT: I can do a desert sten gunner when I do the regular British infantry sten gunner if it will help. Otherwise it might be a little while before I can retool for the rifles. I plan on doing the Russian ppsh-41 next.

I am in no hurry, make what you want when you want! So far I've been more than happy. You even have too many units, I have to select which one I want to keep!

 

[Gary Childress]

I think I've hit a brick wall in my unit making progress. I've been experimenting, trying to make my units look sharper in the game and I'm not having much success.

I notice Firaxis and Balou as well have very few if any shadow shades in their units around the edges. I've tried eliminating most or all of the shadow colors that appear in my animations but the animations don't look right. I'm wondering if there is a secret to making units look more distinct in game.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Plotinus]

I think it's difficult to do this, simply given the way that Poser renders. I suppose that ideally you'd want it to render with anti-aliasing within the unit, but without anti-aliasing around the edges of the unit. I can't think of any way to achieve such an effect, at least not without a lot of difficulty.

 

[Gary Childress]

I found a way to remove the shadow colors to some degree by manipulating palettes but it always seems to remove a few too many shadows and the unit comes out looking sort of jagged around the edges and it also weakens the ground shadow so that it doesn't look quite right.

 

[Gary Childress]

Overall I have to say I feel a little discouraged. My units look great in Poser at large scale but then when you get down to Civ scale you can't notice any of the finer details. I notice that Firaxis seems to be very economical with detials and such so that you can notice them a little better at Civ scale. The details on my units are just too fine to show up at Civ scale. No matter what camouflage scheme I use it's hard to tell one unit from the other I think.

 

[Stormrage]

No matter what camouflage scheme I use it's hard to tell one unit from the other I think.

Thats not true, I can tell them apart..

 

[Plotinus]

That's the problem with Civ scale - you can't generally see details. Part of the skill in unit-making is to work with this, and learn what scale of detailing works best. Don't forget that a detail that may not show in a Civ-scale still image may show in an animation. But it is true that often it is a waste of time to give models excessive detail that is never going to show in the renders. The answer is to make many practice renders while you are building your models or designing textures so you can see how it's actually going to look. And also look carefully at the style of unit makers who have done this well, and see what level of detail they give their models. I think that Kinboat and utahjazz7 really got this down to a fine art, and anyone who wants to get the level of detailing right could do much worse than study their units and models.

Also, don't forget that there's a pedia icon as well, which shows your model in greater detail since it's larger. So that can feature details that don't show in the animations.

Also also, the small scale has its advantages too. You can get away with bad or inexact modelling that wouldn't be acceptable on a larger scale with more visible detail. In particular, it makes it easy to use primitives or other objects to build models that would look terrible in higher definition but are fine at Civ scale.

 

[Steph]

That's what I find outstanding with Sandris units. He manages to get the proper level of details, so they llok good at civ scale.

One thing I notice is that he removes unnecessary details, like having a very simple face.

Perhaps you can try something similar : removes the smallest details, exagerate a bit what you want to show.

But anway, I wouldn't mind to much if I were you, your latest units, with improved run and death animation, are really good, and we can recognize the details.

It may also come because you make "too many" units. When you 4-5 camo versions of a guy with the same weapon, and 4-5 combination weapons for the same camo, and the end you have some similarities.

That's when you have to pick some that really make a difference.

Like use the k98 + feldgrau simple uniform for 1939 German, then the Stg44 + camo for 1945, and you can really tell them apart.

But if you put all your german units, then you'll see similarities.

ie: Difference is clearly visible

Here it's not so obvious

Personnally, I don't try to use all your units. I select within the large choice your provide us with the one that I prefer, and I keep only the one which are different enough.

I think your series are great as they allow us to choose what we want, but the side effect is the tree is hidden in the forest.

If you made only one unit for each weapon, with an evolution of the uniform (rifle + non camo, SMG + camo for instance), you'd see more difference.

 

[BadKharma]

From making computer icons what I have found when making something look good at smaller sizes is to over-emphasize color differences and enlarge patterns. It might not be 100% historically accurate but it makes for a much better looking Civ unit.

 

[Plotinus]

Also, remember that these units aren't meant to look realistic anyway. They have cartoony proportions, and in particular, thin elements such as spears or horses' legs have to be made much thicker so that they show up properly. So there's nothing wrong with changing the textures to have bigger blocks of colour for the same reason.

 

[Redback]

I agree with Steph! Your units look great Gary!

 

[TopGun]

my philosophy has always been to be as historically accurate as possible. if that means that a realistic camo pattern won't actually show up distinctively at civ scale and makes the unit blend in with the terrain, then that is more than OK. After all, that's what camo is supposed to do! Evidently, all camo patterns wll have similar effects...

To me, it's KNOWING that the unit is historically accurate, that makes a world of difference.

 

[Ares de Borg]

my philosophy has always been to be as historically accurate as possible. if that means that a realistic camo pattern won't actually show up distinctively at civ scale and makes the unit blend in with the terrain, then that is more than OK. After all, that's what camo is supposed to do! Evidently, all camo patterns wll have similar effects...

To me, it's KNOWING that the unit is historically accurate, that makes a world of difference.

QFT .

 

[Gary Childress]

I've been looking at Balou's units a lot and he seems to have a gift for making units look right at Civ scale. I wish I could match his use of color and detail level in some of my units but I can't seem to do it. Also he has very few shadow colors around the edges of his units and yet they don't look jagged or discontinuous around the edges. When I try to do the same thing I seem to end up with units that don't look right.

I wish I knew Balou's secrets or had his talent. Or better yet I wish units would look right with shadow colors around the edges but it seems that the shadow colors dull the appearance of units in game.

 

[Sandris]

I've been looking at Balou's units a lot and he seems to have a gift for making units look right at Civ scale. I wish I could match his use of color and detail level in some of my units but I can't seem to do it. Also he has very few shadow colors around the edges of his units and yet they don't look jagged or discontinuous around the edges. When I try to do the same thing I seem to end up with units that don't look right.

I wish I knew Balou's secrets or had his talent. Or better yet I wish units would look right with shadow colors around the edges but it seems that the shadow colors dull the appearance of units in game.

I agree with you. Balou`s Modern infantry is still one of the most beautiful units ever made by civfanatics.

 

[Steph]

And I started to make SBB to help Balou... I requested him to create the French paratrooper and the Russian Spetsnaz, and he said "OK, but I send you the frame bitmaps and you do the copy & paste in the storyboard".
As I'm quite the lazy guy, I quickly found it boring, and I created SBB...

So, just think about it. How many unit makers are using SBB to create units?
You all have to credit Balou for being at the origin of it!

 

[Gary Childress]

In case anyone is wondering I'm taking a break from unit making for awhile until I decide what to do about making my units looking better in game, if even possible.

 

[Wotan49]

oh
waiting for new units


a well-Productive Break



Wotan49

 

[Steph]

In case anyone is wondering I'm taking a break from unit making for awhile until I decide what to do about making my units looking better in game, if even possible.

Oups, I need to be careful when quoting, the left button is now "edit"

Anyway, I don't think you really need to improve your unit. Your latest animation are very nice, and afterall, the camo units are supposed to be hard to see. You could try to change the colors to pink, red and cyan, the units would probably be easier to spot against the background, but it would defeat the purpose of the camo...

So, I think you should just continue along the same line, and perhaps just use camo with bigger pattern.