avain
(key)
Oh, that's okay. Sorry, I just didn't play too much Civ with all this modding lately, so I guess your proposal makes more sense.
[Graphic Mod] Varietas Delectat v9.2 [civ specific unit sets]
- Thread starter avain
- Start date
Oh, that's okay. Sorry, I just didn't play too much Civ with all this modding lately, so I guess your proposal makes more sense.
The Capo
godless Heathen
Don't know if this will help at all, but this is what I am going to do in my mod. I am attempting to keep the graphic size as low as possible while still maintaining a good look (it is also going to have flavored sets for each civ). So while I think the idea to have the unit change its look in different eras I think it might make the game too big. I am simply going to give the Redcoat a more Industrial-era look (like late 1800s) and use the Redcoat graphic (or something very similar) for the musketman. Basically I am making the Cavalry and Riflemen look like contemporaries, the Musketman, Cuirassier and Grenadier will look like contemporaries and I'm going half and half on the cannons. I know it isn't that neat and tidy, but I think it would lessen the load on memory. But do what you want. Ultimately I think that the era-changing units is pretty cool though.
The Capo
godless Heathen
Those units look cool, and it would be awesome if you made them. That said, don't you think these are more Celtic than Spanish? Especially in terms of Civ?
Sorry for playing devil's advocate here, but I think it is a valid point. You made units for Hungary for example that are "ancient" although not technically "ancient" and units for the Sumerians that are "medieval" but or not actually from the medieval era. I would think the same should go for Portugal and Spain. The reason I say this is not because I don't think they should have units like these (in and of themselves of course), or that they shouldn't be made, but really they most closely represent a culture that is already in the game that is not Spain or Portugal; they are, in essence, Celts.
Having said that; you should make them if you want. Its your rodeo. Also are the Carthaginian units going to be interchangeable (or easy to alter or retexture) with "Phoenician" units? I only ask because I have a Phoenician module and the unit set is pretty unhistoric. It would almost be like giving the Americans an Amerindian Ancient set while there is a Native American civ in the game, in fact it would be more than "almost like," it would be "exactly like."
The Capo
godless Heathen
I think Visigoths for Spain would be more appropriate.
This was (Visigothic) SPAIN PRIOR TO THE MUSLIM CONQUEST. Which is pretty much exactly what its borders (excluding Portugal of course) are today. The Visigothic nation of Astura (Asturia) was the state that lead the way in the reconquista. Its leader was a Visigoth. If you look at Spanish history (as you did with the Sumerians) and apply an ancient and medieval period to that I think it would be reasonable to make their ancient units Visigothic and their Medieval Units from the Reconquista forward (thus encompassing the dark ages etc.). Just an idea. In my first mod I just used Danrell's set, which basically casts the ancient units with Medieval "Spanish Looking units" and then the medieval with units that basically look like conquistadors. So, while those units look good, yours will probably be much better in an historical sense at least.
This was (Visigothic) SPAIN PRIOR TO THE MUSLIM CONQUEST. Which is pretty much exactly what its borders (excluding Portugal of course) are today. The Visigothic nation of Astura (Asturia) was the state that lead the way in the reconquista. Its leader was a Visigoth. If you look at Spanish history (as you did with the Sumerians) and apply an ancient and medieval period to that I think it would be reasonable to make their ancient units Visigothic and their Medieval Units from the Reconquista forward (thus encompassing the dark ages etc.). Just an idea. In my first mod I just used Danrell's set, which basically casts the ancient units with Medieval "Spanish Looking units" and then the medieval with units that basically look like conquistadors. So, while those units look good, yours will probably be much better in an historical sense at least.
Bakuel
King
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2007
- Messages
- 608
Never bother apologize for disagreeing with me, the Capo, I find disagreement much more fun, if I didn't want people to disagree with me I would have never put up Spain and Portagul's ancient sets for discussion. For example, Spain's middle ages set will be during the time of El Cid and I'll make those units regardless of what anyone thinks 
.
Anyway,
First I disagree with you about the Iberian Celts being the same as Gallic Celts. Since you requested Gallic style units for the Celtic civ, I would not really feel that bad to have both Gallic and Iberian Celtic units in the game. Indeed, there was probably just as much difference between France and England during the middle ages then between Iberian and Gallic Celts. Which is one of the reasons why I dislike the idea of a "Celtic" civ. What's next? A "Turkish civ" to represent everything from central Asian nomads to Ottomans? If civilizations where supposed to be this generic, then why the divide of civilizations on a national level such as Germany, France, England .etc?
But I digress.
Also the Visigoths are Germanic and I'm a bit tired of making Germanic style troops at the moment. All of the invading Germanic tribes have similar armor and dress to each other which becomes very dull after a awhile.
As I was planning,
France - Germanic tribes.
Germany - Germanic tribes!
Holy Roman Empire - Germanics tribes again!,
Netherlands - you guessed it, Germanic tribes!!
As for the rest of Europe,
Celtics - Celtic, Gallic to be specific.
British - Roman-British,
Portugal - Iberian-Celtic,
Spanish - Iberians (Finally something relatively unique).
And good ol' Russia is the only Slavic civ so it gets those flavor units all to itself!
Oh wait, I promised I would make some Polish units... So Russia will just have to share that culture.
To tell you the truth, the problem with the over abundance of European civs and flavor units is the overlap is ridiculous. Especially if you try to trace a culture back in time. I could create simply fictional middle ages style ancient units, however, Danrell has already did this. If you think vanilla is bad enough, I once planned to make a good ancient/classical/dark age/middle ages mod. Let's try thinking up flavor units for all of those eras
.
About the comment about Celtic-Iberians being a Spanish civs ancient age being the same as having native Amerindians as a ancient units for America. Do you have any sources for there being any "major" population change do to the Visigoths, etc all of the native Spanish were mostly wiped out do to plague and resettlement by Visigoths? I hate to bring up this topic dealing with the ancestry of many European tribes and peoples as all of the sources I have read on this topic have been bias to say the lest, but I doubt that the Visigoths replaced the native Spanish population. It is more likely that they became the rulers or aristocracy in the Spanish area just as the decedents of Frankish people became the main nobles in France and Germany (such as Charlemagne) or the Mongols and Manchurians became the ruling class when they conquered China. Over time they would have probably intermarried with the local population, however this is "very" different from the relationship between native Americans and the European settlers.
However you do have a point, and I may make Visigoths one day as a alternative set (which I will end up using for my mod anyway). However, I will probably still make the Iberians and Celtic-Iberians first.
Edit: Oh, I forgot to answer your question about the Phoenician units. It depends on what type of Phoenician units that you want, a Phoenician civ is as generic as a Celtic civ, if not more so. Everything from Tyre to Carthage could be used as a example as a Phoenician civ and I've never saw any good pictures of a Phoenician army other then Carthage. I think Tyre (or other Phoenician cities) armies probably would have look similar to the armies of the surrounding area. Given that not much is known about the "biblical times" in the near east outside of Egypt you could look at popular pictures of Hebrew and Philistine armies to get a idea of what they could have looked like or you could just keep using your units that you made before.
Here is a picture of a Phoenician coin which could be of Phoenician warriors on a boat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhoenicianCoin2A.jpg
. Anyway,
First I disagree with you about the Iberian Celts being the same as Gallic Celts. Since you requested Gallic style units for the Celtic civ, I would not really feel that bad to have both Gallic and Iberian Celtic units in the game. Indeed, there was probably just as much difference between France and England during the middle ages then between Iberian and Gallic Celts. Which is one of the reasons why I dislike the idea of a "Celtic" civ. What's next? A "Turkish civ" to represent everything from central Asian nomads to Ottomans? If civilizations where supposed to be this generic, then why the divide of civilizations on a national level such as Germany, France, England .etc?
But I digress.
Also the Visigoths are Germanic and I'm a bit tired of making Germanic style troops at the moment. All of the invading Germanic tribes have similar armor and dress to each other which becomes very dull after a awhile.
As I was planning,
France - Germanic tribes.
Germany - Germanic tribes!
Holy Roman Empire - Germanics tribes again!,
Netherlands - you guessed it, Germanic tribes!!
As for the rest of Europe,
Celtics - Celtic, Gallic to be specific.
British - Roman-British,
Portugal - Iberian-Celtic,
Spanish - Iberians (Finally something relatively unique).
And good ol' Russia is the only Slavic civ so it gets those flavor units all to itself!
Oh wait, I promised I would make some Polish units... So Russia will just have to share that culture.
To tell you the truth, the problem with the over abundance of European civs and flavor units is the overlap is ridiculous. Especially if you try to trace a culture back in time. I could create simply fictional middle ages style ancient units, however, Danrell has already did this. If you think vanilla is bad enough, I once planned to make a good ancient/classical/dark age/middle ages mod. Let's try thinking up flavor units for all of those eras
.About the comment about Celtic-Iberians being a Spanish civs ancient age being the same as having native Amerindians as a ancient units for America. Do you have any sources for there being any "major" population change do to the Visigoths, etc all of the native Spanish were mostly wiped out do to plague and resettlement by Visigoths? I hate to bring up this topic dealing with the ancestry of many European tribes and peoples as all of the sources I have read on this topic have been bias to say the lest, but I doubt that the Visigoths replaced the native Spanish population. It is more likely that they became the rulers or aristocracy in the Spanish area just as the decedents of Frankish people became the main nobles in France and Germany (such as Charlemagne) or the Mongols and Manchurians became the ruling class when they conquered China. Over time they would have probably intermarried with the local population, however this is "very" different from the relationship between native Americans and the European settlers.
However you do have a point, and I may make Visigoths one day as a alternative set (which I will end up using for my mod anyway). However, I will probably still make the Iberians and Celtic-Iberians first.
Edit: Oh, I forgot to answer your question about the Phoenician units. It depends on what type of Phoenician units that you want, a Phoenician civ is as generic as a Celtic civ, if not more so. Everything from Tyre to Carthage could be used as a example as a Phoenician civ and I've never saw any good pictures of a Phoenician army other then Carthage. I think Tyre (or other Phoenician cities) armies probably would have look similar to the armies of the surrounding area. Given that not much is known about the "biblical times" in the near east outside of Egypt you could look at popular pictures of Hebrew and Philistine armies to get a idea of what they could have looked like or you could just keep using your units that you made before.
Here is a picture of a Phoenician coin which could be of Phoenician warriors on a boat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhoenicianCoin2A.jpg
-Perceval-
Prince
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2008
- Messages
- 355
agree with bakuel.
Ps for avain: I know this is very stupid but can you remove the mustache of some modern aztec/incan/mayan units in order to completely remove the mexican style?
Ps for avain: I know this is very stupid but can you remove the mustache of some modern aztec/incan/mayan units in order to completely remove the mexican style?
The Capo
godless Heathen
That makes a lot of sense, and I agree with you on the fact that it adds more spice to the game.
Actually most of the native Spanish were absorbed into Roman society (like the Gallo-Romans). Its likely that there was intermarriage betweeen the Visigoths and Spanish Roman citizens as well but probably not to the level that the Franks took over Gaul. So its pretty doubtful that during this time there was any notable Celtiberian or Iberian culture that was noticeably different at the time, although there is no doubt one existed (there were pagans all over Europe well into the dark ages). My only point was that the units looked more Celtlic and there is already a Celtic tribe. I disagree with you about the France, Germany, England thing. If they were meant to represent the whole swath of the culture from the old days on they'd be named differently not Germany with Berlin as its capital, or France with Paris as its capital (because France and Germany basically stem from the same people, which means they are the modern incarnations, plus Charlemagne is not a French leader and the earliest German leader is Bismarck). Also the English would either have to be called the Britons, Saxons, or Normans rather than the English. So again I think that is meant to represent something else. If you look at the Celtic civ in the game, its city names, leaders, UU and UB its meant to represent the swath of Celtic culture, and I agree that it is stupid but that's what we have been given.
Having said all of that, I agree with what you said above, it looks better.
I think what I'll wind up doing is making a mix of units, because mine look kind of crappy.
Actually most of the native Spanish were absorbed into Roman society (like the Gallo-Romans). Its likely that there was intermarriage betweeen the Visigoths and Spanish Roman citizens as well but probably not to the level that the Franks took over Gaul. So its pretty doubtful that during this time there was any notable Celtiberian or Iberian culture that was noticeably different at the time, although there is no doubt one existed (there were pagans all over Europe well into the dark ages). My only point was that the units looked more Celtlic and there is already a Celtic tribe. I disagree with you about the France, Germany, England thing. If they were meant to represent the whole swath of the culture from the old days on they'd be named differently not Germany with Berlin as its capital, or France with Paris as its capital (because France and Germany basically stem from the same people, which means they are the modern incarnations, plus Charlemagne is not a French leader and the earliest German leader is Bismarck). Also the English would either have to be called the Britons, Saxons, or Normans rather than the English. So again I think that is meant to represent something else. If you look at the Celtic civ in the game, its city names, leaders, UU and UB its meant to represent the swath of Celtic culture, and I agree that it is stupid but that's what we have been given.
Having said all of that, I agree with what you said above, it looks better.
I think what I'll wind up doing is making a mix of units, because mine look kind of crappy.
achilleszero
Emperor
Avian, here are units that I have cut the poly count on in some way or another. You have already done a fantastic job keeping poly counts low, as I didnt find very many simple fixes to make. 60% of them were just simple triangulate. But a good portion of them I did other things to. Such as alot of them had hidden meshes of the old units they were based on. Alot of them arent great improvements but some of them I cut by half or more. There is a text file in there with everything I did so far and with before and after polycounts. Take care to look over the whole readme file as there are a couple that are just notes with things that you could further cut like unused nifs or possible corrupted ones. So far only have been able to go through the non-mech units, but will take a look at the machine units in VD soon.
VD art for Avian
Also be sure to check them ingame and see if they work. A few days ago, I would have thought it impossible that simply triangulating a nif could break it. Having done hundreds of them in the past few months with zero problems. That is until I ran across two of Bernies latest modern warlords. They seem to have kf files merged in with nif to make them work and apparently must be nitristrips and not nitrishapes to work. To see what I mean, try to triangulate the his modern US or german warlord if theyre in the VD art. Or the Khmer/siamese rifleman, or one of the conquistadors from deliverator. If you are using sceneviewer, you will imidiately see it break. None of them are really outrageous high poly, and they work as far as I can tell, but it just makes it hard for anyone trying to edit the unit. Just a heads up, that if your ever triengulating a nif and see it move or change colors, you should be wary.
VD art for Avian
Also be sure to check them ingame and see if they work. A few days ago, I would have thought it impossible that simply triangulating a nif could break it. Having done hundreds of them in the past few months with zero problems. That is until I ran across two of Bernies latest modern warlords. They seem to have kf files merged in with nif to make them work and apparently must be nitristrips and not nitrishapes to work. To see what I mean, try to triangulate the his modern US or german warlord if theyre in the VD art. Or the Khmer/siamese rifleman, or one of the conquistadors from deliverator. If you are using sceneviewer, you will imidiately see it break. None of them are really outrageous high poly, and they work as far as I can tell, but it just makes it hard for anyone trying to edit the unit. Just a heads up, that if your ever triengulating a nif and see it move or change colors, you should be wary.
avain
(key)
Great work, achilleszero!
Each and every optimization counts, I'm sure this will improve the situation with MAFs.
I'm very thankful for you work!
As for the mechanical units, you may find that a lot of them are already Triangulated, as those were the main focus of my optimizations.
But if you can further reduce some, that'd be great!
Thanks again.
achilleszero
Emperor
Well the human units seemed pretty thouroughly done. But theres always somehing that could use fixing. Every time I look at LoR's art I find something new to fix. Im sure theres several units I missed out of the hundreds I lookeds at. There were probably another 20 that I cut but if they didnt reduce by atleast 10% I didnt bother with them as occasionally if you triangulate file size increases
. So small optimizations less than 10% sometimes dont seem worth it.
Its also less likely that the mechanical units will need fixing as they probably wont contain hidden meshes but probably some could be optimized in 3dMax or blender.
Another thing to look for if you ever want to cut down a custom model is that some will have bones that have been turned into meshes. They dont do anything except increase polycount and file size, so they can be deleted. It has something to do with messed up export scripts in 3DsMax, not sure if blender does it too.
. So small optimizations less than 10% sometimes dont seem worth it.Its also less likely that the mechanical units will need fixing as they probably wont contain hidden meshes but probably some could be optimized in 3dMax or blender.
Another thing to look for if you ever want to cut down a custom model is that some will have bones that have been turned into meshes. They dont do anything except increase polycount and file size, so they can be deleted. It has something to do with messed up export scripts in 3DsMax, not sure if blender does it too.
Well the human units seemed pretty thouroughly done. But theres always somehing that could use fixing. Every time I look at LoR's art I find something new to fix. Im sure theres several units I missed out of the hundreds I lookeds at. There were probably another 20 that I cut but if they didnt reduce by atleast 10% I didnt bother with them as occasionally if you triangulate file size increases
Do you have a similar pack to the VD one for LoR ? I certainly would like to take a look if it contains some units I use
Actually a list as in the VD zip would be enough, as I can always get the units from LoR directly.EDIT : how did you cut down on polycount ? By removing unneeded polys (e.g. unused heads) ?
Balderstrom
Emperor
I thought file size wasn't very important as opposed to the artworks polycount?Every time I look at LoR's art I find something new to fix. Im sure theres several units I missed out of the hundreds I lookeds at. There were probably another 20 that I cut but if they didnt reduce by atleast 10% I didnt bother with them as occasionally if you triangulate file size increases
achilleszero
Emperor
Do you have a similar pack to the VD one for LoR ? I certainly would like to take a look if it contains some units I use
Unfortunately I lost any lists, as well some other work i did for LoR in a previous computer malfunction. I also would be hard pressed to remake those lists as they would be several hundred units long.
Feel free to look through LoR's FPK though as there will also be units that arent on the data base. Mostly because Im lazy and havent had the time to post the ones Ive made. Be warned though the file strucutre of LoR's art is nowhere near as organized as Avians. We inherited it from Wolfshanze and have been slowly changing it. I also did lots of building and city optimizations. In any future fixes that I do for Avian I plan on showing him these units to see if they would fill any holes he has in VD.
I honestly dont know. I dont know much about how that works. I do know larger file size takes longer to initialize in the beginning but I dont know if that is all it does. If you or Avian could confirm that the smaller 5-10% reductions in polycount does indeed outweigh a few gained KB in file size then I will redo those units.
Balderstrom
Emperor
I'll give you a non-CIV example, that leads me to this logic:
JPEG (from IrfanView's Image/Information) :
DiskSize: 335.07 KB (343,115 Bytes)
MemorySize: 3.67 MB (3,853,092 Bytes)
Now we save that image with a JPEG quality of 100%... which increases its actual file size - though does not increase the image dimensions (x,y).
JPEG (from IrfanView's Image/Information) :
DiskSize: 887.35 KB (908,648 Bytes)
MemorySize: 3.67 MB (3,853,092 Bytes)
Now as far as I am aware, the more poly's the more work civ has to do to animate and draw that particular graphic. Whereas no matter what "filesize/diskspace" the art is, its actual memory usage is more dependant on what its physical x,y dimensions are. Of course I could be wrong - I'm sure someone will correct me!
JPEG (from IrfanView's Image/Information) :
DiskSize: 335.07 KB (343,115 Bytes)
MemorySize: 3.67 MB (3,853,092 Bytes)
Now we save that image with a JPEG quality of 100%... which increases its actual file size - though does not increase the image dimensions (x,y).
JPEG (from IrfanView's Image/Information) :
DiskSize: 887.35 KB (908,648 Bytes)
MemorySize: 3.67 MB (3,853,092 Bytes)
Now as far as I am aware, the more poly's the more work civ has to do to animate and draw that particular graphic. Whereas no matter what "filesize/diskspace" the art is, its actual memory usage is more dependant on what its physical x,y dimensions are. Of course I could be wrong - I'm sure someone will correct me!
Did you do the VD optimizations specifically for VD or is this a subset of the LoR ones ?
I would expect there to be more overlap if you did it with 100s of units
achilleszero
Emperor
Did you do the VD optimizations specifically for VD or is this a subset of the LoR ones ?
I would expect there to be more overlap if you did it with 100s of units
There is lots of over lap. But with this set here about 2/3 were done specifically for VD and then the others I had already fixed in LoR. So I had to cross reference LoR's and VD's art and include then ones I found that they had in common. LoR does indeed use VD as its base but before this started it was sorely outdated, probably like version VD1.0. So there are lots of units that i fixed there that arent being used by VD any more. On top of the fact there are a few more civs and several more units classes (several classes for each machine type unit). Due to these factors LoR's unit art is probably 100MB bigger than VD. So a lot of my work wont be beneficial to VD. Perhaps I overestimate the amount of my work, but fixing 60+ units at a time, like in this pack, has not been uncommon for me in the past several months.
(I have just discoverd that a handful in this pack slipped by me in my cross reference and are in fact used by LoR, so I need to update those. So the units in this pack are the better ones than in LoR.)
Unfortunately alot of my work with LoR might have been redundant as me and Avian were doing this independently of each other and most likely did double work fixing the same units.
Mamba: If you are interested in any of this. I could take a look at your Mod if you want. Its Deversica right?
Diversica, yes. I pretty much use all unit sets out there as I add civs when there is a set for them (unlike VD). I also added some of the unit classes Wolf did, thereby getting the dreadnought ships etc., much like avain does in Quot Capita.
Maybe I should upload a new version before you go through it though, as I did make a lot of changes in the meantime (by using all the new sets from Bakuel), otherwise you end up correcting units I do no longer use.
I certainly appreciate the offer of you going through it
achilleszero
Emperor
No problem Mamba. It will give me a chance to see if you have any units that LoR may use. But it may take a while. As I am concurrently working on going through the mechanical units for Avian, constantly going through LoR's art, making a opening screen, making more units for LoR, making my own units, as well as getting all the units I have already made into the DB!!
avain
(key)
No problem Mamba. It will give me a chance to see if you have any units that LoR may use. But it may take a while. As I am concurrently working on going through the mechanical units for Avian, constantly going through LoR's art, making a opening screen, making more units for LoR, making my own units, as well as getting all the units I have already made into the DB!!
So you are a unit maker, too? Where can we find your units, achilleszero?
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