Graphical Quibbles...

[Lord Tirian]

Good idea.
On the texture, perhaps a proposal for a bit variation on the typical white walls: murals of native life. In a 'religion' based on worship of (parts of) a planetary biosphere, I think the followers might use such murals to 'focus' their meditation efforts.
Also, I think a couple of 'brood pits' would be standard infrastructure on their bases, so it might be an idea to include such a structure in the cityset.
Those rockformations there look good. You could as well use them as a founding/core structure for multiple small buildings around them. For a new structur, perhaps the top part of the 'antenna' structure on one of the rock pinnacles?
Oh, and I reckon the ground of a Cult base should be covered with lots of fungus. So a few fungal 'bushes' here and there would be nice.

I think murals are... too hard to see. City set buildings tend to be rather small and unlike normal buildings, they don't show up in the pedia either, so it's hard to ever see a detail like a mural.
Brood pits, more structures anchored to rocks and fungal bushes are great ideas, though!

Regarding textures for the buildings and ground: don't forget about the temple.dds and deidre256.dds [sic] in the shared folder of the PAK. No need to reinvent hot water.

Huh, wasn't there something with city sets that they can only use two textures, which usually means one for the buildings, one for the shadow? Not sure, whether I remember correctly - do you, Geo?

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

Huh, wasn't there something with city sets that they can only use two textures, which usually means one for the buildings, one for the shadow? Not sure, whether I remember correctly - do you, Geo?

IIRC, that was 2 textures for the citysets only. Meaning you can xml at most buildings/models from 2 separate niffiles in one faction art parameter to get their distinct city layout. For an example, check the Morganite bases which use a mix of Morgan buildings and palmtrees, coming from two nifs. Building shadow was something automatic/hardcoded in the graphics engine I think.

But you can use the same texture for 2 different nifs, so for 2 different citysets too.

 

[Maniac]

Shadows also require a dds file.

Huh, wasn't there something with city sets that they can only use two textures, which usually means one for the buildings, one for the shadow? Not sure, whether I remember correctly - do you, Geo?

The comment was made in reply to how to make the walls look, and how to make the ground look (which also uses its own dds). I assume you could always copy-paste parts of different dds'es into a new dds if necessary.

The Commune improvement model can also be included in the cityset.

No need for a special Headquarters model for the Cult: the Dawn of Planet wonder will automatically be present in the Dawn of Planet base.

Regarding the rover, I attached a pic for easier comparison. Personally I'd still prefer it to look closer to the original in order to keep the dune buggy feel. Concretely I feel the nose should be smaller than the fore wheel length, as in the current rover model, with a two-tier-height nose. Also I think the aft wheels should be uncovered, at least for the unity rover model.

Having some solar cells on the roof behind the cockpit as in your "road car" model in post #504 is a cool idea for the Unity Rover.

Just thinking out loud since you mentioned Mass Effect... IIRC SaibotLieh once converted the Tali model for use in Civ4. Do you know if the same would be possible for the Mako, that buggy which you use in the cutscene to drive to Mordin's Loyalty mission on Tuchanka, and basically a whole bunch of helmed soldier models? These could all be very useful for Planetfall.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I kept puttering around with the Cult cityset, some new structures, the 1x1 colosseum-like thing is supposed to get a pit texture for the center bit to represent a little brood pit. Mostly worked on making the rock structures a bit more interesting by attaching structures to them. I also incorporated the jade-like elements into some more buildings to bring in some extra colour. Not sure whether I should keep the walls white (and true to the original) or go for the yellow marble tint of the Commune/Concordat/Temple of Planet. I originally did that to make them feel warmer and friendlier - not sure whether the Cult is supposed to feel "warm".

Personally I'd still prefer it to look closer to the original in order to keep the dune buggy feel. Concretely I feel the nose should be smaller than the fore wheel length, as in the current rover model, with a two-tier-height nose. Also I think the aft wheels should be uncovered, at least for the unity rover model.

Also continued with that - the nose shape is much closer to the original now. By two-tier-height nose, do you mean the kink between cockpit and the front section (which I find hard to do, since it was only there for the weapon attachment, I think) or the nose and the suspension-like blue parts? I tried my hand at a suspension, partly inspired by a zoomed-in screenshot of the unit workshop. Attached some pictures of the current model, plus the two comparison shots. As ever, feedback is appreciated.

Just thinking out loud since you mentioned Mass Effect... IIRC SaibotLieh once converted the Tali model for use in Civ4. Do you know if the same would be possible for the Mako, that buggy which you use in the cutscene to drive to Mordin's Loyalty mission on Tuchanka, and basically a whole bunch of helmed soldier models? These could all be very useful for Planetfall.

Huh, not sure, has been a while. I do remember that the ME1/2 models were very high poly for Civ4 and probably not immediately usable - but at least the textures should be very useful, similar to the way SaibotLieh did the floating sci-fi soldier. Have to look into it, it's probably not exactly straightforward, since ME1/2 uses a very different engine than Civ4.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

I like the rover as it is now. The 'cabin' after the cockpit looks like just the thing to put stores/short-term accomodation in for a long-range rover.

And the 'inhabited' rocks of the Cult set look good to go now.
That leaves just the bottomleft building that looks a bit boring...

 

[Lord Tirian]

I like the rover as it is now. The 'cabin' after the cockpit looks like just the thing to put stores/short-term accomodation in for a long-range rover.

Actually, that was what I was going for. I kind of imagine it as a small compartment with a small bunk in one half and a computer workstation in the other half (that can be used to control the turret on top as well). Will still wait for Maniac's opinion, though, before I start texturing and animating.

That leaves just the bottomleft building that looks a bit boring...

Hmm... I might just completely replace it with something fungal looking, either I'm going to model something (I still have space left in the texture) or I'll steal some fungal bits from the xenofungus model, similar to the palm for the Morgan cityset.

On a side note: I started playing some Planetfall again over the last couple of weeks (that actually got me back into the mood for modelling stuff for it, too) - I just had the idea that the commune could be spruced up a bit by actually placing some civ-specific 1x1 city set buildings next to it (same way it's done for farms). I think that would tie neatly into the theme of many small settlements as part of a Hybrid strategy - also represent a nice counterpoint to the farm/outpost/settlement/edens, which are very densely packed by the end. What do you think of this idea?

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

On a side note: I started playing some Planetfall again over the last couple of weeks (that actually got me back into the mood for modelling stuff for it, too) - I just had the idea that the commune could be spruced up a bit by actually placing some civ-specific 1x1 city set buildings next to it (same way it's done for farms). I think that would tie neatly into the theme of many small settlements as part of a Hybrid strategy - also represent a nice counterpoint to the farm/outpost/settlement/edens, which are very densely packed by the end. What do you think of this idea?

Excellent idea!
Where you thinking of having each faction use its own 1x1 buildings, or a single source of 1x1 buildings?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Where you thinking of having each faction use its own 1x1 buildings, or a single source of 1x1 buildings?

Unsure, to be honest. Personally, I'd prefer the factions' own buildings, they're often quite iconic in style and look pretty good by now. I also just enjoy the feel that the people don't just live in bases, but also all around *in* the xenofungus fields in their communes.

On the other hand, the Transcendence victory and theme is that everybody is getting closer together, so it would make sense to have an unified theme... it's just that I can't see any existing set used for all factions - the starting city set is too technical and the cult cityset (once it's finished)... I'm just not a big fan of the aesthetics of the cult - the architectural style works for them, I think, because they do have a bit of zealot and weirdo vibe to them, but can't see *everybody* living in temples.

Also, I attached another picture of the Cult cityset, only little progress since yesterday: Made a texture for the brood pit-like building and liked it enough to put it on top of one of the rock formations as well (it's a bit too red right now, I'll match that better to the fungus colour later). I also tried to match the marble walls to the yellowed marble of the temple/commune texture - any opinions on that? Myself, I'm slightly in favour of the white, but quite undecided in general; I just feel it should be consistent (i.e. if we go for the white walls, I'd also update the old texture with a white version).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

Will still wait for Maniac's opinion, though, before I start texturing and animating.

A quick comment on this: the rover looks great to me.

 

[Maniac]

By two-tier-height nose, do you mean the kink between cockpit and the front section (which I find hard to do, since it was only there for the weapon attachment, I think) or the nose and the suspension-like blue parts?

I meant the blue suspension.

Huh, not sure, has been a while. I do remember that the ME1/2 models were very high poly for Civ4 and probably not immediately usable - but at least the textures should be very useful, similar to the way SaibotLieh did the floating sci-fi soldier. Have to look into it, it's probably not exactly straightforward, since ME1/2 uses a very different engine than Civ4.

That reminds me I still need to include that floating soldier.
Oh yeah, a little self-centered of course but since I and I assume a significant portion of low-end computer users have a better computer now than 1.5 years ago, a poly more or less doesn't matter as much anymore.

I also tried to match the marble walls to the yellowed marble of the temple/commune texture - any opinions on that? Myself, I'm slightly in favour of the white, but quite undecided in general; I just feel it should be consistent (i.e. if we go for the white walls, I'd also update the old texture with a white version).

Myself I prefer the yellow.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Myself I prefer the yellow.

Yeah, from an aesthetic point of view, it's better - it blends together nicely with the red roofs and the green decoration elements - and just looks warmer and friendlier. I just kind of think that the white looks where... austere, which is kind of fitting the cult. Anyway, city set almost done, in-game screenshot attached! Just need to put one or two fungal bushes from the fungus file into an extra nif and integrate them into the XML. And squash a little bug in the texture (or rather in its MIP map) that only shows up when zoomed out...

I'll be busy over the next couple of days, though, so it might take a couple of days until I can upload it and start working on the rover.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

Oh, that looks lovely.

 

[Lord Tirian]

...aaaaaand done with the cityset! Some big screenshots are in the spoiler:

Spoiler :

I also included the XML files and everything for it, so adding it should be as easy as just copying it into a working Planetfall v15 install. It also includes some fungal bushes for the cityset, the lot texture and implemented the buildings for farms/outposts/etc as well (in the unlikely case a Cult player ever hangs on to them for some reason). A nice side-effect of having the fungal bushes in as part of the city art is actually that it spaces out the buildings a bit, which is a lot more fitting for the Cult.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

Marvelous, Lord Tirian!

 

[Lord Tirian]

Excellent idea!
Where you thinking of having each faction use its own 1x1 buildings, or a single source of 1x1 buildings?

Just as a proof of concept, I edited the PlotLSystem file to add three faction buildings around the commune towers - if you have time... check it how and tell me what you think.

It's built atop the PlotLSystem I used with the cult cityset, so it only works if you have the cult cityset installed.

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

Looks like the Cult isn't introduced yet in v15, so I'll have to go with your pictures atm.

Let's see if I can check on those Commune Towers...

 

[Pfeffersack]

Looks like the Cult isn't introduced yet in v15, so I'll have to go with your pictures atm.

Let's see if I can check on those Commune Towers...

It is in - as a faction spreading in middle of the game when someone builds the corresponding wonder (...which name I can't remember out of my head)

And yes, the city set looks very cultish

 

[Lord Tirian]

It is in - as a faction spreading in middle of the game when someone builds the corresponding wonder (...which name I can't remember out of my head)

Dawn of Planet, if I recall correctly, I had to build it to test the cityset!

Regarding the communes with little buildings: Any opinions, so far, Geo?

Also, I finished the texture for the Unity and finally managed to get it rigged again, I can now start to animate it properly! I also modified the model for the Combat Rover you can actually build and gave it a new texture, too. I think I'm quite fond of the twin-machine gun turret (idea lifted from the current Rover), but not sure about the camouflage paintjob... Attached a screenshot of the Unity Rover in-game and the military Rover in Blender - any suggestions?

Cheers, LT.

 

[GeoModder]

I tried to make a second Planetfall install for testing it out (because of the Planetfall PBEM), but no luck sofar...

On the Rovers:

Unity Rover is quite fine. Those aren't supposed to be camouflaged to start with.
The Combat Rover though, if you insist on a camouflage it should be in Planet colors depending on its purpose: open land (brownish perhaps) or reddish (for in the fungal 'woods').
Heck, I'd say just give us a range of camouflages, those rovers can then blend in the landscape according to promotions/abilities.

 

[Lord Tirian]

...and the rover is done! You can find screenshots here, I attached a ready-for-Planetfall version to this post, it also includes some alternate textures (plus models), so you can use them for special abilities (included textures for woodland, guerrilla, empath song and medic).

I made the rover itself dark grey/black instead of camouflaged (and reused the camouflage for the spec abs textures), because... it's looking closer to the SMAC look (though darker) and I'm quite fond of how it works visually with the brighter cockpit and the team colour stripe. Also makes the spec abs feel "more special".

Cheers, LT.