Mad Max - 9/17/06

[NavyDawg]

I never would have thought I'd start I thread in here (at least not on purpose). Anyways, this is my first Civ unit creation based on Mad Max. Thanks to Kinboat for his paperdoll, Utahjazz for his tutorial and props, and Bjornlo for his advice and the holster/gunbelt props.

Constructive comments are welcome. I know this unit is not perfect, but I'm still learning and am pretty happy how he turned out. It has been game tested and seems to work fine. I'll post an animated preview if I ever figure out how to do one. Hope someone finds this guy useful.

Update: Download version 2.0. Includes shadow, Fidget, Victory anims as well as larger gun in the other anims. Thanks to Vuldacon for fixing the palette on the pcx files.

Download him here.

 

[ShiroKobbure]

looks good, maybe the gun should be bigger.
Also post a preview of your animation for people who cant view flcs

 

[Bjornlo]

Congratulations on your first unit. An original idea, for your first unit. Nice start, eh?

And that was nice and quick. I looked at the BMP, and downloaded the FLCs looks pretty good so far. I'll look at the FLCs and try and give some help with the animatons (if any is needed) later.


Quick comments:
Please post previews in JPG and GIF format. Still iamges in JPG or GIF and an animated preview in a GIF. Attach them with [ I M G ] [/ I M G ] tags. I use Imageshack as my image host (they are free) and I reccommend them.

The gun does seem slightly small in the preview. I would suggest it be around 10-20% longer and 15-25% thicker. I'm glad you got use out of that quicky prop I slapped together.

 

[Stormrage]

You gonna kill Flanders with him?

Nice unit, and a nice start!

 

[Bjornlo]

You gonna kill Flanders with him?

Isn't that homer's job?


Navydawg,
Suggestions and bugs:
1: units32, the civ color should be changed to red or the icon will not have civ colors in the city menu.
2: the palettes for all the PCX files is wrong. You need to examine the palette to some other unit. But, in photoshop the first two colors need to be ff00ff and 00ff00, and yhese colors must not be used in the image. As is, the icons will look very strange in game.
3: The default flc is static, consider adding some more movement there. Not alot, just a tiny bit.
4: Because of the way he falls, the death animation is just a little slow. Drop it down to 60, and his fall looks more lifelike.
5: the run seems a little floaty. Speed it up to 65-72 (according to personal preferance)
6: In the attack, the barrel is a little pale and sorta hard to pick up. As noted earlier, it would benifit from being larger. The muzzle flash should be 2-3 times as large.

Of these, the only "must fix" are the palette issues. All in all just a fantastic first effort. Well done.

 

[Nwoll]

This is a great first unit, and one I have a use for! No other comments, except to agree with everything everyone else has said.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I think I just found a good candidate for the Citizen Militia unit in the Final Fantasy mod (Citizen Militias are genereated by a Democracy specific SW called Contsitutional Government that acts as a second FP, much like the Secret Police HQ for commie govs... but the Secret Police HQ pumps out Turks (Spies) instead)

 

[Grandraem]

Looks nice.
I haven't checked the animations yet, but from what Bjornlo says I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

[odintheking]

Great first unit, . One problem: No shadow.

 

[Iron Beagle]

This is definitely going in the zombie mod.

 

[Spacer One]

Wow...thats a great first unit...I will be advocating for its use in BfNY...

as far as the gun...he looks kinda like he is shooting with a broomstick...instead of a boomstick...but thats just a prop, the animation is great IMO...

 

[NavyDawg]

Thanks for the nice comments. I'm glad he might get some use. Once I get some time, I'll try to release a 2.0 version. I'll probably make the gun bigger as well as the flash. Also, I need to figure out how to get a shadow in there (poser users - any ideas?). Finally, I'll work on the unit_32 pcx to get the palette right. The other pcx's look fine to me in game.

 

[Bjornlo]

Good to hear.
The easiest way to change the units32 program is to change the hue of the blue color to red In other words, do it automatically not manually.
With regards to the other PCX files, they are wrong. If the flaw is not very visible in game, that is great. But, you should probably still get in the habit of doing it right. Open a PCX from one of my units and see where the bright pink (magenta) and the bright green are located. And, you can change these in your image. Smart way is to open two copies of your image. Edit the palatte in one, and then paste the original (unmdified) version over the top of it. This way your paint program will automatically change the color you edited away to the closest match in your palette and you will have a perfect image (well as perfect as it was before you changed the palette )
The shadow... in the main poser screen (part of the window where it displays your unit) there are three buttons along the button of that window, one of them turns the shadow on and off. Make sure it is on.

 

[NavyDawg]

Allright, this shadow thing is driving me nuts. I can't get it to show up in the render, even though it is in the main window (see pic). I've checked the figure to make sure casts shadow is checked. I've also checked the parameters for the main light and everything looks good. The render option window also had shadows checked. I even looked through the 400 page user manual. Nothing has helped though. Any tips from the poser experts out there? Thanks.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Do you have the Ground plain prop set as visible?

In my own user setup, I set the ground scale to 1000% (so that it will completely fill any usual framesize, and visible, so that you get shadows. If you don't have the ground visible (but the BG color is magenta), then you won't get any shadows, since there is nothing for them to be cast onto.

Another way that my setup differs from Kinboat's is that instead of having the main figure parented to a transparent (invisible) sphere, I have it parented directly to the ground prop, which saves memory and rendering time (1 less object and a lot less polygons to process), and I just set the Turn for the ground prop at 45 degree increments. It's worked great for me so far.

 

[NavyDawg]

Thanks so much Hikaro, it worked! Ground prop was not visible. Also, I like your idea about parenting to the ground plain and I'll give it a try.

 

[19Delta]

Think you could incorporate Max with his V8 interceptor or maybe his dog. Good unit by the way. He can march alongside Achilles, Bond, Lara Croft, Xena, and Robin Hood.

 

[NavyDawg]

I was actually hoping someone else might be inspired to make the interceptor. I haven't tried a vehicle yet, but might in the future with Bryce. Glad you like him.

BTW, I just finished rendering new anims. I'll post a new version in the next day or so once they have been flicified.

 

[Bjornlo]

I was actually hoping someone else might be inspired to make the interceptor. I haven't tried a vehicle yet, but might in the future with Bryce. Glad you like him.

BTW, I just finished rendering new anims. I'll post a new version in the next day or so once they have been flicified.

The problem would be how to pair the infantry unit with the mounted unit. The interceptor has no weapons other than agressive driving. For serious trouble, he would shoot out the window or get out and shoot.
So, it would not be like just making a car as the 2nd part of this unit. To have a "mounted" version of this would require a whole new unit. Which program would be easiest to make it in would depend on the type of animating you felt like doing.
Have him shoot out the window? Definately in Bryce. have him get out and fight on foot... probably easier to do it in Poser.

 

[Vuldacon]

NavyDawg...Congratulations on your first Unit. It all becomes easier with many detailed improvements as you continue.

Because your large and small pcx images have less than 254 colors, you can simply increase the colors to 16 million then reduce to 256 and have room to add the Green and Magenta to the palettes. Otherwise you could reduce to 254 colors to allow room for the needed Green and Magenta. I did this and also added an Alternate Small pcx of the entire body. The units_32.pcx must use the units_32 Game palette. One way to do this is to generate a storyboard with Flicster by first setting the Civ Color to #1 (Red) then the Civ Specific colors will be Red and use the units_32 palette more directly. You can select a frame, usually the SE direction, to use and reduce the size to 32x32 with 72 resolution. You can apply the units_32 palette by either pasting your image on the units_32.pcx file or save the palette from the units_32.pcx and apply it with your graphics editing program. Skin tones as well as several other colors will most of the time pick up Civ Specific colors and will need to be corrected. This is not something that presents itself by simply looking at the image even with high resolution but in the game, those colors will show as Civ Specific colored areas. I wrote a tutorial about units_32.pcx files that includes palettes I made to check this quickly. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=75413

Here are your Large and Small pcx files with the Alternate Small pcx and Civ Specific units_32.pcx file if you want them.