[UNIT] Mighty Ships Et Al

[tantanmen]

Thank you very much MightyToad for unlocking the Badass on Wheels Chariot Archer Achievement for all of us!

You've converted and made a lot of amazing units, but this is one of the classiest

 

[pecheneg]

So many things could go wrong. I figured this would take a week to do. Took a little longer

Thank you very much. They are beautiful and just like I dreamed of. But, of course, not just me. Once again, a huge thank you.

 

[MightyToad]

That is some nice work there Toad. Time well spent! Definitely they units look ancient near eastern. Was this the project that combined the longbow with the chariot you were talking about or a straight conversion with new animations from Civ5?

I initially tried importing the Civ 5 animations, but blender threw an error. There is a possibility going through the CN6 format I haven't tried. Seems to be Deliverators method of choice. There is also possibility blender 2.9 may finally have working scripts to try according to Darkator.
I just combined parts from the longbow, eurasian archer, and the warchariot from Civ 4. The fortify animation was the most difficult because it had to combine parts from all three. Since I couldn't copy and paste things from different KFs; I had to manually edit all the bone positions one at a time before import into blender. Then use blender to interpolate the key frames inbetween the start and end positions. That takes like 6-9 hours. This blender/nifskope method is more suited for minor edits. Need a proper program that is designed for this crap.

Probably back to the mycenaeans. I want to check out blender 2.9 as well. I just kind of skip to the golden age of sail in my mod. Medieval ships aren't all that great. You know my opinion on Cogs.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Some of the War Galleys in the medieval era were really awesome, I think the king of that period was unquestionably the Dromon though. According to that article, the Dromon was used originally by the Byzantines only, and they developed variants of the design with more crew, like the Heavy Dromon you saw. But the design was eventually picked up by Arabs and other Mediterranean powers. Not sure if those designs had Greek Fire however. It was a closely guarded secret and there is a reason the fire siphon and greek fire dissapeared with the Ottomon conquest.

There was the War Cogs, I can't see a Quinquereme upgrading to that. I don't think they were even heavy ships, but they were more ocean-going than any Galley design. Can't say I'm a fan either. But the Medieval War Galley I like.

Renaissance was a pretty interesting period, start of age of sail and end of the long reign of the Galley. But the Galley didn't go overnight, you had Cannon armed galleys, Chebecks, which was half-way in design between a typical galley and later ships, more ocean worthy, and they evolved into a full sailing ship, Louis XIV had them in his fleet during the 100 years war. Then there was the heavier Galleas. Galleas and Cannon Galleys lasted up until sometime in the 1700s, during the hundred years war they were also used. The Renaissance was a cool period in maritime history I think.

Some later Dromon and Heavy Galley designs I found, a couple of these were images from models kept in a museum no less:







Looks like the hulls of these are transitioning away from the galley type hulls and more like a galleon, probably more ocean worthy? Probably got some tips from Venice or Genoan ship designs. Great example of some late Medieval warships though, no cogs here!

I think I see the flag of Venice on one of these.

 

[BossDaddy]

I downloaded this before bed. Gonna look at it tonight. Did you use a bone weight copy, deform the mesh and weight paint, or both? Been curious what your method is. I've been thinking of buying Civ 5 and taking a gander at the units.

 

[SaibotLieh]

... Since I couldn't copy and paste things from different KFs ...

You can copy & paste the animations from different kfs in Blender via the Action Editor:

Spoiler :

This is the way I normally do it (for the example of copying animation from Unit A to a combination of Unit A(and)B:

- Load Unit A with the Unit A kfm in the first Blender layer
- Load Unit AB with the Unit B kfm in the second Blender layer
- Go in Pose Mode and copy the pose of Unit A (Pose -> Copy Current Pose)
- Paste this pose in Unit AB (Pose -> Past Pose). This should now have "activated" the bones of the Unit A part in Unit AB
- Back to Unit A in the first layer, go to the Action Editor and mark all bones and animation keys (hover over each area of the Action Editor and press A)
- Now press the "Arrow Down" button to put these into the buffer
- Forward to the second layer Action Editor, mark all bones that should get new animation info and the press the "Arrow Up" button

Then you "only" need to make sure that the animations align well together. One very helpful option here is Key -> Snap -> Key -> Nearest Frame, which will snap the animation keys to the standard 30 fps positions of the kfm.

Another way I managed to merge kf files was with a kf merger made for Oblivion (see attached). This one is a bit of a hit and miss though, sometimes it works well, sometimes not at all.

 

[MightyToad]

As for the medieval ships. The EE2 ships cover this pretty well. Also, the european ship pack has mostly Mediterranean galleys. They just need to be properly rigged, and maybe brighten up the textures. The models themselves are more than satisfactory I think. Sorry I forget who made what, and not going to look it up.

I downloaded this before bed. Gonna look at it tonight. Did you use a bone weight copy, deform the mesh and weight paint, or both? Been curious what your method is. I've been thinking of buying Civ 5 and taking a gander at the units.

Yes, I used bone weight copy. Depending on how close the models are it works flawlessly. Invaluable. The chariots were remarkably painless in that regard. Only the spearman/archer needed adjustment for the quiver on his back, and more separation between the head/spine1 bones. Before I do the bone weight copy I adjust the Civ 5 model and try to get it as close as possible to the vanilla unit. Then run the script. Then join the two into one mesh, and select by material the vanilla units vertices, and delete them. Leaving the new mesh. Then go over the bone weights to see if it needs adjusting. Rarely need to bother with weight painting for units. Didn't in this case.
I've never use "deform" Don't now what that does.

As for Civ 5 units. I've attached all the ones I've converted to the Obj format to date. I've already converted some of them. But many are left. They are also a great source for "parts" for custom units. I've harvested many things I don't want to model from scratch. And the textures are a good source as well.

 

[MightyToad]

You can copy & paste the animations from different kfs in Blender via the Action Editor:

This is the way I normally do it (for the example of copying animation from Unit A to a combination of Unit A(and)B:

- Load Unit A with the Unit A kfm in the first Blender layer
- Load Unit AB with the Unit B kfm in the second Blender layer
- Go in Pose Mode and copy the pose of Unit A (Pose -> Copy Current Pose)
- Paste this pose in Unit AB (Pose -> Past Pose). This should now have "activated" the bones of the Unit A part in Unit AB
- Back to Unit A in the first layer, go to the Action Editor and mark all bones and animation keys (hover over each area of the Action Editor and press A)
- Now press the "Arrow Down" button to put these into the buffer
- Forward to the second layer Action Editor, mark all bones that should get new animation info and the press the "Arrow Up" button

Then you "only" need to make sure that the animations align well together. One very helpful option here is Key -> Snap -> Key -> Nearest Frame, which will snap the animation keys to the standard 30 fps positions of the kfm.

Another way I managed to merge kf files was with a kf merger made for Oblivion (see attached). This one is a bit of a hit and miss though, sometimes it works well, sometimes not at all.

Wow, if that works it would save an enormous amount of time (and sanity).

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Saibotlieh has been an expert on converting things, if there is anyone to ask on that subject, its him.

 

[BossDaddy]

By deform the mesh, I was meaning what you said you do with adjusting the Civ 5 model to the vanilla unit. I've been doing the same as you have. I've had some success by also manipulating the armature from the vanilla unit to the new unit, using automatic weights/bone heat, and then adjusting the new unit mesh, and updating selected vertices via bone weight copy. That's only been for something really complex like a dragon though. Oh yeah, don't know if you use it, but snap to volume is a life saver for an armature to a mesh. Using that and a mirror modifier saves a lot of time.

I've been shying away from the action editor, but I'll have to try SaibotLieh's method now. That sounds amazing.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

If your looking for some inspiration on Mycenaens, I thought I'd help.

Mycenean Various Light Soldiers:





Mycenean Pre-Phalanx:



Mycenean Dendra Panoply:





Mycenean Heavy Shield Spearman:



Couple Mycenean Axemen, Fighting in Crete from the looks of it:

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

No Cavalry examples, but I'm sure you can put some together, the lightly armed with spear could easily be a light cavalry, the heavily armored could ride an equally armored horse, and you have your heavy cavalry.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

There can be no cavalry examples since there was no cavalry - Mediterranean Bronze Age had no horseback mounted warriors. The breeds of horses strong enough to carry a rider (not to mention an armoured one) are first attested around 2000 BC in Central Asia, and didn't reach the Mediterranean world until almost the Bronze Age collapse. The very first mentions of horseback riders in the Mediterranean world date to ~1500 BC, and even those would likely not fight on horseback, as the horse breeds were too small and weak to carry an armoured warrior, and horses were too expensive to be used by rank-and-file (and those who could afford to use them for combat would definitely prefer to fight armoured, thank you very much). Chariots (which are much easier for the horses to pull) were very much the dominant form of horse-related warfare throughout all of the Bronze Age. Therefore, any Mycenean cavalry would necessarily be fantasy. This guy, dated 1200 BC, represents how the earliest horseback warriors in the Greek world would look like, around the fall of Mycenean civilization:



Note the lack of a real saddle, rather light armour and a sword that would (in conjunction with said lack) make it almost impossible to actually fight from horseback - the horse here is more likely a method of getting into battle, then fighting dismounted. There are no depictions of horseback combat from that period, even though there are some of armed horsemen - see the last part of this article for sources: http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/chariots.htm

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

That explains why I could find only Chariots. Thankyou for adding your historical expertise Walter.

If the Mycenean ships looked like a prequel to classical Greek ships, the warriors and soldiers do as well. I can see the beginning of the crested helmets in some of them. Many of the other soldiers look unique though, the armored warrior included. I imagine something of Mycenean soldier outfits survived the collapse and was refined and transformed into the more familiar Greek Hoplites.

 

[pecheneg]

and even those would likely not fight on horseback, as the horse breeds were too small and weak

No, actually, this is
"These horses were smaller than the average horse today, their height about 1.45m at the withers, corespond to the height of a large pony, indeed they were large enough to pull a chariot."
Quite a lot. The common Nogai bakhmat, the basis of the Russian estate cavalry and Peter's dragoons near Poltava - 136-146 cm. And such horses – almost all the ancient cavalry and 4/5 of the medieval. At the same time, one of the images with a spear in combat readiness.
In general, fighting on a horse and ramming are very different things. Heavy armor is absolutely optional. Incidentally, in one image there is something that looks like a quilted jacket. It is quite normal for the eastern cavalry and with chain sleeves for the light English, for example. Among the Numidians, Classical Greeks, etc. not even that.
Judging by the proportion of images in the total rather small volume, it does not seem that the Mycenaeans had less cavalry than the Assyrians.

Note the lack of a real saddle,

It is believed that the saddle was not even at getayr.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I actually think the image shows the rider preparing to throw a javelin - which is definitely a distinct possibility, as mounted javelin throwers were a very common form of light combat cavalry in (later) Mediterranean world. And actually something the absence of which in Civ4 was always a sore point for me given its historical prominence. If MightyToad were to think about another custom animated unit after the war chariots, having mounted javelin throwers would be very cool.

 

[MightyToad]

I've never liked chariots. Ever since I read about the campaign's of Caesar and Alexander. I was left with the impression they are useless. So, maybe that's not a fair assessment. But that is why I use mounted units in their place. Mounted javelins is an awesome idea.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I like the idea of a mounted javelin. Be awesome to have new kinds of mounted units.

On heavy armored cavalry it might be somewhat "what-if", but its not out of the question, and they would an awesome part of the Mycenean middle ages part of whatever Toad makes.

Mounted Javelineer could even be a UU for Mycenean, replacing the Chariot.

 

[pecheneg]

I actually think the image shows the rider preparing to throw a javelin - which is definitely a distinct possibility, as mounted javelin throwers were a very common form of light combat cavalry in (later) Mediterranean world.

Yes, mobile javelin throwers are the simplest and most obvious option for early cavalry. It seems, I came across something like this for the earliest version in the Eurasian steppe. The Mycenaeans also probably invented this tactic about half an hour after the start of the riding trips.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Mounted Javelineer could even be a UU for Mycenean, replacing the Chariot.

I wouldn't replace the Chariot though, as chariots were extremely prominent in Mycenean warfare. Probably more of a horse archer replacement.