Nazgûl (31 July 2007)

[embryodead]

With those animations and rider, it turned out to be one of the best units ever, simply.

 

[odintheking]

Bloody f-ing brilliant, man! Hell yeah!

 

[Mithadan]

Holy Crap!

 

[Vuldacon]

Marvelous Work Plotinus! I can see that it was no easy task to bring this critter and rider with his flamming sword to life but you managed it all extremely well indeed...Beautiful Work. Fantasy Units Rule

 

[nastypeanut]

I love this unit!!!

 

[Madeira]

If you made an alternate version without the rider, we could have an european style dragon to fight Orthanc's asian one! I would have use for it in my mod, so this is a request, if its not too hard to do

 

[Stormrage]

Its not a dragon, its a wyvern

 

[Colonel Tigh]

I don't usually post, but that is the most bad-ass unit I've seen in a long time. Cheers.

 

[WildWeazel]

Madeira: Kinboat made a set of European-style dragons.

 

[Exoticpollution]

Wow a mounted Nazgul. How ambitious. It looks great. I think the death throes of the beast are especially good.

I'm glad that you used the more dragon-like head. I don't like the pictures of the beasts that look more like pterodactyls although some people think that's what Tolkien intended.

 

[Darque]

Awesome unit...I'll have to add it to the Dragonia mod

 

[Plotinus]

If you made an alternate version without the rider, we could have an european style dragon to fight Orthanc's asian one! I would have use for it in my mod, so this is a request, if its not too hard to do

I was originally planning to make a version with just the beast, but it took so long to make this one that I gave up on that idea. I might do it at some point when I've recovered.

Its not a dragon, its a wyvern

It is basically a wyvern, but then a wyvern is really a kind of dragon.

I'm glad that you used the more dragon-like head. I don't like the pictures of the beasts that look more like pterodactyls although some people think that's what Tolkien intended.

I think Tolkien does describe the beast as having some kind of beak, although by no means all pterosaurs had beaks. He apparently thought of it as a sort of surviving prehistoric animal, suggesting that he was thinking along pterosaur lines, although obviously anything large enough to carry a rider would have to be bigger even than a quetzalcoatlus, the largest known pterosaur (assuming that a Nazgul weighs as much as a human being). Also, his description of the beast's wing structure is completely unlike that of a pterosaur, being more like that of a bat. I suspect that Tolkien had little understanding of palaeontology and didn't know the difference.

At any rate, I did give it batlike wings and I tried to make the head more like that of a dimorphodon than anything else, which I thought a fair compromise. Though in the event it doesn't really look like that either.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Smooth animation... Pin-point detail... Exquisite!

 

[Gen. Rommel]

Absolutely stunning how one person can be lord over such varying degrees of talent. Indeed, this is one of the greatest units I have seen in a long time, dare I say, have ever seen. I loved this thing in the LOTR movies, and I love it even more as a unit.

And in fact, the wyvern head pictured in LOTR as well as your unit greatly resembles the depiction of wyverns in various Final Fantasy titles, so it can't be such a bad way of showing it. Besides, it's completely fantasy, so who cares what the head look likes, as long as it looks good? Not like there's a wrong or right when it comes to fictitious units.

 

[Bluemofia]

Very well done!

Just what I need, more flying dragonish things!

 

[Orthanc]

"SSSSSSCRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCHHHHHH!!!"
-Nazgûl

Yeah, I've commented at the Unit of the Month Thread, but still, the wings, the fire sword, the fluid motions, going to make some sick dragon duels in Civ we are!

For future reference, your program likely has an option to make an individual lights 'shadowless', I know POV Ray has it. That should let you cast glows without messing up your shadows.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

Very sweet! This will be put to good use.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Is his death getting beheaded? That is awesome.

 

[Gen. Rommel]

Is his death getting beheaded? That is awesome.

Where did you see that?!

All I see is a Nazgûl getting thrown off a wyvern when it dies.

 

[beboy]

I'm seeing this unit for the first time... That's simply one of the best unit I ever saw!