Some Turkish units and some other things,

[Castor_Troy]

Wow, absolutely fabulous . Too bad im in exam period and need to study, cant add any of these marvelous units or anything else .
But at least im constructing my will to get a good start after i finish .
Thank you for your awesome work to which words arent enough to describe!

 

[Pasha fr Russia]

I will use bombard as a Wonder-unit, OK?

 

[Bakuel]

Thanks Castor Troy!

@Pasha fr Russia,
That was my original intent for the Ottoman Bombard, I'm just glad someone else will be able to use it as well.

@Capo, Mamba, and Walter Hawkwood, I updated the zip to include the Deli Cuirassier, Janissary Officer Warlord, and I touched up the Redshirt to make his pants more baggy. Sorry it took so long to do such simple jobs, but I was pretty busy offer the weekend.
Feel free to tell me if there are any problems with the download.

 

[ripple01]

Bakuel,

These new units are awesome; thanks so much for your contributions to the Civ community.

I see you have a lot of upcoming stuff on your list, how exciting. I was hoping, however, that I could make one small request, and you very well may have done this already, but I couldn't locate it. I wanted to request a Polynesian Warrior to go along with your other excellent Polynesian units. You've done, as far as I can tell, a complete set of Polynesian units through the Renaissance, but I couldn't find a Polynesian Warrior anywhere. Is this something you think you may be able to whip up at some point, or point me to it if you have already done one?

Cheers,
ripple01

 

[Acronym2]

Hi Bakuel! Haven't posted on your thread in awhile, but I've been watching. Another interesting set of units and I can't tell you how much fun it is when I see you've posted another batch of your goodies! I am also very excited about your list of upcoming unit projects as there is some interesting stuff in there.

It is quite fun to read the research and learn something in the process. I am quite impressed by the historical accuracy you use whenever possible.

I want to ask a question with regard to your earlier post about skin size. You've consistantly used 128x128 and I understand the value of keeping 3d utilization of CPU resources low. In some cases, you use more than one 128x128 skin. It would be nice for me to have a little more room for detail, but what effect does this have on speed? Is it simply a matter of assuming that two 128x128 skins are the equivalent to a single 256x256 or do you think it works a little differently than that?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Logically 1 256x256 texture should have the same memory footprint as 4 128x128 textures (or two 128x256 textures, for that reason).

New Redcoat is much more believable, Bakuel. Nice!

As always, if you need any more material for your units, I am ready to provide, just ask.

 

[Bakuel]

@ripple01
I'll see what I can do about the Polynesian warrior.

@Acronym2
Walter Hawkwood is right, remember when computing texture sizes you multiple the width times the height, so a 128x128 texture is around 16384 pixels. A 256x256 texture is actually around 65536 pixals. That is the reason why I just stick with two 128x128 textures for most units. The units *are* of higher quality then the vanilla units especially with the weapons and shields because of this, but it is still of a manageable size. You can imagine how quickly the memory footprint would increase if it was loading multiple 256x256 textures for one unit!

@Walter Hawkwood
I'm glad you pointed out the pants to me, it was a simple fix, but it really added a lot to the unit.
You can be sure I'll be bugging you with a pm after I am finished all of these Arab units. Thanks to you I have more then enough material to last awhile. This will take at least a month or so.

 

[avain]

Logically 1 256x256 texture should have the same memory footprint as 4 128x128 textures (or two 128x256 textures, for that reason).

New Redcoat is much more believable, Bakuel. Nice!

As always, if you need any more material for your units, I am ready to provide, just ask.

Just wanted to ask you about the following: (sorry Bakuel for hi-jacking your thread!)
- Is there any sense in using higher compression dds dxt versions? Will the actual dds file size be an indication of how much a texture takes up in video memory, or a certain texture size will end up using the same amount of video memory no matter how it's stored in dds? (I have at least a suspicion that Opaque versions are different...?)

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Just wanted to ask you about the following: (sorry Bakuel for hi-jacking your thread!)
- Is there any sense in using higher compression dds dxt versions? Will the actual dds file size be an indication of how much a texture takes up in video memory, or a certain texture size will end up using the same amount of video memory no matter how it's stored in dds? (I have at least a suspicion that Opaque versions are different...?)

Don't take my words for final truth, but the size should be the indication. If the graphical engine was written well, it can discard "empty" alpha channels when such textures are loaded, but I suspect that Civ 4 doesn't do it. When I add stuff to our mod, I always try to strip the texture files to their minimal size.

 

[avain]

Don't take my words for final truth, but the size should be the indication. If the graphical engine was written well, it can discard "empty" alpha channels when such textures are loaded, but I suspect that Civ 4 doesn't do it. When I add stuff to our mod, I always try to strip the texture files to their minimal size.

Thanks!

 

[Acronym2]

What redcoat?

Thanks Bakuel and all the rest. I undestand now and probably should have figured that out, but I was a little sleepy yesterday.

Don't take my words for final truth, but the size should be the indication. If the graphical engine was written well, it can discard "empty" alpha channels when such textures are loaded, but I suspect that Civ 4 doesn't do it. When I add stuff to our mod, I always try to strip the texture files to their minimal size.

How are you stripping your texture files?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

What redcoat?

Thanks Bakuel and all the rest. I undestand now and probably should have figured that out, but I was a little sleepy yesterday.

How are you stripping your texture files?

I mistyped. Not redcoat, redshirt of course.

I open each texture file I download from CFC, and I check if it has an empty, yet existing alpha channel. If it does, I resave it in DXT1 format, which stores no alpha. This generally cuts the file size to about 50% original, give or take (there are some files I run across now and then that are reduced to 25% or even less of their original size!). BTW, Bakuel's textures usually don't need these corrections (although accidents happen from time to time )

 

[Acronym2]

I mistyped. Not redcoat, redshirt of course.

I open each texture file I download from CFC, and I check if it has an empty, yet existing alpha channel. If it does, I resave it in DXT1 format, which stores no alpha. This generally cuts the file size to about 50% original, give or take (there are some files I run across now and then that are reduced to 25% or even less of their original size!). BTW, Bakuel's textures usually don't need these corrections (although accidents happen from time to time )

Whoa! Now that's a bit of information that really interests me! Getting rid of an unused alpha can reduce the file by that much? I once thought to shade the alpha so that, for example, a riflman's jacket would be team colored, but with the proper detail. However, I am more inclined just to get rid of it to save file size. This makes the prospect of using two dds for one model even more attractive.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Normally the addition of alpha channel to a .dds file increases its size twofold, despite of its initial resolution. Some users on CFC use strange dds converters that create files even larger, with or without alpha (128x128, normally 11k, can take up to 256k with these!) - it is usually fixed by simple resaving. Tga files, also sometimes used as textures, are always bigger than dds files of the same resolution, so it is always better to convert them to dds. Normal file sizes:

128x128 dds without alpha - 12288 bytes (displayed as 11k by OS)
128x128 dds with alpha - 24576 bytes (displayed as 22k)
128x128 tga 32bit - 69632 bytes (displayed as 65k)
128x128 tga 32bit compressed - 53248 bytes (displayed as 50k).

As you see, adding alpha to dds exactly doubles its size, and converting it to tga increases it even further. This of course doesn't mean that alphas are evil - just that empty alpha channels when they are not needed are a colossal waste of space. Also, the bigger is your texture, the more you should think before adding alphas to it - a 11k jump for 128x128 becomes a 44k jump for 256x256 and so on.

Many interesting units that use 256x256 textures normally, for instance, have a separate alpha-enabled 128x128 texture for all the parts that use alpha, because it takes less space (and memory) than adding alpha to the base 256x256 texture.

 

[garlic pudding]

Bakuel, your units are really great! But I still have a request for you...

I've been trying to use your italian canoneer as a rifleman but with no success. The conversion with Scene Viewer doesn't seem to work. Do you think you could send me the head of your canoneer isolated in a single .nif file? Then I could "glue" it on the unit of my choice and retexture. If you can also send me your italian rifleman's backpack, I would really appreciate it.

I want to work on a few Napoleonic era infantry, and your work on the shako is perfect for it.

Thanks,

 

[Bakuel]

Thanks garlic pudding.
Here goes the backpack and the head in a zip file. They should work ok, tell me if you have any problems as I honestly haven't checked them in game yet as I am a bit pressed for time at the moment. The blender exporter may have had a slight hiccup, highly unlikely, but you never know really.

 

[Acronym2]

Not to continue a "thread jacking" ...........but:

Thanks for the lesson WalterHawkwood (and you too Bakuel, though it seems WalterHawkwood has taken some of the burden off of you. lol)

This is quite interesting and I am very glad I asked the question. Admittedly, I am not yet very well versed in the intricacies of alpha channels. Though, with regard to my immediate plans for unit making, this is a bound forward and will prove to be very useful. Seems like its always good thing to hang around with you guys!

 

[10lire]

Thank you for your Italian Industrial Age Unit Pack!!

 

[garlic pudding]

Thanks a lot for the unit parts! My line infantry units should be ready in a few days.

I'll download blender as soon as I can and try to discover how to use the exporter. Even with the hiccups, it worked great.

 

[Bakuel]

@Acronym2
No need to apologize, these announcement threads usually die off after a few weeks anyway. As long as the discussions is on unit graphics I think that it is on topic enough. Besides, I may learn something myself.

@10lire
Glad you like the units!

@garlic pudding
Just a bit of warning, Blender may seem confusing and rather counterintuitive the first time you open it up (it did for me), but if you give it time and read a few tutorials, it will become pretty easy to use.