Star Wars: The Mod Strikes Back

[Bjornlo]

no offense to all the unit creators, but don't most other creators make their units from scratch? isn't it kind of limiting to just use all the units from one or two star wars games?

Actually 90%+ of the units are not from scratch. Some selected few unit creators create it all from scratch, but even those tend to try and re-use their own models. For example, Aaglo often makes his fantasy units in a series with a bunch of interesting variations on each new "group".
Most units (by pure numbers) are probably older cut & paste units. Which are modified versions of old units with new guns, uniforms and so on.
The second biggest group is probably units made from a 3d MESH the unit creator downloaded and did not modify except for color and maybe some detail work (and then the animation is of course added).
Third would be download a mesh and then change things up. Add new bits, delete old parts, and so on. For example, there are dozens of units based on Kinboats paperdoll.
Fourth would be unit conversions from other games (which is what this sounds like).
5th, and least common, would be units made entirely from scratch.
No one method is simply the best, what matters most is the end result. Does it work well in the game? Does it look good? Are the animations and details correct? and so on..
For example: My jeep was a cut and paste. It has around 770 frames of animation, of which 720 or so were entirely new. The others were extensively modified (color, shadow, details (added a machine gun, Gunner and changed persons on board to soldiers and so on). But the base model I started with was not a blank slate, but a unit Kinboat did. Other then the fact that they both include similar looking jeeps, the units have little in common. But I did not start with a blank slate.
More recently I did x303 spaceship. I started not with a blank slate, but with most of a ship mesh which I had to complete. I also had to make all the guns, missles, and all animation and color/texture details. But again not a from scratch unit.
I am currently working on a Hummer-Avenger. I made more of this one from scratch then most, but not 100% of it is my own creation.
This is not a-typical, this is how most units get made.

 

[mrkingkong]

Ok hi people. Id just like to introduce myself as a fellow star wars fan, and say that as i heard you are short-staffed i would be pleased to help.

Im not experienced in unit creation (although im making quite a few bounding leaps along that path lately, IMHO!). Id just like to know what programs,etc you guys use to make units?And buildings/graphics,etc?

Id love to help you- im not experienced but ill have a good old pop at it...

 

[Chris85]

no offense to all the unit creators, but don't most other creators make their units from scratch? isn't it kind of limiting to just use all the units from one or two star wars games?

It would take too long to make units from scratch because you would have model them and texture them before you could start animating which takes days to complete. Converting units from other games can only take a few hours to complete if you know what you're doing.


Welcome aboard Mrkingkong!


BTW, here's a pic of my redone TIE Fighter, I still have to finish the attack and death.

 

[mrkingkong]

Okay guys, any suggestions what i should have a go at (preferably something you dont need straight away/desperately as i am quite slow.... )

Cheers. Looking forward to any help i can provide...

Oh, and how is the civilopedia goin to go (i.e. are we going to have things like the story, and story concepts such as the "Lightsaber" because iv found some pretty interesting stuff..... but i suppose that is for a later date! i always get carried away)

EDIT: Looking niiiice Chris!

 

[SheepMonster]

Wouldn't it be better to have the civ colours on the cockpit ball or something? or have three segments of the wings civ coloured.....it doesnt look very smart with only one part of the wing coloured. The unit itself is a great improvement tho.

Shows how little i know about unit creating . Well, keep up all the good unit creation, and hopefully all our good work can be transferred into Civ 4 when it comes out - they'd probably use the same type of units, right?

@mrkingkong: maybe you could start with either some rebel troopers of some kind, or some confederacy battleships.

 

[kingdark]

well from what i have readed in the last few pages, (dont get me wrong) there is alot of intrest in this mod but i agree with crhis85 when he said that we should use stuff from other websites and base our stuff on that,
i am interested for helping with this mod but i think i am kinda useless since i have no idea how to create units... i do have a bit experience in map making so i could try an attemp for creating maps of the movies? (i try to start now)
if you wanna talk
kenny_dhaese@hotmail.com
also i have some other ideas, we need a homesite... or not yet... in any case if we have some kind of 'hq' we can post both there and here our ideas and sort those things out... i dont want to play the boss or anything but what do you guys think?

 

[kingdark]

oh by the way i am looking for a save-game editor so i can check and place some cities for the map i am making... the 1ns i find arent that... maybe its me but they arent working correctly.. (i am using conquest editor for all of it also another note i am not using any new graphicks just the old 1ns i am creating a map of a planet-> an intere map..

 

[kingdark]

little update, the map is slowly progressing and probably i am posting some screenies tonight :d

 

[Chris85]

Wouldn't it be better to have the civ colours on the cockpit ball or something? or have three segments of the wings civ coloured.....it doesnt look very smart with only one part of the wing coloured. The unit itself is a great improvement tho.

Shows how little i know about unit creating . Well, keep up all the good unit creation, and hopefully all our good work can be transferred into Civ 4 when it comes out - they'd probably use the same type of units, right?

@sheepmonster - I did try to have the civ color on the cockpit part, but you couldn't see it in the East and West views and it was difficult to make it out on the diagonal views. I think it looks fine with one segment civ-colored.

Civ4 units will be a 3-d model (not sure which format) as opposed to the 2-d units in Civ3 that were in .flc format. That is why I'm remaking my TIEs from 3-d models so I can transition to Civ4 unit making easier.

Welcome ot the team kingdark, looking forward to what you're making with that map.

 

[kingdark]

well i have bad and good news,
the bad news is that my map failed and i have to start over, and probably cant post any screens tonight because i have something to celbrate in real life... but in any case when we come back from the restaurant, i am gonna try to start the map good this time... by the way i was thinking... should i make a map of the desert planet (in wich they discover anakin)
or the jungle planet in wich they find the ewoks? or whatever they are called?...

besides map making i would like to have some tools so i can help out on other things too next time i post i have probably good news:d

 

[kingdark]

a update soon i had some time left isthis a good start?

 

[mrkingkong]

I think the idea is good kingdark, but i dont know what the rest of the guys have in mind... is it guna be a mod, or a mod with a scenario,or what?

Oh and by the way, can i just ask what programs you guys (and gals, lets not be discriminating ) use for creating units?

Cheers,
mrkingkong

 

[Chris85]

Civilization Animation Files are in the .flc format, I just use Animated GIFs for previews. You'll need either Moenir's Flicster program or Cyber Dreyk's Civ3FLCEdit program to make .flc files, they can be found in the Utility Programs Forum.

The programs I use for unit making:
Civ3FLCEdit - viewing animations and extracting to flc files.
Steph's Storyboard Builder - creating storyboards and centering units.
Paint Shop Pro - Pallettes and viewing/editing storyboards and other stuff.
OpenFX - for creating and animating 3-d Models even though I haven't made any units from it.
SW:GB DRS Viewer - for extracting stuff from Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.

There are a lot more programs out there that you can use as well. You should probably check out the Briefing for Creation & Customization Newbies threadfor more info.

^
^
I posted this earlier in this thread, here's what I use to make units. Lately I've been experimenting with Anim8or.

 

[SheepMonster]

The main game should be a mod - settlers can travel between planets soon, and so the colonization occurs quickly. Then they can expand more and more, as they research new more powerful types of starship engine and whatever.
We cpuld then branch out the mod into several scenarios - for instance, the clone wars; we decide what each planet will be called early on, and put a certain amount of units or buildings there, eg. droid factories on Geonosis, cloning crystals on Kamino, etc etc. When we have a map, and a beta version or whatever, i'll help make some maps.

 

[kingdark]

that would be apreciated since i dont realy have much experience and i am just doing something that looks great at the moment itself

 

[mrkingkong]

^
^
I posted this earlier in this thread, here's what I use to make units. Lately I've been experimenting with Anim8or.

Cheers again chris...

Forgive my newbie-ness, but does this mean that you can basically just modify a units storyboard: like for example, take an old version of a droid, and make the gun longer, perhaps change the stances,etc, and it would work?

Im going to try this if it does (the tutorial ive read goes on about 3d modelling-is this neccessary?), although i think it will probably be time consuming...

 

[Chris85]

Yes, you can basically modify anything in a unit animation through storyboards. True that 3-d modelling is time consuming at first, but once you figure it out, it comes quite easily and units from 3-d models tend to be higher quality. Just check out Aaglo, Kinboat, Smoking Mirror's units.

A shortcut to use when making units from 3-d models is to use preexisting models which saves a lot time. Here are 2 sites with tons of star wars models you can use --> ScifFi 3-d and Star Wars Modeling Alliance

 

[kingdark]

here is a new aproach, its 365 by 365 and i am gonna inmply 24 civs,
ehm 2 civs on 1 island, each island represent an planet, with two factions namely the gouverment and the rebells the empire is gonna get some small extra at start so they can represent the real empire (large armies, but the rebbelion(s) are getting here and there extra resources and more gold to start with...

comments please

 

[kingdark]

eh could the moderators deleted this message? i did not mean to post 2 times so quikly

 

[mrkingkong]

Thanks again chris. You're a real help, thanks a load!
1 slight problem-the second link doesnt seem to work (ive tried the link, and ive tried copying and pasting also?but otherwise, thanks)

Hopefully in the next few days ill have a Droid Sniper unit out as a practice....thats if i can get PSP9 trial again (i cant get used to the GIMP)