Stargate BtS

[dataskywalker]

Thought I'd let you guys know that stolenrays is hard at work getting a generic jaffa soldier and serpent guard ready for the mod. Meanwhile, I've been trying to figure out what the the technology vid should be like. I've decided on using three clips: 1. First activation of stargate in the original movie, 2. Prometheus/X-303 taking off from its hangar, and 3. Odyssey taking out an Ori ship with Asgard beam weapons. This is to reflect the technological progresion of the Taur'i from its humble exploratory beginnings to becoming a dominant political and military force in the galaxy.

 

[4lexander]

Excellent man

 

[stolenrays]

Here is what the Jaffa looks like right now, but I still have some work to do on it.

 

[Asaf]

@stolenrays - nice!

 

[dataskywalker]

stolenrays, you are truly amazing

 

[stolenrays]

I appreciate the good feedback. . I'll keep working on the animation and alternate version.

 

[4lexander]

Amazing, incredible detail

 

[Ajidica]

What is the poly count on that unit?

 

[dataskywalker]

All the religions now have a working founding vid. As I posted a while back, they run from 1:30-2:00 minutes, with a special exception for the sci-fi vid. All I need to do now is export them as a .wmv file, Bink them, and add them to the mod.

@Asaf

I noticed your Gamefont editor, I've subscribed to the thread. Keep up the good work, I'll likely use it in the future.

 

[stolenrays]

What is the poly count on that unit?

Can't remember exactly, but it is 372kb.

 

[dataskywalker]

I just feel like pointing out: Downloads of v1.5 have passed 550. Not that that's bad, but I wonder why... (seriously, I do)

 

[4lexander]

 

[dataskywalker]

Been a while since an update, but here it is:

stolenrays is hard at work trying to get the jaffa soldier to animate properly. If he needs help he will be posting the problem here.
I've decided to keep the US as a civ in the mod, staying almost the same as it is in vanilla civ. Leaderheads I'm considering are Hammond, Landry, President Henry Hayes and Major Davis. Russia will also stay in the mod as a civ. Colonel Chekov will be a leaderhead, as well as Alexi Zhukov (from 'The Tomb').

I'm also considering changing the categories of civics to reflect more Stargate-oriented policies, such as technology(free exchange, 'magic', witholding), population (slavery, seeding, sterility, replication) and foreign policies (xenophobia, exploration, pacifist). Please provide input on what kind of civics you would want and their possible game effects.

Another question: should I release the religion founding vids as an optional add-on or as part of the next full release?

 

[4lexander]

Great news bro


I like those civics, maybe I will add some to foreing policy: imperialism (for Goauld) and isolationism (fits Tollans so much)

I would make so that some civics have their effects enhanced if combined with others e.g. tech free exchange with foreign policies exploration give a bigger bonus on research

I would make some civics have bonus/malus in diplo if possible depending on wich ones other civs have: i.e. free people dislike slavery


I like the leaderheads, expecially President Hayes & Colonel Chekov.

 

[stolenrays]

I have converted this jaffa model and skinned it. However, I can only properly animate the staff. We were wondering if anybody could help animate the body as well as the particle weapon staff? We were also thinking the infantry animation would be most appropriate.

 

[dataskywalker]

I like those civics, maybe I will add some to foreing policy: imperialism (for Goauld) and isolationism (fits Tollans so much)

You say 'imperialism', I say 'domination'. Same thing, but much more in form to the Goa'uld's method of 'imperialism'

@stolenrays

Speaking as someone who knows close to nothing about nifs, but, in an effort to emulate the infantry nif, shouldn't the staff weapon node be inside the NiTriStrip node of the rest of the model? And does it make a difference if it's NiTriStrip instead of NiTriShape?

 

[stolenrays]

I tried animating the unit one last time with the bone weight copy tutorial, but the unit (except for the staff) became invisible. It was animated though.

 

[SaibotLieh]

I took a look at your model and I think you might run into problems with that unit even if you manage to animate it properly. The body has a polycount of about 16000 and the staff an additional count of 4000. That makes about 20000 polygones for the whole model, which is at least twice the amount a leaderhead normally has and about 20 to 25 times a normal unit has.

As far as I know nobody here can really say how this high polycount will influence the performance of your game, but I guess the units only have about 1000 polygones for a reason. Therefore, I would advise you to try to reduce that polycount as much as you can. Maybe an even better idea would be to take the infantry model and use the Jaffa dds file to reskin it. Creating an appropriate staff shouldn't be that hard since its geometry is rather simple.

If you still want to use the Jaffa model upload your newest version and I'll take a look to find out why it turned invisible.

 

[stolenrays]

Thank you for offering the help. I will try and reduce the polygon count further in Blender.

Edit: It really wasn't that difficult so I reduced the polycount to about 3,000 right now in blender and triangulating in nifscope. Good info for future use. I'm going to try and reduce it some more. There is virtually no distortion, only a few missing faces to clean up.

 

[dataskywalker]

I also noticed that for some reason one of the eyes is a different node. You should make it part of the model node.