Undead Unit Pack

[Civitar]

OK. Sorry to anyone who still wants to download this skeleton but I have deleted him from the database. I will reupload him soon, don't worry, but this time with fixed animations, smaller textures, and a whole lot of bony friends.

EDIT LATER: Sorry, real life is getting in the way. He will be uploaded eventually, but not too many other units are forthcoming in terms of Skeletons.

 

[Raymondus]

 

[Civitar]

@Raymondus: ...what am I supposed to do with that fellow? He's cool enough, but as an image is not much use in Civ5. I could make an icon out of him though...

 

[Nomad or What]

...what am I supposed to do with that fellow? He's cool enough, but as an image is not much use in Civ5. I could make an icon out of him though...

Maybe he's implying that he wants the skeleton unit back that you deleted from the database?

 

[Civitar]

Hey Nomad! I've been feeling guilty about that, so I'll try and get a skeleton archer done then reupload them. Not for a while though (like everything else unfortunately) since I'm working on the local farms now for most of the summer.

 

[Nomad or What]

Hey Nomad! I've been feeling guilty about that, so I'll try and get a skeleton archer done then reupload them. Not for a while though (like everything else unfortunately) since I'm working on the local farms now for most of the summer.

Hehe, no worries! I was wondering why you haven't been so active lately, good to hear from you. C'est la vie! I am sure it will be worth the wait. It is better to do it right than to do it right away....

 

[PawelS]

Nice that you're planning a skeleton archer, as it's one of the units I need the most

 

[Civitar]

Well, I had been daydreaming about making a Skeleton Unit Pack like Dwarves or Elves or Nomad's Orcs or Goblins, but Elves came up and then Dwarves and then I just kind of shunted this to the back of my mind. Hopefully it will eventually and very slowly grow, but 10 units overall would be more than I could hope for right now, especially since I can't seem to find a good skeletal horse in Civ4... Nomad?

 

[Nomad or What]

Well, I had been daydreaming about making a Skeleton Unit Pack like Dwarves or Elves or Nomad's Orcs or Goblins, but Elves came up and then Dwarves and then I just kind of shunted this to the back of my mind. Hopefully it will eventually and very slowly grow, but 10 units overall would be more than I could hope for right now, especially since I can't seem to find a good skeletal horse in Civ4... Nomad?

I know of a few but agree they are kind of crappy. If there were some way to overcome the transparency issues with the .dds files (and perhaps there is) then I know of one that would be decent. Unfortunately the way the art imports now it would look like a horse wearing a skeleton suit since the voids between the bones wouldn't be transparent but black.

 

[Pazyryk]

Perhaps horse skeleton isn't going to work so well. But I think your initial skeleton swordsman looks fine in Éa. Too small to notice transparency vs black, at least at normal unit size.


Just a thought though: Nutty said he used "Building Material" (or something like that) to make a totally invisible unit. Is there any reason why that strategy can't be used more generally for units? It would preclude player colors, I guess, but that's not a high price to pay.

 

[Nutty]

I tried that with the angel. Apparently, it's not the blank texture that's doing the trick; any texture with a building shader ends up with an invisible unit.

 

[Civitar]

Really? That's ridiculous! I'm starting to get seriously annoyed with Civ5's 3D limitations, if you look at Civ4 if you were good enough you could have literally anything you wanted in any game with a mod. Maybe if Civ5 source code is one day released like Civ4's we can figure out the graphics engine?

 

[Nutty]

The "source code" is as released as it's going to get (otherwise we wouldn't have any DLL mods). They never released the graphics engine source code for Civ4, and they definitely won't for CiV. The difference comes from the proprietary Granny format from RAD Game Tools that's used for models in CiV.

 

[Lord Tirian]

The "source code" is as released as it's going to get (otherwise we wouldn't have any DLL mods). They never released the graphics engine source code for Civ4, and they definitely won't for CiV. The difference comes from the proprietary Granny format from RAD Game Tools that's used for models in CiV.

By the way, probably it's not really Firaxis' fault, both games use licensed engines/libraries (Gamebryo for Civ4, Civ5 uses the Granny format). It's more then likely that they're legally not allowed to release the code they don't own, meaning they could only release the parts of the engine they wrote, but not the licensed bits/libraries, making it effectively useless for us anyway.

 

[Calavente]

regarding skelleton horse: did you look at the akristach (or however it is written) in Master of Mana (FFH sub-mod) ?
they made some pretty nice mounted skellies (on skelleton horses).
(well, iirc, but it's been a long time, they were only reskin of regular horses).
Maybe they won't look as nice with the difference in polygones with civ5 .. but maybe it will

 

[Civitar]

No I haven't seen any good skeleton horses yet. Could you link me Calavente?

 

[Deliverator]

No I haven't seen any good skeleton horses yet. Could you link me Calavente?

Ars Morendi's horse is kinda semi-undead.

 

[Civitar]

Yeah, but I need an actual skeleton horse, you know with only bones really. Plus I think I already have Ars Morendi, might even have converted him.

 

[Deliverator]

Yeah, but I need an actual skeleton horse, you know with only bones really. Plus I think I already have Ars Morendi, might even have converted him.

You should look at the Kohan II Undead units. There's a unit in there called the Nightmare which is an undead centaur. You could use that for the torso and legs and then put it together with a regular horse's head textured as a skull. You could use bone weight copy to help with the rigging. Kohan II also has quite a decent undead archer - the textures are quite lofi and might need some upgrading.

The problem with the Master of Mana undead horses is that they rely on alpha for the gaps between bones.

 

[Civitar]

I don't mind using alpha there (I just fill the alpha with black and it looks fine like on this skeleton) so long as the gaps aren't huge. Can you link me to the MoM horses? (I never played Civ4, so I don't have any of the mods).