Unit in Creation: Mercenary Hoplite, c&p

[Civanator]

I am making my first unit for the Alexander the Great Scenario and decided to show what i have gotten. i only really got the the south run animation cause of school and other factors, but will be done in a couple days, maybe a week. but i don't know how to post a animation preview so i will post a non-animated one until i can figure out how.

I am going to just cut off the blue hair thing on the top instead of cut&pasting every single head on. This i figure will still look good and i will save 4-5 hours of working time.

Critisism and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Edit1: Finished Run animation for South and East and started NE in the last frame.

 

[Civanator]

Kryten or someone, i am gonne need help on the North animation because i have to cut off the blue thingy.

 

[Civanator]

Another update shortly

 

[Jewell Man]

Something about those top and bottom row pics.... Reminds of that album cover for Judas Priest... not sure which album... I think it was the 1978 Best of. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Anyway... was that possibly your inspiration?

 

[zulu9812]

Best of? In 1978? Judas Priest released their 4th album, Stained Class, in 1978...and this was the album cover:

btw - isn't this really Kryten's unit?

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by zulu9812
btw - isn't this really Kryten's unit?

Not any more.
If Civanator can take my old spare body parts and spend all the time and effort into making them into a new animation, then it becomes HIS unit.
I hoping that if I give all the help I can on this first animation, then we will have another unit creator on our hands, and one who likes making ancient units as well (....then I can spend more time down the pub! ).

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To Civanator:-

I've made a quick preview of the south run flic. The head jerk that you mentioned in another thread seems to be caused by frames 7 & 8. Try copying and pasting the head in frame 7 two pixels to the right, and the head in frame 8 one pixel to the right. That should fix it.

 

[Civanator]

ok thanx Kryten. Yes, This will be my first unit that i officially "made". Also, how do i get an animated preview up?
And, how should i cut the blue thing when it is in the north pic? that is getting frustrating for him to only have half a head.

 

[zulu9812]

Animation Shop can save as an animated GIF, which should show in the body of the post if you post it.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Civanator
Kryten or someone, i am gonne need help on the North animation because i have to cut off the blue thingy.

If you want to remove his horsehair plume, then here's what I always do:-
use the 'selection' tool or the 'freehand' tool to draw round a bit of the empty pink/magenta background and press Ctrl+C to save it. Now all you have to do is press Ctrl+E to paste it over the bits that you don't want. Ok, so you have to do this in each frame....it's still quicker than doing it by hand (if you can't see these tools, then select <View> <ToolBars> <Tool Palette> from the top of the screen).
You could do the same thing to fill in the gap in his head; just use the 'selection' tool to draw a small square on a bit of bronze helmet in one of the other direction frames, copy it, then paste it in the gap.

But stop and think for a moment. You're going to paste the same magenta square in 10 frames over the Hoplites plume in order to get rid of it. Well....why not use the 'freehand' tool to draw around that blue and white plume that I sent you and replace the WHOLE HEAD! It's just as quick; just copy it once and paste it 10 times!
This what I did with the Peltast, Phalangite and Hypaspist (and I'm currently doing the same with the Companion & Thessalian Horsemen) ; I copied the SE Thracian helmet once and then pasted it in EVERY SE frame in all the default/run/fortify/attack flics, on ALL three foot units.
Ok, so the head doesn't change shape....who cares, it still looks right. And by carefully aligning it with the original head you get the correct smooth up and down motion as he moves his body.
You won't find a quicker method believe me!

Now I could get away with this because the Peltast , Phalangite, Hypaspist, Companion and Thessalian are all Macedonians and in reality actually wore Thracian type helmets. But if you want to be creative and remove the Greek Hoplite's plume then your unit won't look like a Greek Mercenary Hoplite. This is not a problem; you could just simply change it's name and call it a 'Heavy Spearman'. This would make it a very nice general purpose unit that could be used by just about every ancient nation, such as the Etruscans, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Capadocians, ancient Chinese.... the list is endless!
But it's up to you. It's your unit after all.

Originally posted by Civanator in another thread
The only thing that is a problem is trying to match the shield. it is hard to get it perfect and sometimes i have to make the shield a little larger. Also the southwest animation cause the spear splits the shield in 2, but i just though up a solution to that.

I had EXACTLY the same problem when I started several months ago. That's why I took the original Civ3 Hoplite figure and removed his spear/helmet/shield. Now I use this stripped-down figure as a base for all the above units (and will use it again in the future to one day create a Republican Roman Legionary, a Roman Horseman, and an Imperial Roman Auxiliary). So all I have to do now is add a new head to this 'base' figure, give him a shield (making sure that the shield moves in relation to his HELMET and NOT his body or it's position in the previous frame), and last of all give him a spear/sword/javelin depending on my mood.
I will sent you all the flics of this 'base' figure in a few days time. I didn't send them all at once because I didn't want to overwhelm you. They would certainly save you a lot of time insted of creating you own 'base' figure from scratch (which you could still do if you want). I'll also tell you how to post an animated preview as well.

But not tonight. I am well overdrawn at the sleepbank and I need to make a large deposit!

Good luck matey!

 

[Jewell Man]

Originally posted by zulu9812
Best of? In 1978? Judas Priest released their 4th album, Stained Class, in 1978...and this was the album cover:

Yup... They released it in 1978, same year as Stained Class. It's not the album I was thinking of but it has a cool cover too. Couple of Samurai:

The other album that I was thinking of is "Hero Hero" - now if the above unit could only be fixed up to add the horns I think I might just have to create a JP civ to use it

 

[Civanator]

Jewell Man, please take that somewhere else

 

[Civanator]

Here is a preview animated, if it isn't i'll post a non animated one.

 

[Civanator]

damn, didn't work. Oh well

 

[Kryten]

I can see that you're having trouble making animated previews.
It's not hard....once you've been shown.

As Zulu9812 said earlier, this is done with Animation Shop. Here's how:-

1) open PaintShop and select <File> <Jasc Sofware Products> <Launch Animation Shop>

2) in the Animation Shop window select <File> <Open> and double-click on your FLC file in the popup window (NOTE: the FLC file, NOT the PaintShop Pro 7 Image )

3) in the new popup "FLI/FLC Import Options" window, select <All Frames> and press 'ok'. Up pops a 'filmstrip' of all your frames!

4) however, you don't want ALL the frames in your preview, you might only want the SOUTH frames. So, move the slider along and you will notice that your SOUTH frames start at F:12 and end at F:22. Make a note of these numbers and then close the frame window

5) repeat steps 2 and 3, but this time choose frames 12 to 22. Now the 'filmstrip' only consists of your SOUTH frames, not the others.
(If you look at the top right of the Animation Shop window you will see a 'filmstrip' tool button next to the question mark. Give it a press.....good ain't it!)

6) last step: saving it (you probably already know this bit, but I'll mention it anyway).
Select <File> < Save As>, choose where you want to put it, give it a name, change the "Save as type" to *.gif format and save.

And that's it. Job done.
Now all you have to do is attach it to your next post so that we can all criticise it!

 

[Civanator]

i only have a FXM for the preview. it says Mercenary Hoplite Storyboard.FXM.

 

[shramj]

nice looking unit!

 

[Civanator]

thank you shramj, it is my first

 

[Civanator]

Well, i am going away for a while cause i am going to Vermont, USA. I got alot of the shields done on the run animations.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Civanator
i only have a FXM for the preview. it says Mercenary Hoplite Storyboard.FXM.

I need a bit more information I'm afraid. Can I assume that you followed that procedure that I posted earlier and got stuck on step 6 because your trial version of Animation Shop won't let you save in *.gif format?
If so, then that is a problem. One possible solution would be to send me what you've got and I can make the preview for you.

Have fun on your holiday in Vermont....at least, I assume it's a holiday ("Shut up Kryten. He might be being sent to a correction centre for all you know!").

We will still be here when you get back.

 

[Civanator]

here is the file: (i was in vermont quad riding longer than expected, and also sports)
Edit: I updated it