Unit Preview: Ork Fighta bomba

[The Great Apple]

If anybody says anything even vaguely related to lego... well, you'd better start running...

This is a fighter/bomber unit (suprise!) for the Orks, built for the 40K mod. If you look really closely into the cockpit you can even see the controls (that's right, those two sticks, and the BIG RED BUTTON!!). It's 5780 polygons (I still don't know quite how muffins manages to get 20,000)

This is my first air unit, so I'm not quite sure how the ini works, and what animations are required. I've taken a look at the F15, but it slightly confused me. If somebody could explian what animations can be used by air units, and where they go in the ini I would be grateful. Also is the hight fine? Should it be lower?

EDIT: Unit finished, previews removed
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=95922

 

[Joshyman99]

That is going to be the best unit you made yet! Can't wait till it's finished!!

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

The way air units work in Civ III is that the attack animation should just be the missiles or bombs. The way it works is that for normal Civ III aircraft (which are immobile, with set operating range and re-base abilities), the attack you see in the game is a combination of the run animation, with the attack animation, so that you see the unit fly over the square that's being attacked, and the missiles/bombs dropping.

That's the reason I decided to make all the "air" units in my Final Fantasy mod land units with the re-base ability (so I can send them accross the ocean without transport ships), since I don't like how Civ III handles air units (WHY couldn't they have just kept it the way Civ II/SMAC style air units work )

Hope that helps.

 

[BeBro]

Small correction:

- attack anim: shows the plane firing guns or missiles, is used for interception, or when a bomber manages to shoot down an interceptor
- bomb anim: shows only the falling bombs (no plane) including the explosion, used of course during bombing runs.
- run and default should be clear: the default shows the plane over the city/base when you select it, the run is used when it is in flight

So the interception is combined from attack and run anim (as you said), a bombing run is combined from run and bomb anim.

So you need a default, run, attack, death and bomb anim (except the unit cannot bomb and is a fighter only). However, since the bomb anim shows only bombs and explosions most use a bomb anim from the original civ aircraft or link to it in the ini file.

Fidget anims can be made for aircraft too, but aren't needed, just a nice addition. Fortify and victory anims do not work with aircraft in cvi3.

 

[The Great Apple]

Ok a few questions:

1) The bombs are tucked under the wings. Is there any way of making them drop during the bomb animation? I'm guessing not.
2) Is there any reason why the fighter should not be on the ground for the default animation (apart from convention)

Also I've lowered the tail a bit as I was worried it would escape the frame, and it looked a tad too tall.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Beautiful!

 

[BeBro]

1) not really, you can make of course your own bomb anim with those bombs, but don't include the plane in that anim. Means you can't make a real bomb sequence that shows your plane releasing its bombs and fly away without them. Civ just shows the run anim (=plane flies) and the bomb anim (=some bombs fall down and explode) AFAIK there's no way to change that.
2) could look strange over cities, but else it should work

 

[The Great Apple]

2) could look strange over cities, but else it should work

I always thought it looked odd my planes hovering over my cities. Anyway, units sit on the cities, so I don't see why planes shouldn't. I've also noticed that the default animation is usually one frame. Is this just to save space, or will it only play the first frame?

 

[Goldflash]

Most Defualt Anims are many frames. actually. Look at the rumbly vanilla tank, for example.

If you do it on the ground you should make a fidget anim like the flaps going up and down or something. And Just FYI the bomb flc goes in the Victory slot

Looks WAAAAAAGHingly good, though! Keep up the pace!

 

[BeBro]

I always thought it looked odd my planes hovering over my cities. Anyway, units sit on the cities, so I don't see why planes shouldn't. I've also noticed that the default animation is usually one frame. Is this just to save space, or will it only play the first frame?

Never tested it with aircraft, but on heli units it plays anims with more frames without trouble, so I guess it works with planes too.

 

[Goldflash]

Wyrmshadow usually uses the run as the default, so thats an option, too.

 

[The Great Apple]

ARRRGH!! I've just realised I forgot the civspecific colours!! Unless I make red civ-specific, which I don't think I'll do. Anybody any ideas where they should go? I'm thinking the red bits in the tail section, the wingtips, and the big bulgy tubey thingies on the side.

EDIT 1: Ok, done em

EDIT 2: A preview of the run --> attack --> Death (I'm not convinced by the death. Might redo it)

Going away till Monday. It should be finished wednesday latest.

 

[Mr. Will]

It looks great, especially for 6000 polygons. The thing I'm animating now has almost 9000 and yours looks better. (Just a little bit...) About the 1 frame default, i think it can be a standard default with >1 frames, but I've never seen it done.

BTW, thanks for the smoke tutorial! I'm gonna try to use it today. It looks good, I'll ask if I need help, but I think your tutorial has it covered.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Looks like it was built with K-Necs. Good unit though.

 

[Goldflash]

Looks like it was built with K-Necs. Good unit though.

More like you look like you're made out of K'Nex, Nerd.

 

[The Great Apple]

Looks like it was built with K-Necs. Good unit though.

at least it's not lego.

Anybody else think my units are in general a bit too dark (I haven't had much opportunity to test them in game)

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I love the color scheme of all your units Apple. I don't think you need to change anything.

 

[The Great Apple]

I've been doing some testing and some very odd things happen in aircraft animations. Firstly having the default as a unit on the ground doesn't work, as the default animation is used in at least the intercept animation. It seems to play
run-->default-->attack-->Death
or
run-->default-->attack-->default-->run

I'm not quite sure what happens if the default animation is over 1 frame long - I might do a bit more testing.

It would seem that they have completley botched up most alterations you can do with aircraft. I would've thought it would be cool if they let you have fortify as a take off animation, default on the ground - but it appears they don't want to let us do this.

Off to do some testing with over 1 frame default animations....

 

[Communisto]

yeah, dude, its so orkish, and Goff for that matter (cheks and stuff) But i gotta sk, when are you gonna make Da Boyz, i wanna see some of the ladz on foot

 

[The Great Apple]

yeah, dude, its so orkish, and Goff for that matter (cheks and stuff) But i gotta sk, when are you gonna make Da Boyz, i wanna see some of the ladz on foot

Thanks . Da boyz are going to come later. I'm artistically challenged, and I am yet to work out the vaguaries of organic animation - but when I've finished all the mechanical units I can think of for the orks, I'm going to give it a go...

As for the planes - it would appear that it only plays one frame of the default animation during the attack, while cycling through them during the default. I think I might just set the run animation as the default (as somebody suggested further up). I still can use the 'on the ground' frame as a units 32 pic...


That means I'm pretty much finished with the figta-bomber. I'm gonna chuck out a bomber using roughly the same model, and release them together. Am I right in thinking that intercepts always happen from the right of the bombing unit?