Unit Requests: Steampunk

[Blue Monkey]

It's worth reviewing the individual unit posts from time to time. For example there are now links to a page with TARDIS sounds.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Gas Cannon

Are you looking for a gas-powered cannon (super-gun) or a cannon that fires gas (ie poison gas shells)? I've got pictures either way.

The Super Gas Cannon idea came from a Verne Story called the Begum's Millions. We got our evil character Professor Schultz from the same story. The Wiki site describes it thusly:

"Two fearsome weapons are being made ready - a super-cannon with a vast destructive power, and shells filled with gas. The latter seems to give Verne credit for the very first prediction of chemical warfare, nearly twenty years before H. G. Wells's "black smoke" in The War of the Worlds. Schultze's gas is designed not only to suffocate its victims but at the same time also freeze them. A special projectile is filled with compressed liquid carbon dioxide that, when released, instantly lowers the surrounding temperature to a hundred degrees Celsius below zero, quick-freezing every living thing in the vicinity."

Based on that description the cannon could be much larger than illustrated. The crew is wearing appropriate protective gear - although some heavy gloves might help! Note the more fanciful anti-gas equipment in a contemporary illustration by Robida.

Image Gallery

Spoiler :

 

[Blue Monkey]

Steam Tank
The Steam Tank as specifically requested by KingArthur:

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Some precursors & variants from which to glean details:
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And some more primitive efforts by the less civilized at the edge of the empire:
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[Blue Monkey]

Automatic Gentleman
Here's one to have fun with - The Automatic Gentleman. He ought to be attired something like the fellow in the upper left. The other illo's are more to show the articulation of his hands & the nature of his face.

Keep in mind his mechanical nature when it comes to movements. Perhaps his "plush topper" is literally a stovepipe hat belching smoke or steam, although it might equally be a turret. Plenty of room for creativity when it comes to fidget, victory, etc., as well.

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[Blue Monkey]

Scout / Sniper
The scout ought to have goggles - ideally including a telescopic monocle. If one attack is with a rifle then the unit could do double duty as a sniper. Lots of variation as far as costume possibilities. Ignore the mask on the smallest image; it's there more for the clothing.

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[Balthasar]

I also like this image of a Steampunk Scout...

 

[Blue Monkey]

Sorry, I missed including that one; I had it sorted and filed with images for another unit.

 

[jewmpaloompa]

Real quick, on the Tardis, what Animations were you looking for? Also what do you have planned for it...

 

[Balthasar]

It is planned to be a transporter unit, so the animations might be:
default = just sitting there
run = gradually disappears
paradrop or transport (not sure in ini file where it goes) = gradually reappears
fidget = just sitting there, perhaps the light on top could flash.

in the alternative, it could have a simple "run" animation in which it tips and spins as it "travels". I would rather use a "paradrop" or "transport" animation, though, for it. I'd love some advice from a unit maker on how to best use this for world-wide travel.

Of course, at this point, I'd consider any animation to be brilliant.

 

[Blue Monkey]

I hope there will be both an appearing & disappearing animation.

There is a "malfunction sound" at the site linked above. A disappearing animation with that sound might be an appropriate death animation.

 

[jewmpaloompa]

ok, I'll see what I can do... unfortunately I have finals this week, but after that I can work on this.

 

[Plotinus]

A unit that gradually disappears will be very difficult to do, because a semi-transparent blue object against a magenta background will be a sort of blue-magenta colour, which the game won't show as transparent.

I always thought the best way to do the Tardis would be as an immobile unit that can paradrop to any location on the map (or perhaps teleport - a teleport flag does exist but I don't know how to implement it). Obviously it could transport a lot of other units. The only problem is that the AI would not use it.

 

[Balthasar]

Not a problem; the Tardis actually pulses as it teleports, then disappears in a flash of light. That's doable.
But I tend to agree with you about it being preferably a paradrop unit. A teleport unit doesn't have a separate 'teleport' animation (Teleportation Thread in the Tutorials section), while a 'paradrop' animation could have all the abovementioned bells and whistles, albeit in reverse order. At least it can re-appear in style, eh? Since the Tardis does occasional local traveling, it can also have a 'run' animation that involves the spinning, etc. I mentioned earlier.
As for the AI's use of it, the unit is intended for the human player, and none of the AI civs will have access to it, unless it's captured, at which point the Tardis will simply shut down until the Doctor returns. It does that.

 

[Blue Monkey]

A unit that gradually disappears will be very difficult to do, because a semi-transparent blue object against a magenta background will be a sort of blue-magenta colour, which the game won't show as transparent.

I had one of those waking thoughts this morning. If it's brilliant or even semi-bright I'll be responsible; if it's in the "hunh?" category just help me to remember not to leave the audiobook of "The Coming Race" looping all night. Anyway, would the color problem be solved if the unit was civ-colored (with red or some other color) and then the civ is assigned the color blue? I know Balthasar suggests another approach for the TARDIS, but I'm thinking about other units as well.

Not a problem; the Tardis actually pulses as it teleports, then disappears in a flash of light. That's doable.
But I tend to agree with you about it being preferably a paradrop unit. A teleport unit doesn't have a separate 'teleport' animation (Teleportation Thread in the Tutorials section), while a 'paradrop' animation could have all the abovementioned bells and whistles, albeit in reverse order. At least it can re-appear in style, eh? Since the Tardis does occasional local traveling, it can also have a 'run' animation that involves the spinning, etc. I mentioned earlier.

I think the TARDIS will probably end up as different types of unit in various mods. It is so unique that its behavior could be applied to the unit animations in a few different ways. Rather than debate about, for example, what a TARDIS fortify should be, IMHO it will be more useful to the unit maker to have a short list of behaviors that can then be assigned by a mod maker as needed. I can think of -

1. Appearing
2. Disappearing (the above but frames reversed ?)
3. Spinning
4. Door opening
5. Door closing
6. Sitting there doing nothing

What's missing? Does it ever hover?

As for the AI's use of it, the unit is intended for the human player, and none of the AI civs will have access to it, unless it's captured, at which point the Tardis will simply shut down until the Doctor returns. It does that.

Whew! I'd hate to try to win against a Doctor! The only thing worse would be having a Special Circumstances agent accompanied by a sociopathic decommissioned battle drone permanently allied with a third party.

 

[Plotinus]

I had one of those waking thoughts this morning. If it's brilliant or even semi-bright I'll be responsible; if it's in the "hunh?" category just help me to remember not to leave the audiobook of "The Coming Race" looping all night. Anyway, would the color problem be solved if the unit was civ-colored (with red or some other color) and then the civ is assigned the color blue? I know Balthasar suggests another approach for the TARDIS, but I'm thinking about other units as well.

It's not the blueness that's the problem, but the colouredness.

The palette that units use doesn't contain translucent colours. What it does contain is a series of shades that the game displays as translucent black, in other words, as shadows. That is, any pixel that has one of these colours will be displayed as whatever lies underneath the unit, but darker.

This effectively means that only black or grey units can be made translucent. If you rendered a blue (or any other colour) unit on a magenta background, making it translucent, then the see-through bits will be rendered (by Poser or whatever) as bluish-magenta. But what shade in the unit palette will be used for that colour? If you use anything other than the shadow shades, it will be shown in-game as precisely that colour, namely bluish-magenta, not translucent at all. And if you make it so that the shadow shades are used (perhaps by making them bluish-magenta), that still won't work, because the game itself will display those as shadows.

So this means that only black or grey units can be made to fade away, because only black or grey colours can be shown as translucent in the game. You could, perhaps, have the Tardis go grey before starting to pulse; that might work quite well, especially if it were a fairly grey-ish blue to start with. I should think that would be the best way of doing it.

I might be wrong here - but I've never had any success at mixing translucency with colours, at least.

 

[Blue Monkey]

You could, perhaps, have the Tardis go grey before starting to pulse; that might work quite well, especially if it were a fairly grey-ish blue to start with. I should think that would be the best way of doing it.

One of the "freebies" available that I linked to is a "weather-beaten" texture. That might look good going to grey. The only other way I can think of is the old, old trick of simply replacing more & more pixels with magenta frame by frame. Tedious work & I'm not sure how it would work in game.

 

[Vuldacon]

Concerning the TARDIS... The Run cannot disappear because the animation will loop which will cause the TARDIS to disappear and reappear over and over as it moves. For this reason, it will be best to make the movement visible or set the TARDIS as Immobile and only paradrop from Buildings (Cities). On the Other Hand, The Run could be made to appear Transparent and because the Default would be Visible, this would work well as long as the TARDIS did not have to disappear slowly.

A Paradrop is the best way to handle the "Teleport" situation. That can be made where the TARDIS reappears and I recommend making this animation manually After creating the Default Frames. Because there would only be one 1st frame of the Default animation to deal with, this manual method could be done without too much difficulty.
...an example is the M1 Mech Teleport I made in 2005 Here and although it is Beamed as it appears, it serves to show the point.

where in the animations do you plan to have the TARDIS disappear?

...I can make this Unit for you guys. Who can I speak to in a PM or E-Mail concerning the Details?

 

[Balthasar]

Feel free to PM me, Vuldacon. I'd be honored to work with you, and I work/play from home, so I'm always available.

 

[Vuldacon]

Feel free to PM me, Vuldacon. I'd be honored to work with you, and I work/play from home, so I'm always available.

Balthasar... OK Good, me too I will send you a PM Now.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Invisible Man
Query Balthasar about what he has in mind for this sorely needed unit.

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