Virote's Unit Previews

[againsttheflow]

Yeah, this was on my unit wish list!

 

[Blue Monkey]

The cannon's mouth looks a little like the Mughal era boar's headed piece I've posted in a couple of places. The unit will probably end up in a few places you wouldn't anticipate. (oops!)

 

[Virote_Considon]

I've been thinking of making a Mughal cannon... I'm definitely going to make some kind of generic all-encompassing Indian cannon, and a Middle Eastern cannon, but I still may decide to make a Mughal one after that

 

[Stormrage]

Nice cannon, V!

 

[Blue Monkey]

I've been thinking of making a Mughal cannon... I'm definitely going to make some kind of generic all-encompassing Indian cannon, and a Middle Eastern cannon, but I still may decide to make a Mughal one after that

I was slightly wrong on the era - it's actually early British Raj, but I think the style is appropriate earlier eras, & I'm sure any human figures could be dressed in such a way as to be widely used. with turbans they could be M.E. as well as South Asian.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Wow! It's been nearly 2 years since I've used this thread!

Well, now I'm going to post previews here of every singe unit I've got on my hard-drive which I hope to start releasing soon. Some (most?) of them are years old. Some of them have problems. Some of them, I'd actually started rendering, but stopped.

I hope to work on them more in order to get them out. In general, I'll work on releasing the ones who need the least amount of work done on them first - that is, those who's models I'm satisfied with, and who can use animations I've already got with the least amount of tweaking. I'm not going to stick slavishly to that rule, and new units can be inserted into the line at any interval I see fit, and at any time. If they're using pre-existing animations, they likely won't have fidgets or alternate attacks, etc., at least for their initial release, although there's every chance I'll go back and do this at a later point (in fact, when I've whittled the amount of units who haven't been finished down, I may start working on redoing some of the animations, etc., on some of my older units, maybe adding in extra animations and the like, as well). This list isn't all the units I've currently got plans/artwork for, either, it's just the ones who I've already at least started a reasonable amount of work on the model.

First off, the units who need almost no work, just applying existing animations/rendering:
Assyrian Swordsman

As far as I can tell, this unit is ready to apply CamJH's Swordsman animations, and render. I may need to change the colours of some things - he seems to have both bronze and iron...

Mycenaean Heavy Swordsman

His shin-guards aren't conformed to his legs, but other than that, he's ready to go!

Philistine Swordsman

Needs a shield, but this is a quick job. Possibly needs sandals and shin guards, possibly not - what do you guys think?

Steppe Shaman

This guy's model is mostly complete, and he just needs animations. I've probably got something which I could use for him already. He's just intended to be an early religious unit, no real historical basis, but people may need him for epic-game scenarios where they have priests and fanatics in the early eras.

Next, are the units who need some amount of work. I'll spoiler this one...

Spoiler :

Gutian Skirmisher

This guy has his default and fortify animations done and rendered, and I'm satisfied with the model. His animations are being done from scratch, which is what's making this unit require so much work. Sometime afterwards, I may make a version of this unit where the red in his kilt is white, so it looks nicer with some civ colours.

Sherdan Skirmisher

This guy will use pretty much the same animations as the Gutian Skirmisher. The model's mostly complete, although I'll give him another javelin or two, as well.

Assyrian Spearman

This guy's model needs a fair amount of work. He certainly needs a helmet and shield! Colouration and such may need improvement... I'm not too sure. But once that's done, I should be able to get down applying pre-existing Spearman animations on him, and finish him.

Babylonian Spearman

This guy was mostly finished (years ago, to boot!), however, as you can tell, there are a couple of glaring problems. Firstly, the kilt has patches of black sometimes. This isn't too big a problem, as they could maybe be c'n'p-ed out. The bigger problem is the top he's wearings' arm, which won't conform to his figure properly... I think the kilt+top are part of the same "Robes" figure, although I don't know what I can do to fix it. Those big robe sleeves would really be just what I need if only they could conform right!

Minoan Swordsman

His helmet is at a strange angle, and that needs to be altered. His left arm definitely needs to be altered in every animation. I purposely didn't give him a shield. Maybe I should make the sword more "bronze" coloured, as well?

Saxon Swordsman

Needs a shield and a helmet, and I'm not too sure what to do for the latter. Also needs a sword. I see no reason why I couldn't make a Spearman variant, either.

Tamil Swordsman

I haven't forgotten about him! I'll need to go over B_M's suggestions, but I should have the PM's still, and everything in this thread, too.

Peloponnesian Javelineer

This guy will use the Gutian Skirmisher animations. His model needs a bit of work (javelins added, colour alterations), but you can get the general jist of it.

Greek Stone Thrower

This guy only has the most basic parts of his model done. I'll have to really tinker with the blanket figure to get it to look right. Colourations are not final. Animations need to be done. This guy's gonna take a lot of work.

Agamemnon

He still very much exists! His model is pretty much done, however, as he's a very special unit to me, I want to make all his animations "from scratch". Thus, the first actual unit I started to make, still has a long way to go before he's finished

Mounted Steppe Archers - Avar, Hun, Generic Steppe, Turkic

These guys will basically be variations of the same unit. I'm satisfied with the models, although maybe some kinds of embroidery pattern texture maps would be handy, but I find them difficult to get right! Then I need to animate them, which involves two things I'm not comfortable with - archery units and horse units! And I've got to take into consideration that I'm using the Mongolian PDM, which behaves differently to the regular one sometimes, especially with regards to his arms. These mounted units match my pre-existing Steppe units, and I'll also probably make at least spearmen/archers for each group as well.

Dacian Archer

Sandris sent me his archer animations a while back (I used them on my Steppe Archer!), so I'll hopefully end up using them. The problem is, that I've already built the model and got the texture maps to look right, so its a pain importing it over to the file with the animations. Anyone have any tips for doing that?

Dacian Skirmisher

He's going to use the Gutian Skirmisher animations, probably. May need to add a shield, although I'm not too sure, really. Dunno where his texture maps have gone...

Greco-Bactrian Spearman

Needs a spear and a hat of some sorts, and then should be ready and rearing to go. There are some slight issues with clothes poking through other clothes, but maybe this is something more for post-rendering? I may make other variants of this unit, such as a swordsman.

Hittite Scout

He looks a bit "plain", so does anyone know what I could give him that could liven him up, but still leave him unarmed? His animations are going to be made from scratch, but they're not going to be particularly complicated, apart from maybe his fortify/attack, which I currently envision involves him picking up stones from the floor and throwing them.

Mounted Peasant

I'm not really sure if I, or anyone else, would actually have any use for this unit! However, I found him recently on my hard-drive, apparently something I'd just put together for the sheer fun of it long ago, and liked the look of him, so decided to start animating. I ran into a couple of problems, and these meant re-rendering the 3 animations I'd made, so I kinda lost motivation. Will pick it back up again. This guy requires unique animations. And is a cursed mounted unit!

Punk w/ Molotov Coctail

This guy still has a long way to go; I don't think I'm quite ready to tackle him yet, sadly, but one day hope to be able to...

Mongolian Cannon

I actually only have about 3 animations to do for this unit (Run, Victory, Death), and the reason I halted production of this unit would only affect one of them. However, that requires making a lot of parts invisible, due to the fact that I'd have to do it through making them translucent on the materials tab, and it has a bajillion different parts making up the wheels! (Which begs the question; why can't they move themselves? Ah, well.) So I may get round to completing this unit within the next two years yet!

Mongolian Musketman

I plan to make a couple of versions of this unit, as I need them for one of my scenarios. He needs animations, mostly, and they, of course, need to be tailored around the Mongolian PDM figure...

Balkan Knight

A generic mounted Balkan Knight, to go with the foot knight made years ago. Model, I'm satisfied with (although may make a version with a blue cape, I'm not sure...), it's just those pesky animations which are holding this unit up!

Odysseus

Another Trojan War hero, Odysseus is very much in the early stages of development. The model is by no means finished, neither are the colours. And like Agamemnon, I want his animations to be particularly "special".

Assyrian Infantry

Another Assyrian spearman, this guy's model needs a lot of work. He's mostly based on depictions in Osprey's "Ancient Armies of the Middle East".

Scythian Army

An army unit for the Scythians I tried to work on a while back. I think the biggest problem I ran into, was that I couldn't get the horizontal bar of the standard to parent itself to the vertical bar, as it kept "teleporting" and skewering itself when I did...

Office Secretary

She's still got some work to do. Model is mostly done, just need to get an office-style phone, although I may have found one a while back, I don't remember. Animations are, of course, a different story, but I'm not planing anything too complicated for her in that regard!

Taxi

Still needs a lot of work; no changes since my last preview!

So yeah, feel free to browbeat me into getting some of these done from time-to-time!

(Also, this post would have had a lot more smilies, but I ran into that pesky 30-images-per-post limit, and didn't want to split the post ^^)

 

[Tortosa]

These look really nice and are very good ideas for units that we don't have. Can't wait to see some of them in action.

 

[General 666]

The Molotow-Punk is outstanding. Would love to see him finished.
but all are looking good.

 

[tom2050]

Woah, that's alot of units! I agree, get the ones done first that are mostly complete!

 

[Takhisis]

Why is one of the steppemen blond?

 

[Mithadan]

I'm really happy to see the Philistine with a sword!

I think with the Assyrian, though, you'll need a different shield shape. From what I can tell, their shields were either round, conical, oval, or at least rounded on top. (I'd love to see the Assyrian with a spear, too, as they probably used spears a whole lot more than swords -- again, as far as I know.)

 

[Virote_Considon]

Mithadan: I'll change the shield

Why is one of the steppemen blond?

Some of them were. He's mostly based on the sort of Indo-European people from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and it apparently wasn't so uncommon for these people to be blond there back then. Remember, this was before Turks and Mongols and other peoples came into the mix in the region.

 

[ShiroKobbure]

Looking good, I like the Steppe Artillery.
Good luck with the blanket I've tried to mess with it before too.

 

[Takhisis]

Sorry, but the Hollywood stereotype database dictates that anyone from Eastern Europe (i.e. Poland) Eastwards must have a sallow face with slanting eyes and jet black hair.

Hmmm… I hadn't noticed there was a Greek stone thrower guy. Is that a slinger? Or just a hand-thrower?

 

[Virote_Considon]

He's going to be a hand-thrower.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, you can copy any javelineer's movements then…

 

[bigdog5994]

can you make a damn near naked steppe horse archer?

 

[tom2050]

can you make a damn near naked steppe archer?

The horse wearing more clothes than the guy?

 

[Virote_Considon]

I decided to make both a bronze and an iron one. Does the colouration seem good? Especially with regard to the shields - I wanted the Bronze guy to have a simpler shield which looks like it could be made out of some kind of cheaper white leather, whilst the iron one would be more metal, but painted. The only problem is, I think the white one kinda looks like a very round egg being fried... Is it just me?

EDIT: Actually, I've got a texture I could use somewhere for that shield...

@bd: I could try, yeah.

@Takh: A javelineer would have different animations to a stone thrower...

 

[Mithadan]

Which guy is that one?

Maybe to avoid the "sunny-side up" look, put the bronze boss on a red shield and the iron boss on a white shield?

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I just discovered the units in your spoiler! Wow, woo-hoo! Great stuff. One comment on the Sherdan Skirmisher and Assyrian Spearman: I'm not they should have solid, one piece cuirasses, especially out of grey metal (iron?). Lamellar or scale (iron) for the Assyrian, and wide, horizontal leather bands/strips (leather) for the Sherdan I think would be best. My two cents, anyway.