What art does FF need?

[WarKirby]

Ok, it's up. yaaaay: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12313

XML for using it:

artDefine (remember to change the file path)

Spoiler :

		<UnitArtInfo>
            <Type>ART_DEF_UNIT_ASSASSIN_CUALLI</Type>
            <Button>Art/Interface/Buttons/Units/Assassin.dds</Button>
            <fScale>0.46</fScale>
            <fInterfaceScale>1</fInterfaceScale>
            <bActAsLand>0</bActAsLand>
            <bActAsAir>0</bActAsAir>
            <NIF>Art/Custom/CualliAssassin/cualliAssassin.nif</NIF>
            <KFM>Art/Units/Charlemagne_LightSwordsman/LightSwordsman.kfm</KFM>
            <ShadowDef>
                <ShadowNIF>Art/Units/01_UnitShadows/UnitShadow.nif</ShadowNIF>
                <ShadowAttachNode>BIP Pelvis</ShadowAttachNode>
                <fShadowScale>1</fShadowScale>
            </ShadowDef>
                <fBattleDistance>0.35</fBattleDistance>
                <fRangedDeathTime>0.31</fRangedDeathTime>
                <bActAsRanged>0</bActAsRanged>
                <TrainSound>AS2D_UNIT_BUILD_UNIT</TrainSound>
            <AudioRunSounds>
                <AudioRunTypeLoop/>
                <AudioRunTypeEnd/>
            </AudioRunSounds>
        </UnitArtInfo>

ArtStyleTypeInfo

Spoiler :

<StyleUnit>
					<UnitType>UNIT_ASSASSIN</UnitType>
					<UnitMeshGroup>
						<EarlyArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_ASSASSIN_CUALLI</EarlyArtDefineTag>
						<LateArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_ASSASSIN_CUALLI</LateArtDefineTag>
						<MiddleArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_UNIT_ASSASSIN_CUALLI</MiddleArtDefineTag>
					</UnitMeshGroup>
				</StyleUnit>

In this project, I learned

1. Grafting components onto a model (the tail)
2. Restructuring UVs (the arms used to have seperate textures)
3. A lot more about managing selections in photoshop
4. That I can apparently just drop both parts (body and tail) in nifscope and they somehow work.
5. That trying to use a different animation set fails horribly, for reasons I don't understand. I wanted to use the Reveller animations



So, what other things does FF have needing done?

 

[Valkrionn]

Well, if you don't mind I could use a few animals...

Namely, a sabertooth, and a hypogriff... I HAD a sabertooth, but I broke the animations somehow. Both should be relatively simple, as the hypogriff just needs to be a griffon with a horse's rear...

 

[WarKirby]

I'll give it a shot, can't promise more than that. Do you have an idea of how these things should look?

I generally envision the sabretooth as a tiger retextured to look lion-ish, with long tusk/fangs. Possible issue there, is that lions and tigers have a different animation set. So I'll have to see how that goes.

Hippogriff sounds easy, though I'm not sure how horse legs will look with it's standard animations. only one way to find out, I guess.

 

[Valkrionn]

Really, with my sabertooth all I did was elongate the body of a lion and add fangs. The elongation broke the animations though, and I never got around to fixing it.
Anything you'd like to make is fine. Your descriptions are pretty much perfect.

 

[xienwolf]

animation files look for specific bone names, that is generally the main issue with trying to swap to another animation

 

[deadliver]

Looks cool man, keep up the good work!

 

[WarKirby]

Sabretooth tiger!: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12315

I haven't managed to test it ingame yet, but I'm fairly confident it will work. I set the shader correctly, and tested it with animations in nifscope.

It uses Panther animations, NOT lion.
Was planning to add stripes, but I wasn't happy with how it was turning out, so I ditched that idea. Hope this is sufficient.

 

[Valkrionn]

WHOO! That's awesome. Gonna have to add that now.

 

[Valkrionn]

The Lioness model was made by Supa, by the way.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

very nice Cualli assassin. Bravo

 

[WarKirby]

Hey valk, what color of horse rearend are you looking for?

Also, should I try to extend the griffon feathers to cover the leftover lion parts? A griffon is supposed to have the front body of an eagle, I think. But the current griffon model is only the head of an eagle, and lion everywhere else.

 

[Valkrionn]

Any color you'd like... Brown would probably be easiest.

If you'd like to, sure. I've always been bugged by that actually... supposed to have the legs and rear body of a lion, with an eagle fore body. With a hippogriff, it should be a horses rear, a lions front legs, and eagle for the rest.

 

[WarKirby]

wait, hippogriff is supposed to have lion, not eagle forelegs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippogriff

This seems to indicate it should be all eagle in the front..

 

[Valkrionn]

Yes, it's all eagle, but that would require quite a bit more work on your part. Since it's already got the lion legs, I figured you could leave those.

 

[WarKirby]

Any idea who made the griffon model?

It's a real hackjob, sloppily done. The lion head is STILL THERE under the eagle head. And even pokes out through it's mouth. The lion front paws are still there too, just under the eagle claws.

 

[Honor]

Oh, wow, awesome work WK!

 

[WarKirby]

thank you

haven't got a comment from vehem if he'll use it yet...

 

[WarKirby]

The hippogriff is going better than expected.

I cleaned up all the messes left behind by whoever made the griffin model. There's no lion head poking through it's mouth, or lion paws on it anywhere now. I also properly attached the Eagle head. It was previously floating off the body a bit. I guess the original artist figured nobody would notice. Probably noone did, until me !

Grafting the back end of the horse on was a nightmare
I made a real mess of the UV map trying to make it work, but it finally did. Just pretend the extra vertices aren't there. It's still a relatively low poly model.

I did my best to make the feathers and horse hair blend into each other. Though I could perhaps do better still. I keep everything nicely layered in photoshop.

Next thing I want to try is changing the color of the horse part. Shouldn't be difficult.

 

[Valkrionn]

Looks great!

 

[WarKirby]

I've uploaded another picture. I replaced the attachment in my previous post, so as not to waste space on the server.

Added some shadowing to the underside, and removed the horse tack, so it looks more natural. I'm having trouble changing the tone of the horse skin in a way that looks right, though.
How would you feel about it just remaining white?


going to bed now. will continue tomorrow *yawns*


Maybe this thread should be renamed Fall Further Art Team Blog