Yumi Samurai

[zenspiderz]

Yumi Samurai

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My 5th unit creation inspired by documentary about kyudo which the samurai martial art of archery. The bow used by samurai was as superior over other bows as the katana was over other swords. This bow called the yumi was a compound recurve longbow for maximum power, uniquely the arrow position was about 1/3rd the way up lenght of bow, making the bow asymetrical, short at bottom but very long on top. This had the effect of improving dispersion of shock waves from firing the bow as well as making it practical when firing from horseback (not possible with any other longbow).

This model is less than 900 polys, has 2 textures one 128 and the other 32, has shadered fx version, button, team colour, blood effects, custom animations, and custom arrow effect.

the model shoots with bow AND fights with katana.

Enjoy

 

[Acronym2]

I like this unit, but I find your background on the bow very interesting. Especially the part about the 1/3 asymetry. (Once again, I say that one can learn quite alot here about history while working on Civ IV projects.)

 

[GeoModder]

That longbow combines well with the first strikes the Samurai unit has. Thanks, zenspiderz.

 

[zenspiderz]

That longbow combines well with the first strikes the Samurai unit has. Thanks, zenspiderz.

Yes this model could be used as a straight replacement of the firaxis samurai, keeping same stats. Might be an idea tho to change its class from melee to archer, the standard samurai is a maceman replacement. Togu would still get bonus promos on it as he is protective as well as aggressive, and for those that play earth maps japan's UU would then become more powerful than neighbouring chinese UU the cho-ku-no. The strenght 6 cho-ku-no would not benefit from its 50% melee bonus if the strenght 8 samurai was classed as an archery unit rather than melee.

In my mod multiple uus are possible so i might use the model as a longbow replacement. Make it stronger especially for field use but make it more expensive and require iron and the ironworking tech.

To replace mace man for japan i will have a no-dachi samurai, samurai armed with a very long 2 handed katana like sword.

 

[The_J]

That looks really great .

I hope, that there's a good way to add it to HotK (i guess a Samurai doesn't really fit in it, but the style does).

 

[ambrox62]

the model shoots with bow

Hi zenspiderz,
first of all congratulations for this wonderful unit

I've a question for you:
although I haven't tried this unit in game, looking at pictures in the first post, it seems that the bowstring in the game stays standstill during the combat animation, unlike what we see in the first image not taken from the game. Do you (or anyone else) confirm this?
I'm asking this because I have a same problem with a new unit I'm working on

 

[zenspiderz]

Hi zenspiderz,
first of all congratulations for this wonderful unit

I've a question for you:
although I haven't tried this unit in game, looking at pictures in the first post, it seems that the bowstring in the game stays standstill during the combat animation, unlike what we see in the first image not taken from the game. Do you (or anyone else) confirm this?
I'm asking this because I have a same problem with a new unit I'm working on

Oh dear i think you are right. I will try and fix it when i have time.

 

[ambrox62]

Well, write here how you'll fix it because I failed this task...

 

[zenspiderz]

Well, write here how you'll fix it because I failed this task...

of course i will do that. But it is funny that the bow works as it should in nifskope but not in the game. The bow and string deform under the influence of two bones; the string master and bow master. So one possible source of this problem is that the influence of the bones on the bow skin is somehow broken but then it shouldn't work in nifskope either. Puzzeling.

 

[The Capo]

Did you ever try to make the mounted Samurai that uses both a bow and a sword?

 

[achilleszero]

So one possible source of this problem is that the influence of the bones on the bow skin is somehow broken but then it shouldn't work in nifskope either. Puzzeling.

Check the skin partition of the bow. Make sure you are using the right one for it. If you dont, some times animations will work in nifskope but not in game.

 

[Flying Pig]

This is definitly one of my favourite units out there

 

[zenspiderz]

Did you ever try to make the mounted Samurai that uses both a bow and a sword?

Not yet. It is high on my 'to do' list but i have very little time to make units at the moment. If i get some time i will probably make some ethnic horse-archers first just to get the hang of mounted units before trying to make mounted archery units that also has a melee attack.

 

[zenspiderz]

Check the skin partition of the bow. Make sure you are using the right one for it. If you dont, some times animations will work in nifskope but not in game.

Yeah i guess it is something to do with skin partition, not sure how i can check it tho or how to fix it if it is broken.

 

[ambrox62]

Check the skin partition of the bow.

Just today I've made this check, also redoing copy-paste from the original nif to the new one, but it still doesn't work ingame. Clearly there is something else to check, but for me and for now it is unknown.

 

[zenspiderz]

Just today i had a little spare time and spent it fiddling with the partitions of the bow to try and make it work. Waste of time; it is still broken. i think my best chance of fixing the bow is to make the bow again from scratch... It is SO annoying these kind of partition problems it really puts me off from spending time on model making.

 

[ambrox62]

It is SO annoying these kind of partition problems it really puts me off from spending time on model making.

Zen, the bow rope is a poor detail compared to the unit as a whole. I pointed the finger on this detail because I'm a meticolous man and because I spent lots of time without fixing it. But, at the end, it doesn't worth the abandon of model making.
You made great units, thus go ahead and don't care about stupid bow ropes!

 

[zenspiderz]

Zen, the bow rope is a poor detail compared to the unit as a whole. I pointed the finger on this detail because I'm a meticolous man and because I spent lots of time without fixing it. But, at the end, it doesn't worth the abandon of model making.
You made great units, thus go ahead and don't care about stupid bow ropes!

I am a meticulous person too so it really bugs me that this unit should have this problem. I am really glad you pointed the problem out to me so i could have a chance of fixing it. I will try and keep making units, but i really don't have much time these days. I have a very long list of units i want to make but i think if i keep getting these partition glitches it will take forever to make them all...

Maybe i should try to make units from scratch rather than borrow and modify parts of existing models and then copy/paste the bits together to save time... Maybe the extra time spent making them from scratch would save me the vast amounts of time spent trying to fix bizzarre partition problems...

I made the yumi bow by importing the firaxis longbow into blender and then modifing its shape to make it like a yumi. Maybe it would be better to just make the bow in blender from scratch.

 

[ambrox62]

Just to report a modding experience, few days ago I released a set of composite archers.
At first I imported the babylonian comp bow into blender to modify it, then exported it into a vanilla archer nif, but I got the rope standstill problem.
After that, I imported the babylonian comp bow directly into the vanilla archer, but I got the rope standstill problem again.
Then I made several attempts moving bows from a nif to another unsuccessfully.
At the end I modified the chinese bow directly into the chinese nif using nifscope, in order to obtain a comp bow, and finally it worked.

Now I have the same problem with my next chariot archer, but I've decided to let it. Because it works into nifscope but not in game, I suspect that it depends from a unknown detail instead of to be a structural fault, thus I don't want to waste time on it again.

 

[achilleszero]

Guys, its a skin problem like I said. Look I fixed it (only included nif and dds files):


View attachment Fixed_Yumi.zip

There were several problems with the unit. First off when I tried to load it in Scene viewer, it crashed immediately. So that is a good indication that there is something fowled up, and most of the time it is with the skin when that happens. But actually there was a second problem also causing crash. For your FX version you had a fog texture index property assigned for some reason, so I deleted that and it loaded. But still the yumi bow was either invisible or completely shredded looking. Not unlike the problem Ambrox was having with his bronze age spearman's skin. So a simple import and re-export with Max and all is well now. Also I fixed the gloss and environment lights on both models.

One other problem:

That occurs for most of Kf's when I tried to attatch them in nifskope, and wont proceed any further. What that usually means is that there are extraneous floating transform interpolaters in the kf. Usually when you add a custom interpolator to a control node and then dont delete the old one. Maybe I have a different version of nifskope. Dont know if its hurting anything but it wouldnt hurt to clean them up.