VIDEO/GRAPHICS: Lets put LStanley to work! ;)

[Locutus]

We have a new 3D graphics artist in town: LStanley (see: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...50#post3413750). Let's figure out what we want him to do (and what he wants to do himself, of course). This is what I came up with in a few minutes:

1) A new Siege Tower unit or some other ancient siege warfare unit. This is needed for the Alexander the Great v1.5 scenario where currently AoE graphics are being used, which could cause some legal problems. I don't have any particular demands in this area, as long as it looks sufficiently different from the exsting (CtP2) Catapult.

2) Some kind of new or additional intro movie. It could be as little as just a static Apolyton logo or something like that, or it could be a completely new intro movie with everything on it. The latter would take a lot of time and effort of course, might not be the best way to spend LStanley energy.

3) Movie victory/defeat movies. Currently there is only 1 movie for each victory type and they are all set in the far future. It's a bit silly to see War Walkers and the like when you've won the game in 500 BC...

4) Personally I wouldn't mind revising the wonder list and add some new ones, but I'm not sure if everyone would be happy with such gameplay changes. If we were to decide to do such a thing, new movies would of course be required.

5) Maybe add a very new terrain types, like 'Forested Hill', 'Open Woodland', etc? Would probably require a bit of work in the code itself to incorporate in the game though...

So, what do others think about these things: are they good ideas, what should be changed, what should have priority? Also, what other ideas can be added to this list?

[LStanley]

for the siege tower...
I'll make some images at the axonometric views (4) one for each direction

some animated images for the battle thing... what format do you want them rendered in? or do you want a series of bmps? how are they implemented? as a gif?

and then the movement animated images.
Am I correct to assume that the file size dimensions cannot exceed 160x120 (library image & build queue), 96x72 (battle images and world images *ANIMATED*), 32x24 and 24x18 (still images for unit selector thingie on the user interface)?

[LStanley]

Just the model... no textures or renders or much yet...

I'm gonna detail the wheels out a little bit yet just so its a LITTLE prettier

I'm gonna animate people on the inside too...

or do you think that would look bad after its put on the game? cause I think I remember the AoE one not having people in it

but this is <30 mins work

[Locutus]

I could tell you everything I know but it's easier for both of us to just tell you where I got it from: http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?id...reviews&cat=54

That's for the animated images. For the still images, yes, you're right about the sizes. Also, they have to be 16-bit uncompressed TGA files.

You may also want to download this file: http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?id...reviews&cat=39 -- it contains (among other things) the blank backgrounds used for all still unit images.

[Martin Gühmann]

Actual you need five images for one unit, forth, back, back-right (or back-left I don't know wich one you need), right and right-forth, the missing three directions are mirrored I don't know if the sprite format can contain images for all eight directions.

Each image has an tranperancy mask also called alpha channel and there are also shaddow images, if you work with the sprite make tool you can find in the Apolyton directory. I advice the download anyway to get familiar with the game's needs. However the raw images for the sprites can be bigger then the images nomally used, that can be adjusted in the given spritemaker script, but if I remember correctly the size is limited to 255x255 pixels. Sprite raw images are in tiff format (*.tif) 24bit uncompressed. These images are compiled by the spritemake tool to a sprite. There are sprites for goods, cities, units and special effects. And in addition the spritemake tool can create projectile sprite which aren't used in the game. To view compiled sprites you can use Martin's sprite editor.

The images for the Great Libary and the rest of the GUI are targa (*.tga) images 16 bit uncompressed.

Well another graphics request I have is a decent picture for the dye good which I grapped from a bad Civ3 prescreenshot, because of possible copy-right issures and also for a better graphic.

Another thing you should do is to explore the Apolyton directory to get some other tools to explore the CTP2 graphics, you need Martin's zfs-reader to explore the *.zfs files and his Tileedit to explore the *.til files which conatian the terrain graphics.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Wow, as we say in the Netherlands, you're not gonna let any grass grow over this, are you?

Looks excellent

Don't know how it would look with people on the inside. As stand-alone unit it would probably look extremely cool, but none of the other CtP units have that kind of detail. I guess it would be worth a shot...

[LStanley]

textures:

[LStanley]

animation:

(just 1 view...)

I'd appreciate comments on shadows, bumpyness, realness, etc. I'm not worried about the camera angle yet

(yeah I know I left the wheels not rotating... I'm gonna re-do that part ) I just wanted to update)

[Ekmek]

LStanley

If you want to deal with tiles, I'd like help on taking care of the kelp tiles and maybe re-doing the tile-improvements, most of my stuff is from other gameas and maybe someday people would like to add my terrain graphics as part of the patch

its in my sig

[LStanley]

Those tiles are perdy sweet...



here's the blob of animated images for attacks.. stills jpg's w/o a bottom shadow... I just remembered that part.. urgh.. one thing after another I tell you...

[Locutus]

It's looking very sweet

Originally posted by E
If you want to deal with tiles, I'd like help on taking care of the kelp tiles and maybe re-doing the tile-improvements, most of my stuff is from other gameas and maybe someday people would like to add my terrain graphics as part of the patch

Which reminds me, somewhere near the bottom of my to-do list is the item "re-code map generation". I have a basic algorithm already but need to code it in C++ (after I figured how the current system works, for one thing).

In my new model I need a new terrain type: a Trench which is only a single tile deep and goes from Shallow to Deep Water, as in CtP1 (see pic, green). The Big Mc did some nice work in this area for the default tile set, but his trench goes from Deep Water to Deep Water, which doesn't actually really exist anywhere on Earth AFAIK (from Deep to Very Deep Water does exist though, which would also be nice to have if The Big Mc's Very Deep Water tile is also incorporated).

It would also be nice to have a Continental Rift which actually looks a like a rift and not an underwater river or something, and it would be nice if it were also a bit more impressive than the current tile. CtP1's rift is already much better (see pic, orange) but Earth's rifts tend to be pretty big, so it might be good to design a Rift that stretches in width over 2 or even 3 tiles.

But that's pretty low on the priority list for now, it may be a while before I get around to doing all that coding...

[Locutus]

Forgot the pic

[Lou Wigman]

I have always been a great fan of Hexagonian's Cradle mod. One of its weak points were its quite inappropriate graphics.

Where is Hexagonian these days. Is he still interested? Is LStanley at all interested in the Cradle MOD?

Is the source code "mob"at all interested in using Cradle as the base for the upcoming release?

I personally believe that a much greater amount of time should be spent pre BC and would love this to be incorporated rather rushing through eras without having the chance to fully implement the technologies/units that the era has to offer.

[LStanley]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
I have always been a great fan of Hexagonian's Cradle mod. One of its weak points were its quite inappropriate graphics.

Where is Hexagonian these days. Is he still interested? Is LStanley at all interested in the Cradle MOD?

Is the source code "mob"at all interested in using Cradle as the base for the upcoming release?

I personally believe that a much greater amount of time should be spent pre BC and would love this to be incorporated rather rushing through eras without having the chance to fully implement the technologies/units that the era has to offer.

if it'll run w/o a tremendous amount of bugs...

sure I'm up for it

[LStanley]

well... who wants to rip the shadows apart from the animated graphics??

I still have to create:

1 - the animation graphics for the movements (views 1,2,3,4,5

2 - "filler animations"... units that have a tiny bit of animation while they are inactive.. views 1,2,3,4,5

then render the side view in diff resolutions.. 3 renders

this shouldn't take TOO long... but ripping the images apart, saving them as tga's and then compiling the shields and stuff... urg.... too much for one lil unit I say

edit:

RE-VAMPING my attachment... hang on

[LStanley]

ok finals, minus shadows (removed and on seperate tga's) and the alpha channels generated...

all the files are 16bit tga's



they are all done... any volunteers to rip and generate the shadows?? and compile them as a sprite??

I'd upload em.. but it'll take forever to upload all the zips... each zip is 900k for each animation's 5 views... and there's 3 animations... 2.5 megs, so I'd have to send them as 15 different zips (total 2.5 meg)

[LStanley]

oh.. just remembered I gotta make death animation graphics... urgh

[The Big Mc]

if you need some help making a spr I will help you.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by LStanley
if it'll run w/o a tremendous amount of bugs...
sure I'm up for it

Cradle 1.30b appears to be very stable, based on my last two games.

Cradle is currently in the process of getting a MAJOR (and I mean major) upgrade. I'm not the one doing it. (But I am having a lot of input in the project)

Ask stankarp...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
Is the source code "mob"at all interested in using Cradle as the base for the upcoming release?

I love the Ancient era as well and obviously Cradle too, but I don't think Cradle would ever be the base of the Source Code Project (Tamerlin will probably go nuts at the very suggestion ) Civilization-style games are games that replay history, all of history -- that's the very core of the genre. The main goal of the Source Code Project is to strenghten the whole game, not cut out 2/3 of it altogether and expand on the 1/3 that is kept.

Cradle is indeed a great mod though and one of the main goals of the Source Code Project *is* to support mods and modmaking efforts, so if anything can be done to make Cradle better I'm sure it will get done. The great thing about CtP2 lies exactly here: you can switch between different mods and therefore between (vastly) different styles of play. Being able to choose between an extremely detailed ancient age, a little bit of every age, or playing entirely in the 20th century -- rather than having that choice made for you.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
if you need some help making a spr I will help you.

Hey, while you're working together (), maybe LStanley can finally help you with that War Walker you always wanted?

[The Big Mc]

Give the man a banana for that good idea ;D

And for any one interested I have been after the beta war walker since before the source code.

[LStanley]

Couple a post... sorry if spamming... but the files archive up to a few megs

[LStanley]

oh yeah.. 6 files in all... everything but the death animations... dunno how I wanna have the tower break yet....

you can delete the old file attachments if you guys wanna

[LStanley]

#3...

and yeah Big Mc... yer MORE than welcome to convert them to alphas and sprites..

[LStanley]

# 4

[LStanley]

# 5

[LStanley]

# 6

Comments are read and encouraged..

lemmie know whatcha think so far

[LStanley]

lol oops...

I left the old file I "updated" on my 8th or so post in the archive... its a 200k zip inside... just ignore it

who says anyone's perfect..

[The Big Mc]

Right I will rig up psp8 and see what I can do no promises however I like it when the shadows are independent for future reference. Any chance you can make me a mech model I got pictures of what it should look like.