Unit Graphics 2

[Mark_Everson]

Pretty Cool! That's a great approach. I worry a bit that the colors might blend in too much on some types of terrain, but they are a solid effort that I hope works out.

I've got one question though. . . Why all the detailed siege engine types? I thought we were just going to go with a generic siege engines element.

Do you think you know enough to throw together some econ specials images? I heard from sas recently, and he may be coming back. But just in case. . . They don't need to be good, just recognizable. The specials I'm going to put back in are gold, tin, salt, and cloth. See the Map Graphics Thread part III if you're interested.

[LDiCesare]

I made several images in order to get at least one which would look cool. We will probably only use one or two, but changing image as siege engines become better is also what I had in mind.
The ballista is quite nice in game, the others are too grey and tend to blend in too much in the background, so I'll probably use the ballista image only.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Laurent, good idea. I think I have enough images for the econ specials that I can get by for now BTW. I got them from Gar's old work. They aren't perfect, but will do for now. I'm most of the way through getting specials hooked up through xml, and the economy can use them as before. Once I've got the images going, I'll see what I can do for merchants.

[Mark_Everson]

This is in reply to targon's question in the guestbook as to what we need for art. . . He also has some comments on graphics from that thread that he'll hopefully post here shortly.

Two things we need are a horse archer unit for the Attila scenario, and an ancient mediterranean merchant/transport ship circa the Roman republic.

Any other unit needs Laurent?

There are also the economic specials icons I requested in the post above.

Lee, and Vovan, how about some art for the respective GUIs you guys are working on? Should we start a separate thread on graphics for GUIs? The concerns are quite different from both units and tiles. Anyone who has the first big request in the general GUI area could start the General GUI Art thread.

[targon]

Reposted from guestbook thread, sorry for cross-posting
Hey, people, I'm new here, so don't feel shy to blame on my pesky questions.
In fact, I'm artist from the Stella Polaris team but this job seems to be not err... dense, especialy without a line of published code or documentation. So some people suggested me to look at Clash, as you may need some more graphics. OK, Clash seems to even work, has website, on-line docs and so on. It gives completely new, refreshing feeling.
So let me ask several questions about the Clash:
Q1) Why you scare people with Window$ download links while the game is in fact cross-platform?
Q2) You're tied with really slow bytecode language, Java (mention about languages other than Lisp was censored), so Clash manages to "brake" even on fast mashines. So what about some speed-ups (like native compiling etc)?
Q3) Does the game closely tied with ancient theme or it's only the current state?

Q4) If you need some graphics, please suggest that kind of and what size. Current game tiles, particulary unit sprites, are somewhat small. Some increase, say 150%, will surely inprove overall game outlook and reduce headashe due to manipulating microscopic tokens on modern big monitors.
Q5) Do you plan to employ graphics other than tiles, for example splash screens, wonders, gamecyclopedia etc?
I've got some suggestions on these topics in the guestbook, thanks to their respective authors

[targon]

BTW, I'll be surely in disperate need of some historical reconstructions, most notably, equipment and ammunition of these ancient guys. Suggestions (no printed books please unless you're sure this book is available in Russia) are welcome.

[vovan]

Originally posted by targon
BTW, I'll be surely in disperate need of some historical reconstructions, most notably, equipment and ammunition of these ancient guys. Suggestions (no printed books please unless you're sure this book is available in Russia) are welcome.

That might prove a little hard to find... But I am sure that some internet research should bring up some detailed results.

[Mark_Everson]

Here are some image sources I turned up in a quickie web search:

Pictures of Painted 15MM miniatures
There are Hun and Mongol horse archers and a wealth of other military figurines. The guys seem to know their stuff, based upon my admittedly limited knowledge of such things.

There are a couple of hunnish horse archers to the left in this image

Here is a link to a pic and description of a Roman Merchant Ship

Several more ancient ship pix here

That should be enough to get you going targon!

[vovan]

Well, I have finally gotten to posting the list of links I found.

Horse Archers:

http://www.columbiagames.com/Support/WizardKings/WizardKingsBestiary/armybarbarians/barbariansimages/Barbarians-HORSEBOW.gif

http://www.graham.day.dsl.pipex.com/100war_archer2.gif - This guy is kind of more modern than we need - circa 1300s AD

http://www.kushan.org/pictures/archer.jpg

http://www.horsearchery.com/ - This site is dedicated to modern horse archery. But it has some history and pictures. It has very detailed pictures of bows (for sale ) which you might find useful. Check out the history and pictures sections

The images below are horse archers as represented in other games:
http://stronghold.heavengames.com/sc...orsearcher.png - Stronghold
http://hot.ee/empires/Aoe/yksused/horse_archer.gif - AoE

---

Ships:

http://www.columbiagames.com/Support/WizardKings/WizardKingsBestiary/armybarbarians/barbariansimages/Barbarians-VIKING.gif

The ship above isn't at all mediterranean - it is a viking-style ship, but I fugre you could use that pic, too

http://www.livius.org/ba-bd/batavians/ship.jpg - Roman war-ship reconstruction
http://www.nabataea.net/Roman%20Trade%20Ship.jpg - A small but very nice pic of a roman trade ship
http://www.nabataea.net/sailing.html - the article on ancient ships, from which the above picture was taken. It has more pics, and some nice historical summaries.
http://www.unc.edu/courses/rometech/.../merch_03.html - a schematic depiction of roman merchant ships. Might not be very useful, but take a peek any way.
http://www.guineahobbies.com/IMAGENE...MO/MANT770.gif - Roman War Galley model very detailed and good-looking.
http://www.abc.se/~m10354/bld/shiptype.htm - a basic list of ancient ship types with small descriptions. You have your roman mercahnts, egyptian ships, triremes, junks, and other junk.


That seems to be about it for now.

[targon]

Wow, thanks a lot. The most of "primitive" archer info I've found was about Mongolian tradition, that isn't OK for the Atilla scenario, IMHO. Gunns were quite different form the later mongolian hordes.

[targon]

OK, now I have something horse-like. That "noble animals" proved to be a little hell to model. BTW, that kind of horses was in use in Atilla's army ("traditional" European, mustang-like, steppe kinds, Arabian kinds etc.)? I may figure out basic equipment schematics from your pics, I think, but horse "from-factor" may be other artist's imagination.
There is the pic. No archer yet.
Nobody laughing!

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by targon
Wow, thanks a lot. The most of "primitive" archer info I've found was about Mongolian tradition, that isn't OK for the Atilla scenario, IMHO. Gunns were quite different form the later mongolian hordes.

What do you mean exaclty? When they were first used or what?

[targon]

Oh, I'm really sorry!
It was a typo, I've meant Huns. Sorry, but in Russian they are named as "Gunn" (singular, "u" is pronounsed as open, "oo" I think)

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by targon
OK, now I have something horse-like. That "noble animals" proved to be a little hell to model. BTW, that kind of horses was in use in Atilla's army ("traditional" European, mustang-like, steppe kinds, Arabian kinds etc.)?

Hi targon, thanks for the sample horse! Is it done based on a mesh, or drawn by hand? The head looks a little big to me, but I don't have much experience with horses, so I could be wrong.

I would guess steppe ponies like the Mongols had for the Huns, but I really don't know for sure. If in doubt you could just go by the look of the horses in the more athoritative-seeming images. We'll probably at least 'European' and steppe horse types eventually, and are not really picky about the graphics at this stage.

When do we get to see one with an archer?

[vovan]

Targon, that is a very nice horse. I kind of don't agree with Mark - I think its head is fine. Though it seems that the rump is kind of ... big.

Now, I have found a web-ste, where the folks are making an anatomically correct 3-D model of a horse, and are describing it in some detail:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~simmons/Equus/equus.html

I have no idea if that would help you any, because I am about as good at computer graphics as a balet dancer in Java programming, but I hope it does. Though I do agree with Mark that I would rather see an archer on it before it being 100% anatomically correct.