Unit Graphics 2

[LDiCesare]

On kinds of horses:
The huns should ride something like a mustang or pony.
Arabian horses are very very late, specially-bred individuals. I doubt the current pur-sangs (pure blood) or anything like them were ever used in warfare.
Chariots were drawn by small horses or ponies, early war horses were also ponies or mustangs, and it is only with agriculture and war-horse breeding that we got big destriers in the middle ages (which look more like a percheron than an Arabian).

In terms of bows, it could be worth noting that huns, mongols, and, generally speaking, all people inheriting these weapons from the steppes used composite bows (small, double curvature), whereas Europeans used single-curvature bows (slightly bigger, less efficient).

[targon]

OK, things looks like that "pony", along with its archer, need some general overhaul and possible remodeling. Yes, it's 3D mesh model, so modeling and texturing are 99% of the work, while actualy "drawing" is trivial.
In meantime, I created something resembling Roman trade ship, based on your references. I think it's ~50% complete; I need to retexture it (create some plank edges, for example; bump mapping would be nice, IMO) and add some details (ropes and small elements). I'm aware that 90% of details will be lost during downsampling, but this model may be used for some other works (various splash screens, info pages etc.) in the future.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi targon, the ship looks Great! Maybe we can use it in the Merchant interface when it gets going. Any idea how it would scale down to unit image size?

Gotta Run,

Mark

[targon]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Any idea how it would scale down to unit image size?

Here is the above picture after scaling down to 40x39 and "sharpening". Looks not particulary good, IMO. Suggestions:
- scale to a bit larger size
- trace after rendering and downsize vector image, then rasterize
- use more contrast colors
- tweak lighting
- touch up after downsampling. A little facelift sometimes does wonders.
And, BTW, this ship still isn't complete.

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Targon! Its not great, but it looks better than I'd feared! If there is something you can do fast to make it look better small, it'd be great. I think at least short-term we're stuck with the existing spec.

[targon]

Roman trade boat, work in progress

OK, I've not a lot of spare time last day, so boat is now say, 55% complete. Namely, some bump mapping is available. I think that we'll need a bit more detailed model, with some ropes and small details, for use in the future. Then (I hope today) I'll downsample it to your favorite size and toy around a little so tile will be less atoganizing.
Here is a sample rendering of the current state: (see below)
P.S. I'll have enough time to do something with horse archer not until this weekend, I fear. Organics modeling is somewhat more time-consuming.

[Mark_Everson]

Looks Great Targon! And thanks for working on the horse archer too, I'm looking forward to it!

[targon]

Roman trade boat, saga continues

Here is the boat with some ropes added. I know that any mariner would kill me for amount of mistakes I've made, but I tried to grok the best I can from reference pictures posted above.

[targon]

Roman trade boat, sample tile

OK, now less funny stuff. I've rendered the above picture for 40x50 viewport with abusive antialiasing settings (33 oversampling iterations or so). Don't beat me.

[Mark_Everson]

I think both of them look quite good for this stage of development! I agree that the small one is rather washed out, but it is useable on a temporary basis even at this stage since its clearly a merchant vessel and is easily distinguished from the trireme.

Who cares what mariners think !

You can sharpen up the smaller one as practical. Another idea occurs to me that if you don't like doing that, we might get another artist to take the small images that you generate with the aggressive antialiasing and sharpen them up. Perhaps if we posted your excellent large boat and the small one in some of the creation forums and see if anyone is interested. That would free you to do the stuff you most enjoy! I'll wait to see what you want to do on this idea.

Good stuff!

[targon]

Hun horse archer, work in progress

As usual, weekend proved to be somewhat less than it seemed to be, so Hun archer isn't complete. Some vital parts are still missing, while others need little overhaul. But I decided to post it anyway, so you couldn't think I'm so lazy...

[Mark_Everson]

Lookin' good so far Targon!

I hope it will be a lot easier on you once you have the horseman done once to change him in various ways! I'm looking forward to seeing how the little one turns out also!

[vovan]

Although the horse's gone bald, the model looks pretty nice.

[targon]

vovansim, hair rendering is one of the most painful things I know of. Just count all these darned hairs. They need to be self-shaded with light mapping in order to look any realistic, BTW. I'll include hairs anyway at some final stage, but I think that archer face and right hand (very interesting gesture, it's hard to capture) are primary targets, along with patchgrid alignment.

[targon]

BTW, can anyone give me a clue about harness type used by huns, especialy did they employ saddle and stirrups or not. I know that horse archery w/o stirrups isn't any pleasing thing, but...