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Actually armor is not detached It's just that it's ready for new units mesh What kind of combination should it be ? I'll remove the armor with circled part, we thought it was the only variation of it that wasn't historical. Do you happen to have any other reference for the quiver ? I don't really understand how it is. I will fix halberds, I actually didn't know if it was a mix of halberds and spear or something else. Will remove the champron. They should have an helmet, i'll fix that. 12) You should enable glsl to see the water. However they will be replaced by square fields, see related poll.

Ah those are Maya shaders that the model wasn't using, thank you for pointing that out.Well I deleted those and exported... and the model now shows up in the Map Editor! Only problem is no texture is showing up. There's no error message: At least I'm one step closer.

That was the main reason why formations were disabled in A17. In A18, you can use a null formation to break formation so that you get the best of both worlds, depending on your playstyle (not that it solves the formations not working as intended).

What exactly are we referring to, extremely detailed graphics, or the painted aspect of those graphics? I imagine some artsy effects could be produced by shaders though I have no examples in mind. Drawings and voice overs aren't really technically challenging, the only thing there is needing artists to do the work (oh, and we would need campaigns implemented ) Do you mean background images derived from gameplay scenes? In fact, I would like to see something similar in at least one case: an actual rendered scene of the game for the graphics settings menu (to see how adjusting things affects quality) For that it might be handy to have a way to "export" a scene in 0 A.D. for later viewing with all the correct meshes, textures, materials, etc. Considering that series started in the 90s, it's not fair to expect "modern" level of graphics in those games, is it? By the way, you can get most of the changes in the HD edition for free, but by no means did they rewrite the whole game for modern hardware which would be required to even reach 0 A.D.'s level.

I suppose I'll present my idea to those that are interested, perhaps I can get an idea if what I'd like to do is too much for the engine or not. Thank you very much, I'd like to try importing a practice model using Maya if possible. I'll probably contact you soon about it.

Some new stuff for the mod Sorry Skhorn might take some time before your suggestions get in. However I plan to add all the eyecandy that was released on the subforum eyecandy. (So maybe you'll find some stuff )

Wildfiregames presents: 0AD's unit upgrade. -Why do you work on this upgrade when you should be working on pathfinder and performance improvements? -Please note that this upgrade has been done by an artist who hasn't any knowledge in programming. This upgrade has not taken away any precious work time to 0AD programming developers who continue to work on the needed pathfinder and performance improvements. -Why do you make this upgrade? For a number or reasons: Unit models are very old, around 6-7 years old. These new models are closer to today's industry standards. UV mapping and model proportions aren't ideal on the current models. The new ones have realistic human proportions and much better UV mapping. Old animations cannot be modified, only created from scratch. With the new models we can maintain the blender source files of the animations and modify them at will. Since we share the blender source files, the team and the community can make variations for their own model variations and still use the new armature. Old model's armature (skeleton) is very basic and limited. With the new model's armature we can achieve more detailed animations and are capable of basic prop animation -Are these new models already implemented? Do they work with the old animations? -No. The models are finished and ready to start animation production. We will remake all the unit animations and implement them when there are almost all of the required animations completed. However, the models are commited to the SVN version of the game with some test examples that you can check in the map editor. These examples and the models will be released in the next Alpha release (Alpha18) if you don't wan't to set up a SVN version. To check some unit examples in SVN, go to the map editor and in the object tab, search for all actors and filter by "newunit". Once selected click on "Switch to action viewer" to isolate the unit and zoom in. (please note these are just examples and they aren't final unit setups) -Do you have increased the number of unit variations of the game? -Yes, now there are non-armored unit variations, and armored unit variations with some differences. There are plans to add some more in the near future if time permits. -Can I make my own animations for my mod and use these new models? -Yes you can! Check at the bottom of this post to download the blender source file(s) of the armature and check the SVN newunit xmls example for setting up your own units. Don't forget to check the presentation video where there's a short explanation of how the armature works. -What is left to be done before I can play with these new models? -Since the unit heads have different size than the old ones, all the helmets in the game must be resized to fit them. Also as pointed a few lines above, we're going to upgrade all the animations to fit these new models. When these two tasks are complete or close to completion, we'll implement them and you'll be able to play 0AD with them. -Is there something I can make to help with this task? -Yes! If you are a skilled animator with experience in human models' animations you can open a thread in "Applications and contributions" subforum, tell us about yourself and show us some of your animation works! Male unit variations (Old Work in progress): (Click following images to enlarge) Female unit variations (Old work in progress): Download the blend file and start animating! Enjoy! New unit upgrade animation template.zip

(No, I'm not trying to 're-envision' how techs work in 0ad, don't worry!) A while ago, Pureon showcased some of the icons the art team had been working on (http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17025) and along with a selection of icons, he also displayed a Tech/Structure tree concept: I liked the idea (as did the commenters in that topic) and so I decided to attempt to implement it - with a little interpretation. After months of on/off development (mostly off than on) and various revisions, I have got it to a point where I'm happy to share it with the community. Here's a screenshot: A live interactable version can be found here: http://s06eye.co.uk/0ad/techtree-v2 And the code is on github here: https://github.com/s0600204/0ad-techtree-v2 Please note that this is no more finished than 0ad is. There are changes to come, efficiency improvements, appearance tweaks and such. But I thought I'd share my progress and get some (hopefully favourable) feedback. Enjoy! Update! It is now possible to see this in-game. See this post for details! Code Updates: 21st October : Tooltip positioning is better. 22nd October : Stats are now loaded from parent templates properly 23rd October : Tooltips now have the same descriptions used in-game; and for units and structures, attack and armour stats are shown where applicable. 3rd December : Three more community mods available for comparison, rewrite much of the data parsing code. 30th March : Big update to mods' simulation data, and modifications to permit aristeia's phase-pair techs

I discovered an old map of mine and figured I could release it as well For the interested: this map was based of real world heightmaps. I created it since I discovered that there were barely snow maps present and I wanted to get acknowledged with the snow biomes (especially the polar one) Install it like any other mod. map_Northern_Island (2).zip map_Northern_Island_SVN.zip

We have discussed this topic in a meeting already before I've started the implementation and I've posted all the relevant information here: http://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19119 There was no no disagreement so far. To sum it up: The new autobuilder is up and running, but currently runs with a trial license, which will run out in 41 days. We need a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials license which costs $545.47 according to the link posted in the topic. I need the activation key for the license, then I can enable it on the existing server.

I am very excited that formations will be back in A18. Unfortunately in the current state, formations are not quite there yet imo. The amazing thing about formations is that units can be moved long distances without looking a like a bunch of ants making a B-line to the nearest dropped ice cream cone. This is a huge bonus that will improve gameplay immensely!! However, the problem lies with attacking while in formation. When attacking (control + right click, right click, queued attacks with shift + right click), after every right click the units decide to reform which wastes movement (e.g. a unit decides to run away from his enemy to reform). This makes microing units with formations ‘on’ extremely impractical and even exploitable. Here’s an example why: One trick I use for micro is to pull back units which are being damaged. Any units that are ‘locked on’ to attack these damaged units will follow them into my melee or oncoming ranged attack. The correct response of my opponent in this situation is to counter this micro trick with a control + right click to reset his units to attack the nearest enemies. But if my opponent has formations on, my micro trick exploits my opponent even more because units waste movement (and thus attack) by reforming their formation with every control + right click. So, as far as I’m concerned formations are great until you decide to attack at which point they should be temporarily disabled for the selected group. Here’s the pseudo-code that I think might fix these issues: Input: Select group Input: Turn formation ON Engine: Scan for input Input: Attack (control + right click, right click, queued attacks with shift + right click) Engine: Disable formation of selected group (or enable non-formation attack behaviour) Engine: Perform attack(s) Engine: IF(Input == right click (move) { Re-enable formation Move selected group } The only useful exception to this might be if one wished to keep a pack of archers in a tight formation to deter flanking melee attack. In this case, we might amend the above pseudo-code by adding: IF(Stand ground behaviour = TRUE && Input: Attack) Skip formation disable (or enable non-formation attack behaviour), directly before the Engine: “Disable formation” step. The only caveat I can see to this is if disabling a formation causes units to move in any way, which would again waste movement. Is anyone else noticing this during attack micro? Thanks for reading Keep up the great work all !!

Your link doesn't work anymore unfortunately, if you drop by the forums, could you please update it ? I'm gathering all the eyecandy objects to include it in the eyecandy mod. So that mappers (if people still want to make maps, have all the sort of things they want.

@stanislas69 I mean instead of "open-top helmet + hair", there could be another variation that is "open top helmet + leather hat". Speaking of helmet, I am really looking forward to this one Another thing is that I noticed a older version of the shield still lying around the barrack building. Instead of the usual cylinder or soft bag arrow container we usually associate with quiver, Han period Chinese make it into some sort of boxy shape. The quiver is usually carried on the right hip (see below), so that the archer can draw a new arrow (with his right hand) easily. Alternately, the quiver can be carried on the back, see below: @niektb May I suggest make it into a champion unit? A sudden color change on promotion may look out of place (haven't tried it in game yet)

what happens if you a-move units in two seperate formations? only melee and only ranged, for example

I'd like it if we add several more actor entities/props that were a lot bigger and could be used to plot, say, 20 bushes, more water lillies or about half a screen of grass at once. Since the game currently struggles with rendering many small entities rather than few big ones, it could be used to optimize our actor rendering and thus allow us to make our maps better. I'd like to have some "forest undergrowth" stuff too like they had in AoE 3, with some flowers, bushes, small trees perhaps added. Note that for efficiency it'd have to be a single mesh, not several props. Should I make a task for this?

Also, some very rough size comparison between a small Han shield, large Han shield and a Roman Scutum. The center picture is taken from a downward angle so the shield appears a bit smaller than it really,but average ancient Chinese might be shorter than an average modern male, so I guess that even out.

It's not even a GUI change, you can already plop buildings form other buildings simply if you add those to the templates. And iirc it's extremely easy to have them self-construct but I can't recall how I did it last time. Anyway the idea sounds pretty cool so I say go ahead Exporting 3D models can be slightly tricky, yes. And that does look like you lost the UVs. By the way, the engine: -only handles triangles and single-faced polygons (so you have to do double-faced ones yourself) -only handles "smooth" rendering: to have sharp angles, you need to split polygons (effectively doubling the vertices) -can handle up to 4 textures (I think it's 4 though that can be modded to be higher, perhaps you'd have to change C++) for whatever you might need - shaders currently use "diffuse, specular, normal, AO" but it could be something else entirely. -can handle basically any number of polygons per unit that you would require. The biggest slowdown right now is that we don't instance so it's rendering several small units that is really costly. -cannot handle fancy transparency effect such as distortion through glass or stuffs like that. -has only one water plane.

Quick review on the SVN: 1) Armour with circled part is ahistorical. 2) This armour with 'detached' sleeve should be replaced with other armour. 3) Quiver should be on the right hip (common practice), or on the back (found on some Han mural). Also chech #1 of this thread on the Han quiver design. Reference Reference 2 4) (If have time) This two types of hat and helmet can be combined into a new one, for added variation. 5) Some advanced swordsman infantry are unarmoured. 6) Refer to my first post, I don't think champron are used by the Han cavalry. Note: There are champron recorded in Western Han text, we just don't know what it look like... (Note to self) Maybe I should go looking for Han period horse halters/birdles/saddle design. 7) I always thought this outfit is for champion unit? 8) Older version of the halberds are still present on some unit. 9) Seemingly all cavalry are using halberd ? No spear? 10) Spear and halberd should be roughly the same length. 11) Lack of helmet even for (some) advanced and elite cavalry unit. 12) I believe this is still WIP...but why rounded farm?

Apparently this validation error is produced by the multiple "polygons" elements inside "mesh":

Also have a look here http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/ExportingErrors I tried as well as other artist to give general fixes

To be clear, 0 A.D. the game is the combination of an engine (Pyrogenesis) and one or more mods. Many of the things you are asking about could actually be handled by modifying existing scripts or writing new ones, with a simple text editor if you know or learn JavaScript (distinct from modifying the engine which is written in C++, although they are rather closely coupled at this point) Loose guideline is that things like rendering and gameplay components where performance is critical are implemented in the engine; the rest of the gameplay logic is scripted in the mod(s). GUI engine is in C++, the GUI pages you see are defined in scripts/XML. Here's where I have to point those who are curious about modding 0 A.D. for the first time 0 A.D. Modding Guide It can lead you to answers for a lot of other questions. I would say yes, with caveats. Most units in game rotate instantly, appearing to turn is only a graphical interpolation (it has no effect on gameplay) and they really just point toward their target all the time. We do have a special unit motion for flying things, I suppose could be adapted to ground units as well, but it has no pathfinding per se. It's implemented as a mod script, overriding the default movement. However, I would really like these parameters to become part of the basic low-level unit motion. As you say, things like siege weapons, ships, and even charging cavalry can't instantly turn or stop. All things to consider in the pathfinder design. This is definitely possible, with the right modifications to UnitAI and the Attack component. It should be possible to have units that enter the Attacking state and remain there until ordered to stop or e.g. fuel runs out. Damage could be determined by having a range that is the length of the beam, find entities that enter that range, then filter them out if they're not in the actual path of the beam - no idea how severe an impact this would have on performance though. If there are a bunch of these proposed units, then you might want engine modifications to handle it more efficiently. Control might be tricky, there is no way to just point a unit in some direction without ordering them, unless we add some kind of "turn" control, this all depends on how you envision it behaving. Visually, I think the particle system may already be adequate for this, especially for flamethrowers (the flame would be a prop, selected by the attack state in UnitAI, nothing to do with existing ranged attacks that function quite differently), I'm not as sure about e.g. laser beams. That sounds like mostly a GUI change, though building without workers would require some script modding (if you do require workers, it's easier, just need to search for some to assign the task). Nothing special needed from the engine though, AFAIK. They already do, notice the dirt, mud, or stone that appears where buildings are placed? You would have to be more precise about what you want, it will always be "possible", but maybe not easily or efficiently without some other changes. agentx's work on AI building placement could be relevant there, see Urban Development

I'm not entirely sure how to actually implement something like that, but I guess something like placing adjacent buildings could work. (Maybe automating that to search for some free space, but that might end up with those entities blocking each other due to bad placement) Only being able to build in some territory is just a template setting. Roman Army Camps can even be constructed in enemy territory. Same for units producing other units, some heroes (a Mauryan and a Persian) and some ships already do that. Doable if you place those crystals unconditionally, or if some logic is added to check if some player is that civ/faction and only spawn it in that case. Something that might also work for this is what is currently done with Loot where the player destroying an entity gets some resources from it. What should happen if a player has no energy anymore? Should units just stop, and when/how can they be reactivated? Sounds like an interesting project.

Yeah, turn lengths are hard coded right now, 500ms in multiplayer games and 200ms in single player games. The reason for the longer multiplayer time is simple, network latency It's not a correct solution though, because latency will typically be much less than 500ms and sometimes more, so the game should adjust to the actual conditions (this feature request is buried here) Also, please start a new topic next time, this isn't a general discussion topic but a specific (invalid) bug report.

Those walls will be release as a standalone, in my eyecandy mod, feel free to use them along with the game, it shouldn't cause any desynchs since i didn't modify actors. https://github.com/0ADMods/eyecandy

Graffic style like these would be great:

We also do know that there were public storerooms of weapons from sources like Herodotus, who mentions that the Lydian King, Croesus, locked the weapons storerooms after hearing a prophesy that his son would be killed by an iron spear.