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Since @wackyserious mentioned he wanted some textures I made a while back as a test, I'll leave them here. I thought originally that they differ a bit from the current artstyle of the game, but if you guys want to push it further, why not. I attached them to the thread. The process I used to get the textures was to model/sculpt high-res meshes, using a human model from makehuman (CC0), then creating PBR materials, and using a "expanded" 0AD mesh as the cage for the baking into the standard unit: This is the model from where it was baked: This below is the "cage mesh" which is just the regular 0AD unit mesh, but expanded to cover all the hi-res model. Then the "real" mesh where it was baked to is in the same pose as the highpoly, and should have exactly the same topology/polycount of the cage. The cage is using when baking to avoid having to deform the standard mesh, and to have a direction in baking rays that would look good on the final mesh: Finally this test was nice, but I thought it was just too much work to re-do all unit textures in this fashion, although as you can imagine, it has the best results: (good AO, perfect normals, much details) which by the way they're a bit innecesary on a RTS game (specially without LODs), even though it looks cool. I must say I followed up a bit this as a personal project to learn about the PBR workflow of blender 2.8 and test the realtime EEVEE engine. Good learning experience: If anyone interested I could upload the blender file with the setup for the baking showed in the first images, although textures and all, it is around 270 MB The textures attached are from the original tests I made, they are in different resolutions and also different render pases, they may be used for achieving different textures if edited too. (Normalmap green channel is already inverted, so it is 0AD-engine ready) Cheers! 0ad unit test hires.rar

If there were ever any cut scenes for scenarios or campaigns, this method would actually be very nice if applied to "character" textures. Meanwhile, I'm stealing the test texture for Delenda Est! Looks great, actually.

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Hele_scythian_b1 Didn't know where to test this helmet so i place it in this unit temporary: Gonna experiment a bit and see if i can bake in alpha channel the last scales.

Currently playing with the textures. It looks awesome, man.

Re-baked the corinthian helmet for have a single helmet schema for hellenics and have a single bronze tone. Also added a few new variants.

Went throught the thread and overall very nice work. I know how daunting may be tackling a task so big . My planning for the horse rework that I was working on didn't involve so many texture variations (which by the way your material setup for creating the textures provides a lot of versatility), and definitely didn't plan to do separate meshes for manes (at least not for the initial implementation). So in that sense you really went ahead Another different route I took with my take on it was that I got a bit carried away when I was working on it and developed a setup with ragdolls that controlled the bones to allow me to make very cool death animations with no effort at all... also it was fun as hell !! I think I recorded a video that should be around the forums somewhere lol. I also planned to use the ragdoll setup to record several foot unit deaths variations, not only cavalry (I think I just made one lazy animation for the unit deaths) - The ragdoll setup was so cool that it allowed me to create like "strength amounts" for the joints for the unit props... i.e. : A unit holding a shield was more likely to drop the shield when falling from the horse, since the fall was harder than a unit falling from standing stance. I still have the setup blends (which I think I uploaded?). I hadn't time to download latest 0AD yet... so I haven't checked the horse animations. From texturing point of view they look cool and with a lot of variation. The only nitpicks I'd mention is the horse body being a bit too long - making overall a bit too big compared to the unit size. The other thing I'd mention is that I didn't see any normalmap being applied? or maybe the screenshots didn't show it properly? Either way, pretty solid work

Here;s some more Age of Empire IV for you guys

Sure can see the makehuman derivation from your bake screen shot BTW we have released a new version in that we updated to Python 3 and the blender plug-ins have been tweaked for blender 2.8 some features not complete as 2.8's API settles down for final release.As I mentioned before I'm a moderator on the makehuman forums. Enjoy the Choice

@JamesWright Hello james, It's still in the works.

I thought the idea behind baking an all this stuff was to have metallic reflections in the texture to make a more believable metal look Here's the file for the baking setup. I tried packing into the blend all textures. @Alexandermb @Stan` I warn you it is quite poly heavy (+1M polys) (blender 2.7x file) https://we.tl/t-iZj9Gz4110 (one week expiring link) I hope it is useful Cheers!

A concept for Illyrian mercenaries using the new cuirass texture made by Enrique (Cleaned the reflections and added shadows)

The textures you see on the .rar attached to the first post is all I have. I didn't have it in mind. IMO it is too much work for very little benefit. This is an isometric rts game with zoom option. Players zoom in 1% of their playtime, and in assets such small screen space are much better distinguishable by the handapainted textures you guys have been doing so far. The reason behind this test I made was to check how metallic materials could be improved by faking reflections on the diffuse texture itself. (Focus was the chest armor) The workflow I described on the first post is the basic art pipeline on any standard production that is realtime 3d based on realistic artstyle, nothing I invented at all. You guys can grab makehuman and in few slider tweaks you can have a cool basemesh to dress it for baking as I did, or I could upload the file where I did the bakes for the setup. Bottom line is: I didn't like how metals looked in-game, did some tests on PBR bakes, and realized it was too much work for this approach. Implementing matcaps/cubemaps (which was already semi-implemented by wraiiti quite some time ago) would be the way to go imho

Yeah, sure i'll upload the last thrac_cap to the github repo https://github.com/AlexanderVzla/Helmets-Update @Enrique fixed helmets:

@Enrique i want to know your thoughts on this project. You started the rework so i want to know your opinion.

Prickly juniper, or cade trees and ground brush 3 new grasses with graded transparency on the bottom so they'll blend with any terrain without a seam

lol. 0 A.D is AoE IV

Currently I'm contemplating creating a Thracian unit set, but to do so, I need two more weapon props. Firstly the sica, an one-handed short (blade length c. 40 cm) sickle-sword used by the Illyrians, Thracians, and Dacians, which is similar to the Iberian falcata and the Greek kopis in function, but different in shape, being more curved and pointy: Secondly the falx, a two-handed long (blade length c. 80 cm, handle similar length) curved blade, used by the Thracians and Dacians: The rhomphaia, a two-handed spear-sword, similar to the falx in length, but straighter, is already present in the game. All three (sica, falx, rhomphaia) are sharp on the inside (by contrast, the Egyptian khopesh axe-sword is sharp on the outside, as are sabres, scimitars, and similar weapons). (Images taken from Wikipedia.) Hopefully one of 0 A.D.'s great artists is willing to give creating it a try!

with your permission I will quote you.

He said he was going to keep doing this until his mind and his creativity got tired.

If no objections will be committing today.

The Chalcidian helmet is the "ancestor" of the Attic helmet. The difference is mainly the nose guard present in most of the Chalcidian helmets and not in the Attic version.

Do we have enough helmets to start to commit? @LordGood @wackyserious @Stan` @Enrique

my pc can't handle in blender 400k-600k+ polys or it will stutter a lot and will waste a lot of time loading each mode. Doing that for 0 ad is good idea if we ever have two configurations LOD and 3D Low Poly model in settings and the prop render issue mentioned in another topic.

Yeah, that's why I took the cape off of that Alexander infantry dude.

I might have to pick your brain for some Scythian asstes.

Good enough to be used?

Awww men, that grass YEAH!

Graphics editor texture filters would help. GIMP had a textile filter I believe, I could work on it if you want.

visuals would benefit greatly if we had more birds

A picture on some changes that have come with the units, which include more accurate armor textures from the 13th century to late 13th century.

I still do not know how this resource could be used. In some maps it is scarce, in others you have even to throw it away

The small temple is made by @Sundiata i update the wonder whit the sundiata texture

Yeah, I wanted to keep the proportions of the building itself close to real life, but seeing it in game make me think that I should scale the upper part on the z-axis. I should also still add some decorative pattern to the exterior doorways or something..

@Sundiata He made the civic center of the mexicas.