Enrique

Awesome work man! Really good. Checking it again, it looks like they're firing faster than they should? maybe is just an illusion made by the gif starting sooner than it should fire the next bolt

Better, but too much contratst... look at this one, it looks so much better:

Those colours doesn't look good at all :/

Nice. Please crop those shots! the helmet is just 15% of the whole screenshot xD I finally uploaded the last part... its just tweaking and testing.

I don't understand what you mean. To clarify, the mesh that is recommended to triangulate before baking is the lowpoly one.

Just a tip, to avoid the faceting seen in the normal map, you just triangulate the mesh before baking it. Good practice is to save the blend file then triangulate the mesh, the bake image and reload the blend file to keep only quads. Generally, triangulating before any kind of baking from highpoly to lowpoly gets better results in the image baked.

normal map and spec map?

That's looking better. it needs to be brighter, I remember I had to brighten up the baked maps and tweak the contrast/levels to get something decent, but that's the way to go. Nice job

Why don't you try at least? I mean, it's the easiest part, you use the color base texture, and apply the AO map and dirty vertex color map with multiply blend mode. You can also do it without leaving blender, just adding all the textures in the helmet, create a new texture, and bake all the textures applied into the new one created. I didn't upload the last video because it gave me an error twice and it's 6gb, and since the procedure is pretty basic GIMP usage, I didn't try again to upload. I'm uploading it again now if you need it to finish the texture.... EDIT: Here's the base texture I used for the helmets: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18347&p=286268

Thracian cap references: http://badaew.narod.ru/trakian/Helmets_files/Karagach.jpg Cataphract helmet: http://www.wildfiregames.com/~art/history/macedonians/antiochus-the-great.jpg

Needs the exterior borders to be a little more even, other than that is a nice start, keep going.

Right, I forgot about the concept. If someone is interested in giving another concept to mix ideas with LordGood's one is welcome. I saw some links dead. Which are the helmets that need references?

I just forgot to delete that part, is from the old mesh, I just remade that part and made it separated, so its easier to handle and has less tris. You can rename the helmets and append them from a new blend file if you prefer having them in separate files: Just create new file and go to the menu => File -> Append -> navigate to the blendfile where the helmets are -> select the object directory and there you can see all the objects in that blend file, you can append the ones you want. I just like to work several things on the same file that have some relation using layers (a file for helmets, a file for shields, etc)

Here you are, they're all in the same blend file. The last of them is a cool high poly helmet (from Sighvatr I guess, I didn't noticed it the first time I checked ). You could make a low-poly and add it too, just for the sake of it . ptol_helmets rework.zip I just removed some quick faces and made them all symmetric, but the polycount wasn't so high, I haven't saved much triangles, you can compare with the old ones if you are curious

I'll take a look and update here

Ruins in a small greek city Aphrodisias in Caria (Anatolia) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Tetrapil%C3%B3n_-_Afrodisias_-_02.jpg Seleucid phalangite: http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/caliburns_portfolio/images/133756/original.aspx http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/caliburns_portfolio/images/152392/original.aspx Another cataphract unit ref: http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/caliburns_portfolio/images/132623/original.aspx More units + armored elephant (not sure if its posted already in this topic)

Both concepts look awesome. The first one I'm thinking could be used as temple (as it was the one in Hatra) or even as civic centre with some modifications. The fortress looks incredible. It gives the impression of being too big though, like a wonder maybe, but the concept is strong and menacing. Not sure about the crenelations, but surely it would give the structures more oriental look to it. Not strong opinion about them until I see them in a building Good work so far. BTW, look what I found! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Tetrapil%C3%B3n_-_Afrodisias_-_02.jpg Twisted columns + arched frieze. Seems we're on track!

It's because you can add more types of textures, other than color: AO (multiplied b/w image), specular and normal/parallax. AO uses a second UV coordinates, while specular and normal/parallax uses the same UV coordinates as color (the 1st UV coordiantes). RGB makes the normal maps and the alpha layer is what tells the height used for the parallax effect.

I suggest to use separate textures for each prop - specially helmets - except for small ones and/or very similar (like weapons). 1.- You can't predict how many textures for props you'll end adding, so you may run out of texture space for new things (you can still create new separate textures though). Or maybe you end up using much less texture space than you originally planned and not using all texture space (waste resources). 2.- If you have to rearrange the textures combined in the big one for whatever reason (i.e.you dont need such a big texture), you'll have to remap every single prop that uses that texture. 3.- If it's not being shared between different props, you can add specific detail for the prop like AO in the diffuse, fake shadows, fake reflections, etc. Regarding the pharao prop... keep in mind that the whole thing will rotate with the head, so the flaps that would rest in the chest may (and probably will) look rigid and/or clip through the torso when the head moves. The only solution that comes to mind (if you don't want that to happen) would be to make the helmet reach the shoulders, and make the flaps part of the body texture.

Hey, no one is going to gain anything besides recognition and having fun in the tournaments (and bug reports for the devs which is key here) so meaningless would be for those who want to play in such competitive level, but my suggestion pursued the goal to motivate people to test out the SVN branch so players help the dev team to find critical bugs/exploits just before the release so the alpha version is cleaner and more fun. And keep in mind, despite there's being work done on the balancing side and there will be changes on the gameplay in the near future, it will not be final. There are still quite some key features to be added to the game (trampling, formation bonuses, charging, capturing, etc) that will change the gameplay again and thus new rebalance will be required. If people is working on rebalancing in alpha stage now is for the community who likes the game to keep having fun playing it even at this stage.

The structure is found in the city of Hatra: From this page towards the bottom: http://www.i-acci.org/News/naynawa.htm Here's a better pic of the building "Picture", the columns are indeed greek, but there's an arc in the front freize that is unusual of typical greek architecture. I thougth it could be a trait to further differentiate Seleucids from the three main greek civs. And yes, the spiral columns around Apamea are a nice "twist" to the typical greek architecture

Glad to see you back LordGood!!! I like the defense tower concept of the first drawing! I'm thinking, how about adding some arches to the architectural components of seleucids? It would make some difference with the typical greek architecture style, as seen in these references I found recently: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17651&p=293335

Back on topic, I think some kind of tournament close to each alpha release could be worth doing because it will help testing thoroughly the game/new features and find bugs. It may not be very attractive for some people to watch the matches yet for the reasons mentioned above, but surely will help to have cleaner alpha releases (thinking on the syntagma/testudo exploit for example). The tournament of course should be played on SVN version and participants should be willing to report the problems encountered as well as exploits or big unbalances that breaks gameplay. However, organizing the tournaments is a time consuming task that ideally would be done by the community instead of the devs. (to not slow down developement, since free time is even more valuable close to alpha release)

Wow very nice find!! this will come handy for sure. So many human references too!

There's a major improvement that's being worked behind doors, but still too soon to show off. But it's a fact that the Art department needs more active members and contributors, the amount of active people it's low compared with other alpha cycles.