nifa

nah, I could learn a lot from your work here :D Really cool! Didn't know all this was possible.

Ok nice! You could also bake from highpoly to lowpoly to keep the details in a normal map or bake ao into the diffuse

Cool stuff! Did you make the models or did you take them from somewhere?

The shininess is defined by the spec map, and it should be dark where the hay roof is uv-mapped. Maybe you are using different materials in the .xml actor files and in some cases spec map is not taken into account and in some cases it is?

This seems interesting! Another thought I had when watching the elephant videos (probably unrelated): All soldiers going back to idle at the same time when the elephant dies looks so abruptly, maybe there could be some randomness (like some cheering, some idle) or random delay.

Thanks, yes it's better. Calvary movement looks smooth too. In the catapult video those 2 guys walking in circles looks strange, but I guess it has nothing to do with the question here. Yes I want to do that some day when I have more time, thanks for the offer, I will get back to you

Too bad it's not possible to make a mod, unfortunately I don't have it compiled. I like what I see in the videos. The ship's movement looks really natural. The timing in the other two videos might be not 100 percent on point (on the elephant attack too late, on the catapult impact too early?). I think it's nice and I wanna encourage anyone who is able to test it

I'm excited to hear this is going forward! Is there a way you could provide a mod for easy testing purposes if it's not too much work? That would be awesome.

Moved prop_apron (the cloth) from tropaion_post.xml to tropaion.xml, which means that tropaion_post can be a small tropaion without a stone base. Also added a different bronze base to the post and gave the shields around the base more geometry, so they look less polygonal, as requested by @Thalatta tropaion_0.28.3.zip

Here's the updated mod. I changed the positions of the three prop-points in the mesh tropaion_post.dae, all other files are untouched. Sure, would be nice if someone made a pull request. tropaion_0.28.2.zip

The last one is AI-generated and the plain landscape is done with a heightmap in Atlas? It looks promising!

I've got access, thanks! Looks nice too, I will add this one then

There is also one on one of the scaffolds, it has a nice texture that I'm using. And for the wooden skene I took the texture of the roman siege wall Are you sure it is unique, it seems to fit to the timeframe, why wouldn't it be build the same way in Athens? I can try to come a bit closer to the picture, but I think a lot of the visual reconstructions are approximations too. Okay, I will get rid of it for the early version and use a compound pully for a later one then. I might add these guys to a later version too: Sophocles: https://open.smk.dk/en/artwork/image/KAS633?q=Portrait of the Greek tragedian Sophocles&page=0&filters=has_3d_file%3Atrue Two other dudes that could resemble the guys which actually had a statue in the theater of Dionysos: https://open.smk.dk/en/artwork/image/KAS240?q=menippus&page=0&filters=has_3d_file%3Atrue https://open.smk.dk/en/artwork/image/KAS629?q=demosthenes&page=0&filters=has_3d_file%3Atrue

https://www.academia.edu/8717811/Deus_Ex_Machina_Mechanism_Reconstruction_in_the_Theater_of_Phlius_Corinthia

Thanks again! This one is a nice source. It's always gameplay vs historical accuracy/realism vs visuals. People will be frustrated if they can't upgrade because they build their theater too close to another building. From what I learned, all hellenic theaters in the game are somehow not a good historical representation? So maybe now is the point to reconsider the footprint. I'd vote to go for a much larger one, as on ancient city plans the theaters are often one of the buildings taking the most space.

@Thalatta Thanks for your research and explanation! I'll go with this one then. That was actually what I started with, but the reference doesn't help much. It's basically just two cuboids put on each other and filled up with props. It will look too empty for the 0-A.D.-style. I would need some ideas of how I could give it a more interesting shape, or add fences, windows, doors, awnings, curtains, canvas, columns etc... It's also much smaller than the corresponding stone skene in the later theaters. If we want it to be upgradeable it should have the same footprint, which means I have a lot of space to fill up. If you got ideas, let me know I'll try to be creative (which is not my strong point :D) and then it hopefully won't be too far from historical accuracy.

It's a drawing that I saw in book, but I just rediscovered it here on page 123: https://publications.dainst.org/journals/aa/article/download/1936/5967

I found a different reference for a stage, which I prefer. It has a stone building in it, but the whole structure still looks "rustic" enough I think. Still a wip, so UVs, props and all that small stuff are incomplete. If I'm on the wrong track it's good to know early though, so what do you think?

I think our model should have roughly the same footprint as the existing stone theater model, which means that the shape from the second image from @Genava55 fits much better for our needs. And the Skene would be made of wood and fabric then.

From assasins creed. Should we go for something similar, especially with the stage? Is it historically accurate?

Sure, that should be no problem

I don't insist on keeping it but it was actually on purpose, as I imagined the shields to be made out of stone instead of metal. I'm not sure about if I used parallax the right way though, you might want to check :)

Exactly, having the sword on that side is for aesthetic reason. Same for the apron, but I actually want it to appear only every now and then, don't know how to achieve that in the actor file.

Thanks! Glad you like it All done: All the shields, armor and helmets are defined in tropaion_post.xml (so it's basically a small tropaion). I've added all kind of spartan shields: We can easily add or cut out any asset to match historical accuracy tropaion_0.28.1.zip

Thoughts? @Thalatta @wowgetoffyourcellphone tropaion.zip