nifa

When adding a normal map in the actor file and using the material <player_trans_norm_spec>, I still don't see any change in Atlas. What could be the reason? Is my normal map too weak? Does Atlas not include normal maps?

I don't know if this has anything to do with what you are looking for but maybe it helps somehow: https://mod.io/g/0ad/m/xorberaxs-tonemap-shader

you could open the developer overlay pressing ALT - D and turn off restricted camera

To safe texture space there is a need to put similar islands on top of each other. Addon Textools does a good job. Press "Similar", "Align World" and "Centralize" to stack. But I'm sure there are better ways.

Exactly. If it's used as intended, then it's also not part of the roman set of buildings, instead supposed to be capturable to all civs.

Well, not really. Depends on how precisely we would want to make it. If we use just the existing texture, it looks somehow like this, using only rome_struct.png: But then besides the inscription there is a relief on the front of the pronaos (maybe an eagle with a civic crown), which is missing. Also some of the references you posted have different textures for the walls on the different floors, which aren't existing in the roman texture. Rome_struct.png has only one wall brick texture. I think it would look nice to give each (especially the highest) floor its own texture. The other existing roman texture isn't more useful. How would we include the inscription when using the existing texture? Not at all? Or with a prop? I thought that's bad for performance as well? Anyway, I'm fine with both, just want to have it finished (and committed). Let's see what they say

I reduced the number of tris of the model to 6k, should be fine now in terms of poly count. It's only one mesh now, with the golden dome as a prop. Remapped the UV as well. Is the UV map looking how it should be? @wowgetoffyourcellphone Are you still interested in this? Would you like making a texture for it or tell me how to do that?

I was wondering if anybody has any tips concerning UV mapping. So far it has been really time consuming and frustrating for me, so I tried some Addons. Textools does a good job for stacking similar UV islands. What I'm still missing, is a fast and easy way to pack those stacked islands. UV packmaster seems promising, but is quite expansive unfortunately. How are others doing that stacking and packing, all by hand? Or is there a better basic workflow in blender that I'm missing? I'm happy for any help!

What would you think of adding this smaller onager?

tidier and little player colour to both sides onager.zip

rearranged one overlapping piece, texture fix, deleted faces and used the decimate modifier to cut down tris at the round parts (now 33k; unpacked 39k). Next question, is the player colour too strong or too one sided? onager.zip

alright, I'll do my best. The unpacked onager has a lot of hidden triangles too, and way too much geometry for the small round parts:

for you to take a look for yourself to-do's: - I just saw at the backside there is still some overlapping with the wagon. - I need to fix some textures at a few places where I had to add geometry - the black parts of the textures are to strong imo - there are a lot of unnecessary and hidden faces and to many tris in general (?) onager.zip

better? I would like to make it still recognizable what it is unpacked.

like this? smaller packed?

Alright thanks, I changed it and will keep it in mind for a possible new version:)

Thanks! Here's the mod So far it only adds the new one for romans Palisades.zip

Well right now the template for the long palisade consists of one palisade_long.xml, which sets the trunk in the middle, and 24 props for each of the other trunk. So if I get this right, props should be avoided? Does it make a difference, if I use the same prop multiple times? I could make groups of e.g. 5 trunks for each prop, so each palisade_long.xml would only have 4 props. Would that save GPU/CPU?

the number of tris isn't necessarily higher. Don't know if props are an issue regarding performance, but i don't think so

Hey folks, I tried around with the palisade and had the idea to make every trunk a single prop, which adapts to the height of the terrain, so that it has a nicer look on hilly terrains and the towers inbetween are (almost) obsolete. Let me know what you think of it palisades.mp4 It works good, some problems are left though. The tower is a single stick now, which doesn't make much sense. Sometimes the "stretching" leaves too much space in between or produces overlapping. I think those things could be solved by editing simulation/helpers/wall.js, but unfortunately I don't know javascript, maybe somebody would like to dig into it. I'd like to add more faction-specific lower walls, if that works. It wouldn't work with stone walls though

Yeah I know, I think that guy is in the wall not because of the randomization, but because of the offset I added. After the randomization x± (≤0.3) I added 1.5 to x for the last row of soldiers, so that they would not stand behind each other. That's what I meant that there can only be 15 soldiers then. I just forgot to delete the one which is too far off then. Anyway, if it doesn't look pleasent and is too difficult to implement, the randomization is not too important. But what would you think about the offset? So only 15 soldiers, 8 in the front row, 7 in the back row, but between? That would give more space for each soldier and also I think it's more realistic, since they don't each have one soldier in front of them, which is blocking their view (and no friendly fire :D). The distance between each turret point is 3, so adding 1.5 to x for the turret points nine to fifteen and deleting sixteen should do it (Hope I can explain good enough what I mean :D) thanks, no problem:)

that's true with the animations, sorry I missed that XD. I mean randomize within a range. I tried it by randomly changing the x or the z coordinates by adding or substracting up to 0.3. It would be nice if the game would automatically do that, but I don't know how randomization in xml works. E.g. if x is 1.5 it would be changed to something between 1.2 and 1.8 I added the file for the roman long wall with a little randomization, so you could try out how that looks:) Also I would prefer if the second row would not be right behind the first row, but with a little offset. I guess that would only allow 15 soldiers though. wall_long.xml

@real_tabasco_sauce Would it be possible to randomize the position of each soldier on the wall and maybe even play the idle animation? Otherwise it looks kind of unrealistic that they are kind of like in a formation and not moving at all

Thanks for the help I cut it down from 12k to 7.4k tris. I imported the Columns from the roman Civic Center and used them for the Pronaos (the temple part). They look better now, but still have 2.8k tris only for the 16 columns, probably still to much considering they are much smaller. I could try to further decrease the number of tris or to do a texture rework if needed. Just need to know what I'm aiming for so let me know, I'm open to any kind of feedback I'll attach the files incl. blender files again. Btw, why are imported models often scaled so small and how can I see the seams of them? Also is there a way to unwrap uv-islands on top of each other? Pantheon2.zip