Alpha feedback

[Pureon]

Yes oshron, these are ships for the Celt faction. I agree with the comments above, the sails are too prominent when they catch direct sunlight, like in the third screenshot. I'll reduce the player colour side strips and darken the white areas.

Disappointingly I can't add units onto the ship's decks. I've been unable (link) to produce a pyrogenesis compatible collada skeleton for my Blender models

[Mythos_Ruler]

You can use Dummy Helpers as prop points. They need to be called "prop-something", because when the engine parses the Collada file it looks for nodes named "prop-" They need to be attached or linked to the mesh and all of them exported together.

[oshron]

say, how do you guys plan to get that whole "units on ships" thing to work? i know it really adds to realism and is certainly within capability, but will those units on board physically BE the units that you sent aboard, or will they just be generic models relative to the civilization that appear in relation to how many units are on the boat? (in AOM and a few other games, units being on a boat was signified by a flag flying from the mast, so i imagine the latter method would function in exactly the same way)

[Pureon]

You can use Dummy Helpers as prop points. They need to be called "prop-something", because when the engine parses the Collada file it looks for nodes named "prop-" They need to be attached or linked to the mesh and all of them exported together.

Dummy Helpers don't exist in Blender (AFAIK), but even if they did, the new Collada exporter doesn't appear to export the armature correctly. That's why I've been trying to add the bones manually into the Collada XML. Do you know of any DAE example currently within 0AD's Alpha that includes a skeleton? That'll answer all my questions

[Mythos_Ruler]

Any of the unit meshes that are collada would work.

What I mean is you can use prop points on non-boned meshes in our game. Philip just recently added this functionality. I am not sure though what would be the corresponding object (to a Dummy Helper in Max) in Blender.

[Aldandil]

Those ships look excellent! Personally I think they'd look nicer if the images were centered on the sails, but they look sweet as-is.

[fcxSanya]

Nice ships, Pureon =)

[Pureon]

Personally I think they'd look nicer if the images were centered on the sails, but they look sweet as-is.

Easily done. What does everyone else think?

[SMST]

Easily done. What does everyone else think?

I second Aldandil. (Amd I think I just spelled his nick correctly for the first time.)

[Aldandil]

Yes SMST, but then you got my gender wrong.

Are the boats intended to lack rowing benches? There don't seem to be any.

Edited November 17, 2010 by Aldandil

[SMST]

Yes SMST, but then you got my gender wrong.

I apologize.

Though there has no been real hint that you are a girl.

Are the boats intended to lack rowing benches? There don't seem to be any.

There is no mention of it in Caesars description which is cited in the DD of 0 A.D.

Reading it, I came across this:

[..]They used sails of raw hides or thin leather, either because they had no flax and were ignorant of its use, or more probably because they thought that ordinary sails would not stand the violent storms and squalls of the Atlantic and were not suitable for such heavy vessels [...]

Though the sails are great right now, the older sails were closer to that description. It would be a shame to lose those great emblems, though.

[Pureon]

I'll center the sail symbols tomorrow. Just like on the Greek ships, the sails will be chosen randomly from ship to ship, as will the side shields.

Since oshron mentioned it above, what do you all think about having units on ship decks? I see positives for both approaches. My biggest concern with having units on deck is the performance hit users might experience during sea battles.

[SMST]

Hm. The units that were on the Greek pentekonter in previous versions have been removed lately. Maybe for that reason. Though I'd love to see some units, and 0 A.D. game design is supposed to have real firing units visible on the decks in the final game as well.

[Aldandil]

Yes, on close inspection the sails look like a woven material instead of hide.

The symbols are awesome though, and it should have been technologically possible to paint hide.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Right. I think it is still up in the air whether we'll show units on-deck. I mean, if we don't see units visually boarding other ships and stuff like that (which we won't have), then it's a simple leap to question why we'd show them at all. I mean, it would be good to have a captain and the guy that steers the ship paddles, but other than that?

Any way we do it, we'll definitely make it so that garrisoned troops will greatly affect ship stats.

[plumo]

Maybe giving ships multiple attacks when garrisoned?

I mean: apart from the balista attack , every few seconds a volley of arrows as well ( a combination of the attack of the AOE1 trireme and the AOE2 longboat attack)

[SMST]

Right. I think it is still up in the air whether we'll show units on-deck. I mean, if we don't see units visually boarding other ships and stuff like that (which we won't have)

We will have "abstract" boarding of ships, though? Like bringing the Ship close to the other, maybe a plank stretching out connecting the both and then capture the enemy ship. (depending on the troops in the enemy's ship, maybe on a loyalty rating like for buildings as well)

I second plumo's suggestion. One basic arrow, + 1 arrow and + appropriate attack for every unit garrisoned inside. And I think units should be on decks of ships/battlements of structures just as an indicator of units being garrisoned.

Edited November 17, 2010 by SMST

[oshron]

Right. I think it is still up in the air whether we'll show units on-deck. I mean, if we don't see units visually boarding other ships and stuff like that (which we won't have), then it's a simple leap to question why we'd show them at all. I mean, it would be good to have a captain and the guy that steers the ship paddles, but other than that?

Any way we do it, we'll definitely make it so that garrisoned troops will greatly affect ship stats.

IDEA! maybe there could be an animation where a door opens up on teh ship and a bunch of guys come out and use their projectiles

btw, what are the possibilities of broad-side fighting? cuz i thought that maybe a good idea for some ships would be, instead of having their warships be actual warships, they are merely transport ships (say, an egyptian barge) that have some soldiers constantly on the deck who fire arrows (possibly flaming ones to justify their damage vs. ships), but the ship would ideally need to be firing broadside for that

[Pureon]

For now I'd be happy to have projectiles appear from the body of the ship like in most RTSs, animations can be added after balance and functions are in place.

Going briefly back to the points raised by Aldandil and SMST:

Are the boats intended to lack rowing benches? There don't seem to be any.

I believe since the Celt vessels were much bulkier and broader than the slimmer Greek/Roman warships, they could depend on their wider sail for propulsion rather than on oars. The small rowing boat has a bench though

Though the sails are great right now, the older sails were closer to that description. It would be a shame to lose those great emblems, though.

I'd like to keep civ colour on the sails, so the strips are staying on the sides but I'll shrink the thickness. I can make a new sail texture look like it's made of leather pieces, although I'm not going to make it as obvious as it was on the previous Celt models.

[Shield Bearer]

while ur at it, make the sails fuller. u know, filled with air, they just hang dead now. if u could make a model with the sails furled that would be great too, we could switch from furled to unfurled when the ship moves, like in aoe 3...but then again, thats not how anims work, rite?

[Pureon]

Is it easy to switch between sail models depending on whether the ship is idle or not? That could be a temporary alternative to animating all sails.

[Ykkrosh]

Yes - in the actor file, just add a new variant with name equal to an animation name (idle, walk, etc), and give it the replacement prop/mesh/etc, and it'll pick that variant when playing that animation.

[Shield Bearer]

ah that would work.

[Pureon]

I've updated the Celtic ships to reflect user feedback, from here and also indieDB.

All the updated ships have a poly count similar to a cavalry unit (or less), so lots of epic sea battles without lag

One of the updates includes more randomisation, so the chances of having 2 identical Celtic ships side-by-side have been reduced.

My next goal is to introduce 'animated' sails using the technique Ykkrosh mentioned in his post above, although I haven't got it to work without errors yet. All the sails you see above show the 'idle' state.

[plumo]

Very nice

Although I'd be surprised that most Celtic tribes with ships had those designs on the sails, i like them very much It's a game, not a simulator of antiquity. Nice work Pureon.

Edited January 15, 2011 by plumo