Elven Buildings

[Ykkrosh]

Would 1-bit transparency help in that case? That's not currently supported but should be easy to add, and it's about as cheap as solid textures. (It's just the blending of 8-bit alpha channels with partially-transparent pixels that's the problem, and which I'd be happy to minimise except where it's unavoidably necessary.)

[Shield Bearer]

yeah, when there are a lot of trees on-screen it tends to crawl is there any way to reduce the lag?

[Pureon]

Would 1-bit transparency work for tree textures? It would need some testing, but at least for some varieties it could be acceptable visually.

[Ykkrosh]

When zoomed out on Belgian Bog, replacing all alpha-blended textures with 1-bit alpha-tested textures gave a 100% framerate increase on my Intel 4500MHD and 50% increase on GeForce 8600M GT, so it's a significant difference, but the trees looked really ugly . Compare e.g. alpha-blending vs alpha testing. (Also you typically don't get antialiasing when using alpha-testing, so edges in the texture even look worse than real geometry edges). So I think it'd require a redesign of the trees (probably not just minor tweaks) to make them look good (and consistent) without relying on alpha blending, just using 1-bit alpha and more polygons. (Polygons aren't cheap enough to model each individual leaf, but I think we could safely stretch beyond the ~100 polygons per tree that we currently have. I suppose I should do some testing to get some rough numbers that are slightly less entirely guesswork, but maybe somewhere between 100 and 1000 would be plausible.)

If art people are willing and able to do that and make it pretty then that'd be great - it'd give a huge performance improvement when there's a lot of trees.

[Pureon]

That doesn't look too bad, but I agree it's not good enough, even with the 100% framerate increase. With higher-res textures for the trees it might look acceptable though. Thanks for testing it!

[k776]

@Philip, that is a massive increase!

This is where an options page with a slider to increase or decrease graphics level from high to low would be perfect.

[Pedro Falcão]

Hi there. I'd like to know what tool you people use to make these models, i was trying to learn Blender 3D, but i really don't know nothing about the game's graphics engine...

And about the pink roof, it feels like the night elves from World of Warcraft, but with less leaves.

[Pureon]

Shield Bearer is awesome, so he uses Blender to make his models

More info about exporting static models from Blender can be found here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/ArtDesignDocument#Blender

Take a look through the Alpha's files to see how the actor xml files, textures, and collada models work together.

[wrod]

i wanna have that mod lol

[xbody]

Very, very nice! Good job!

[Mythos_Ruler]

Take a look through the Alpha's files to see how the actor xml files, textures, and collada models work together.

There's a small learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, then it's a breeze and very intuitive and powerful. The actor/entity template system is one of the best things about our game, and it was set up that way from almost the beginning.

[Shield Bearer]

Coupla elven ships

[Kimball]

Wow, that looks great Amish!

[Almin]

You are just awesome...there's nothing more to say! Keep on doing this stuff. That ships remembered me of the end of LotR, where the elves are leaving middle-earth together with Frodo and Gandalf! They are just looking great(The ships, not Gandalf)!

Edited July 22, 2011 by Almin

[Shield Bearer]

Thanks guys! I hope to finish the mod by the time 0ad releases, before that if possible I've got a whole tech tree work out(very much in need of updating, but its a good base)

[Aldandil]

Those ships and buildings look very nice and I hope all of them become easter eggs in future releases.

Makes me sad that the Last Alliance developers disbanded and aren't coming back. If you are serious about a LotR mod, then you should see if you can take over the Last Alliance name, and the concept art and preliminary work that was already done. I know some of that concept art was not great, but some was very nice. I know there was unit concept art at least for Noldor, and you may find some building and ship concept art as well.

But if you do make a mod, please base it on the books, not the movies. It should look like your own interpretation, not just a remake of the movies.

Anyway, the fact that even one person with some relevant skills is still interested in a Middle-Earth mod makes me glad.

[Shield Bearer]

The ship is an easter egg Just type noldor or bireme in the search filter and u'll find it

Yes, I was very disappointed myself. I'm really serious about a full TC mod, it would take a lot of work and good leadership which I very much lack at the moment. I would like to do the Elves though as a mod for 0AD, whilst there are a lot of great things in store for TLA which I don't think would be possible without a lot of additional features to Pyrogenesis, I believe a simple Elf mod would be considerably easy for me to do. If my work is any good, it can be used for TLA

I love the books more than the movies, so yes, it shall be on the books and now that you say it, I would use the TLA concepts for the elves, thanks

[SMST]

Hmm. I'd be interested in a Tolkien Mod for 0 A.D. myself. Then again, I am interested in too many things right now.

I like much of the concept of TLA, for example the faction/age selection that was released on the home page.

[oshron]

personally, i think a full-scale fantasy crossover mod would be better, featuring several tolkien cultures

[Aldandil]

Ewwww no thanks. I like Middle-Earth accurately depicted, please. That's why I don't want to see anything based on the movies. If it's just "Tolkien-clone generic fantasy" then I have 0% interest in it.

[Shield Bearer]

Indeed! I totally despise the Warcraft type fantasy. What I would like would a game that conveys the feeling of Arda, the very atmosphere of it. I found it there in BME but it clearly wasn't wholly present. If someone's gonna do a Arda mod, let them do TLA, that's what I say.

What do you'll say about the current buildings? Too much like the movie?

[SMST]

I wonder if there was even anything in the books about High Elven architecture. The Silvan Elves' caves in Mirkwood were described in The Hobbit, but Rivendell was not.

[Aldandil]

If something isn't described in any of the books, I say it's open to logical interpretation. But it should be the modders' interpretation, not something taken from the movies. It should be separate. I blocked most of he movie images out of my head, and I think that's the best route to go. Don't deliberately avoid things that look like movie art, just avoid thinking about the movies and focus on your own thoughts.

IIRC Noldor liked to work in stone, to build tall towers, and to carve decorations. They knew how to make "magic" doors like that of Moria. Rivendell in Fellowship of the Rings has rooms with flat wood-beam ceilings, and the beams are richly carved.

Also my preference is to start with the First Age becaues it's my favorite, and that way the team would be more likely to develop their own independent artistic style before they get into the Third Age. There are no First Age movies.

Edited October 9, 2011 by Aldandil

[Shield Bearer]

I'm afraid the movie is in my head a lot I will draw up some concepts later and try to stay away from the imagery from the movie. I did draw some, kinda misplaced them. My aim would be to re-create the Noldor Elves after the crossing. So a Feanor hero unit would be present and also Galadriel and the all rest.

My main problem is siege units. In a mod I made for Glest, the only siege units the elves had were the Ents. I believe that's inaccurate and so we'd need to brain storm some ideas for siege. I think a ballista and a ram would suffice.

I just bought a copy of the Silmarillion, I will read it again and see what I find after I finish the book I'm on.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Maybe the elves could have no siege unit. That would solve the problem very easily.