===[TASK]=== WONDER: Britons: Stonehenge and White Horse

[Ludo38]

I've worked again on the White Horse, with a lot of help from Enrique who gave me great tricks for Blender.

The UV mapping is ok, the horse is digged into the ground and the hill is shaped more naturally. All that remains to do is a perimeter series of large stones going deep in the ground, to allow the wonder to fit on all terrains, just like Enrique suggested it above. The map will meet the stones, not the hill, which should work pretty good on most map, I guess.

There's a good advantage with putting a stone fence all around the hill : it will justifie a lot the cost in resources of the wonder, that would then be stone mostly. What do you think ?

Here are 2 views of the current state. Soon I'll update with the stones.

[GunChleoc]

Great work!

I have been searching around for what we could use, but apart from burial mounds most things are either eyecandy like this burial wagon or big like the salt mines, but not both at the same time.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I wanna see in game, the size and try to build.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I've worked again on the White Horse, with a lot of help from Enrique who gave me great tricks for Blender.

The UV mapping is ok, the horse is digged into the ground and the hill is shaped more naturally. All that remains to do is a perimeter series of large stones going deep in the ground, to allow the wonder to fit on all terrains, just like Enrique suggested it above. The map will meet the stones, not the hill, which should work pretty good on most map, I guess.

There's a good advantage with putting a stone fence all around the hill : it will justifie a lot the cost in resources of the wonder, that would then be stone mostly. What do you think ?

Here are 2 views of the current state. Soon I'll update with the stones.

I'm not convinced it should be a big hill. I was envisioning something flat, but I'm willing to try it out first.

[historic_bruno]

I'm affraid there's no such thing as celt ground textures...

Keep in mind that Celts are going to be able to build it even on maps that are not celtic, so there will be always more likely that the hill texture is not going to match the actual ground texture (specially if the textures vary like grassy patches etc) so you might want to look for another solution.

I guess there are two options: one is covering the hill where it intersects with the ground with "grass" props to hide the harsh transition (now that we can make props fit the height of the terrain) or making some kind of structural perimeter, like bricks or masonry, or even rocks.

Is up to you, just my 2 cents

Couldn't a decal be used to blend the grass texture for the hill to the surrounding terrain? Try using some of the game's existing grass/mud/dirt textures and see how it looks. It could use random texture variations. Might need to play with the concept a bit, add paths leading around to the top of the hill, etc. so it looks a bit more interesting. I think the biggest issue will be that it's a grassy hill structure, but units can't walk on it.

[Enrique]

Couldn't a decal be used to blend the grass texture for the hill to the surrounding terrain? Try using some of the game's existing grass/mud/dirt textures and see how it looks. It could use random texture variations. Might need to play with the concept a bit, add paths leading around to the top of the hill, etc. so it looks a bit more interesting. I think the biggest issue will be that it's a grassy hill structure, but units can't walk on it.

The decal idea is actually pretty good! good call! the seam where the mesh intersects with the terrain will be visible, but the blending would help a lot. I'd like to see some rocks, alpha mapped grass and bushes and some eyecandy on the hill too, just to make it more interesting (maybe along with the pathway like you say, that's up to Ludo)

[Ludo38]

Hi all,

Before trying possible decal stuffs and the use of grass and bushes, I wanted first to test Enrique's stone circle idea to cut the hill from the rest of the map to allow good behaviour on uneven terrains. Here is what I've got now :

The horse's head quite disappeared since my last work on the texturing and shaping of the top of the hill, so I will work on it a little more to get his white shape pop up much more among the grass. The rest of the horse is clearer, and actually, it depends on the light, the angle of the sun and which side it comes from.

I'm thinking that the horse looks rather small, especially for the scale that we have in the game, so, I will try a second version with the horse almost twice that large.

[LordGood]

Aaah! Ludo that looks awesome! Horse might be tiny but the terraforming solution is top! Perhaps a large grass decal to soften the transition, but other than that it looks great, man!

[Ludo38]

Thanks Lordgood!

Here is another version with the horse bigger (x 1.5) :

[Lion.Kanzen]

Excellent,

[LordGood]

Much more discernible as a wonder at a glance with the bigger horse

[Mythos_Ruler]

How is this going? Stonehenge to commit? If so, please put "Fixes #2053" in the commit message!

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2053

[oshron]

How is this going? Stonehenge to commit? If so, please put "Fixes #2053" in the commit message!

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2053

personally, i still think it should be Stonehenge that's the Brythonic Wonder

Hi all,

Before trying possible decal stuffs and the use of grass and bushes, I wanted first to test Enrique's stone circle idea to cut the hill from the rest of the map to allow good behaviour on uneven terrains. Here is what I've got now :

The horse's head quite disappeared since my last work on the texturing and shaping of the top of the hill, so I will work on it a little more to get his white shape pop up much more among the grass. The rest of the horse is clearer, and actually, it depends on the light, the angle of the sun and which side it comes from.

I'm thinking that the horse looks rather small, especially for the scale that we have in the game, so, I will try a second version with the horse almost twice that large.

i'd recommend making the horse larger so that it's more easily seen, but i otherwise agree with the idea that the hill is physically cut off; that's really the only problem i ever had with the horse as a wonder, since there was nothing to realistically stop units from walking on it

[Mythos_Ruler]

What if we did the horse "farm field" style, as a decal with stones around the edge of the horse to give it some 3Dness.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I think same. What is the difference?

[Ludo38]

How is this going? Stonehenge to commit? If so, please put "Fixes #2053" in the commit message!

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2053

What remains to be done on the Stonehenge is Enrique's part. Normal and spec map, I believe... Enrique, can you commit this soon ?

What if we did the horse "farm field" style, as a decal with stones around the edge of the horse to give it some 3Dness.

Do you find that the horse lacks relief ?

I had few time available those days to work again on the horse, but next week I might complete it. I'd like to add some 3D grass here and there, and I will move some of the stones to have them look even more random. I can try to improve the horse 3Dness too.

[Enrique]

I had them in my hard drive since some time. I have commited it now. However, I downscaled the textures to 512x512.

1024 seemed like too big for a texture just for one structure. Preview:

[Ludo38]

Cool !

[Lion.Kanzen]

Good work both. Its ready to Atlas? I wanna put in some Skirmish map.

[Ludo38]

Hi everybody.

I just want to say I am very busy these days and haven't yet completed the White Horse. I might be able to commit it during november. Thanks for your patience.

[Ludo38]

Hi everybody,
As some might have noticed, I haven't given signs of life for months, and I left my White Horse incomplete...
Today I come back to apologize, and I attach here the .blend file + the model's texture (png), in order to leave it to you for completion, because I really have no more time available for 0AD, sadly...
The model is basically complete, but it needs a recut of the land shape following the area circled by stones, and the other thing is to add various grasses and a few bushes on this hill This last touch is one that I awkwardly tried but didn't managed to achieve at all.
Thanks a lot for receiving the model and fixing these last bits. If it turns out included into the game, it will be a great pleasure for me.
Again, really sorry for having left it on "stand-by" for so long.

Best luck to you all and to 0 A.D.

I'll keep following the game's developement, but indeed, I feel I won't have anymore free time to give to its making.

Mes meilleurs vœux pour la suite de l'aventure 0 A.D. !

WhiteHorse-Blend+texture.zip

[Lion.Kanzen]

Nice

[Stan`]

Hi everybody,

As some might have noticed, I haven't given signs of life for months, and I left my White Horse incomplete...

Today I come back to apologize, and I attach here the .blend file + the model's texture (png), in order to leave it to you for completion, because I really have no more time available for 0AD, sadly...

The model is basically complete, but it needs a recut of the land shape following the area circled by stones, and the other thing is to add various grasses and a few bushes on this hill This last touch is one that I awkwardly tried but didn't managed to achieve at all.

Thanks a lot for receiving the model and fixing these last bits. If it turns out included into the game, it will be a great pleasure for me.

Again, really sorry for having left it on "stand-by" for so long.

Best luck to you all and to 0 A.D.

I'll keep following the game's developement, but indeed, I feel I won't have anymore free time to give to its making.

Mes meilleurs vœux pour la suite de l'aventure 0 A.D. !

Nice work.

Bon courage pour la suite

@Enrique, do you need me to prop it ?

[Stan`]

- Desaturated a bit the grass

- Baked AO

- Added plants.

- Fixed broken normals.

Uffington Wonder.7z

[Enrique]

You should make the rocks the limit of the structure. I commented this to Ludo when he was working on it.

Now looks okay, but place it in a different ground texture that is not grass. It'll look out of place and the transition will be very harsh and will not look as a wonder at all IMO. You have quite some room for artistic freedom here for using gaia assets, rocky formations, natural stairs, vegetation... make it interesting...