===[COMMITTED]=== Ptolemaic Elephant Tower

[Sighvatr]

I am currently working on painting the textures. Gonna pop up a screenie of my tower in case I need to triangulate or if the shape needs to be changed.

[Mythos_Ruler]

It would be nice if there was a ledge running under the crenels, like this one here (the white towers on the smaller elephants):

[Sighvatr]

Sure. I guessed that I would have to conserve the number of faces I used for the tower and instead just to create a bump map effect for that ledge. I'll chuck in an extra lump on the tower.

[Mythos_Ruler]

The inside also needs to be deeper.

[Sighvatr]

Is there any unit prop meshes I can find some where to compare sizes.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Is there any unit prop meshes I can find some where to compare sizes.

Check out Hannibal's tower.

[LordGood]

ledge should only add about 24 polys, if I did my math right

shouldn't weigh too heavy on the poly count

[Sighvatr]

Better? I will clean up the faces if this is appropriate.

[Enrique]

The shape looks better, but I think it needs to be deeper though.

You should get rid of so many faces, the topology of your first WIP image is what you should aim for. That last image is too much unnecessary geometry for just plain faces. Remember that you can make the ledge "disconnected" from the rest of the mesh, so it makes it easier just to add like a "ring of only 4 sides" around the perimeter to make the ledge.

[Sighvatr]

The shape looks better, but I think it needs to be deeper though.

You should get rid of so many faces, the topology of your first WIP image is what you should aim for. That last image is too much unnecessary geometry for just plain faces. Remember that you can make the ledge "disconnected" from the rest of the mesh, so it makes it easier just to add like a "ring of only 4 sides" around the perimeter to make the ledge.

I thought I just said I would clean up the many faces in the final shape? Nevermind..

I'll deepen the platform and post a second image.

[Enrique]

ok I didnt understand it. Please continue

[Sighvatr]

Better now?

[Enrique]

Yep! looking good.

You can try to import a unit and even an elephant from the game so you can scale it accordingly.

The unit meshes are located in http://svn.wildfiregames.com/public/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/meshes/skeletal/ and there you have m_pants.dae, m_tunic.dae etc...

The elephant mesh/meshes are in the same folder (elephant_asian_male.dae) I think it's the asian one the one used by ptolemies? if not elephant_african_forest.dae

You have the instructions to import 0AD assets into blender in the first section of this tutorial: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17542

[Mythos_Ruler]

Ptolemies will be using African Forest Elephants.

[Sighvatr]

How do I retrieve the mesh? When I click on elephant_african_forest.dae, I get a line of code and not a download.

[Enrique]

How do I retrieve the mesh? When I click on elephant_african_forest.dae, I get a line of code and not a download.

You have two options, save all that text like a document and rename it with ".dae" extension, or just browse through the same path in your local copy of the game to find the ".dae" file

[sanderd17]

A line? I may hope an entire file?

A dae just is a text file (mainly XML with a lot of 3D coordinates), you just have to save it as .dae, and the rest will happen automatically (If you use Windows, you might need to activate displaying file extensions).

[Sighvatr]

Alright, thank you. When I am finished texturing my model, how do I send both.dae file and textures back? Do I save in .dds format? Am I required to apply textures to model first in Blender?

I made my models by creating the mesh and UV Maps in Blender, texture the UV map in GIMP, and then combine both texture and mesh on to a separate program for a game that displays the model. In that program I can tweak all of the preexisting shadows for the object and directly act as a resource for the game I was playing.

What I am trying to say is that I am new to the process of importing/exporting and texturing meshes for 0 A.D.

[Enrique]

You simply need that the UV coordinates of the mesh correspond with the texture you want to use. You export the mesh (as .dae) into a 0AD folder (normally in \0AD\binaries\data\mods\public\art\meshes\structural or \props)

And you save the image that you want to use as texture (normally in \0AD\binaries\data\mods\public\art\textures\skins\props or \structural)

Then you create an .xml file (or modify an existing one) where the game will know which mesh to load, and which texture to apply (these .XMLs are called actor files)

This is part of the structure of an actor .xml:

It's not showing the full file, but there you can see that you put the mesh ".DAE" path between the <mesh> tags, and then the path of the texture(s) between the <textures> tags that is going to use the model right after the <props> tags.

It may look scary at first, but it's quite simple. In this example the elephant uses the "color" texture (baseTex), an specular texture for reflections (specTex) and a normal map for bumps and extra detail (normTex)

OR

You can just zip the .dae file and the texture and post it here lol

[Sighvatr]

Going from my research, these miniatures describe Hellenistic War Elephants the best.

[Sighvatr]

This is the Carthaginian War Elephant

This is the Seleucid War Elephant

[Mythos_Ruler]

I posted a very excellent reference on page 1. Let's go with that. Thank you.

[LordGood]

I think primary sources would be more valuable in terms of historical accuracy, rather than an artistic representation out of historical context

[Mythos_Ruler]

I think primary sources would be more valuable in terms of historical accuracy, rather than an artistic representation out of historical context

The artistic representations are based on primary sources (they were created for Ancient Warfare Magazine, I have the issue). What the primary sources don't give is good texture and color, which the artistic representation does. Primary sources are often exaggerated and misshapen, which the artistic representations fix.

[Sighvatr]

Which is why I posted some primary resources and another interpretation as well as further researching the materials. Im sorry Mythos for getting on your nerves about that. Its just that some of these references look too colorful to me and I question the artist's interpretation and where do they find the information they get for drawing the successor armies. For instance, I could not tell what the heck that tower howdah turret is made out of because it looks like painted clay bricks stacked on top of the african elephants back.