===[COMMITTED]=== Celtic Shields

[Nescio]

35 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

For the temporary common roster for both factions:

  Reveal hidden contents

Village

• Spearman  - Catucos 
  • Britons
    • Basic => No helmet  / Trousers / Naked chest and body paint / No cape / Medium shield (Oval 5,6,7,8) without shield protection
    • Advanced => No helmet / Trousers / Cape / Naked chest and body paint/ Long shield (Oval1,3 Hexagonal2, Square3, 4) with shield boss (group 4)
    • Elite => Coolus or Meyrick helmet / Trousers / Cape / Tunic (thick?)/ Long shield (Oval1,3 Hexagonal2, Square3, 4) with shield boss (group 5)
  • Gauls (I used the description for the swordsman)
    • Basic => No helmet  / Trousers / Naked chest or tunic / Cape or no cape / Long shield (Oval1, 2, 3) without shield protection
    • Advanced => Berru or Montefortino / Trousers / Cape / Naked chest or tunic / Long shield (Oval1, 2, 3) with shield boss (group1)
    • Elite => Ciumesti or Montefortino / Trousers / Cape or no cape / Leather cuirass / Long shield (Oval1, 2, 3) with shield boss (group2) and orle protection
• Skirmisher - Bagauda
  • Britons (Adretos description)
    • Basic => No helmet  / Trousers / Naked chest and body paint / No cape / Shield (Square1, 2) without shield protection
    • Advanced => No helmet / Trousers / Cape / Naked chest and body paint/ Shield (Square2, Oval8) with shield boss (group 3)   
    • Elite => Coolus or Meyrick helmet / Trousers / Cape / Tunic / Shield (Square2, Oval8) with shield boss (group 4)
  • Gauls
    • Basic => No helmet  / Trousers / Naked chest or tunic / No cape / Medium shield (Oval8, Square2) wicker or wooden without shield protection
    • Advanced => No helmet / Trousers / Cape / Naked chest or tunic / Medium shield (Oval 4 , Oval8, Square2 ) with shield boss (group1)
    • Elite => Berru or Montefortino helmet / Trousers / Cape / Naked chest or tunic / Medium shield (Oval4, Oval8, Square2) with shield boss (group1)
• Light Cavalry - Marcacos
  • Britons
    • Basic => No helmet  / Trousers / Naked chest and body paint / No cape / Shield (Square2, Oval5,6,7,8) with shield boss (group 3)
    • Advanced => Ashmolean or Berru helmet / Trousers / Cape / Naked chest and body paint/ Shield (Square2, Oval5,6,7,8) with shield boss (group 4)
    • Elite => Coolus or Meyrick helmet / Trousers / Cape / Tunic (thick?) / Long shield (Oval1, Hexagonal2, Square3, 4) with shield boss (group 5)
  • Gauls (I used the same than the ambactos spearman)
    •  Basic => No helmet but leather or textile cap  / Trousers / Tunic / No cape / Long shield (Oval2, 3, Hexagonal1) without shield protection
    • Advanced => No helmet but leather or textile cap / Trousers / Tunic (thick) / No cape / Long shield (Oval2, 3, Hexagonal1) with shield boss (group3)
    • Elite => Alesia or Coolus helmet / Trousers / No cape / Chain mail / Long shield (Oval2, 3, Hexagonal1) with shield boss (group3) and orle protection

Town

• Slinger - Telmiuicos
  • Britons and Gauls
    • Basic => No helmet  / Trousers / Naked chest / No cape / No shield
    • Advanced => No helmet / Trousers / Naked chest / No cape / Small shield (Square1)
    • Elite => No helmet but leather or textile cap / Trousers / Tunic / No cape / Small shield (Square1)
• Sword cav - Eporedos
  • Britons (Epossos description, removed the Mill Hill Headband)
    •  Basic => Mill Hill Headband no helmet / Trousers / Naked chest and body paint / No cape / Long shield (Oval1, Hexagonal2, Square3, 4) with shield boss (group 4)
    • Advanced => Ashmolean or Berru helmet / Trousers / Cape / Tunic (thick?)/ Long shield (Oval1, Hexagonal2, Square3, 4) with shield boss (group 5)
    • Elite => Coolus or Meyrick helmet / Trousers / Cape / Chain Mail / Long shield (Oval1, Hexagonal2, Square3, 4) with shield boss (group 5)
  • Gauls (the Eporedos)
    • Basic => No helmet / Trousers / Cape / Naked chest or tunic / Long shield (Oval1, 2) with shield boss (group1)
    • Advanced =>Ciumesti or montefortino helmet / Trousers / Cape or no cape / Leather cuirass / Long shield (Oval1, 2) with shield boss (group2) and orle protection
    • Elite => Port, Alésia, Foret or Boé helmet / Trousers / Cape or no cape / Chain mail / Long shield (Oval1, 2, Hexagonal1) with shield boss (group3) and orle protection

Here everything in common for both faction. Do not forget the champions, you can use the chariot for the Britons and the Super Sword Cav for the Gauls. Do not forget the naked warrior for the Gauls (I think you already done the elite version which is enough). For the champion infantry swordsman, you can give it to both faction like this:

• Champion swordsman - Argos
  • Britons
    • General => Bronze Mihovo or Meyrick helmet / Trousers / Cape / Chain Mail/ Long shield (Oval1,3 Hexagonal2, Square3, 4) with shield boss (group 5)
  • Gauls
    • General => Alesia, Agen or Iron Mihovo helmet / Trousers / Cape / Chain mail with or without phalera (metallic plaque round or rectangular) / Long shield (Oval1, 2, Hexagonal1) with shield boss (group3) and orle protection

 

Don't forget the Celtic town-phase b/a/e cavalry and infantry swordsmen, currently available to Carthage. There's also a Celtic mercenary in the Ptolemies roster.

(Also, shouldn't the Gauls get archers?)

[Genava55]

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

Don't forget the Celtic town-phase b/a/e cavalry and infantry swordsmen, currently available to Carthage. There's also a Celtic mercenary in the Ptolemies roster. 

(Also, shouldn't the Gauls get archers?)

This is only a temporary roster. If I understood correctly, they want to release an early version not totally finished (mainly updating the texture and the models). I propose to stay on the current situation where the two rosters for the Celtic factions are almost the same.

[Nescio]

3 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

(mainly updating the texture and the models)

Nonetheless, all existing Celtic actors ought to be checked and updated, including those in different folders.

[Alexandermb]

@Genava55 initial Release: mods.7z

This include a secondary horse mod with the actual horse actors, horse update has its own updated cavalry actor.
More patterns for square_a shield (small square shape shield) needed if desired. Black and white shapes like the one genava shared work perfectly and fast for more designs.

@stanislas69 initial review needed.

[Stan`]

I hate being the bad guy... But I guess it has to be done for the game to not reduce in quality.

Celtic_Shields

- Variants use four spaces instead of two.

- Carnyx + Scabbards should be a separate commit

- Naming conventions → https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/ArtDesignDocument#FileNamingConventions

• No spaces in the file name are allowed

• No capital letters are allowed

• XML, PMD, PSA, DDS files should use these rules. For any file-formats not specially mentioned here, follow similar naming rules to fit the file type.

• If using numbers always use two digits. Example: 01, not 1

• Use underscore ( _ ) to separate portions of the file name

• Use this order <general>_<civ>_<type>_<extra>_<variation>

• If the folder path to the file already defines one portion of the name, exclude that from the file name.

- Might want to use letters or numbers but not both.

- Shields should be in a texture atlas. Loading that many textures will be heavy.

- If you are adding duplicates in both gaul and brit folder of the celt folder I think they must be removed. Less maintenance to do.

- Incorrect indent in some of the actors

- Might want to give a name to the main variant, like base with a frequency of "1" in case we have different models one day.

Celtic_Shields_Horses

- You removed the rider on death, is that intended ?

[Alexandermb]

32 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

I hate being the bad guy... But I guess it has to be done for the game to not reduce in quality.

Celtic_Shields

1 Variants use four spaces instead of two.

2 Carnyx + Scabbards should be a separate commit

- Naming conventions → https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/ArtDesignDocument#FileNamingConventions

• No spaces in the file name are allowed

• No capital letters are allowed

• XML, PMD, PSA, DDS files should use these rules. For any file-formats not specially mentioned here, follow similar naming rules to fit the file type.

• If using numbers always use two digits. Example: 01, not 1

• Use underscore ( _ ) to separate portions of the file name

• Use this order <general>_<civ>_<type>_<extra>_<variation>

• If the folder path to the file already defines one portion of the name, exclude that from the file name.

3 Might want to use letters or numbers but not both.

4 Shields should be in a texture atlas. Loading that many textures will be heavy.

5 If you are adding duplicates in both gaul and brit folder of the celt folder I think they must be removed. Less maintenance to do.

6  Incorrect indent in some of the actors

7  Might want to give a name to the main variant, like base with a frequency of "1" in case we have different models one day.

Celtic_Shields_Horses

8 You removed the rider on death, is that intended ?

1 will fix it

2 Carnyx + Scabbard only as backup in that folder, only shields would be committed (once more i've had to move files from one state to another).

3 had to use both numbers and letters for the shield variants (oval A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H) as @Genava55 mentioned, some have boss_group_X others boss_group_Y and others orle_protection_X, so 3 variants type per rank, unless variants can be used to compress the 3 actors variants and specific called by the actor rank.

4 By texture atlas you mean, all shields textures an a single one? The main objective of separate borders from faction patterns, is to reuse in global scale the shields shapes/textures whitout having the same design X amount of shield shape, (less shields textures, less actors, less models).

For example, having pattern X for shape oval A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H / Hex: A,B / Sq: A,B,C,D would mean 14 textures for each shape multiplied by the amount of patterns used (Already discussed in the first page). same with the spinas and borders, rehuse them for romans, iberians, ptolemies, also for allow modders to make they shields easily by only painting the pattern above any base they want to use for their mod.

5 celt must be removed, but that would come after everything is properly divided (don't want to mess any map or actor calling the celt actor in the initial release)

6 will fix those with visual studio.

7 will do.

8 nope, didn't saw that will fix it.
 

[Stan`]

23 minutes ago, Alexandermb said:

By texture atlas you mean, all shields textures an a single one? The main objective of separate borders from faction patterns, is to reuse in global scale the shields shapes/textures whitout having the same design X amount of shield shape, (less shields textures, less actors, less models).

Yeah like the current one from the gauls. You can put everything you want in it  The goal is just to reduce the number of loaded textures.

 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

42 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

Yeah like the current one from the gauls. You can put everything you want in it  The goal is just to reduce the number of loaded textures.

 

 

Won't using 1 giant texture necessitate a model for each texture, since the UV would need to change? So, what you'd be doing is trading many textures for many shield models. Cost-benefit analysis for this? And would this make modding more difficult? 

Edited April 10, 2019 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Stan`]

21 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Won't using 1 giant texture necessitate a model for each texture, since the UV would need to change? So, what you'd be doing is trading many textures for many shield models. Cost-benefit analysis for this? And would this make modding more difficult? 

Yeah that's true... Maybe @vladislavbelov might have insight on whether using texture atlases but having numerous models is better or worse.

I couldn't find a thread discussing this. Maybe @Wijitmaker can enlighten us

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just now, stanislas69 said:

Yeah that's true... Maybe @vladislavbelov might have insight on whether using texture atlases but having numerous models is better or worse.

I couldn't find a thread discussing this. Maybe @Wijitmaker can enlighten us

At one point, all unit portraits used texture atlases and then were given an ID number that would pick the right section of the atlas texture. Though, that seems like yet another complication to now add something like that again. But maybe there are benefits that would outweigh.

[Alexandermb]

Thats my thought too, wich would be the pros and cons of having multiple textures or models. Wich one Will have more impact on performance, because using atlas Will mean shield shapes Will be restricted to that textures, and the textures Will be highly compressed lossing most of the details having pixelated shields instead of 2019 textures.

[Sundiata]

I love the higher quality textures by the way... I really don't like pixelation... Yes to 2019 textures! 

[Alexandermb]

@stanislas69 result of texture compression using tinypng tool: 

Spoiler

Mod went from 17mb to 9mb:

Shield texture preview: L: Compressed R: Default Baked texture

Spoiler

Spoiler

No notable difference but better size for textures:

Spoiler

Mod folder with the latest changes and fixes: mods.7z

@stanislas69

rider death wasn't changed on this two mod, that bug may be unrelated to the mods.
if you find another indent bug tell me the files and a screenshot, i saw some and fixed them.
should shield files be switched from "brit_shield..." to "shield_brit..." ?

[Wijitmaker]

On 4/10/2019 at 10:25 AM, stanislas69 said:

Yeah that's true... Maybe @vladislavbelov might have insight on whether using texture atlases but having numerous models is better or worse.

I couldn't find a thread discussing this. Maybe @Wijitmaker can enlighten us

Yep, we thought casual modders would find it easier to tweak textures than to tweak models.  All you had to do was save your texture in the folder structure and make a tweak to point to the new file in the actor editor.  Easy as pie

[Stan`]

19 minutes ago, Wijitmaker said:

Yep, we thought casual modders would find it easier to tweak textures than to tweak models.  All you had to do was save your texture in the folder structure and make a tweak to point to the new file in the actor editor.  Easy as pie

So why were some textures stacked in atlases ?

[Wijitmaker]

Do you have an example handy?  I'm guessing that merged textures were used for GUI applications?  Shared textures were used with buildings.  You got to remember that 15 or so years ago our minimum specs were:

• CPU: 1 GHz Intel or x86 compatible.
• RAM: At least 512 MB.
• GPU: Any supporting OpenGL 1.3 with 3D hardware accelerated drivers and at least 128 MB memory, e.g., Radeon 9000, GeForce 3, or similar.
• OS: XP, Vista, 7 or 8.
• Resolution: 1024×768 or above.

I'd wager to guess that most all our phones today have 10x the computing power :p

[Stan`]

9 minutes ago, Wijitmaker said:

Do you have an example handy?  I'm guessing that merged textures were used for GUI applications?  Shared textures were used with buildings.  You got to remember that 15 or so years ago our minimum specs were:

• CPU: 1 GHz Intel or x86 compatible.
• RAM: At least 512 MB.
• GPU: Any supporting OpenGL 1.3 with 3D hardware accelerated drivers and at least 128 MB memory, e.g., Radeon 9000, GeForce 3, or similar.
• OS: XP, Vista, 7 or 8.
• Resolution: 1024×768 or above.

I'd wager to guess that most all our phones today have 10x the computing power :p

Textures atlases = shared textures

I was wondering if it was for convenience or a special reason

[Wijitmaker]

Ah, yes - when making Buildings (and weapons) we thought it was redundant to make a unique building texture for each building at the time, when we were trying to be consistent in the theme and look of a building.  Probably shouldn't have done that in hindsight, but we didn't know in the future there would be AO and normal mapping capability.  Also had no idea that we'd be releasing the game 20 years later on "super computers" (or we would have thought at the time).  Compare the textures of 0 A.D. with those of Age of Mythology - even our old textures were quite a bit higher quality.

[Stan`]

15 minutes ago, Wijitmaker said:

Ah, yes - when making Buildings (and weapons) we thought it was redundant to make a unique building texture for each building at the time, when we were trying to be consistent in the theme and look of a building.  Probably shouldn't have done that in hindsight, but we didn't know in the future there would be AO and normal mapping capability.  Also had no idea that we'd be releasing the game 20 years later on "super computers" (or we would have thought at the time).  Compare the textures of 0 A.D. with those of Age of Mythology - even our old textures were quite a bit higher quality.

Ah good to know. Usually textures atlases are used for performance reasons

[Wijitmaker]

Oh, and most of the old shield textures live here:

https://wfg.itms.ovh/?dir=oldfiles/users/files/art/members/stag/shlds

These originals were made in a much higher rez.  

You'll have to probably install one of these... Anything newer than v6 should work:

http://www.oldversion.com/windows/paint-shop-pro/

You can export a .psd file if you'd like from psp.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 hours ago, stanislas69 said:

Ah good to know. Usually textures atlases are used for performance reasons

Just loading times, right? Once they're loaded into memory there's no problem for modern rigs?

Edited April 13, 2019 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Stan`]

6 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Just loading times, right? Once they're loaded into memory there's no problem for modern rigs?

Yeah but also if you load the 20 buildings + props of a civilization that use the same texture you can only load it once in memory reducing fragmentation.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 hours ago, Wijitmaker said:

Compare the textures of 0 A.D. with those of Age of Mythology - even our old textures were quite a bit higher quality.

Indeed, the max texture size in originally-released Age of Mythology was 256x256 for EVERYTHING. Terrain textures? 256. "Cinematic" textures? 256. Extended Edition might have increased the maximum size, but back in 2003? Yeah, 256. lol

[Stan`]

https://answers.unity.com/questions/1242465/texture-atlasing-performance.html

https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/using-texture-atlas-in-order-to-optimize-your-game--cms-26783

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

21 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

https://answers.unity.com/questions/1242465/texture-atlasing-performance.html

https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/using-texture-atlas-in-order-to-optimize-your-game--cms-26783

I wonder if this could be a final step before 1.0 release. Call it an optimization pass. For now, it seems better to leave everything in separate files. The current DL size of 0 A.D. is not onerous at all.

Edited April 14, 2019 by wowgetoffyourcellphone