===[COMMITTED]=== Civ: Rome Scutum

[Stan`]

Well since they stole the Mythology... 

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

Honestly i didn't found any neither  but this re-enactor i imagine is the same you found:

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But as far as i've learned from history thanks to this forum, romans seem to be the ancient pirates of the copyright. They kinda stole everything they liked in the battlefield and adapted to their own taste ie: Gallic Coolus, Corinthian to Apullo - Corinthian, Chalcidean to Attic? i wouldn't be sure they didn't used it, but i've just did it because i saw it once with the reenactor and then secondly with a TWR2 Mod and i already had the greek face design already done in the aspis blender file and say why not?, if its okay and someone found more evidence sure, if doesn't then its replaced by another texture.

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The greek things is because the ancient they are. The rest is adaptation. Later they evolve those tbings by owns.

Greek influence is pure Transculturation.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transculturación

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transculturation (this article didn't exist many years ago)

 

[Sundiata]

7 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Could you say the historical precedent for having the face on the shields?  Naturally that comes from Greek hoplites, but on the scutum it looks off.  I did a quick look on the web and only saw a reenactor using that kind of design.  Personally it seems perhaps a bit too far fetched that someone would paint that on that type of shield, but I'd appreciate some insight from someone more knowledgeable about Roman martial artwork than me.

I'm not an expert on the matter myself, but I believe it might be inspired by the Imperial Legio I Minervia:

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Legio I Minervia ("Minerva's First Legion", i.e., "devoted to the goddess Minerva") was a legion of the Imperial Roman army founded in AD 82 by emperor Domitian (r. 81–96), for his campaign against the Germanic tribe of the Chatti. Its cognomen refers to the goddess Minerva, the legion's protector. There are still records of the I Minervia in the Rhine border region in the middle of the 4th century. The legion's emblem is an image of goddess Minerva.

Minerva sometimes carries decoration of a gorgon's head representing medusa. Either way, Roman gorgon's are depicted differently. They seem to lack the sharp teeth sticking out in the Greek versions, for example. 

 

This decorated shield boss is also interesting

[Stan`]

Which also means those would be DE shields

[Sundiata]

54 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Which also means those would be DE shields

Yeah, those examples are Imperial. Although the iconography clearly evolved from earlier Greek forms, and may well have been used by the Romans at much earlier dates, but without period references, how and where exactly these gorgons were depicted remains speculative, it seems. I can't even find period depictions of the Imperial scutum examples that I gave.

I used to think that Rome-experts were a dime a dozen. I was wrong, lol...  

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

28 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

I used to think that Rome-experts were a dime a dozen. I was wrong, lol...  

I think the main thing is that people who are knowledgeable don't care to admit that they can't give very decisive evidence of its existence or lack thereof, and I don't criticise them for it.  Just saying 'I don't know' does little for the conversation.  It's a niche subject.  Personally I'd say the current iteration just clashes with the Roman aesthetic in a weird way and feels anachronistic.  It's a classical design that has been grafted onto something else with no regard for Roman tastes.  Granted, I'm mainly just approaching this from a matter of personal bias, so don't take any of this too personally or seriously.  

Just to mention so that I don't sound like a snobbish critic, the other designs look really cool.

[Sundiata]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I think the main thing is that people who are knowledgeable don't care to admit that they can't give very decisive evidence of its existence or lack thereof, and I don't criticise them for it.  Just saying 'I don't know' does little for the conversation.

I'd have to disagree somewhat on that. If knowledgeable people, especially specialists, say that they don't know, and aren't able to find evidence to answer a question decisively, I'd say that's valuable in it's own right. In the example of the scutum with a Greek style gorgon, the lack of available evidence points to the unlikelihood of such a design on a republic era shield. The Greek style gorgon probably wouldn't be as misplaced on an aspis of a Roman hoplite from the regal period or the early republic, but I wouldn't know for sure.

This guy for example is described as a Roman hoplite from the time of the Servian reforms of the 6th century BC. I'm unfamiliar with the references, or even original source of the artwork...

 

 

1 hour ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

Personally I'd say the current iteration just clashes with the Roman aesthetic in a weird way and feels anachronistic.  It's a classical design that has been grafted onto something else with no regard for Roman tastes.  Granted, I'm mainly just approaching this from a matter of personal bias, so don't take any of this too personally or seriously.

I agree entirely, and I didn't mean to argue for the Greek gorgon. Just trying to provide some refs, to attempt to illuminate the subject, with the cautious conclusion that even if Republic era Roman shields were decorated with a gorgon, that it probably would have looked different from the Classical Greek example. 

[Genava55]

 

[Alexandermb]

10 hours ago, Stan` said:

Well since they stole the Mythology... 

lets be honest, they stole everything that wasn't roman, Womans, Slaves, Citizen, Military Equipment, Art, Architecture. They are the biggest thief on history.

[Alexandermb]

@Stan` i only need to finish a handgrip, and extraordinarii italic designs to finish the scutums (from what is covered in the main game) you can start reviewing for preparation pre-commit. Let me know if files are needed. 

23 shields variants so far (22 excluding the gorgon face). Haven't done any thunder yet.


The wooden spina gets damage too: And looks really nice!

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All the textures use the same normal map (3 in total)


Boss still works a prop point for have variation. But at least the spina doesnt.

Already tweaked some of the spearman idles to avoid clipping and Testudo, but still need to tweak some attacking and testudo walk + anti cavalry.

Cutted a little hole in the back zone to give some depth.

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Bronze rim have a good specular map looking and bronze boss also:

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Gonna see if i include a covered in leather back zone shield for elite triarii. And if i bake a 3rd color variation for the back zone.

[Stan`]

Sounds good @Alexandermb. 

If I may, can I suggest an animation where the unit bangs his/her sword nicely against his/her shield ?

Also and this is far more important can you consider organizing and uploading the blend files to the art repo ?

And finally fix the camel that one is game breaking.

[Alexandermb]

Just now, Stan` said:

Sounds good @Alexandermb. 

If I may, can I suggest an animation where the unit bangs his/her sword nicely against his/her shield ?

Also and this is far more important can you consider organizing and uploading the blend files to the art repo ?

And finally fix the camel that one is game breaking.

Since im finishing yep, can fix those im not gonna be lost if i drop a bit the blend file (like i've did before)

i guess we are missing rider, horse, elephant and scutum blend file arent we?

Do you have any reference or draw of the animation so i can get an idea about how to do it (The more attack animation we have better).


This is me literally when i don't touch a node tree after baking it after a long time:

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[Lion.Kanzen]

4 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

lets be honest, they stole everything that wasn't roman, Womans, Slaves, Citizen, Military Equipment, Art, Architecture. They are the biggest thief on history.

Similar our countries latin america stolen things from others , fashion, music , tv,  smarthphones etc... It's not stolen I said before is called transculturation.

[wackyserious]

Gorgon motif could be used for pedites extraordinarii i.e. Roman champion swordsmen, the extraordinarii were picked socii, and some of the socii were very hellenized.

@Alexandermb what about some plain and painted wooden shields for basic rank hastati, plain ones which are not covered with leather?

[Alexandermb]

9 hours ago, wackyserious said:

Gorgon motif could be used for pedites extraordinarii i.e. Roman champion swordsmen, the extraordinarii were picked socii, and some of the socii were very hellenized.

@Alexandermb what about some plain and painted wooden shields for basic rank hastati, plain ones which are not covered with leather?

Plain wooden, i didn't read the word "painted" before baking. 

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[Alexandermb]

Im gonna follow the shield shape and designs for the extraordinarii:

The shape is slightly different, less oval in the top and bottom edges. Wich gonna be the end shape for the marian legionnary scutum

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[Alexandermb]

Some of the progress:

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[Stan`]

Wow that's really nice. Still think the middle piece shouls be another color for contrast

[Alexandermb]

7 hours ago, Stan` said:

Wow that's really nice. Still think the middle piece shouls be another color for contrast

It just need shadow (and depends on the reference some share the same color others doesnt) i was planning add it at the end of the update:

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Shadow added with gimp Xach effect:

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[Stan`]

Still not really distinctive from the distance but that's my opinion

[Alexandermb]

46 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Still not really distinctive from the distance but that's my opinion

It hardly depends on the reference and even the faction sometimes. Sometimes shields like seleucid mercenary spearman thureos have different spina as predominant paint or other case like gaulish shields.

Remove it or add it based on our view would ve nitpickery and not relevant if we follow history accuracy:

Even the old and actual shield textures despict them with (very scratched surface) different spinas tones based on the shield or reference:
 

it only has shadow to show the spina and some geometry in the shield.

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But in other cases like samnite shields they do have as default different spina color:

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Or the iberian scutum:

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The spina painted following the shield paint is based on the reference and to keep the paint the re-enactor, historical art or evidence has to follow So far all of the references despict them having the same color of the shield as it is a leather cover avobe the whole shield and not only under the spina. And some others despict both different tone as the case of the wooden basic spina:

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From my view removing the spina color for have a gameplay view would be remove a part of the roman history.


In other case like thureo they do have a wooden spina whitout paint/cover as reference:

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And even the game keeps the reference using wooden spina. Removing them because of "gameplay" would have been throw all the history references out of the board:

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Another example is this re-enactors idk if carthago had this shields but to keep the point they have both spina wooden and painted:

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[Stan`]

Alright

[Alexandermb]

Just in case after finish i will upload a zip file here having all the resources or designs i've used as layers for the forum to keep them stored somewhere, so we can have a safety backup in case someone can do something else with them:

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[Alexandermb]

Scutum is relatively done, republican shields are done for the infantry and champion extraordinarii so far have 5 variants (planning to have from 8 to 10)

Thunders and wings haven't been done, they are quite hard to get properly aligned TBH.

[Alexandermb]

@Stan` you can review this mod in the meantime, ignore the infantry spearman_e variant since this is the one i've used for combat test.

0.A.D.-Rome-Scutum.7z