Four Path Magitech

[wciow]

I made a small shrine model. I'm not sure if its what you had in mind. Its a similar size to the energy source building for magic.

[weedkiller]

wow wcio
i think textures are just great and model too, but perhaps you can add some "geometry" at the corners. Or make the base block bigger than the upper one.
Thats only one idea, i think its already great as it is!

Do you have already an idea which parts to fill with teamcolor?

[daniel.santos]

THAT'S BEAUTIFUL!!!!

You guys blow me away the way you can just whip up something like that

Maybe we can put some gold on it somewhere and then a team color, I dunno, I just really like what you have

[daniel.santos]

I would like to start integrating some of Duke's ideas, but I would also like some feedback.  I'm not sure how to edit SVG files, but here's the last one he posted and I'll put comments below:

Code: [Select]

[img]http://www.freewebtown.com/DK2112/Glest/magetree2.png[/img]I'm making these changes in the FPM tree now (the corruption side only still) and I would like some feedback.

• Adding crypt to game.  This requires necromancer tower and graveyard to be already built.  We may want to make this smaller and maybe restiction it's build location to inside of the graveyard?  just a thought.
• Moving "Shroud of Trepidation" from graveyard to necromancer tower (Duke has "Intimidation", but I like "Shroud of Trepidation" better personally).  This is the upgrade that speeds up initiates at the cost of reducing their mana pool down to 10:
  move-speed: +50
  production-speed: +50
  repair-speed: +25
  harvest-speed: +50
  max-ep: -40
• Preservation upgrade is being moved from the necromancer tower to the crypt.  This forces the player to develop further before being able to get this powerful upgrade (might reduce the actual cost on the upgrade, not sure yet).
• Moving "zombie constructs", the upgrade required to make zombies, from the necromancer tower to the graveyard.  Duke has this named "resurrection", but I don't think that's a fitting name because resurrection to me is a very pure and sacred thing.  I don't think "zombie constructs" is a fitting name either. "Zombie constructs" fit better when we were going to make them giants (thus, the parts they were made from weren't originally giant, it just got constructed in a fucked up lab or something), but for plane-ole zombies, it doesn't seem to fit.  I thought that "reanimation" sounded good, but that seems to be the process that's also used to animate skeletons, so it kinda seems out of place there as well.  Ideas on this are most welcomed.  Maybe "reanimation" is at least better than "zombie constructs"
• "Lingering Spirits" (the upgrade required to morph necromancers iinto liches) now requires the crypt to be built before it can be researched.  This puts it a little further out of reach than it was before, I hope not unduly so.  I'm removing the requirement that the archmage tower must be built to research it, but adding that to the Lich its self.  That way, you can get started on the progression towards having a Lich before you have an archmage tower, but you still need to built it eventually.  If we don't like it, we can always change it back, but I want to see how it works out.
• I'm leaving "energy extraction", the upgrade that allows the Lich to use his soul steal attack, in the library because I really do believe it fits better there, next to "energy compression" and "energy sharpening."
• I'm changing the armor the summoner summons to "animate armor" and the Lingering Spirits upgrade gives it a morph to "ghost armor."  What this means in story is that the summoner originally just summoned some armor that was mindless and magically animated.  But with the research of lingering spirits, it can be morphed so that the spirit of some deceased being inhabits the magically animated armor, thus becoming more deadly (haven't figured out what to give it yet).  I prefer to have "animate armor" the original state and "ancient armor" the nature-upgraded version personally, but I'm not dead set on any of that.

I'll probably update post more this later

[ZaggyDad]

Does the Zombie have to be non giant? It looks better as a giant. And it's nice to have a giant for the necromancy guys.

~Zaggy

[Duke]

It's quite a while since i actually worked on this, I've been in a way too lazy mood lately, may adjust some things soon.

The best tool for editing svg is probably inkscape (I actually don't even now another one right now).

My labeling actually has severeal issues: I forgot the actual name used, tried simply  to find one that fits better into the graph bubbles or haven't got the right feel for what sounds good. (I'm not native english). So just stick to what you think sounds best.

[orion]

"Four Path Magitech" topic now sticky'd

[wciow]

Finally got something new to show

[Duke]

It looks realy great, but may be to much stone.

[ZaggyDad]

Yeah... You should make there be tons of vines hanging off of it.

~Zaggy

[weedkiller]

Great as ever  
Perhaps there can be gras or small bushes at the "teethstone" to make them look more individual.

Btw, can you tell how you made the texture? Photos and composed in Gimp or such, and what about the darkening at the wood, is this handmade?

[wciow]

Thanks for the comments, I'll try to add some more foliage and make it look a bit more 'natury'

[daniel.santos]

I was thinking it would also be surrounded by a few trees, like in the model its self (just copy & paste )  But looking nice guys.

[wciow]

Heres the newer version of the grove:



I added some Glest trees and bushes and some extra vines on the stones. I'm still not completely happy with them but I'll improve it later.

Also whilst playing FPM I noticed a problem. Troops produced by the house of service (paladins/crusaders) require a barracks to be built. If you only have HoS and no barracks then you can't make troops.

An example would be after an attack where the enemy has destroyed your barracks but left your HoS. In this situation it would be very handy to be able to produce some paladins before the next attack!!

Also nice work applying the wall texture Zaggy it looks excellent!

[daniel.santos]

WOW!!!!!

I think I'm going to cry...

[weedkiller]

*you may get bored by it but.*
Awesome  

I just think about it..  you use blender right? Have you ever tried baking shadows and AO(ambient occlusion(?)) to the texture? perhaps that can improve the look once again. It may even work of you bake for a subsurfed model and then put that on the original one..

Ok, is just a idea, basically its looking so good, its really fun seeing it.

[Duke]

Well, baking is realy usefull only for bumb maps, normal maps and such.
normal tex usually benefit more from manual editing.

[wciow]

I just think about it..  you use blender right? Have you ever tried baking shadows and AO(ambient occlusion(?)

I just looked up Blender baking for the first time in ages and found something really cool! Blender finally has the ability to create tangent normal maps rather than the old way which was related to camera position and only looked good from one angle.

Blender can also create bump maps and combine them on-the-fly with your diffuse map to create self shadowing.

Heres a link if anyones interested http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Render_Bake

@Daniel
Have you ever worked with normal maps? Do you have any idea how much processing power it would use up if they were implemented? Can the current Glest lighting system cope with them?

[daniel.santos]

@Daniel
Have you ever worked with normal maps? Do you have any idea how much processing power it would use up if they were implemented? Can the current Glest lighting system cope with them?

hehe, never done it, but I just looked it up on wikipedia, does that count?  I definitely think we should implement it in Glest/GAE, it might requires a new g3d format.  I can study up on it, but maybe Martiño can look at it too.  I've been pretty busy this last week and I also spent some time playing with Martiño's scripting, it's going to be really cool.  I'll be importing that into GAE as soon as it's officially released (and polished).  I have a feeling that the processing power, given a fairly current system will be negotiable.  I've been doing some learning about OpenGL and how the rendering pipeline works and it's really cool, all of this crap gets sent to the video card (as long as you have a fairly current nvidia/radeon card) and the GPU does most of the magic.  By fairly current, I mean 3 years old or so.  But again, all new graphics stuff should be controlled via config options, so that if it slows somebody down, they can turn it off or scale it back.

[wciow]

I'm just gonna write a small update to keep things moving on the FPM.
I have been concentrating on the Path of Nature and trying to work out exactly what is needed. Here is my version of the PON tree:



I've looked at the current SVN and the PON is a big construction site right now. I'm not really sure what the treebond upgrade is or how it will fit in?

On the modeling side the wolf and bear models are complete (glestimals is nearly done :shock: ) so I've been forced to crawl away from my computer and expose my pasty geek skin to the sun 

Hopefully there will be some progress soon...

[weedkiller]

So possibly still free are: (am i right?)
-entwined tower
-ranger
-lookout

im not quite sure... as you probably noticed on my persianmod i still struggle with textures and so no progress. So perhaps i try a building first because it needs less time. Prob is only that i have to fit to your style... difficult because yours are greatly done . OK i dont mind if you throw it away in end; i made a lot of modells just for fun so thats still possibly.
As i not exactly understand entwined tower i will try lookout, ok?

//EDIT:
first progress; most shall be wooden, only main tower part of stone.

[Duke]

Since this is natures faction, the Rangers lookout would probably be best as some kind of tree house.

And entwined tower is just the basic mage tower with a lot of vines around it, maybe a little tree on the roof.

[wciow]

So possibly still free are: (am i right?)
-entwined tower
-ranger
-lookout

Yeah all those are still free to be made. Also there are still plenty of models to make for the paths of enlightenment and reason. Please don't think that because I am listing models that have been completed that I have some kind of monopoly on them. I am very happy for any modelers of any skill level to jump in and help out the project. All blend files are available and if you want to modify anything I've already made please go ahead.

The entwined tower is basically the mages tower wrapped in vines to symbolise its take-over by the forces of nature. Hopefully this can have a cool animation with the vines climbing up the tower as it is built.

The tower looks great! Its always refreshing to see another artist come up with something in a way which you never imagined it. Please keep going with it

Lastly I'm gonna show my own recent WIP. This is the mobile harvesting unit for Path of Reason. My basic idea was a kind of steam powered medieval tractor. This version is just the basic texure and lacks any details/teamcolours.

[weedkiller]

amazing truk wciow !
does it drive like a tank(one side faster) cause i dont see if wheels can turn left/right? Perhaps you can add a oven(?) where wood is burned to create the stem but i dont really have ideas for details; perhaps some seats and forks and axes for the workers.

I got some further with the tower; perhaps i can cover it in trees, so it is more likely like duke suggested.

[Duke]

With the texture it actually fits quite well.