Dwarf faction

[jda]

Ok.
I'll finish this unit and we'll see what time tells by then.

[jda]

Hey guys!

Though I still don't have much time, I wanted you guys to know I'm still working (even slower now!) on this.

My formerly called DAS (DwarfAirship) model has progressed a good deal from the last g3d I posted. Also I pretty much settled on Skywalker for its name (no, it's not a dwarf walking the sky like Jesus on water! Not at all like that!).

The baloon is pretty much completed.
The pilot stance should be final (as wciow aparently never posted the .blend files, it's still an imported .g3d from a standing engineer that I got to edit for the correct stance by deleting its shape keys).
The pilot cabin is mostly done though some more or less important details are still missing as well as major cleanup.
The single engine box and two corresponding helixes are getting most of my attention now - one of the helixes is mostly done and the other will be copy-mirrored from it.
The bombs' hull is mostly undone.

Please keep in mind this is my first model ever (actually my third atempt at the same model) so it's a slow but I think very fruitful learning experience for me.
Comments welcome.

Download link (filename will change to "skywalker" when the mesh gets completed):
http://www.mediafire.com/?yeykh1tnza2

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention: the top of the three-parts cabin (really one single object) and the bottom of the baloon are still NOT merged! They will later so no, that flat cabin rooftop will NOT be flat in the final mesh.

Edit #2: The pilot's body (by itself some 1000+ polygons) will be chopped off its mid section (hidden by the cabin) as much as possible.

[jda]

@ wciow

Model sizes:
I incidentally found out the different dwarfs in the faction (size 1 units) don't have the same model sizes. A pic will explain it best:

As you can see, there are three different sizes:
- miners and workers (fourth and fifth from left) are the biggest
- dragon slayers, warriors and guardians (second, third and sixth) are about 99% of a worker's size (not really relevant...)
- engineers are about 95% of a worker's size (and this is noticeable ingame!) which is partocularly odd as they are promoted from workers...

So, is this how it's meant to be (is there some sort of dwarven logic to this?) or is it rather something to be fixed?

I already "fixed" the flame team's size (I actually started by fixing its layout - the "old" version in dwarves gimli is completely offcentered and oversized (it's actually a bit complex to explain in a few words how it's layout is wrong and the several options to fix'em). I currently have a fixed and working standing anim and wil be working on the walking anim later (currently, I have it moving in standing-still position as that was the real problem before: it drifted too far away from objects on its left side, going through the ones on its right side). Here's another pic, taken in blender from bellow (notice they fit neatly in a two-by-two squares space, being a blender square incidentally equal to a glest size-1 square ):


Yeah, I've been messing around with the whole faction actually... It started by doing a projecticle and particle effects for my dwarf skyship (yeah, I changed its name again but this one really is final! ), then I started messing around all over all of the XML's, then with the models themselves... (man, there's a lot more to adjust than I'd originally antecipated!  ).
So yeah, I'll be publishing a new release of the dwarves (in alpha status) as soon as I get my skyship finished and settled in.
BTW, here's a pic of the current skyship WIP (it's cut in half, but it's showing the present side, the propeller isn't blended onto the ship, there's a projectile that won't be there, it's untextured, ... ):


But my main reason for posting now:
wciow, can you tell me about the model sizes, please?

[-Archmage-]

Dude, about the sizes......do you actually expect them all to be the exact same height!

BTW, could I see the .blends for the skyship and the flame team that you've made?

[ElimiNator]

Are true people all the same height?
I think it is better if they aren't the same height.
Any ways in the pic it looks like the only difference in height is the hats.

[jda]

About the sizes:
No, I don't expect all dwarves to be the same height. I do admit I diverted myself a bit on the exaustive comparison...
But what I really find odd is that the engineer who is a promoted worker gets shrunken down (I also find it odd that his hair turns from bald at the top and grey for the rest to fully grown and black but ... ). It is, after all, the same dwarf in two different moments/phases!  ???
So what I'm asking, not being so familiar with dwarven phisiology myelf (lol), is whether  there is any reference to dwarves growing smaller (and enhancing hair-strength!!) as a result of growing older or as part of some "levelling-up" circumstances?
Yeah, looking at it this way, my question sounds even sillyer than how Archmage and Eliminator perceived it! LOL
But I'm still asking!

@ Eliminator:
I do think the difference in height from the miner/worker (in the middle) to the engineer (far edges) is relevant.

@ Archmage
What do you want the blends for? Are you working on the dwarves too?

[wciow]

Theres no paticular reason why the engineer is smaller, I must have acidentally shrunk it at some point. TBH I never really noticed.

I'm glad you've decided to tweak out some of the problems with the Gimli version. Your dwarf airship is also looking nice 

Please feel free to make the new dwarf release if you want to 

[-Archmage-]

What do you want the blends for? Are you working on the dwarves too?

I'm looking to help.
I would like to help you with animations.
Also, I would like to work a little bit on the Skyship I'll send you a renamed copy of my work to see if you like it...........boss .

[jda]

Thanks for the answer, wciow.

I'll most likely be rescaling the engineer (as well as that object in the deriving flame team, bombard and now skyship models) to be as big as the worker it is promoted from. But probably not just in the upcoming alpha release (I'd need to figure out how to re-export the animations from imported .g3d's (I found a "video" (an animated .gif) by weedkiller that may help but it's late tonight, almost 1 in the morning here) or if Archmage takes on reanimating all the rescaled .blend's or ... better yet, if you finally publish those bloody .blend's of yours, properly rigged and all! ).

Thanks for the compliment on the skyship.

Thanks for the permission to release the next Dwarf faction! I was under the impression you'd granted me that permission by PM like a couple months ago but thinking of it, I'd just asked you if it was ok to tweak the G3D's... NOT publish a Dwarf release out of them!...
So thank you for this permission too.

@ Archmage
That would be great, if you could do the animations for the fixed flame team! All I have now is a correct standing pose (I think you'll need to edit the cellmap property in flame_team.xml to have it work correctly ingame too, don't remember now, will check later). I'll need a walking and a dying animation too.
Please note none of wciow's original units have a moving standing/idle animation, no breathing, nothing, they're all 1 frame long; so, I guess, if you're making an unit breath, you should make all of them... there are a lot more important things to tweak before that so...
I'll upload and post the link tomorrow.

On the skyship... I've been going back and forth with several changes to the g*dd*mn thing already! I don't want to multiply that by having two persons working on it at the same time!...
I'll finish what I want to do with it and then let you have it, if you want to tweak it some more, before I UV unwrap it, ok?

Thanks!

[-Archmage-]

You're that sensitive about height!!!!!
Just ignore that, maybe modify the texture so that his hair color and length are the same, but I'm not going to re-animate all those units just because they aren't all the perfect height!

if you could do the animations for the fixed flame team

I could(in the morning).

you'll need to edit the cellmap property in flame_team.xml to have it work correctly ingame too

Yah, I could do that to, I'll also be wanting to try and fix some balance issues and other things in the XML, so if you've modified anything, please send it to me.

On the skyship... I've been going back and forth with several changes to the g*dd*mn thing already! I don't want to multiply that by having two persons working on it at the same time!...
I'll finish what I want to do with it and then let you have it, if you want to tweak it some more, before I UV unwrap it, ok?

Can I at least have the G3D for a closer look?

[jda]

You're that sensitive about height!!!!!
Just ignore that, maybe modify the texture so that his hair color and length are the same, but I'm not going to re-animate all those units just because they aren't all the perfect height!

Yeah, I was tired yesterday... It is not crucial... And I actually only noticed after working on the flame team for a while so... maybe at some point in the future... but it's getting the lowest priority possible.
The texture will be changed sooner though.
I'll be posting a roadmap with my first alpha release...

Here's the link to the flame team's .blend, so you can do the walking and dying animations:
http://www.mediafire.com/?crdtoetvhcn
And yes, in the flame_team.xml, the original has:

Code: [Select]

    <cellmap value="true">
      <row value="11" />
      <row value="11" />
    </cellmap>It should be:

Code: [Select]

    <cellmap value="true">
      <row value="01" />
      <row value="10" />
    </cellmap>Note: This is for anyone who wants to replace the old flame team model with the one I'm posting here - it will not work well with the old model and in case you do the replacement before the new walking animation is done, you should replace the old walking animation with this one too (they won't be animated but they will be moving properly around other objects).

you'll need to edit the cellmap property in flame_team.xml to have it work correctly ingame too

Yah, I could do that to, I'll also be wanting to try and fix some balance issues and other things in the XML, so if you've modified anything, please send it to me.

Well, had you read what I said before (instead of just looking at keywords which seems to be what you've done), you'd know I already did modified A LOT.
What I said about the skyship goes for this one too: once I'm finished with it, you may tweak it some more. In the case of the XML's, that will be only after I release the first alpha.
Also, regarding your words "send it to me"... I won't be sending anything "to you"! I'll be posting right here what I have, in my own schedule, for anyone who wants it. People may just use them or make their contributions too - that's their choice.
If you prefer to send something privately to me, you're welcome to but certainly not required.
Me, all I release, will be posted right here.
I actually also need to look at that Common Creatives license before I release something major...

On the skyship... I've been going back and forth with several changes to the g*dd*mn thing already! I don't want to multiply that by having two persons working on it at the same time!...
I'll finish what I want to do with it and then let you have it, if you want to tweak it some more, before I UV unwrap it, ok?

Can I at least have the G3D for a closer look?

Short answer: No.

[-Archmage-]

Is this micromanagement or slavery?

It couldn't be slavery because I have a choice.....so.............it's micromanagement, I mean seriously, you're telling me what I can and cannot do, and restricting me from working on much of anything.......

Maybe I should withdraw my offer..........

[jda]

Man, there is a touch of cynicism in you, isn't there?... Evidence from this very thread:

Yes, just post them but I'm going to make the new releases of Dwarves ok.
Just send stuff you've done to me, and tell me what it improves, I'll test it any way I can, and add it if I think it's an improvement.

BTW, that was you replying to ElimiNator asking wciow to publish his blends right here for EVERYone to use instead of sending them just to yourself as you'd asked (am I euphemising here?) wciow...
And another thing is you, at that moment, "took" leadership of this project (incidentally less than 24 hours, if I recall it correctly, after I discussed Dark Magic using Dwarves Gimli as comparison) whith NO work whatsoever done on it, requiring people to do it for you!!!  ???
Talk about micro-management... Or should I call it slavery?

Counter-flaming apart, on to the real (?) issue:
1. You can work on anything that has already been published.
2. I'll keep working on it an be publishing what I get (from my own work or anyone else who wants to contribute).

HOW am I restricting you? By not giving you whatever you want when you want it? Geeeeeeeeeeeeez...

[-Archmage-]

Hey I was willing to change, or it I have my mind set, don't remember, I was wrong.
You didn't even rig the flame team, I thought it was rigged.

[jda]

Can't really figure out what you meant by your first sentence but I'm fine with droping that subject myself,

Yeah, I said I was trying to figure out how to export shape-keys (I haven't removed them from the flame team walking animation, not the flame crew ones, didn't need to, just the flamer's). So that is the way I'm going to try and animate the flame team. Hence, no need to rig it if I get this figured out.
If I can't figure out shape keys, I'l rig it alright, but only after I finished the skyship.

EDIT; Looked at weedkiller's animated gif tutorial. Doesn't help figuring out shape keys (though I'm pretty sure he himself could have done it...).
Thus, I'll probably rig and animate the flame team after the skyship is ready.

[modman]

Sometimes it's best to go it alone, jda.  You may find you work faster that way...

[-Archmage-]

Dude, I just went to all the trouble to rig the flame team, and then something went wrong, the rig wasn't working the way it was supposed to and I couldn't find anything wrong, and I've done that rig quite a lot of times!

Besides, the dwarf models have quite a few problems, like there are tons of extra polygons, and when I bend the model it cracks all over.

I have to say, you know, I'll help you animate, but I'm not going to rig, because something goes wrong.

_{It would be nice if Wciow would give us the original .blends..........}

[jda]

@ Sir Modman:
Well, I decided to work on the dwarves, counting on nobody to help. That said, I might accept someone's help if they offer it.
BTW, thanks for trusting my skills!

@ Archmage
I know, at least partially, what the problem is.
I never touched the flame crew objects (just the flamer object to conform to the new flame crew positions) so I didn't do something you should always do when editing an imported G3D: Remove Doubles! For some reason, a G3D imported to Blender will always have lots of doubles. Just selecte the whole mesh in Edit mode and press keys W and then 6. That should take care of the cracks.
Don't know if that will fix the whole problem with the armature though. 

Yes, it would be nice to have the original blends by wciow. He told me some time ago he'd upload them when he'd get time to.
So... We've asked him. He knows we want them. I say enough pushing the man! He'll get them to us when he does. Period.

[-Archmage-]

Thanks, that thing to remove the cracks took care of 600+ vertices!!! And I didn't know that, so thanks!

I edited the flame team a little(hope you don't mind ), all I did was modify the hose thing, also I've made a bit of progress, I'll provide you with another update soon.

Yah, maybe we should stop pushing Wciow, we've pushed him so much, that if we keep going, we may eventually get to the edge of a cliff, so I think yah, it would be good if we stopped pushing him................for now.................................................DUH DUH DUH _DUH!      JK  

UPDATE(!!!):
I found and fixed the problem with the armature!

UPDATE2:
I'm completely done with the walking animation, it looks pretty good!
Would you like a go at doing the attacking or dying animations?

[jda]

Thanks, that thing to remove the cracks took care of 600+ vertices!!! And I didn't know that, so thanks!

You're welcome. Omega's tip (from his guide) on removing all doubles before you export was my source.

I edited the flame team a little(hope you don't mind ), all I did was modify the hose thing, also I've made a bit of progress, I'll provide you with another update soon.

Yeah, the hose thing (it's linked to flamer.tga, so that's what I call it ) was the only thing I actually edited. I had to twist it both to the front as well as sideways - I tried to compensate a bit for the subsequent deformations but I did a quick job on it, letting more improvements to later. So if your edit's good, it's most welcome!

Yah, maybe we should stop pushing Wciow, we've pushed him so much, that if we keep going, we may eventually get to the edge of a cliff, so I think yah, it would be good if we stopped pushing him................for now.................................................DUH DUH DUH _DUH!      JK 

Ok, we'll push him when his guard is low so he won't have a chance to hang on to the edge.

UPDATE2:
I'm completely done with the walking animation, it looks pretty good!
Would you like a go at doing the attacking or dying animations?

Well, first thing would be to look at your animation and see how it came out BUT...
I was expecting anyone to contribute any sooner than I released my first alpha so you caught me by surprise and I didn't get the time to do something I want to before accepting anything. Making it clear about the LICENSE!
wciow's Dwaves Gimli are entirely based on work by himself or from Magitech (with, I think, the notable exception of the Dwarf music which AFAIK, came from Sir Modeman - he's been contacted already).
Magitech (at least from Glest 3.2.2) was released under the Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 3.0 Unported license (NOT the GNU GPL as some have stated, only the code is released unger the GPL - see docs/license.txt, docs/code_license.txt and docs/data_license.txt in the source code for details).
So naturally, all work derived from wciow's Dwarf faction for Glest must be realeased under the same license (or, possibly it the same license permits) a compatible one (I most likely won't release it under a different license but, hey, I haven't read it yet so... ).

In brief:
1. I don't know under what license the next Dwarves release will be published (probably the same as before but ...)
2. You'll probably be safe in releasing any contribution of yours under the Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 3.0 Unported license, but no guarantees as of yet!
3. I will demand (!!!) any contribution to state under what license it is released (may be stated in a post right here, that's ok) and it must be compatible to the one I'm releasing the whole faction under. This is mandatory to have your work included in the release.
4. I'll post the later tomorrow under what license (to which your work must be compatible) I'll be publishing the releases. I am open to feedback!

Until the, Archmage and anyone who wants to contribute should probably hold their work... But that's not really my call.

Regarding what you can work on:
- The dying animation needs to be done.
- The attack animation does not need to be done! It is currently just the standing pose, from which the particle system is fired. Looks pretty cool and I see no need to do further. But you can, if you want to.
- The building animation is done! (it's on the engineer's folder).

[-Archmage-]

Dude, I'm loose under copyright stuff, so just.....as long as I get credit, I'm happy, so I'm happy with the CC-BY-AA(whatever it's called! ), GPL, Shareware, you know, any of those good ones.

Now that that's all cleared up, would you like the model to inspect?

[jda]

LOL
Ok, well, I do think licensing is important and that would be too long to explain here. And I don't want to be double-triple-quad-whatever-licencinsing the mod.

But yeah, if you'll release it under whichever license I choose for the release, you can just post it here or send it to me. I'll PM you my mail address in case you prefer it that way.

I'll get back some couple hours later - have other stuff to do in the meantime.

[-Archmage-]

Ok.

Download the latest Dwarven Flame Team progress!

Just so you don't get confused, the actions are named for what they are, with a "-something" to tell you which action goes with which armature/mesh.
Example:
walking-barrel: The walking action for the barrel and hose.
walking-short: The walking action for the short dwarf.

This is just the Walking animation, if you want to try dying or attacking or something.

[jda]

Well... it looks AWESOME!

The edit to the hose also looks perfect! (actually better than wciow's origianl - sorry, wciow, but it's true! ).

You can go ahead with the dying animation if you want. If you don't want to check it and want some inspiration, wciow made each dwarf fall to one side (outer but I guess inner , crossing the dwarves would be best) and the hose fall to the front guy's falling side (detaching the barrel from the back dwarf, but the oposite would work just as well). You may, if you prefer try something different.

The attack animation, well... what can you do about it? Possible options:
A. Have the front dwarf, who actually fires the thing, grab the hose with both hands - rather just have the right hand move onto the flamer than displacing the flamer...
B. Have the same guy put one foot back so as to better handle the kick? Maybe but I have doubts concerning this.
In any case, I think it would probably be best to keep the particle coming from the center (thus keep the end of the flamer, from where the flame is fired, centered).
But certainly, none of the two above options would really improve much the animation. The standing animation works perfectly well for the purpose.

I'd have a more important (and possibly challenging) unit for you to animate.

EDIT: The above for the flame team animation only if you want to - I'm not sure whether you were asking if I needed or saying you wanted to.

[-Archmage-]

Done with the Attack animation!
What's this new challenge!?!?

I already have something in mind for the dying animation....... .

EDIT(!):
Latest Progress!