Elf Faction 0.9.7 & 2.0A (Both MG Compatible)

[modman]

It seems like everyone thinks I'll volunteer for every project that isn't modeling; when I finish Dark Magic and Undeads it will probably be 2010.

There are a lot of free sounds here, but I would bet you have to credit them somehow/contact them.  Sounds make the factions nice, but they are a true pain!

[gameboy]

The Silver Helm Rider

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BTW
How was the Gryphon Texture?

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[URL=http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=uy5w2ngdyyr&thumb=5][IMG]http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/83f064ca8d7be1b0b2e4c521943480862g.jpg[/img][/URL]

[wciow]

Griffon looks ok but a little blurry. Silver helm looks very good, the only problem is that the seams don't match between the body and legs.

BTW are you custom animating the horse or using the original Glest ones??

[revel]

a few remarks to 0.6:
- use texture size of power of two (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, ...), other may cause problems on some graph cards (units/wood_guard/models/texture_wg.tga is 917x1024 and looks completely wrong here, probably is not being displayed at all)
- units/wood_guard_uprooted/wood_guard_uprooted.xml <time value="0" /> causes error (division by 0) here (linux64), value of "1" works ok
- upgrades/ent_water/ent_water.xml <resource-requirements> <resource name="wood" amount="100"/> - elves cannot harvest wood, should be tree perhaps?

this faction is looking great, thanks!

[modman]

Sorry, in a previous post I forgot to mention where you can actually get the free sounds: http://www.audionetworkplc.com/sound-effects.

After I finish my factions (long, long time from now) I'll have nothing to do for Glest and I will be happy to help out with someone's Glest project.  Sorry If I insulted you, Gameboy.

[gameboy]

a few remarks to 0.6:
- use texture size of power of two (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, ...), other may cause problems on some graph cards (units/wood_guard/models/texture_wg.tga is 917x1024 and looks completely wrong here, probably is not being displayed at all)
- units/wood_guard_uprooted/wood_guard_uprooted.xml <time value="0" /> causes error (division by 0) here (linux64), value of "1" works ok
- upgrades/ent_water/ent_water.xml <resource-requirements> <resource name="wood" amount="100"/> - elves cannot harvest wood, should be tree perhaps?

this faction is looking great, thanks!

Thanks for telling me about the textures, is the problem only for the wood guard or are there any other ones?
about the upgrades thanks for telling me, guess i was to impatient to release it I didn't see that.

Griffon looks ok but a little blurry. Silver helm looks very good, the only problem is that the seams don't match between the body and legs.

BTW are you custom animating the horse or using the original Glest ones??

For the time being I'm using the glest ones. Though I've custom animated the reaver's horse (not the running but the rest).

Sorry, in a previous post I forgot to mention where you can actually get the free sounds: http://www.audionetworkplc.com/sound-effects.

After I finish my factions (long, long time from now) I'll have nothing to do for Glest and I will be happy to help out with someone's Glest project.  Sorry If I insulted you, Gameboy.

Thanks!!!

[Omega]

For sounds, try:
http://www.soundjay.com/
http://www.soundsnap.com/browse
http://www.mediacollege.com/downloads/sound-effects/
http://flashkit.com/soundfx/
http://www.findsounds.com/
I'm not 100% sure, but they seem to have a liscense which would allow glest mods.

[gameboy]

Thanks omega.
wciow have finished with the wise elf? I want to release 0.8 in this month, preferably at the end of this week, but don't expect any sounds, I'll leave that for the final release.

[wciow]

wciow have finished with the wise elf?

No I'm still working on it 

EDIT:

I worked on it some more heres a wip

[gameboy]

okay take your time, don't  hurry.
I'll probably use the initiate model as a placeholder.

[gameboy]

WOW!!! nice.
Btw did I mention that you can edit the model as long as it stays true to the concept, this is so that it not hard to texture if you can texture it just as easily don't edit it.

[wciow]

Ok I finished the wise elf. Heres a pic:


and heres the file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tv2mm2tjcrs

[titi]

nice textures!
Is this an example for red and blue teamcolor?
What will yellow/green look like, thats always a problem

For omegas sound ressources, only use this one from his posted list:
http://flashkit.com/soundfx/

Some of the links really look like commercial and you will shure get into trouble using them!
The Licenses on these sites clearly say that you cannot use it for glest mods!

[gameboy]

I love it. THANKS!!!
BTW where did you learn to texture? and what program do you use?

[wciow]

I use Paint.net for texture work. I tried Gimp but just couldn't get into it.
I've been using Blender for about 5 years(!) but only really started texturing my own models in the last 2.
I'm getting better but nowhere near the level of a good texture artist. When I see the work of some of the pro's who work on other mods I get blown away 

BTW hope your gonna release a new version soon. Your Elf faction was the best new faction I've played!

[gameboy]

I got to animate this model, and another one remains so I'll release a new version in 4 days at the most.
And the GIMP is quite good. I know there are all these weird panels and all that, really freaked me out the first time I used it.

BTW hope your gonna release a new version soon. Your Elf faction was the best new faction I've played!

Blush!! thanks.

[gameboy]

I actually finished this on sunday, but the file size was to big.
Here is version 0.8 of the Elf Faction: 96 mb.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/itnmm2mb0dn/elves.rar
Units:
+ Ent
+ Wise Elf
+ Minstrel
+ Sanctuary
+ Silver Helm Lancer
+ Prince
+ Gryphon Rider
+ Huorn

Upgrades:
+ Noldor Armour.
+ Noldor Weapons.
- Beast Taming.
Elven Taming Lore/(now) Taming Song.
Lore and Song/Elven Lore.
Corral Gryphon Nest Extention.

Fixes:
Removed Song resource and added Grace.
Changed all building models.
Removed Plant ability from elf.
Changed Elf model.
Added Corral Gryphon Nest Extention.
Changed Wood Hall and Lore House icons.
Changed icon color to 9cc2cb.
Improved Some Unit Textures.
Changed Gryphon model.
Minor fixes.
.
Also included is an HTML Document which give a comprehensive description of all the units included in the faction. Enjoy!!
Here are a few Screenshots:

[titi]

Nice, I have to test it this evening!!
All the units look a bit japanese like. Should I try to make a special tileset for this? ( I like to build tilesets )
It will include bamboo forests and big solitary trees like hanging willows for example.

[Omega]

WOW! I'd really like to download this... But I can't. Too big. If titi or someone was able to shrink it to ~65MB or less I could do it on a school computer. Can you zip it in a  7z file?

[gameboy]

@ Titi: sure but I too want to make a tileset.
@Omega: I'll try.
Btw titi how do you like the document?

[titi]

Document?
You mean the html description you mentioned?
I cannot test it here, I'm at work. Let me see if I find some time this evening.

[wciow]

I tested your faction.
It's a lot bigger than other Glest factions, just under 250mb unpacked!! compared to magic/tech which are both under 40mb.
 
I like the ideas behind your faction and it has generally good models/textures/animations.
I especially like the tree units and ents.

Unfortunately there is a big problem atm:
The AI is totally broken. Elves just sit in their base gathering resources and not building anything 

I wish I could write a better review of your faction but it is difficult when the AI won't play against you!

[titi]

For the size of the faction 250mb!!!!!???: 

The problem is, there are some ultra big models in it.
For example the ent model is huge...
how to fix it:
1) in Blender select you object, go to edit mode say Mesh->Vertices->"remove doubles"
the model I loaded in blender could be reduced to 25% of original size with this!!!

2) The animation of the model I loaded was 114 Frames big!!!
I think this is really too much ! Reduce it to something like 10 frames but never more then 20 Frames.
if you get big jumps from one frame to another in Blender try it in glest. Probably its ok because glest calculates the missing frames.
this should resize again to about 10-15 % of original size.

Some units will be resized to only 5% of ther original size without any big loss of quality !!
!!And thats really a big difference !!!

I think all this will reduce your factions size to something like normal 40-80 MB uncompressed!
and compressed(7zip) to about 30 MB.

[titi]

Now I tested it for more than an hour
Well you made some really really nice models!!
This woman in white( don't know the name )
and the treeman they really look great!

But currently there are still tons of TODOs and its not really playable yet!
There are lots of good ideas in it, but I fear the AI will in most cases never use it the way it was meant.
And this faction is huge... I played a very long time to see most (not all) units yet

--------------------------------
I had some problems when starting and I had to fix manually:

Error loading units: techs/megapack_v1/factions/elves
Error loading UnitType: techs/megapack_v1/factions/elves/units/changes.txt/changes.txt.xml
Can not open file: techs/megapack_v1/factions/elves/units/changes.txt/changes.txt.xml

Error loading UnitType: techs/megapack_v1/factions/elves/units/prince/prince.xml
Attack Type not found: instant

[Omega]

I think this is really too much ! Reduce it to something like 10 frames but never more then 20 Frames.

If you want to really reduce the filesize, try to aim for very low poly (depend on the texture, NOT extra shapes) and use 3-5 frames. I have some very good animations for military in which some are 5 frames and less than 90kb! Check the military infantry model. The biggest file there is the texture, but that can't be helped since textures have a set size (need jpg support NOW).

7z is very good for reducing filesize!

Can't wait till I can download it and try it myself. (BTW: whats this about the AI? Does the AI even work?)

OT:

I cannot test it here, I'm at work.

One question. Don't mean to get personal, but are you even allowed to be on the glest boards at work? Sorry for shaming your fun.