(old) TLD Help needed: Models and Voices

[Ron Losey]

Yeah, well, the functionality of flail weapons would entail more than just animating them ... but it's a thought to keep around.

And yeah, part of the logic of flail weapons is that it is murder to block one, because it wraps around whatever you use to block it and the head keeps coming at you.  The other part is getting a lot of reach suddenly. 

Neither one of those can be done solely with shaders, I'm sure ... but if, say, somebody managed to build a weapon that worked on a custom skeleton, the shader trick could be extremely useful in making the chain look right, and details like that.

Actually, you would not want to just spin a flail.  You would tire quickly.  Half a rotation before the strike is about as much spin as most people could stand.

[Merlkir]

what about slings? not that TLD needs them, but it would be cool for ancient mods and stuff.

[Ancientwanker]

beards are going to be a problem. 

Probably just have to scale the mesh a bit, maybe modify the mask angle a tiny bit... If you dont feel like it I can give it a shot when we get closer to release.  Good job though.

EDIT: Looking at the shape again it probably wont be entirely fixable for all beard types but that's life. Looks good.

EDIT2: Maybe you could take a crack at that other mask helm with a similar look. That mask might require its own unique texture for the mask to make the contours come off right. Could be tricky. The rest can use the basic easterling helm sheet stuff though.

[Ron Losey]

what about slings? not that TLD needs them, but it would be cool for ancient mods and stuff.

At last check, anything using the "thrown weapon" skill can't leave anything in the hand.  That's why Mesoamerica couldn't do a proper atlatl.  An animated sling might be able to replace firearms in Holy War or the like (although Mesoamerica uses the firearms skill, so it won't work there).

I'm with you there ... TLD doesn't need slings, but we ought to milk this goat dry.  Somebody can surely use them.

[Ancientwanker]

I actually wanted to give the dunnish some slingers seeing as they have a primitive celt thing going on.  Might call them "crebain skirmishers" or some such. Also, the poor hobbits might need them.....   D&D hobbits and slings are like shit and flies, I dont know of any tolkien hobbit reference to it though.

[Apoc]

There is one single reference to slings in the works of Tolkien (that I know of, at least). It's from the tale of Tal-Elmar in 'The Peoples of Middle-earth', where it says that Tal-Elmar had no weapon but a casting-stone in a pouch.

[mtarini]

Chain-based weapons: just an idea: maybe if the shader was instrctred to: make the chain rotate horizontally when the stick is held vertically, but make the chain gradually turn to align with the stick (therefore nullifyng the other rotation) when the stick it is held horizontally. That is possible to do.
Would that look any decent, given how the one handed weapons are held during stance and attack?

(Still, you would not see the arm of the wilder moving to give the chain its rotation. I am afraid it will look like a servo-assisted weapon)

(And, by a long shot, not a replacement for a real physical system of course.)


Slings: I wonder it if is possible. We would also need a custom skeletal animation for the slinger, otherwise it will have to be held like a bow, a crossbow, or a handgun. I think. Anyone confirm? And, can custom skeletal animation be done?


PS: I am worried that all this chat on shaders is littering this thread (supposedly used to hire volunteers on "Models, Voices & Miscellaneous Jobs"). Shall it be moved to a "What to do with shader" specific thread? Not another pinned one, there's many already.

[Ron Losey]

Custom animation can be done.  Over on HW, Raz has changed around all of the animations.  If we want to replace a firearm function with a sling, just replace the handgun animation with whatever horrendous antics seem appropriate to using a sling.  That's easy for anybody who knows beans about animations (not saying I do ... I most certainly do not, but I know that many people do).

And if trying to mess with shaders to make an animated sling isn't "Miscellaneous Jobs", what is it?  But seeing the point, nobody is stopping you from moving it to its own thread, either in TLD or somewhere like the modding discussions thread (which would be more likely to draw help from sources that don't normally work on TLD).

I doubt a flail or chain-based weapon can be made to look right, no matter what.  The most reasonable look would involve the weapon hanging down until the attack started, extending during the swing, and returning to hanging loose after.  That's going to be real hard to do without a truly animated weapon, which M&B still does not support.

[aquiefrog]

Probably just have to scale the mesh a bit, maybe modify the mask angle a tiny bit... If you dont feel like it I can give it a shot when we get closer to release.  Good job though.

EDIT: Looking at the shape again it probably wont be entirely fixable for all beard types but that's life. Looks good.

I rescaled the mesh a bit and deformed it arbitrarily.  I think only the bigger beards would clip.  Also, I imported the variag lamellar texture into 0.894 to see if the helm looks coherent with the armor.  I'm not sure I like the leather texture for the back part of the helm so I changed it to have the grey texture.  The original face helm is there for comparison.

I've removed some vertices that i thought were insignificant, I've got the tri count to 702.  It used to have 600+ until I added the fasteners at the side (something I came up with because I can't figure out what the ear-like things are on the reference pic).

EDIT2: Maybe you could take a crack at that other mask helm with a similar look. That mask might require its own unique texture for the mask to make the contours come off right. Could be tricky. The rest can use the basic easterling helm sheet stuff though.

I'll try. Is it the one without the mouth opening?  The other mask helm is marked as being worked on already.

Mtarini:  I'll try adding "dark-glass eye screens" when I figure out how to do what you told me to do.  Still a newbie. 

Dablade: The filename of the reference picture had "kataphract" in it, I thought it was rather suggestive.

EDIT:

Re: Chain Weapons,  Can weapons be subjected to ragdoll physics?

yeah, the one that says its being worked on. I believe he had some real life trouble. Really you would just need to make the mask, work on a texture for it with some shading to give it contours and then you can plug it in to either of the other mask helm tops.  Should give the variags some mask options.

[Father Chains]

There is one single reference to slings in the works of Tolkien (that I know of, at least). It's from the tale of Tal-Elmar in 'The Peoples of Middle-earth', where it says that Tal-Elmar had no weapon but a casting-stone in a pouch.

Gondolin had its own regiment of slingers as well.

[Apoc]

There is one single reference to slings in the works of Tolkien (that I know of, at least). It's from the tale of Tal-Elmar in 'The Peoples of Middle-earth', where it says that Tal-Elmar had no weapon but a casting-stone in a pouch.

Gondolin had its own regiment of slingers as well.

Interesting - I cannot remember reading about that. Can you remember which HoMe book it is from?

[Balduran]

There is one single reference to slings in the works of Tolkien (that I know of, at least). It's from the tale of Tal-Elmar in 'The Peoples of Middle-earth', where it says that Tal-Elmar had no weapon but a casting-stone in a pouch.

Gondolin had its own regiment of slingers as well.

Interesting - I cannot remember reading about that. Can you remember which HoMe book it is from?

Gondolin had all sorts of weird forces. For example - a hammer-men regiment

I think it's from the Lost Tales (Or how was that called), most of this weirdness was there.

[Ron Losey]

Hammer-armed regiments don't sound strange.  The military hammer was one of the most popular sidearms of the middle ages.  Also, pole-hammers were common both for mounted and foot knights for centuries.

Then again, the sling was among the most common weapons on Earth up until the late Roman Empire, and is still often seen about the Middle East today.

[Balduran]

Hammer-armed regiments don't sound strange.  The military hammer was one of the most popular sidearms of the middle ages.  Also, pole-hammers were common both for mounted and foot knights for centuries.

Then again, the sling was among the most common weapons on Earth up until the late Roman Empire, and is still often seen about the Middle East today.

You don't understand me. Hammers at war don't sound weird. ELVES WITH HAMMERS sound weird

[Ron Losey]

Hammer-armed regiments don't sound strange.  The military hammer was one of the most popular sidearms of the middle ages.  Also, pole-hammers were common both for mounted and foot knights for centuries.

Then again, the sling was among the most common weapons on Earth up until the late Roman Empire, and is still often seen about the Middle East today.

You don't understand me. Hammers at war don't sound weird. ELVES WITH HAMMERS sound weird

Well, "elves" sound weird no matter what.