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Post by Basse on Jan 5, 2012 15:54:39 GMT
This is a project thread for my next project, which will likely be the biggest one I ever release: The Relics of Athalën, the final installment in the Gwyndlegard series. I've had plans for this sequel ever since I started working on Gwyndlegard back in 2008, but they have evolved a lot over the years. The Relics of Athalën starts only a few days after the events in "The Rockspring Revolution", where Tengil escapes with the Blue Dragon ships. Using these ships, and the power he gets from Xaphira's mystical orb, he rescues Xaphira from the top security prison out in the sea, and the two of them set out to finish what they started when they nvaded Gwyndlegard in the first place: to find the relics of Athalën. If you finished the Bookworm quest in The Rockspring Revolution, you might remember that Athalën was the founding father of the Old Kingdom, the country that preceded Gwyndlegard. If you didn't do that quest, well, there'll be plenty of information about him in this campaign as well. As of now, I'm trying to make the four or five relics of Athalën into something more intriguing than "well there's one for each element and they're, like, powerful and stuff". The first one is the Relic of the Rock, featured in "Gwyndlegard", which Xaphira lays hands on as soon as she gets out of prison. There will be, more or less, one relic for each scenario in the campaign. There is one thing however that makes this campaign different from anything I've done before, and that is: extensive modding. I have a lot of ideas that I've accumulated over the years, and now that I'm starting to get a hang of not just data but graphical modding, I'm finally able to implement them. I will be using a bunch of stuff from Agamemnons expansion, like waterfalls, rocks and certain buildings, and some things from other mods and scenarios, e.g. The Quiet Dawn. If I can get the attack graphics to not crash the entire game, I might also use some of Courtjester1's units. Then I will be making most of the new buildings by myself, like big castles for when you're marching through Xioché, massive walkable walls (see screenshot below), walkable stairways, and castles with multiple layers where you can walk up the stair, fight on one floor, walk up to the next and fight there, and then finally climb the stairs to a door you have to get in through. Walkable walls: As you can see, I still have a lot of tweaking to do before they line up properly. Anyways, this will be my big project for the year, and I just wanted to get this thread up to have a place to showcase ideas, and collect my plans in one place. I'll add up more information and screenshots as time goes by, but this is all for now.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jan 5, 2012 18:23:51 GMT
So the Dire Spire of Fire is now in the second tier of trinkets? It even fit into the elemental scheme.
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Post by Basse on Jan 5, 2012 20:06:19 GMT
Ah yes, I almost forgot about that one! I think I will probably give the Spire a mention, but it acts more like a precision bomb than a magical artifact holding some of the powers of of the greatest magician in recorded history. I'm not really sure what to do with the fire relic. I'm thinking of bunching Air anf Fire together into some kind of weather-controlling, cosmic relic, but, like I said, I'm still working on this bit.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jan 5, 2012 22:17:25 GMT
Well you've got the Relic of Rock - why not Scissors and Paper?
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Post by Basse on Jan 6, 2012 12:52:11 GMT
Haha, yeah why not?
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jan 6, 2012 23:54:33 GMT
What do the two dots above the 'e' do?
I for one find unfamiliar diacritics in English text annoying, and I would generally recommend against using them. I think they have a tendency to either be ignored or cause people to pronounce it mentally in weird ways (Athalehhhn).
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Post by The Seburai! on Jan 7, 2012 1:42:07 GMT
Yea ... Athelen (ath a len) sounds much better than Aethalehhn (which is also how I'd pronounce it).
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Post by Basse on Jan 7, 2012 1:55:21 GMT
It's a marker to show that the 'e' is pronounced as the phoneme 'e', and not 'ə'. It's not entirely necessary as it doesn't really matter how players pronounce the name in their head, and most of them probably don't know what a phoneme is anyway. I will likely keep it though, seeing as I think I've written the name like that in the previous two scenarios, and I try my best to keep the continuity working. On another note, I've started working and almost finished one of the big modded buildings, a large castle for Xioché, a little bigger than a Cathedral. I just hope the game will be able to render it all at once, or I will have to scale it down a bit.
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Post by The Seburai! on Jan 7, 2012 2:37:49 GMT
Pics !
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Post by Basse on Jan 7, 2012 10:56:06 GMT
I'm off for most of the day, but I will try to finish the last bit, the main tower/keep of the castle, once I get home. Pics will come as soon as I'm done!
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Post by Basse on Jan 8, 2012 1:45:01 GMT
Righto, the first big castle is finished!
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jan 8, 2012 2:02:35 GMT
You're good at this. Copy/paste modding always suits AoK when it's done well. It looks like you've made some of the banners out of rug graphics, which is ingenious.
The slightest quibble is that where there's a large expanse of the brick texture you can tell that it repeats. It might look even better if you could mix it up a bit. That doesn't matter a great deal though.
In terms of designing though, I for one always fine tall building graphics a pain. They make the area hidden by them difficult to deal with, as the player can't see what's going on there.
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Post by Basse on Jan 8, 2012 11:37:45 GMT
I tried to find a good banner to put in but couldn't find any, so I made do with what I had. And yeah, you're right about the bricks, particularily the front wall. I'm going to try to find something to mix it up with, more ivy or another brick pattern that still fits. It could be hard to get it to look right though, but I'm going to try. As for designing, yeah, I do kind of agree with you, huge buildings can be a pain. Normally, though, I cover up the part behind the huge buildings so that the player can't go there, but still sees that there's a forest or cliffs or something blocking the way. I will probably do just that for the scenario where this castle comes in.
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Von
Stormwind Member
VonCorgev
Vene, Vidi, Verse.
Posts: 818
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Post by Von on Jan 8, 2012 12:48:41 GMT
That's probably the easiest way to solve the problem about tall buildings. I do think that castle would look good backed up against a cliff or a mountain with water swiftly running down a steep ravine Has anyone ever played a game titled Knights of Honour? I highly recommend it if you haven't. Now I've never done any modding and wouldn't know the first thing about it, but the buildings in Knights of Honor are very well done. Pity there's probably no way to import the graphics into AoK - guess the colour palate of AoK would complain about it anyway... pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/534/534692/knights-of-honor-20040730095409839_640w.jpg
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Post by Basse on Jan 8, 2012 13:43:14 GMT
The graphic style looks suspiciously much like a mod I came across a while ago... now I can't remember what it was called, but it could be taken from that game. The graphics look quite good, a bit less sharp than AoK graphics though, from what I can see anyway.
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Post by Basse on Jan 8, 2012 21:59:23 GMT
I've started working on the second castle. It has turned out a lot bigger than I expected. Right now it's about as wide as two Cathedrals, so will have to scale it down once all the parts for it are done.
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Post by Basse on Jan 9, 2012 20:11:03 GMT
Castle #2 is now finished.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jan 9, 2012 20:17:37 GMT
Also good. However the archery target is a bit illogical, as to use it you would have to shoot arrows across the only access route.
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Post by Basse on Jan 9, 2012 22:44:36 GMT
Good point.
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Post by The Seburai! on Jan 9, 2012 23:14:58 GMT
I really like this second one, great work! And good spot Julius! That's good attention to detail.
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Post by Basse on Jan 10, 2012 0:09:18 GMT
Thanks Seb! I now have one castle left to create, one where you will be able to climb staircases and fight off the castle guards on multiple floors and bulldozer your way to the keep. All three of these castles are for the second scenario, set in Xioché, and there likely won't be too many monstrous buildings after that. Possibly on the scenario leading up to the finale, but I've yet to work out the details for that one.
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Post by Basse on Jan 15, 2012 16:55:49 GMT
I've started working on the third castle now, and I've decided to split it into several parts: one for the main castle, with two sets of stairs leading up to a well-guarded keep, and one part with multiple individual buildings like wall parts and towers around an open yard, where you will face most of the resistance. I've also been replaying Robin Hood: the Legend of Sherwood, scavenging it for useful indoors graphics.
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Matt
Stormwind Member
The Come And Go Man
Monsieur Mercredi
Posts: 1,812
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Post by Matt on Jan 16, 2012 9:34:38 GMT
Mwahahaha. Rise, Darth Bassius. Welcome to the dark side.
One point i'll add, you might want to add two beads around the castle walls on your first castle. I can clearly see the seams where you trippled up your wall height. If you placed a bead of some sort (lilke you did on the inside wall of the castle) it will be less noticeable.
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Post by Basse on Jan 16, 2012 18:01:48 GMT
I've grown a bit dissatisfied with the first castle as I think the second (and the third, which I've started on) are getting a lot better. I will probably edit the first one further, make the walls less monotone and the copy-pasting less obvious (like you said) and make it less boxy. By the way Matt, you haven't by chance had this problem: that, when you've added a brand new unit with all new graphics, and task it to attack something, the unit goes invisible and the entire game has big glitches? It's happening to me with four or five new units I've added in, all except for a ranged unit, and I can't figure out what's causing it. I've resaved the .slps, created new graphics from scratch, created new units from scratch, and yet it always bugs out on me.
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Von
Stormwind Member
VonCorgev
Vene, Vidi, Verse.
Posts: 818
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Post by Von on Jan 17, 2012 8:49:40 GMT
Yes that's a good game too - except the only copy I could get my hands on is German. You get the gist of what's going on though - I managed to scavenge the music from that game as well if you're interested?
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Post by Basse on Jan 17, 2012 12:04:24 GMT
Thanks, but I already have it. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to use it though. On another note, the third castle is reaching completion. The inner section, where you climb staircases and such, is pretty much done, although I might scale it down a bit, and/or add more details: The outer courtyard, situated below the first staircase, will be made up of individual wall pieces, a gate and possibly some regular buildings. Out of the three, this castle will be the biggest.
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Post by The Seburai! on Jan 17, 2012 19:14:44 GMT
Good job with the castles. Don't forget to use invisible blockades so people can't walk over the walls etc. Copied 1x1 outposts are good, but just remove the standing graphics so they appear invisible, oh and remove the selection properties making it unselectable. You could even remove it from the minimap.
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Post by Basse on Jan 17, 2012 19:46:11 GMT
Thanks! And yeah, that's exactly what I've planned.
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Post by Julius CMXCIX on Jan 18, 2012 2:39:57 GMT
I wouldn't fancy climbing those steps.
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Post by Basse on Jan 18, 2012 9:52:31 GMT
They are quite steep, but that's all the AoK wonders had to offer.
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