Skymod + Night Battles in RTW =

[HorseArcher]

some of the new climates i was adjusting today:

Welcome to the Carpathians (Dacia/Thracia)





Welcome to the desert. I added 2 more different dust storms. now there is 3. light, medium and heavy (light dust storm is on the 2nd screen, not really visible on this picture, but imagine some light dust getting blown around by wind.My Heavy dust storm is like a dust storm at worst. it's cool and you wont' see too much for a few minutes...






A few more adjustments and i can move on the alpine and the forest settings soon (hopefully)

[Centurion Quintus]

Wow, this looks extremely good. Can't wait Archer!!

[Aristocrat]

I have to say it adds a whole new look to the game, and probaly a whole new feel.

P.S: Turn off the damned green arrows under your troops.(:-)

[Trebonius]

When you thought things could not be better... amazing. I can't believe how much creativity and energy that goes into this. It is beyond anything initially imagined.

[HorseArcher]

When you thought things could not be better... amazing. I can't believe how much creativity and energy that goes into this. It is beyond anything initially imagined.

It's a lot of time, i tell you. I like to mess around with colors, my other hobby is to make 3D landscapes with Terragen , so when I see something that needs a little "touch-up" with colors, i cannot stand idle. As i already had real life jobs usually involving colors and painting (car painter/house interior painter).

Just let you know guys, I'm actually playing a campaign and as i do a battle on specific climates, I adjust the settings, then move to the next one. This comes from the fact, that the game chooses random morning hours for the battle and without playing a campaign, it's hard to tell what the sky and weather will be on different spots on the map.


I'll post some screens soon with the deep forest, open forest and alpine climate, as my sarmatian empire starting to reach far into europe. :sweatingb

[Frodo Lives]

Any idea on when we will be able to try out this amazing beauty?

This is such an amazing addition to such great work, it's hard to wait.

[HorseArcher]

Any idea on when we will be able to try out this amazing beauty?

This is such an amazing addition to such great work, it's hard to wait.

soon soon.

Possibly this weekend (tomorrow or day after). This will be a beta version, which means if you guys find something really out of place, let me know and i'll take a look at.

It is simply because there just so many settings and climates, it's hard not to miss any miscolored thing or it could just happen that the skydome and the daylight settings produce some weird stuff.

tomorrow i might post my beta files for test.

hang on

I'll post some screenies from the woodland areas ( I haven't seen them yet either)

edit: This is a quick and sudden change of this mod.

I have been struggling to find the right balance between day and night settings, due to the problem that the battle map lighting affects the game globaly, which means, if i drop the lighting too much, the days will become darker as well, ruining the custom set lighting and color conditions. This is just something that has been holding me up for a while.
there will be 2 mods available. This one was a decision based on the fact that any modded-night setting messes up the day settings. I will have my custom 4 season skymod, as well as a special one made for the ones who wants to fight at night.


this is as far as i can go with the darkness settings.

Lybian desert:


like it? not like it?

[Frodo Lives]

Wow, that is great!

[wipeout140]

like it? not like it?

Like it

[Dr Zoidberg]

Well I dont know about others but I'll be downloading the 4 season sky mod rather than the night battle mod. I'd much rather have a massive amount of variety in my battles (storms, sunrise etc) than a few night fights every now and then.

Kepp it up Archer, its all looking fantastic mate.

[DEMETRIOUS II]

Me likes...... me likes alot

[Trajan]

I like it. I plan to download both when they're released but I will mainly use the 4 season sky mod than the night battle mod.

[O'brien the Protector]

it dosent look like a nioght battle, more like a evening battle, all the better

[HorseArcher]

....and you'll be all suprised when I announce that most of the color settings for sun and sky are straight vanilla settings, but never used by the game. For that desert shot, the colors are completely untouched, except the clouds. The difference is, that the colors i'm using now (probably the 8th version), is located in another file than the one that suppose control them.
Just let you know guys, that those eariler screenshots were subject to change, for the sake of balance and playability. It is nice to have a very dark setting, but trust me, it's not so great after many battles. So what this means? It means, that i rebalanced the time and colors again to go easy on the eyes.
There are some truly great looking battle skies, that i haven't taken a scrnshot yet, and there are some that i haven't seen yet because i didn't test them yet.

[Kushan]

I'll download the 4 seasons rather then the night battles.

Kushan

[HorseArcher]

I'll download the 4 seasons rather then the night battles.

Kushan

I'm trying to make each skydome unique (4 different ones) but also somewhat realistic.

here is a test shot. The picture just don't do the justice. These units somehow "shined" from the high settings i used for the sunlight and kinda suprised me, that i haven't seen what each light settings does as i adjust the different lighting conditions. there are some tests to go with some other settings also, so just hold on...

[A$$A$$IN]

Beautiful!

[lt1956]

Horse Archer,

I am all for the Regular 4 seaon Mod, I most likely wouldnt use the Night one, as I wouldnt want to fight in the night all the time and ruin daytime battles. Anyway if we all port over to BI they have night battles which means you can mod it even better. lol

I look forward to testing your new version out and adding it to SPQR when done. Oh, and the regular ones, is there still normal day fight and some evening fighting? I am not clear on the difference between the 2 versions you are releasing. What has what so to speak. just want to be clear.

Lt

[HorseArcher]

Horse Archer,

I am all for the Regular 4 seaon Mod, I most likely wouldnt use the Night one, as I wouldnt want to fight in the night all the time and ruin daytime battles. Anyway if we all port over to BI they have night battles which means you can mod it even better. lol

I look forward to testing your new version out and adding it to SPQR when done. Oh, and the regular ones, is there still normal day fight and some evening fighting? I am not clear on the difference between the 2 versions you are releasing. What has what so to speak. just want to be clear.

Lt

the night fighting mod will be different. It won't use all the files, it will be more like my first version of the skymod (1.1), only improved. I haven't started that yet, but I might not even gonna release it if there is low demand.
Meanwhile the 4 season (4 skydome) version is about 5-6 times larger than vanilla and twice as big as 1.2. ( not file size but just a long long text file). I'll might look into the glare texture too, as i have it disabled right now, see if there is anyway i can improve the glare effects. (don't hold your breath for it, this is only gonna be a try.)

more different skies, each battle is like one after another, notice the evening settings, as my arrow points to some stars showed up in one of my battles:

[Hells Black Knight]

im glade u are still doing this ill be downloading this version cos im a real fan.

good luck with the future versions.