In this day and age: Creating Units: This has to be Ridiculous!

[Francisco de Miranda]

OK, I've had a look at creating a unit for Napoleon/Empire, and how I use Gimp or Photoshop to open a .dds file and then change the image/textures etc. and create a new Unit for Empire/Napoleon for use in my game...

I was amazed to see the complexity of doing such a thing.

Is "someone" having a joke here? Surely we have COMPUTERS and computers do the "work". Seeing the stretched images that the computer uses to "skin" the framework of the unit, it just seems ridiculous to me...

Are we not doing things backwards? The modder has to manually retexture the stretched image, and by many, many tries somehow ends up with a new unit. That seems to be a LOT of work!

Surely, there must be a program where we could just have a unit, say in 3-D... a single soldier, and change the look as we please.. different hat, different colour coat, fancy trimmings etc... and the COMPUTER would stretch it, bend it, etc, to fit what it needs to use the image in the game. We have to be approaching this from the wrong direction...??

It reminds me of how ... I used to be a typesetter...

In the 1980's we still used hot metal for setting type in printing. So, every page of your daily newspaper would be set in metal and run through a printing press.

Later, we used green CRT screens, and used codes to get the same page. Print, was output on paper and manually stuck down into place, using glue.

A typical code would be:

>f12<>L22<>H18<>/B<...

which meant Font 12, Leading 22, Height 18, and Bold.
Leading was the space between the lines of text...

... a bit complicated... yes it was. because you had the "image" of the finished typesetting in your head, and didn't see the finished article until it was printed out on paper.

Later still, we got WYSIWYG... "what you see is what you get...".. The Apple Mac was invented and anyone could do typesetting.. because the person keyed in the text, and just changed the Height, Font, etc etc, by clicking and pasting.

Nowadays of course we are all on the web... and use the same controls to make this Bold, or use a different typeface etc.

I THINK THAT THE WAY WE CREATE NEW UNITS FOR Empower/Napoleon IS STILL LIKE USING WE'RE USING METAL IN PRINTING...

Having to manually retexture, already stretched unit templates...

THIS IS RIDICULOUS...!!

Would you agree?

... trying to add images of what I'm talking about...

[Garbarsardar]

I think this is the appropriate forum.

[Invictus XII]

Well yes, I still find creating units hard, well not so much as it is tedious and repetitive.

But CA did it pretty similar to the way we mere modders have to do it. So you just have to get yourslef motivated to do it.

[Francisco de Miranda]

Well yes, I still find creating units hard, well not so much as it is tedious and repetitive.

But CA did it pretty similar to the way we mere modders have to do it. So you just have to get yourslef motivated to do it.

Thanks for the reply Marshall Beale:

You know, maybe I'm totally wrong, because I just took a look at how units are done... or it could be that I've missed something...

But really, if you are creating a unit...

And you have to work on the stretched "fabric" of the unit's body (jacket, trousers) etc... and this has to be awkward, since it's not how we naturally perceive things...

... Well, surely this way is the wrong way...

Because, that same stretched fabric has to be then placed over the "shell" of the unit's body... by the computer... yeah?

So... why is it not possible to have the unit, in it's natural state.. i.e. a single, 3-D figure, seen as you would normally see a person... be able to work on the uniform as need be... and then the computer.. stretches it or does whatever it has to do ...

WHY do we have to work on the "stretched" fabric, rather than the fabric already on the figure? Does anyone know?

Is it being done like this everywhere?

[alpaca]

I'd wager CA has either some skinning plugin for 3dsmax or whichever software they use or a way to rebuild the skins for a unit when already in the game. I doubt there's any "3d brush" or something, though.

[Primergy]

There are existing programs with which you can paint directly onto the surface of a 3D-Model like Bodypaint3D but also Sculpting Programs like Zbrush and Mudbox are capable of this technique.

But even then the computer needs texture coordinates, those UV-Maps which you call "streched fabric", to define which vertex has which colour.

[Ave]

Im just learning 3d modelling (and texturing) and believe me there is no easy way of doing it.
Inside a 3d program you can create procedural textures which dont need any texture files at all and only rudimentary UV mapping, problem is it takes huges amounts of processing power and isnt viable for in game use.

Of course full time developers and serious hobbyists use 3d paint programs (of which there are many including a rudimentary one inside Photoshop cs extended) which makes it alot easier.
The real difficulty however is UVW mapping a model, if you think 3d painting is hard UVW mapping anything remotely complex is literally a herculean task.