How many active modellers are there...really?

[Red Harvest]

Several times in discussions I've heard people claim that there are "plenty" of active modellers out there. Yet I've seen no evidence of it. In fact, all the evidence I've seen is to the contrary. Every mod I look at seems to be either without modellers or barely getting by with a skeleton crew. There seem to be a lot of skinners (proportionately) but not that many active modellers. So has anyone got a rough figure for the number of *active* modellers out there in the RTW community?

Be nice to the modellers, they are few!

[spirit_of_rob]

This is a bit of a vague question really for one thing how do u define modeller...

There are quite a few people around who can tweak minor things on models UVs, weapons etc but there are far fewer modellers who can create from scratch.

As for the number of them i severly doubt you can get any kind of accurate number of these but suffice to say there are not many in relation to how many people want to play the mods.

[Red Harvest]

That is just the point. There are very few. There don't even seem to be many that can do the very basic weapons switches.

It's like I've been saying all along, that software hurdle is a real doozy...

[conon394]

Red Harvest

I tend to agree with you on this one, the software is a big hurdle. I picked a 1 year academic license of 3dx Max 6 a bit over a year ago when I had time to kill on leaning the software. But I can't justify the expense of a full package nor even really re-upping my subscription (in contrast a image editing software is fairly useful, and much less expensive). I really would like to see CA come up with some kind of plug in for gmax. Yes it not cheep, but an active modding community seems like it would only encourage sales of the original product.

[Red Harvest]

conon394,

Unfortunately, there is not much chance of that happening now. GMAX has been dropped. Jerome said that CA was considering supporting GMAX...until GMAX announced they were killing it.

[conon394]

That is a bummer, I missed that bit of news... But it is nice to know CA was considering the option.

[player1]

3DMax is expensive software.

While for skinning several free programs are enough...


P.S.
Heh, I would love fixing few damaged CAS files, but I don't have any tools for that...

[tFighterPilot]

Umm... I can model (and have 3ds7). I'm just too lazy to actually do anything, or don't have the right motivation.

Models are hardly needed anyway in my opinion. There are so many different models that came with the game that a skin is, more often than not, sufficient.

[spirit_of_rob]

erm your kidding right?

No offense meant but thats one of the silliest things i have ever heard...

[DR. Hobo. PHD.]

yeah thier are alot of people (like me) who can skin but would die if they could make thier own models.....

[tFighterPilot]

erm your kidding right?

No offense meant but thats one of the silliest things i have ever heard...

Most of the new units in RTR are just reskins, or at most, simple changes of the original models.

[Red Harvest]

Umm... I can model (and have 3ds7). I'm just too lazy to actually do anything, or don't have the right motivation.

Models are hardly needed anyway in my opinion. There are so many different models that came with the game that a skin is, more often than not, sufficient.

tFighterPilot,

The problem is what you consider small changes in the 3D models are entirely impossible for skinners. Things like a shield delete or primary weapon change? They are easy conceptually, but if you don't have the software you are sunk. I've actually done some of these in GMAX but they are useless there...and I'm not sure if they would work if converted.

There were zero javelin and spear combinations in RTW for example. If you tried to make them you got reversed weapons and such. You had to use 3D modeling packages to make these minor changes.

The two handed spear animations for hoplites don't really look right, unless you move the shield to the proper location on the model. There are many vanilla models that could benefit from such a treatment.

Many units could use some shield or weapon swaps. Look at the poorly rendered falcatas for example. Or consider all of the identical looking javelin cavalry and javelin foot. Where are the original notched pelte type shields?

Anyway, this is not a modeller bash. I appreciate that there are modellers as they are a relatively rare commodity. It is this rarity that makes them so valuable. Many mods stalled because of lack of modelling support.

[Fabolous]

Several times in discussions I've heard people claim that there are "plenty" of active modellers out there.

Meh, they were lieing. We have some modellers, but not enough. But then again, we also lack coders and mapers, but not to the level that we lack modellers. But I don't expect the problem to improve anymore, for RTW anyways, with MTW2 announced the number of modders has gone down, and with how few modellers we had before, we will have an extremly small group of modellers left.

[Zapp]

Most of the new units in RTR are just reskins, or at most, simple changes of the original models.

ALL models in WHTW is new with new skins

But fabolous is right, all of the modelers in WHTW (including me) has really lost motivation for the project thanks to the announcement of medieval 2..