Bowstring animation ver. 0.6 - Released

[Raritу]

RTW Bowtring is an animation for Rome Total War, which add the bowstring effect to archers when they shoot.
This is made largely based on vanilla animations, so it can fits most current mods better. RMK version may come soon.

Learning from the excellent tutorial and tool by wlesmana, my version of bowstring animation is finished and ready to be used. How I did it was probably different from wlesmana, but we have the same goal nonetheless.

For anyone who is familiar with wlesmana's bowstring animation, he had a trouble with getting rid of the bow when the model switch to melee combat. That has been fixed here by playing around with the bow's bones' coordinates in melee skeleton file and hide the bow underground.

The pack consists of 2 animatons: fs_archer_sidebag_right_HYW (range) and fs_bowstring_swordsman (melee). They are both reserved for bowstring'd models only.
There is a base_skeleton.cas model that helps you implement the animation to other models. Also, there is a roman auxillia archer for you to test out the animations as well.

The skeleton has 24 bones out of the maximum of 26. In which 6 are new and 2 cloak bones have been removed. They are listed below:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Scene Root
bone_pelvis
bone_RThigh)
bone_Rlowerleg
bone_Rfoot
bone_abs
bone_torso
bone_head
bone_cloak_top
bone_Rupperarm
bone_Relbow
bone_Rhand
bone_dummy_arrow
bone_arrow
bone_Lupperarm
bone_Lelbow
bone_Lhand
bone_dummy_bow
bone_bow
bone_dummy
bone_string
bone_LThigh
bone_Llowerleg
bone_Lfoot

To install the animation, go here for the tutorial:

Adding Bowstring animation

Screenshots

These are tested in RM3.1, so please ignore the English Standard Bearer.

- Strange little shadow on the round with detailed shadow:
When the archer not shooting, the arrow needs to be hid, so I "moved" it to the underground, so it won't be visible in normal conditions. Oddly, seems like stuffs in the underground still have shadow on the ground. This is a minor issue, but you can remove it by turning off detailed shadow.

- The animation is quite buggy in siege combats, on walls. The arrows will appear on the air, under the units. This should be fixed in future releases.

- The death animations are also a little buggy. Not sure what causes this.

For comments/questions/suggestions/bugs, please post here.

Merry Christmas!

[Legio]

Very good, RARITY.

[Zipzopdippidybopbop]

Nicely done. Can I incorporate this into my mod (with your permission of course)?

[Telemachos]

It looks excellent with those ancient models , I can’t wait to see the results with the models and skins of RSII and other mods
does this animation also work for horse archers? Or can you make one for them? That would be great to see!

[paradamed]

Cool!

[The Glorious Moldovan]

i like where this is going

[Pope Gregorius I]

i think this was answered indirectly, but just to clarify: is this going to work in roma surrectum? if so, do you add it into like every data folder?

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Really Nice Rarity

[Larkin]

Freakin' awesome, I hope the major RTW mods like EB and RS can add this in for a quick patch, if it can be easily applied to their models.

[Raritу]

Very good, RARITY.

Cool!

i like where this is going

Really Nice Rarity

Freakin' awesome, I hope the major RTW mods like EB and RS can add this in for a quick patch, if it can be easily applied to their models.

Thanks all.

Nicely done. Can I incorporate this into my mod (with your permission of course)?

You sure can.

It looks excellent with those ancient models , I can’t wait to see the results with the models and skins of RSII and other mods
does this animation also work for horse archers? Or can you make one for them? That would be great to see!

For now it's for unmounted archers only, but it's possible that I will work on others in the future.

i think this was answered indirectly, but just to clarify: is this going to work in roma surrectum? if so, do you add it into like every data folder?

RS has various data folders for each faction, right? Then I guess so. Also you'll need to mod the archers' model to make them compatible with the animation.

[Warchamp84]

Absouletyl awesome, just wondering are u going to make a standalone version which could be used with other mods, since for example Darthmod is no longer updated due to Darth retiring hence i can not use this awesome mod.

[Conclamatus]

Best Christmas gift EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Milner]

Good work again, Rarity!!!

[Cyrus Da Great]

Great piece of work.
this is a worthy of xmas gift.

[Goofy]

Cool work, RARITY. +Rep and Merry Christmas!

[EagleTwenty]

Is there a working mod like this for Medieval II??
Merry Christmas to all of you!

[julianus heraclius]

Rarity, with your kind permission, I would like to incorporate the bow animations into the new IB mod "Restitutor Orbis. Here are a couple of shots of a 3rd Century roman auxiliary sagitarii (textures, courtesy leif_erikson):

[z3n]

Great work as usual! +Rep

Query; Have you tried different death animations for the skeleton?

[Raritу]

Is there a working mod like this for Medieval II??
Merry Christmas to all of you!

Banzai did it 3 years ago. It seems really good, and TATW has working bowstring animation as well.

Rarity, with your kind permission, I would like to incorporate the bow animations into the new IB mod "Restitutor Orbis. Here are a couple of shots of a 3rd Century roman auxiliary sagitarii (textures, courtesy leif_erikson):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That would be my pleasure, of course.

Great work as usual! +Rep

Query; Have you tried different death animations for the skeleton?

Thanks, and no, the death animations are based on vanilla ones.

[EagleTwenty]

Banzai did it 3 years ago. It seems really good, and TATW has working bowstring animation as well.

Yeah thanks, but the problem is that Banzai got banned and there are no download links at this site.
So is there another possibility to get animated bowstrings in medieval II?