Stainless Steel Unit Overhaul Project [WIP]

**MightyPotato** · August 16, 2017, 06:52 AM

I'm off the job for two weeks, I'll try and release pictures of the longbow militia in game though.

**MightyPotato** · October 15, 2017, 04:16 PM

Hello, little update:

As you can tell, this project is on hiatus (it is, however, not cancelled or anything), as I am under a tremendous amount of work and I was so addicted to making units that it was beginning to become an impediment I can't allow as of now. I am thus working on changing the battlemap like EBII, RTR 7 or Roma Surrectum have done, which is far less time-consuming and I can work on in chunks without requiring constant research and attention, along with Non-Binary Person, who is making new trees and climates etc.. Tell me if you would like to help.

As for the units, Ltd. has kindly allowed me to use the beautiful MKTW units, which I shall be doing, with of course quite a few modifications when I'm back on the job.

Thank you all for your understanding. I'll be back.

**Lifthrasir** · October 20, 2017, 01:24 AM

Glad to see you're still working on that project

Correct me if I'm wrong, but MKTW is based on Attila engine which is not compatible with this "old lady" named M2TW engine. I'm not sure that you can just modify these models slightly to adapt them quickly and easily. I think it will requier a bit more work than that (at least for the mesh)

**MightyPotato** · October 21, 2017, 03:42 PM

I haven't yet seen if it works, so I can't tell, but I'll experiment with a model and I'll see! In any case the models and textures will be modified as I can't resist adding my personal touch

**paleologos** · October 23, 2017, 06:20 PM

It is doable if you can export the newer models to .obj, then milkshape can import them.
The rigging would need to be done anew, I reckon.
Also, I suspect that model variety does not work quite the same, so more work will need to be done there.
And finally the textures for all the models would need to be placed in files together, because they are not.
The point is that if you want to use MKTW models that's a good source of material but it won't speed things up, production wise.

**MightyPotato** · July 23, 2018, 11:09 PM

Hello everyone! I have been on vacation for three weeks now and so I paused the work on the heightmap and terrain etc, which is not yet finished, and I have been working on my militia units. I have completely modified unit rosters and so I have decided that for variety's sake I'd have two seperate militia group units for the western factions, and I'll be remodelling my previous models, whom I think look too well equipped for plain militia units.

I am currently working on group 1 spear militia (group 1=castile, aragon, portugal, scotland and england) and, also for variety's sake, I decided to make every faction have specific helmets the others wouldn't. How do I do this?: Merge several helmets together in a single milkshape group and, using the diff texture's alpha channels, have the ones I do not want disappear. It works but I have found a small problem that I have not been able to fix: There often appears (in the case of mergers between large and small models) a thin black outline of the invisible helmets around the non-invisible one, that becomes larger and larger with distance, and I wanted to know if it bothered anyone.

Here is a picture of the Castilian spear militia. I surrounded some of the places where the outlines appear in red and I would like to know what you think of it. Keep in mind that it might not look like much but they will be larger on fullscreen. Tell me what you think and I will act accordingly: either I delete the most visible helmets from the merged groups and I swap them for something else less visible (a smaller one), either it bothers nobody and I leave it as is. I could also give every faction the same helmets but I was really rather happy with the varieties until I noticed the glitch and I would like to keep it.

I hope the image is big enough and of sufficient quality. I have tried to put it in the setting in which the problem is the most obvious. It is a little less so in grass environments. If you have any solutions to this issue, I'd love to hear them!

**Point Blank** · July 30, 2018, 11:06 PM

No idea about the helmets but those spearmen look great!

**Metal.Pigeon** · July 31, 2018, 02:29 AM

It's certainly not ideal. From what I know, the reason it looks bigger when it's further away is because the game doesn't really "show" the alpha channels at longer distances. Not sure if there's a way around it.

The units look really nice though, as always. Maybe you can use the style from your old militia models as armour upgrades.

**MightyPotato** · August 01, 2018, 04:14 AM

Thanks for the feedback! Well the armor upgrades will be era based, so I'll finish early era (no upgrades) before I get to them, and then yes I might use them. My only trouble with my previous units is that they looked (to my eyes) too close to fully professional ones and were too uniform, so that will be changed.

**MightyPotato** · August 13, 2018, 01:57 PM

Hello everyone, new unit preview here. I have somewhat changed the way I have done this one compared to my prior units in that I tried to give each faction its own style while trying to keep the militia look compared to the other ones, which I think looked too professional. I also have done about 90% of the texturing myself and had to do all the normal maps by hand: it's time consuming but I think well worthwhile.

I have also changed my unit list to a new one including all factions (except for the Timurids and Fatimids, which I have had a hard time finding info for), that is of course subject to change but allows me to have a greater scope on the project. I will release it later, but I have notably included, for greater diversity and gameplay, different faction-dependent varieties of a same unit: this one is the group 1 spear militia (includes portugal, castile, aragon, scotland and england), and I will later release the other group 1 units, which will use the same texures and models as far as body parts go.

Now a note on the models. They have a very high poly count due to the use of assets from other games, which is why I have decided to make lod levels (shouldn't take me too long). I will also simultaneously be making the unit cards and sprites so that every model is technically ready to be ported in any game. I hope you enjoy the preview and as always all criticism is welcome!

Scotland (yes no more kilts

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