Patched: Crimson Tide 4.2 (blood,sand,dirt,snow) -Medieval combat isn't pretty

**scivian** · July 01, 2008, 08:58 AM

Magus, I recommend you check this out if your serious about making the best blood mod. Its one of the best blood mods I have ever found...from a long time ago...and from a great modder. After you look at the screen-shots check out the file changes for some ideas and possibilities.

Again, nice job and good luck.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ighlight=blood

**Magus** · July 01, 2008, 10:48 AM

scivian thankyou very much for that link, I am acutally in the process of changing the impact sprites for blood and I didn't think of editing the descr_effects_impacts file, I will more than likley be releasing a new version of crimson tide tonight, and I will try to incorporate all of the suggestions and requests I have received from everyone. Thankyou for the feedback everyone! I really hope you're enjoying my work I read all the posts and am taking in to account what everyone says. Keep the ideas comin guys!

**Nicholas H.C** · July 01, 2008, 10:52 AM

Did you by chance change anything to do with the game font? I noticed after I installed this mod the font is small and a little blurry...

**Magus** · July 01, 2008, 11:01 AM

no the only changes that where made where to the blood decals in data/overlaytextures which would not effect font.

**aNarion.** · July 01, 2008, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by Magus

scivian thankyou very much for that link, I am acutally in the process of changing the impact sprites for blood and I didn't think of editing the descr_effects_impacts file, I will more than likley be releasing a new version of crimson tide tonight, and I will try to incorporate all of the suggestions and requests I have received from everyone. Thankyou for the feedback everyone! I really hope you're enjoying my work I read all the posts and am taking in to account what everyone says. Keep the ideas comin guys!

nice!

Hmm, btw it doesnt seem to be any snow on the soldiers when fighting in winter. are you going to implement that in the feature?

**Magus** · July 01, 2008, 11:47 AM

yes I am going to implement snow in this next release if everything goes well, I was having problems getting snow to show up well on the units initially but I havn't played around with it very much, all in all I think that most of you will be pleased with the upcoming release.

**aNarion.** · July 01, 2008, 11:50 AM

I'm already pleased by the effort so far dude, just keep it up! reputation earned!

**Magus** · July 01, 2008, 01:20 PM

update : I just wanted to let you guys know that I've figured out how to make dirt/mud accumulate slowly overtime, with a little dust/debri to start and then caked mud and grim later on after fighting, I've also started new blood and mud textures that are higher res (no pixels) more realistic, and blood will also accumulate over time according to wounds, I will probably have everythng done by either late tonight or sometime tommarrow evening.

**Barser** · July 01, 2008, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by Magus

update : I just wanted to let you guys know that I've figured out how to make dirt/mud accumulate slowly overtime, with a little dust/debri to start and then caked mud and grim later on after fighting, I've also started new blood and mud textures that are higher res (no pixels) more realistic, and blood will also accumulate over time according to wounds, I will probably have everythng done by either late tonight or sometime tommarrow evening.

Looking forward for the update

I also can't wait to see the snow thingy.

**PeteAce** · July 01, 2008, 04:11 PM

The link posted by scivian shows some very nice blood sprites, intead of blood clouds now. But I believe that's only for arrow impact? Is it possible to even add those impact sprites to regular wounds caused by other weapons?

**Magus** · July 01, 2008, 05:00 PM

as far as I know I cannot figure out how to make blood puffs from weapon hits, only projectiles. I will be releasing new blood puffs too though, I've already finished them. Instead of a little *poof* they are more like a spray, like a smashed water melon, they are also darker so they match the overlay textures I've made. So the blood puffs are alot more prominent and nasty lookin.

**ricebowl** · July 02, 2008, 07:32 AM

Magus, man, love it when you mention the blood will "puff" out, I been fought about 20 battles with your mod now, other then the two little suggestions I mentioned aboved(more styles and spray-like), everything else seems too be fine and only added better experience to the battle, but I do agree one of the member mention the units got dirty alttle too quick, it does more or less affects how shinny they look(sometimes they get very thirty even b4 they go to battle), my suggestion is, can it be possible to make the soldiers dirty only little bit before fight/met on the field, and gets dirty/bloody when they are at it, and after it.

But Over all, blood effects very sussessfully, no crash till now, nice work, Magus, keep it up, while let me go back and keep trying them up... lol

**Magus** · July 02, 2008, 10:35 AM

Update : I just finished the new blood textures last night, they are revised, and very high res and detailed, I was able to make them ALOT better looking, tonight I will finish the dirt, and snow, and then I will add them all together and make the release, along with the new blood squirts from arrow impacts, all in all I think you all will be pleased with this release

as always any feedback is appreciated, thankyou for the comments everyone.

**aNarion.** · July 02, 2008, 10:49 AM

Sounds great!!

Hmm i got another suggestion for you.. maybe you've thought of it before or somethin.

When having units with full armor plate.. you could maybe make it look like they're having dents on the. When in combat, could be a combine of blood or something. would suggest to use this for the full plated units, like gothic knights and MAA for example.

Do you think its possible to achieve anything like this?

**~~Fionn son of Cumhaill~~** · July 02, 2008, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by aNarion.

Sounds great!!

Hmm i got another suggestion for you.. maybe you've thought of it before or somethin.

When having units with full armor plate.. you could maybe make it look like they're having dents on the. When in combat, could be a combine of blood or something. would suggest to use this for the full plated units, like gothic knights and MAA for example.

Do you think its possible to achieve anything like this?

First of all i want to say this really adds to the immersion of SS,cos it looks less clinical and sterile and more like the carnage of a battle field

Or even better then that would be if the blood kinda dripped out between the chinks in the plates,because seeing as plate armor was so tough ordinary weapons(other than maces)would pierce them...most people who died would either have been attacked on an exposed area(i.e.neck,armpits,knees etc)or from blunt force trauma,but the likelihood of that is signifigently less as their would be a leather jerkin or something along those lines to absorb the brunt of the kinetic energy....

I know it sounds a impossible ,or at least difficult, to implement because it would need to be applied to all models,and it would like kinda

if it happened to a peasant.

Anyway great idea and execution.

Keep up the good work and plus rep

**Magus** · July 02, 2008, 11:46 AM

The way that the decals work is I have a big blank template to put the blood on, there are only three blood decals, and the same one is applied to every texture for every skin for each unit. Each unit in the game has a texture file that contains all the different textures for the different variations of each unit, I have looked at them and can only geuss as to a good location to place the decals and hope that they land in good spots. After hours and hours of tweaking, redoing , tweaking, and testing I can start to predict where they end up better. I have had alot of success recently and on a few of the units with platemail I have succeeded in making it look like they are bleeding around the gaps.

In the first stage of bleeding it is mostly sprays and some mnor to moderate wounds, on the second stage of bleeding (second blood decal) there are more wounds, and more blood, and specificly, more dripping wounds to simulate a deeper more critial stab. I have also added a sub layer of blood to simulate the blood soaking into the clothes after fighting while still bleeding. On the third level of blood (third blood decal) I added ALOT of sprays made wounds from previous levels of blood, bleed MORE, and saturate the cloth/armor alot more. I've also added head wounds and other wounds that appear as though to be bleeding proffusly. The third stage of blood is usually the decal that is applied when the character dies or is very close to death, so you will be able to tell what shape a soldier is in by the visible wounds on him.

All this is rendered in very high resolution so all the little droplets and drips show up great, and I will be completing the mud/dirt decals tonight in which I will fix the progression upon which a soldier becomes grimey during battle (little at first, more mud caked on after fighting) this will also be in very high resolution and be very good and muddly looking. I will combine the blood and the dirt to create the dirt and blood textures, so after a long fight some soldiers will be caked with mud and will have some deep gashes and be splattered with his and his enemies blood (they will look like a mess) as I think they should seeing as how I think this kind of combat would be very messy (remember the scene in gladiator at the beginning with all the mud on russel crowe's face?).
After I am done with all that I will create the Snow, Snow/blood textures to be applied to units during a frosty fight. I will make the blood a little brighter red when mixed with snow to simulate the blood being thinned and watered down by the snow when they melt together (blood gets lighter when it is thinned out) I have not experimented much with snow or snow/blood yet, but I know the feature should be in the game, I will try my best to exploit it. I will also be including the new blood spurts with updated graphics as well as physics (as inspired by Lumberjack's mod at the beggining of the second page) If I spend a few hours on this tonight when I come home from work I am confident that I will release tonight, with lots of nice screen shots. Please share your thoughts!