Recoloured units

[dIRECT0R]

This is basically a collection of .TEXTURE files for unit models I modified, initially for myself alone. The changes basically include minor, but noticable colour modifications to a wide range of Third Age 3.1 units. Merge the downloaded "Medieval II Total War" folder with your own, and let me know what you think There'll be two versions, one for vanilla TATW 3.1, and one for the latest version of MOS:

Recoloured units mini-mod for vanilla TATW 3.1 (it should work with most mods no problem):
http://www.gamefront.com/files/21612...+Total+War.rar


Gondor:
Gondor is no longer blue, neither in the campaign map, nor in battle. It now follows Lore as closely as possible. Its what I call the "Black Gondor" mini-mod, which hunts down and destroys all trace of blue in the Realm of Gondor. I've tried to keep as closely as possible to "realistic" and Lore colours. Leather is the colour of leather, steel is grey, etc.
Dol Amroth units are still blue, of course, but their shade of blue has been modified (see the screens below).
The Rangers of Ithilien have also been given a lot of attention, and use softer colours.

Rohan:
While they aren't all that immediately noticeable, these were actually the more painstaking modifications. All chainmail in Rohan units had a yellowish-brown tinge, and the shade of green the Rohirrim use is somewhat yellowish as well. The mini-mod basically desaturates the chainmail and and changes the hue of the green (see screenshots below). The colours of Rohan are no longer green and yellow, but green and white, and the (imo) excessive use of gold on their armour was lessened.

Silvan Elves:
The Silvan Elves received a lot of attention. In vanilla their colour shades were quite diverse. I've modified and "standardized" the hues of green, brown, and grey their units use, and, as a rule, I've removed yellow. The primary colours of the Silvan Elves are now green and grey (with a lot of brown thrown into the mix). As in every faction, the changes are many and vary from unit to unit, and would thus be difficult to elaborate upon in detail. However, as a general rule, the green is softer and so is the brown, and there's noticably more grey (grey being the colour of the Elves in general, and particularly the Sindar)

High Elves:
The High Elves have been largely "de-yellowized". Their colours are no longer blue and yellow, but blue and grey. I never understood why their armor has to be gold (or bronze?), and Tolkien states many times they used steel armor and weaponry. However, I've not yet sought permission to modify the new High-Elven units that came with 3.1, so the changes are limited to the units that were there before (notably the elites).

Arnor:
Arnor units had brown(ish) chainmail, and used far too much gold on their armor for my taste (for me it sort of diminishes the realism if the units are fancy, and that's not the Numenorian style anyway). In addition, their militia units have been thoroughly modified: their armour is now the colour of leather, they use black instead of green, and many textures have been "de-yellowized".

Free Peoples of Eriador:
Here I've only yet modified the Bree Militia (archers and spearmen). They're no longer orange and green, but brown and (softer) green, with a bit more grey.

All credit naturally goes to King Kong, SHREDDER, Louis_Lux, Razor, and the rest of our excellent modding team - you guys are artists.

[David93]

Hello
ill download tomorrow when im on my laptop, but you should add some previews my friend, people like to see before they download

[dIRECT0R]

Hello
ill download tomorrow when im on my laptop, but you should add some previews my friend, people like to see before they download

Coming right up. Go easy on me fellas its my first upload. Report any problems here.

[Vifarc]

I won't bore you with the details, download and have look

You mean you don't want to bore yourself giving us details. As already said, I'll wait somebody (you or other) to show us your work before downloading.
I'm only interested in Silvan...

[dIRECT0R]

You mean you don't want to bore yourself giving us details. As already said, I'll wait somebody (you or other) to show us your work before downloading.
I'm only interested in Silvan...

You got me there, in part. I was working on the final touches all day and I'm utterly exhausted. You might be interested to know, however, that I particularly went to work on the Silvan Elves. They're a very interesting faction I could never really like because of their diverse and non-optimal colours, so I set out to modify that to the best of my abilities. I have to say also that I am not a fan of the heavy Silvan armor, I did what I could there, tried to make it look more like steel. I'll post some screenshots (the units with the grey cloaks are the Sindar Archers, I figured grey would be more appropriate for Grey Elves )

I also fixed-up all the units that were available in MOS. Basically I did all this primarily for my MOS game, not for vanilla 3.1. I just finished it now, however, so I'm posting a mini-mod for 3.1. When the new 3.1-compatible MOS comes out I'll be posting the tweaked .texture files for all the other units. Thoughts?

[Vifarc]

I particularly went to work on the Silvan Elves. I am not a fan of the heavy Silvan armor, I tried to make it look more like steel. I'll post some screenshots (the units with the grey cloaks are the Sindar Archers, I figured grey would be more appropriate for Grey Elves )
Thoughts?

I can't say. I understand what you don't like, but maybe you went to far for me in the reverse.
. I prefer the vanilia heavy Silvan armor, for I want it wood-elven mail. I think yours are too usual medieval. I know it is not easy to find the colour balance to keep it special but not so.
. But I prefer all your other works on units than vanilia, even you went too far for me in the seeming of colors.
Maybe, if you can, you should put before/after pictures, to help us decide.

[dIRECT0R]

I can't say. I understand what you don't like, but maybe you went to far for me in the reverse.
. I prefer the vanilia heavy Silvan armor, for I want it wood-elven mail. I think yours are too usual medieval. I know it is not easy to find the colour balance to keep it special but not so.
. But I prefer all your other works on units than vanilia, even you went too far for me in the seeming of colors.
Maybe, if you can, you should put before/after pictures, to help us decide.

I was primarily annoyed with yellow. Chainmail was yellow, armor was yellow, everything had a yellowish tinge. I thought, isn't armor supposed to be steel, or mithril? What mystical material are the Elven units supposed to be using? Gold? That would be immensely heavy and surely they're not so rich.. Bronze? So I figured it would be a good idea to "outfit" them in steel/mithril. The heavy elven units are supposedly using mithril so I made them shinier. That said, you can always pick and choose which units you want and which you like more in vanilla. If you want yellow armor for your heavy Silvans, simply don't copy-over the elf.texture file that's in data/unit_models/_units/my_units/textures.

A great collection of before and after pics would be a good idea, but that would be dozens upon dozens of pics since all units from 5 factions have been redone. I study medicine in my spare time and it will take me quite a while to put it all together.

[Generalpatton334]

I was primarily annoyed with yellow. Chainmail was yellow, armor was yellow, everything had a yellowish tinge. I thought, isn't armor supposed to be steel, or mithril? What mystical material are the Elven units supposed to be using? Gold? That would be immensely heavy and surely they're not so rich.. Bronze? So I figured it would be a good idea to "outfit" them in steel/mithril. The heavy elven units are supposedly using mithril so I made them shinier. That said, you can always pick and choose which units you want and which you like more in vanilla. If you want yellow armor for your heavy Silvans, simply don't copy-over the elf.texture file that's in data/unit_models/_units/my_units/textures.

A great collection of before and after pics would be a good idea, but that would be dozens upon dozens of pics since all units from 5 factions have been redone. I study medicine in my spare time and it will take me quite a while to put it all together.

I like what you did but I agree with dude. Silvan Elves are supposed to use camoflouge and making them bright and grey isn't exactly very practical for their kind. They should have a mix of greenish and grey so it fits with the forest theme and that they actually look like they have mithril

[paradamed]

Nice! I liked the darker tones you used with the Knights of Dol Amroth!

[dIRECT0R]

Nice! I liked the darker tones you used with the Knights of Dol Amroth!

Ty, it always kinda bothered me that they use such a light shade of blue. I applied that and other modifications to all the Dol Amroth units that used to be available with MOS but aren't any longer.

[Ministry]

Funny thing is that this recolor changes the Arnor black and while star flag to a baby blue one at reunification and uses symbol2a. You misspelled attachmentsets here in the rar -> \Third_Age_3\data\unit_models\attachementsets

[dIRECT0R]

Damn you, blue! Well that wasn't supposed to happen. Do you mean strat map or battle map? Does everyone have this problem?

If its the strat_map, I suggest you restore the vanilla files in the data/banners folder. First try to restore everything except the two files entitled "symbols1". If the problem persists copy back the vanilla files for those two as well. The latter will make your Gondor symbol blue, though. Its strange because I did not edit Arnor banners. Are you sure you're copything the files into a vanilla 3.1 installation?

[Ministry]

The strat map is fine, you change that from the descr_sm_factions.txt. My problem is the banner changes from Arnor black with the star symbol (in symbols 4) to a baby blue color with symbols2 at the reunification. I'm using BS 5.0 to do the reunification, probably not compatible!

Textures themselves look good though, I'll try a reinstall and test them again.

[KnightsTemplar]

Can I request silver Eldar unit and black 'barded horse' (Knights of Dol Amroth horses)?
I have always wanted to do that, but I still have grab what have to be done.
Or could you tell me how do you make them darker please?

[lolIsuck]

For the Silvan elite units I would suggest a dark blue cape like you see in the battle of Helms Deep, I think that goes better with the silver than the green cape

[dIRECT0R]

For the Silvan elite units I would suggest a dark blue cape like you see in the battle of Helms Deep, I think that goes better with the silver than the green cape

Here's a version with blue cloaks

http://www.mediafire.com/?f4pbalzln4b9ytj

Can I request silver Eldar unit and black 'barded horse' (Knights of Dol Amroth horses)?
I have always wanted to do that, but I still have grab what have to be done.
Or could you tell me how do you make them darker please?

I have to say I'm not really sure how to give them a barded horse, but there is a black barded horse you may consider using in future: that of the Dunedain knights of Arnor. In general, if you want to make a unit darker, you have to edit the .texture file with the actual textures, and possibly also the normal.texture file if you really want to make them less bright. See the tutorials on how to edit .texture files and how to create normal files. Good luck

[Aguirre]

Green cloaks are perfect!

[Dago Red]

I agree with you for the most part about the Silvan Elves. I find the heavy units far too garish to look upon for the most part. MY EYES! And apart from the Sentinels of the Woodland Realms (which are fantastic) the light units are either boring (the vanilla looking light archers) or too brightly colored (the Forest Wardens look like they just had a fine time at a ladies fabric store in 1975).

I also really like the dampened color for the Knights of Dol Amroth and several others. And the gold band around the Eored axemen had to go, it is blinding and without AA on, it's very jagged looking in game.

The downside of some of this work is that you've made units which were too uniform looking already, look more uniform. Or to put in starker tones I've heard on TWC, more "clone." What some of those units badly need is more a variety to their appearance. Changing the color of the cloaks, even subtly does wonders for some units (instead of all blue!, or all green!). But some of those units need a different design on their tunic or an altogether different one, a different helm -- maybe some have older models from their father's, a shorter sword, a longer sword, a large leather pouch on the hip, etc, etc.

Good work for what you've done here though!

[dIRECT0R]

I agree with you for the most part about the Silvan Elves. I find the heavy units far too garish to look upon for the most part. MY EYES! And apart from the Sentinels of the Woodland Realms (which are fantastic) the light units are either boring (the vanilla looking light archers) or too brightly colored (the Forest Wardens look like they just had a fine time at a ladies fabric store in 1975).

I also really like the dampened color for the Knights of Dol Amroth and several others. And the gold band around the Eored axemen had to go, it is blinding and without AA on, it's very jagged looking in game.

The downside of some of this work is that you've made units which were too uniform looking already, look more uniform. Or to put in starker tones I've heard on TWC, more "clone." What some of those units badly need is more a variety to their appearance. Changing the color of the cloaks, even subtly does wonders for some units (instead of all blue!, or all green!). But some of those units need a different design on their tunic or an altogether different one, a different helm -- maybe some have older models from their father's, a shorter sword, a longer sword, a large leather pouch on the hip, etc, etc.

Good work for what you've done here though!

Yeah variety, i.e. the lack thereof, is certainly a major flaw of TATW as a whole. Look at the Swan Knights, for example, they look great but they're in uniforms. Who ever heard of knights in uniforms? But variety needs to be carefully intertwined with uniformity for each faction. Units from the same faction should use a vaguely similar colour scheme. Variety shouldn't be between types of units in a faction (e.g. "this unit is blue and these are yellow"), but within the unit itself. There should be a subtle colour theme connecting most units from a faction.

That said, I noticed early on there's a danger of increasing uniformity within a unit, so I was very careful to change only one colour. With Gondor blue is now black, Rohan's yellow is silver (according to Lore), High Elven gold I switched to grey, etc. Frankly I liked the more "realistic" look the units gained with less chromatic colours (e.g. Gondor particularly, but there I also wanted to make the militia and regulars look like they actually come from the same faction).

The Silvans really have a problem and I tried to polish them as much as I could. I tried to decrease colour variability between units (as opposed to within units, which I tried to increase when possible). Silvan Spearmen, I thought, should match at least in some way when set next to Forest Wardens, etc. I introduced specific ranges of green, "Elvish" grey, and brown as their theme.

Dol Amroth Knights were really an easy and worthwhile fix. I edited them as part of the entire set of Dol Amroth units that used to be available on MOS.

I did all this stuff basically as a hobby over several months. Initially just for myself, but then I thought, why not post it? All in all I think the tweaks are a small step, but a step in the right direction . I'd like to see them maybe included in the next release of MOS, but if not, no biggie. Anyway thanks for the feedback.

[Dago Red]

I agree entirely.

Look at the Swan Knights, for example, they look great but they're in uniforms. Who ever heard of knights in uniforms?

Indeed, they look absolutely incredible, but it's as if there is one knight there copied over. It would be better to see 4, subtly but distinctly different Swan helms - there was no machine making them. Some would be very old, others newer. And vastly different coats of arms emblazoned on the knight's coats and horse's bardings. I like the uniform color scheme on them actually, but a % should be a much darker blue, a lighter, a medium, etc and there really needs to be splashes of other color on their accoutrements to make up for it.

An extreme example of a unit of knights (the left side):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now that's a bunch of noble individuals fighting together!
(It's true in the background you can see at least 3 with the same coat of arms on the same color hauberk, but that's all right, they're from the same family... or whatever. Notice, though, they have entirely different helms, shields and different kinds of maces.)