Is there any special auxiliary troops that have a unique recolour? Like the syrian archers? Most have the "standard" roman red hue!
And gongratulations on yet a superb work!
Is there any special auxiliary troops that have a unique recolour? Like the syrian archers? Most have the "standard" roman red hue!
And gongratulations on yet a superb work!
Thank you, MrVis.
Yes, you can remove those blue legionary cohorts if you're prepared to do a little editing yourself. Nothing advanced, just using PFM. I've posted instructions on how to that now at bottom of post #3 in this thread.
Your solution will depend on how you want them to appear. If you like them to look like the Roman War Dogs in ACR2, for example, which are using the main factional theme for the Romans, then simply delete all rows for the cohort in the unit_variant_colours table (just mind that the cohort is using a different shading than the war dogs, so colour shade will be slightly different). If you want them to use the same colours as some other Roman unit in ACR2, however, just note the RGB values for that unit and enter the same in the row(s) for the cohort.
Return to me if problem arises.
Ancient Colours by Epaminondas? Haven't checked his mod in detail, but it seems the same in type, although his work is still broader (covering more factions) while mine is deeper (covering more special units).
To be compatible with DEI, I think you need to do some editing. If you want ACR2 colours in the great mod setting of DEI, the simplest solution would be to open DEI with PFM and delete its db files for "faction_uniform_colours" and "unit_variant_colours". That should enable ACR2 to take over the colours for DEI. But then you'd miss out on some factions and units in DEI not yet covered by ACR2 (you can check what each mod covers by opening them with PFM and compare the relevant files). There's a way around that, too, but it's more complicated. Let me know if this is the road you want to take.
Yes, it's strange how this game keeps luring you in. After the release of the New Year Edition, I was set to play some other games for a while. But I wanted to test some other mods for R2 first, which I haven't been able to do until now, due to my own moddng. So I started a campaign with the Ptolemaics, and chose Cyrenaica for my first target, saw its vanilla colours, and thought, "No, no, not fun to see them like that". Exited the game and started modding Cyrenaica, Cyprus, all Arabic factions, going for the African kingdoms next...
My own mod is not enough to keep me interested in R2, so I thought I was done with it. But with certain other mods, there's still a chance I might enjoy a campaign after all.
Thanks for your feedback, my friend. Glad to see you pop in in my thread for R2 as well.
Planning on some epic illustrated AAR's for Rome 2, too?
Thank you very much, Banksia. Glad you liked the new version.
I've listed all units so far covered by ACR2 in post #3. As you can see, I've only addressed the Syrian Archers, Auxiliary Infantry and Auxiliary Cavalry up 'til now. The plan was to cover more of them in a Regular Edition, but only a handful for the Light Edition. The Romans still got more special units than any other faction. And I added the Socii for the new version.
Will see what the future holds in this regard, if the community wants to see more of this mod.
Last edited by Demokritos; January 04, 2014 at 05:27 AM.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
That's a very good question.
I was not planning to do so at first, but DeI mod has made me so excited about Rome 2 i am now looking at the best visual settings (GEM presets etc) and of course texturing and re colouring...
If i find the visual balance i am looking for, i will probably shoot a few pictures to share, and maybe an epic battle
I'll probably hate the Romans when I do them properly but I'll finish the other factions first.
I should have been clearer, the pictures on the OP for Macedon and Nervii are dark and it's hard to see the colours. There's nothing wrong with them. Sariassa Cavalry specifically use a type of tunic that still has 3 colours but they are just a recommendation.
Also, I think the Atrebartes are Belgic and with the all factions mod, they'll replace the Nervii for all purposes easily. At least I hope so.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Well, I can tell you, the Romans made me swear a lot. But this was because I tried to reach a certain standard of realism. If your demands are not that high, then you'll find a satisfactory solution quicker and more easily. Like I said before, I'm still not happy with all Roman units, so I'll need to return to them later.
It's gonna be interesting to see what you come up with in this regard, Dude. Especially since you still seem to have certain requirements for historical accuracy in colours, at least as far as the Romans go.
Never mind me having done blue Romans already. If you want blue Romans in your mod, then there should be blue Romans it. Just find your own values for them, that's all.
Aah, you just meant that Macedon and Nervii are difficult to see in my current previews for them, and that's why you suggest new pics of them, so that people have easier seeing the difference to vanilla and other mods. Well, that's a completely different matter. I shall try to follow your recommendation, fellow modder. And the Sarissa Cavalry will make a good example for the Macedonians (haven't checked this unit after patch 7; only know a couple of units that went through that patch with their colours intact)? OK then.
Yes, the Atrebates (from proto-Celtic ad-treb-a-t-es, "inhabitants"), as they should be more properly called (if CA had done their homework better), were a Belgic tribe. So were the Nervii. Since I have difficult to reach the latter for pics on sunny days, are you saying I should temporarily use the colours of the latter on the former, which I have no problem finding sunny days in custom battles for with the All Factions Mod, as this would clearly do to show the Nervii for all intents and purposes?
Didn't know people studied my previews that closely. Rarely recieves a comment about them, as if they don't matter much. But if someone lets me know he or she wishes for better pics of the aforementioned factions, I can be accomodating.
Regarding my mod development, it's been good for me to take a little rest and for the first time test other mods for a while. I'm impressed with the productivity and generosity which other modders show in pumping out all these different mods to improve the game for all gamers. It has given me a sense of wanting to give more in return. The response of the community is such that I sometimes doubt there's interest enough to make it worth the trouble of keeping my own project public, but now I feel I might finish it here, if only for the sake of other modders, in case they have use for it. Eventually. The reduced unit variety issue is still major sore in my modding butt, as I feel my work is crippled by it, but I can still try to make a good job of the two thirds of tunic colours that I can see. Can't guarantee that the third colour will look good on the tunics for those who have machines with capacity to show full unit variety, though.
PS. The reduced unit variety and my testing of the campaign game a bit more have me changing the course of the mod development again. The former destroyed my system of using the factional colours in different ways to introduce a great deal of variety and yet keep the variety associated with the faction in question. When the third colour disappears from the unit, it can be difficult to tell to which faction it belongs by merely looking at it. This goes for some of the playable factions in ACR2 22a. So the options for variety have become more limited. Together with exploration of the campaign mode, this has me wanting to address the main colours for all minor factions before introducing more colour variety for the major factions. So there will no longer be a "Regular Edition" followed by an "Expanded Edition" the way I originally planned them. Don't know what to call the next update. Only that it will depend on how big it is.
Last edited by Demokritos; January 06, 2014 at 05:31 AM.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
Demokritos, for future advice:
If you like add to your mod, you can change unit cards their main color as well
db - faction_table (Roll to final row, where is reading "unit card color" and there you can give same unit card color as you use on faction uniform emblem) but you can't give separated color for each unit cards. Just only one color for entire faction. Try if you like it.
NOIF's MODS & ARTS: Noif's Gallery | NOIF's Unit Retexture Mod(TWR2) |NOIFs Faction emblems-Mod(TWR2)| Better horses, elephants, dogs and camels HQ-textures (TWR2) | Better siege equipment and fort walls HQ-textures (TWR2)I CAME...... I SAW... I MODDED
Will check it out. Thanks for the tip, my friend.
PS. Finished Cyprus and Cyrenaica. Here's how they'll appear on the campaign map now...
More natural.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Kept one vanilla colour (greenish grey seen on shield rim here), changed the two others.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Also finished all Arabian kingdoms. Three tweaks and all Greek states will be ready, too. After that, I hope being able to take that break from R2 for a while.
Last edited by Demokritos; January 06, 2014 at 10:43 AM.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
Decided to release the latest work for the benefit of fellow modders.
See dev notes in OP and post #2.
Enjoy.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
ACR2 and ACC literally are prerequisites for me even opening up their respective games.
Happy to be of service, Tom.
And decent of you to let me know you appreciate the work.
Have fun out there.
Regards,
D
PS. I've always wondered why CA go to such great lengths in creating realistic mountains, rivers, buildings, trees etc for the battlefield only to ruin it all by putting units coloured like neon signs in the midst.
Last edited by Demokritos; January 14, 2014 at 06:14 AM.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
you're unleashed Demokritos, is Always a big pleasure come to your threads. Following guidelines of your long OP here and for shogun 2 units I would vote for you teaching history/informatic at the university, forever congrats
Haha, very kind of you to say, Drama. As a matter of fact, I've studied history at university, so some of things I've learned from that should show in a place like this at times. Glad you appreciate it.
Likewise, my friend, your visits to my threads are always nice calls. Thanks a lot for your support. I do appreciate it.
"Unleashed", you say? Yes, I guess I am with respective to the new scope of this mod. Didn't think I'd recolour the whole game this time, but some campaign tests (like when I had my Parthians entering an Arian village and encountred a wall of neon blue opponents) made me realize it's rather pointless to make a few factions look fairly good if the rest looks decidedly different for the worse. Can't play a campaign properly before I fix them all.
Playing campaigns are not the same as playing custom battles (I'm usuallý preoccupied with the latter for modding purposes). Discovered another reason for that when I saw the Parthians in campaign using a different model for general in the royal cataphracts units than seen in custom battles. The latter seemingly always uses the same model for general as those for the soldiers, which means heavily shaded helmet ribbons, face mask etc. I adjusted the shade of my uniform theme for the general to that shading. But the model in campaign is of the median cavalry type and doesn't use the same degree of shading. Consequently, it appears overly bright and rather unnatural in campaign. So back to the drawing board for that one. The same regarding the Parthians in general, as their taking of a Baktrian village showed too much likeness with the new Baktrian theme. Discovered similar things for some other factions in those campaign tests. Further tweaks needed!
Here's one of things I dislike most with Rome 2...
This greenish yellow day lighting in the battlefield setting does not look fully natural to me. It turns all colours overly saturated towards the greenish yellow. Whenever I start a uniform theme test seeing a setting of this type I immediately quit the battle, because I know I won't be able to see the true colours of the theme in it. The trouble is that many battlefield maps near the Mediterranean are often loaded with these lighting conditions. It forces a modder like me to either restart the battle half a dozen times in hope for better light or pick a spot away from the Mediterranean all the time. Quite frustrating if you have a Mediterranean culture to test. And there being many Mediterranean cultures in the game. And are pressed for time.
I hope a talented modder like Aztec can do something about that.
@Dude with the Food - I've updated OP with somewhat clearer previews of the Macedonians and Nervii now.
Last edited by Demokritos; January 10, 2014 at 12:07 PM.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
There is a great spot for custom battle testing I found in the Akink region. It's slightly west of the Akink preset map and it's a slight hill with about seven trees on the whole map. Sometimes it's dark but it doesn't have the radioactive fog and is usually good light. Persia might not be known for its green grass but it fits most factions.
Thanks for taking the new pictures. I've not seen much of any Nervii at all really, vanilla or otherwise.
Last edited by Dude with the Food; January 10, 2014 at 02:21 PM.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Thanks for the tip. Will try to find that place. Could be worth searching for.
Yeah, "radioactive fog" is a pretty good description of the conditions at many settings for custom battles that make everything look rather weird and difficult for a colour modder. Shogun 2 suffered less from such strange lighting.
Was about to ask you how your own mod is faring, but I just discovered you've released it. Very good!
Next update for ACR2 may be called Two Thirds Edition, indicating the number of factions covered. Is about a quarter on the way for it.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
No GEM for you, Demokritos? In some lighting environments, the contrast can be a bit much, but I can't live without the white balance correction.
Still working on the variety project. Having some math issues... trying to keep the probabilities for specific variations about the same as (old) vanilla. Due to that, breaking up the definitions isn't a straight forward process in all cases... some rearrangement is required and it's different enough in each case to be a little irritating
I'm also finding that hair and beards need to be addressed as well as clothing, so there's a little more work than I thought.
Last edited by Kurisu Paifuaa; January 12, 2014 at 02:34 PM.
Hey I love the variety, I was just wondering if Praetorian's/Guard were supposed to be all white? Scanning through your thread I noticed the screenshot you show has them in purple tunics which I would most definitely prefer. From what I gathered reading online white was the 'common' colour so it kind of feels out of place to have the elite unit in the most common colour whilst lesser ranks use dye Thanks! (If I'm wrong could you please correct me, as I will keep them white if it's correct )
Hair and beards? You mean the variety in them is also much reduced since patch 7? Figures.
Glad to hear you're working on the variety project. I don't trust CA to come to their senses on that one. As for the project being bigger or trickier than expected, welcome to the world of TW modding, my friend.
It surprised me the other day to find one faction that went through patch 7 seemingly untouched: Libya. The handful of units I tested for them showed up in the old three-different-colours-for-tunics manner. Very strange. This while their neighbouring African kingdoms appear mostly in one-colour-for-tunics style, which is all the more deplorable since they have little or no details on the tunics in constrasting colour.
No GEM for me. Not as long as I'm colour-modding. Want to see the factions and units in the shades most people see them and base my changes on that. Also seen a couple of shots of GEM with that high contrast, and it didn't appeal to me much. But maybe that's a settings thing. Will test the mod later for sure.
You're the first to comment to variety, m040160k. Glad you appreciate it.
Yes, most sources I've found depict the Praetorian Guard dressed in white tunics. Here are some of my sources for it...
Most common colour for clothing in Rome may have been off-white (non-dyed material). This may still mean the Praetorian Guard had some finer version of that (the sources don't show their clothing exactly in off-white), depending on the type of textiles used etc.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
You can edit my mod any way you like, m040160k. Check my notes on how to do that at bottom of post #3.
Next update will contain many changes in the variety for the Parthians. Found they were too much varied before, in the sense it may have been difficult to recognize all units as Parthian. So I've addressed that issue and now I think they may be my best work as a whole among the playable factions.
Also edited the Seleucids a bit, moving the tertiary to secondary, which made them more interesting both on the battlefield with that reduced unit variety in effect, and on the campaign map, as they get to wear white cloaks there now...
Other changes to old factions and units will also be introduced.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Coming up: Centum Edition.
Last edited by Demokritos; January 15, 2014 at 06:59 AM.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
Man, I really love the Macedonian Royal Peltasts! The purple on the shields are really cool, makes them stand out!
A question: The Legatus unit. Is it supposed to be "roman red"? The Preatorian (cavalry and guard) are all white-ish... Just a little note, nothing big really.
Haha, so you've found them now, did you? I hope to offer quite a number of such treats here and there when I'm done with this project. Still have much to do for the Macedonians. The Royal Peltasts got covered early on since I felt a need to do something about the missile units for the side with the main factional theme in place.
Current Legatus bodyguard is a temporary solution. Haven't had the time to do some research how they usually appeared. The unit has been using the main factional theme for the Romans all the time. When I changed that theme to a new one in the last version I thought the bodyguard looked better with the old theme than the new one, so I just let them keep the old one. Only two colours can be changed on the unit and with the Romans already having many cavalry units in white colours I'm not sure how best to deal with them yet.
The African Kingdoms are perhaps the least developped rosters and uniforms in the game. So I probably begin introducing some colour variety for them already with the next update.
A couple of examples will appear in this post later. Need to take care of something else first.
Edit: Back with the examples.
The Masaesylians have six out of eight regular unit types basically looking like this (with my new factional theme in place)...
Only one colour for tunics (after patch 7). The secondary colour is only seen around the edges of the shield for the officer of the slingers here (sandy yellow in my theme). My tertiary is a greyish blue similar to what CA had for primary. Looks pretty good on the noble infantry. But for the noble cavalry and their cloaks, I used a different tertiary for variety. The result:Spoiler Alert, click show to read:Will introduce more variety for the ordinary units of the Masaesyli later in the development of ACR2.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Nasamones are similarly bereft of interesting variety in vanilla. Five out of eight regular unit types are basically looking like this (with primary colour from vanilla intact in my edited theme for them)...
Only one colour for tunics, too. My new theme for this faction has a very dark blue as secondary colour (not purple-ish blue as in vanilla), and grey as tertiary (instead of greyish blue; incidentally the tertiary colour for this side in vanilla is identical to the primary for the Masaesyli and the secondary for the Mascat in vanilla; CA used the same colours for many factions in this manner). For the Nasamonian Chariot Raiders, I therefore switched the primary for my secondary, and got this...Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Definitely a more interesting faction now.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Will have to find similar solutions for all African parties.
Last edited by Demokritos; January 17, 2014 at 04:01 PM.
GNOTHI SEAUTON (Know Thyself) - precept inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
MEDEN AGAN (Nothing To Excess) - another precept inscribed in the aforementioned place
Looked at that...
It's just that the definition files for some model parts happen to have a shorter structure than others (or use more sub-parts). African basic tunics, for example, have only 6 references per slot as there's only one unique model for those (I think same as one of the Carthage models). The last color variant is still getting skipped, though. It's similar for African tunics with skirts... fewer references overall, but added variety from attached sub-parts (skirts, trousers etc) of which there are also only 6 references or so in total.
The other common definitions used for African units, the Numidian clothing models, are more complex and suffer from the cut-off.
So it's just a matter of coincidence where some definitions conform to the limitation better than others.
EDIT: On a related note, the Assembly Kit beta contains a variantmesh editor. It will be interesting to observe it's output files or see if the limitation is enforced by the editor . Taking a look this morning...
Last edited by Kurisu Paifuaa; January 18, 2014 at 05:11 AM.