Ideas about improving battle map town and city models

[Roma_Victrix]

Hello DBM team.

I've made a similar thread in the forum for Invasio Barbarorum II, which is also developing a Roman-era mod. I must say, the units in this mod look fantastic and clearly consumed a lot of time and effort in the making. However, the one major thing that's really lacking is the settlements. To put it politely, they need lots of work. They don't look very authentic, especially with the lack of an acropolis for Greek cities, and no temples whatsoever! There is apparently another mod in the works that has great looking Greco-Roman settlements in this regard, fully fleshed out, authentic, fantastic, and completely immersive. The mod is called Natus ob Imperium:





Do you guys think you could ask their team for permission to use their settlements? That would be a huge boon for this mod, I think. Aside from that, I would recommend simply re-skinning and further work on the existing settlements in the game, but in my honest opinion I think the whole thing should just be scrapped. I think you guys should keep the above video in mind if you choose that route.

[rafmc1989]

Wow! That looks like high quality stuff!
There are some news on Vk.com page, but I cannot understand it since I don't speak Russian.

[Roma_Victrix]

Wow! That looks like high quality stuff!
There are some news on Vk.com page, but I cannot understand it since I don't speak Russian.

It looks like the last few posts just bring up general historical topics and aren't exactly related to their mod in any particular way. I know a bit of Russian after having lived overseas in a former Soviet Republic for a couple years, but I'm not very good at deciphering everything. However, if one took the time and put in the effort (even with Google translate, lol), I'm sure someone could be contacted at their forum here about this issue. The very first website link I shared says you have to be a member on moddb in order to send private messages to other users. Since I'm not a member there I am unable to do so myself! I think it would be great if one of you guys, who might already have a membership there, could float a message to their team of developers.


You guys should consider taking advantage of stuff that already exists on this forum. Just look at the phenomenal job done by the Roma Surrectum II team lately for the 2.6 version of their mod, on Greek settlements alone! If the Natus ob Imperium thing doesn't work out, consider recruiting some guys from Roma Surrectum onto your staff.

[rafmc1989]

I will try to contact them on Mod DB to see how things work over there!

[Roma_Victrix]

Cool! That's good to hear.

[Rhaymo]

working on settlements requires a huge amount of time, and i haven't it.
Settlements and building of RTW have a different file format and a different strutcture. i already import in m2tw several buildings of rtw, but this job requires time to adapt the model and the texture mapping (and you should also spend time to find some more detailed texture).
Then there is the work on the settlements. the bigger the settlement, the slower my pc goes. i use the johnwhile tool because i work in 3ds max, but that tool is incomplete and not completely reliable. for example, when you destroy some piece of wall of huge roman city, a path through the wall is opened on another piece of wall, and after a month of work, i haven't fixed it yet. and i don't know if this is a problem of the tool or of my settlement.
if someone improve the settlements and give me the permission, i will include his work in the mod.

[Roma_Victrix]

if someone improve the settlements and give me the permission, i will include his work in the mod.

By all means! I'm glad to hear that you've tried so hard with the present model, but I'm dismayed by the details of how difficult it is! To be honest, as a layman who lacks all modding skills or even relevant software, I'd be willing to help in any way I can but I'm not sure what I could possibly offer. Any menial task I could probably do, but again I have no experience with modding.

[here4thehax]

By all means! I'm glad to hear that you've tried so hard with the present model, but I'm dismayed by the details of how difficult it is! To be honest, as a layman who lacks all modding skills or even relevant software, I'd be willing to help in any way I can but I'm not sure what I could possibly offer. Any menial task I could probably do, but again I have no experience with modding.

Ah, ti's the problem with all who have good souls and just want to help;
we just simply can't because we just aren't as well versed in the art of modding :/

[Roma_Victrix]

working on settlements requires a huge amount of time, and i haven't it.
Settlements and building of RTW have a different file format and a different strutcture. i already import in m2tw several buildings of rtw, but this job requires time to adapt the model and the texture mapping (and you should also spend time to find some more detailed texture).
Then there is the work on the settlements. the bigger the settlement, the slower my pc goes. i use the johnwhile tool because i work in 3ds max, but that tool is incomplete and not completely reliable. for example, when you destroy some piece of wall of huge roman city, a path through the wall is opened on another piece of wall, and after a month of work, i haven't fixed it yet. and i don't know if this is a problem of the tool or of my settlement.
if someone improve the settlements and give me the permission, i will include his work in the mod.

Hi Rhaymo,

Could I make a small request? Could you possibly improve the Greek cities just a little bit by adding some permanent structures to the acropolis? To reduce working time in making or importing new models, could you just use the existing temples you've already imported and adapted with texture mapping? For instance, in the Greek minor city and large city, you could place several different academy and temple buildings together in a cluster around the "main square" to make the settlements look a bit more impressive and imposing, like actual Greek metropolises would have looked. Otherwise they don't look like cities at all, just a wall that happens to protect some small houses and residential buildings.

[Lifthrasir]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Roma Surrectum is based on R2TW, right? If it's the case, it will be difficult (may be even not possible) to use their models. The M2TW engine is much older than the R2TW one. For sure, you won't get the same textures. But in other hand, you can use their models for inspiration.

My comment about the settlements is about the desert one which have wooden walls. Wood is pretty difficult to find in desert. Wouldn't be better to replace them by slim stone walls? Basically, the idea is to keep the wooden wall model or slightly modified and to give it a stone texture.

[_Tartaros_]

roma surrectum 2 uses rometw1 engine and alot of there models are from hegemonia city states mod also for rtw1

[_Tartaros_]

doublepost

[Lifthrasir]

Ohoooo, I've been mistaken by the link posted by Roma_Victrix which refers to Rome II forums. Many thanks for the clarification _Tartaros_

[_Tartaros_]

no problem - i´m a big fan of the work that´s done there