[WIP] Picts & Gaels

[jorfik]

I've not tried modding in Total War before the beginning of this week, so things are going slowly as I learn. I've got Pack File Manager sorted out at least so I'm starting with a few DB edits, and some minor assistance from the Rome II mod tools.

I'm interested in adding some unit variety to the British and Irish factions, with an overarching set of basic units and specialised units inspired by Pict and Gaelic/Irish history. Ultimately I'd like to get both unit rosters working for players in the campaign.
I'm willing to bet that CA will do the British factions themselves, but they're of interest to me and even if my stuff is made obsolete it'll be an interesting learning process.

The first stumbling block is that CA only included the necessary assets in the shipped game and that includes only a very specific selection of body meshes. All the units ingame wear trousers, so none of the meshes have legs bar about 3 eastern bodies. They have the wrong skintone for what I want.
Nevertheless I'll design units with the options available and figure out how to retexture them.

After I've got the basic units (with available art assets) down I'll work on bringing new models into the game. I've experience doing modeling for other games, that's fine and easy enough, but figuring out how to get things in to Attila will be "fun". I'll probably go through Rome II then convert them if I'm too impatient to wait for mod tools.

The Picts are being worked on first. Relatively little is know about them, so the unit roster will be fairly simple: low armour, spears, wardogs and axemen will be the core. A prototype unit roster should be forthcoming.
Picts offer some interesting opportunities for new art assets, with their square shields along with prominent cloaks and long tunics. While the unit roster may not be exciting, they at least have the opportunity to look quite nice.

[Slaxx Hatmen]

Looks good so far jorfik! If it helps any I thought I'd let you know that I looked at the unpacked the varient_mesh assets in Attila and I found CA left in the square/rectangular Germanic shields from Rome2. Those could easily be jerry-rigged into Pictish shields.

[geala]

That's a very good project! I would stay with units with mainly bare legs and bare feet but mix a few soldiers with trousers in. And make some Pictish soldiers without beards, because we see them with and without beards on the stone monuments. Most are of later dates but probably the fashion did not change much. The Picts should also have a kind of "pike" unit, as probably shown on the Aberlemno Stone.

For the skin: you should try to use R2TW skins. I made a fantasy faction with fantasy units and used partly R2TW skins for it. I would try Greek_full or the handheadlegs variants with bare feet. Would fit the skin tone on the British isles a bit better. Unfortunately some skins seem not to work but many do.

[jorfik]

I'm still actually working on this, just rather slowly. Asset creation & endless config files are more work than I anticipated.

That's a very good project! I would stay with units with mainly bare legs and bare feet but mix a few soldiers with trousers in. And make some Pictish soldiers without beards, because we see them with and without beards on the stone monuments. Most are of later dates but probably the fashion did not change much. The Picts should also have a kind of "pike" unit, as probably shown on the Aberlemno Stone.

For the skin: you should try to use R2TW skins. I made a fantasy faction with fantasy units and used partly R2TW skins for it. I would try Greek_full or the handheadlegs variants with bare feet. Would fit the skin tone on the British isles a bit better. Unfortunately some skins seem not to work but many do.

I don't want to do that due to prickly licencing issues.
Although I am getting accustomed to the Rome II modding tools right now and have "borrowed" the skin mesh they packaged with them. Making some custom trousers, and hopefully I shouldn't run in to any problems when I try to make them usable ingame.

[Heathen Storm]

I think we can be of great help to each other mate have already started on something similar though I'm in the same boat as you. PM me if you're interested

[jorfik]

I'll have a think about it, want to make sure I know how all the mod tools function before I commit to too much.

A single screenshot of progress here, with shiny new trousers and my first experiments with shield designs :



I'll update the first post with a gallery and such as soon as I can figure out how to edit my posts here

[Hadrien Ier]

Keep it up!

Edit: you can't edit your post until a amount of 20 or 30 posts i don't remember exactly.

[Viva Espana!]

If you can figure a way to do it, try putting warpaint or mud on them -- I know "Eagle" isn't a super historical movie, but it definitely made their "Picts" feel very different. And given that the Picts, Caledonians, and Irish constantly conquer every game I don't play Saxons or WRE, we're throwing historical accuracy out the window anyway.

[geala]

If you can figure a way to do it, try putting warpaint or mud on them -- I know "Eagle" isn't a super historical movie, but it definitely made their "Picts" feel very different. And given that the Picts, Caledonians, and Irish constantly conquer every game I don't play Saxons or WRE, we're throwing historical accuracy out the window anyway.

No, please not. The unit seems to be Irish and warpaint should be a no go. "Mud" I don't understand. Why should someone use mud like the very stupid fantasy Iroquois-Picts in some movies?

[Shaggy_711]

Nice! The celtic factions definitely need some love. I have no idea what the answer to this us, but would the shield bosses be historically accurate?

[Chris P. Bacon]

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...eltic-Invasion!

[jorfik]

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...eltic-Invasion!

Well that's...something.
I'll have to see what the unit roster's like.

Guess I'll also have to reshuffle my modding ideas too, at least I can do something better with the faction names. 'Ebdanians'? I don't know why they chose that. And I'm sure the Caledonians got rolled into the Picts generally by the era this game's set in.

[PhilipO'Hayda]

Happy out that DLC is out soon and this mod look's epic.

[NoSiS]

Honestly, jorf, CA culture packs always leave a bit to be desired. I'd suggest you keep working on this, and just plan on adding the DLC art assets to your work.

Look at it this way, they're gonna make some nice square shields for you to work with. They're giving you a nice head start. ;p

[jorfik]

Honestly, jorf, CA culture packs always leave a bit to be desired. I'd suggest you keep working on this, and just plan on adding the DLC art assets to your work.

Look at it this way, they're gonna make some nice square shields for you to work with. They're giving you a nice head start. ;p

They would be if I hadn't spent the other day making square shields. Le sigh.
However I'm noticing a lot of trousers and a lack of facial hair for the picts in the pack, so maybe I'll just continue and re-skin them a bit.
As for the unit rosters I've been toying with err, I reckon some Scotti raiders could make for a migratory faction in Ulster/Scotland. Or maybe just straight up name them Dal Riata, it's close enough to the time period.

Nice! The celtic factions definitely need some love. I have no idea what the answer to this us, but would the shield bosses be historically accurate?

Also, it's difficult to say much about accuracy for the picts. There's very little evidence of anything past the stones, and even most of those are a bit out of the timeframe of Attila.

[geala]

...
Also, it's difficult to say much about accuracy for the picts. There's very little evidence of anything past the stones, and even most of those are a bit out of the timeframe of Attila.

As long as there is no better evidence nearer to the 5th AD I would always go with the later data. The DLC Picts look like generic La Tene Celts or even more celtisized Germans. What happened between 400 and 800 AD to make great changes probable? In texts about the Roman invasion the small shields of the Caledonians (aka the Pictish forefathers) are mentioned. We see such small shields as soon as pictoral evidence appears. So unlike clothing, were in the great Clothes Edict of 723 and a half AD the Picts suddenly decided to change appearance from ATW style to Stone Monument style, we could presume that the shields were about the same.

[PhilipO'Hayda]

That's it. I already see loads of things missing out of it for the Irish.

[NoSiS]

So, now that the DLC is out I really hope you're sticking to this idea, because I think it definitely leaves a bit to be desired.

The celts almost all have plain green/blue shields, there's barely any variety and a lot of the units look like green and blue checkerboards

and they're so BRIGHT!

[PhilipO'Hayda]

fully agree with NoSIS loads of work needs to be done on the Celtic DLC.