burrek's Textures - "The New Thread"...

[burrek]

burrek's Texture Mods

News: Knights and Knaves v0.95 has been released

What?: The burrek's mods aim to give more individuality and uniqueness to all the Europeans factions in M2Tw and add to realism to the game.

How?: All non-unique units to be retextured with original patterns and designs reflective of their national origin.

So far there have been four texture packs released for units, Early and High Period, Knights and Knaves add-on, and a blood and dirt effects pack. For details on each view their respective readmes found in the DL section.

For the newest versions go here:

- Download link to Early Period Pack v0.91 http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1025

- Download link to High Period Pack v0.3 http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1048

- Download link to Blood and Dirt v0.91 http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1078

- Download link to Knights and Knaves v0.95
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1116
Mirror: http://rapidshare.com/files/16975009...nd_K_v0.95.rar

These mod are compatible with all other mods that do not modify textures. The Knights and Knaves add-on is not compatible with any mods that change the battle_models.MODELSDB file.

Here are some screenies.

K&K screens
-------------------------
New sergeants

A brave French knight fighting off some sausage eaters

le grand melee... or whatever

knights and militias

mailed knights

An English knigget in mortal combat with a shrubbery.

-------------------------------

High Period Battles
---------------
French vs. English
The skrimsh start: English Retinue Longbowmen fall under French cannon fire.


The Dismounted French Knights charge through the English stakes and are met by hardy English Swordsmen.

A view of the French Pikemen moving into support the knights (curtsy of the French General).

As per usual, the French Knights rout. In their place the fearsome Swiss Pike Mercenaries face the cunning English Heavy Billmen.


HRE VS Daneland
The HRE Imperial Knights charge the Danish skirmishers... and end up speared on some swordstaffs.

The HRE general leads his Zweihanders and Dismounted Imperial Knights into melee against the Danish Huscalars and Obudashers.

The Danish Dismounted Knights countercharge the enemy

HRE Knights seem dumbfounded by the brave Danish charge and pretend like nothing happend.



----------------------------

Early Period Screens
------------------------------
Before and After.


Scots feature.


Poles vs. Germans


A big mess.


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If any of you are interested in downloading it and have a special request or suggestion for a particular tabard to appear in the game please post a picture or a detailed description.

Cheers.

[Giorgos]

hey, knights and knaves on the first page! no shifting through 32 pages of bravo's anymore. whahey! Great job burrek!

[GODzilla]

The reason for non-editable posts must be this chaos that happened a few days ago. Good idea to start a new topic.

I'm just downloading the knights & knaves, good work. I also just realised (because of the new comparison screenshot) that knights & knaves is some kind of internal competition for the early europeans. I think they do look much better than the europeans, maybe you should make a poll. I bet most if not all people prefer the knights & knaves over the early europeans and that would mean less work for you (don't have to update two packs) and more time for more new awsome skins.

Keep up the great work!

[burrek]

Here are some WIP screen shots of the new unit I'm working on, the sergeant swordsman:





AND DO COMMENT AS I NEED FEEDBACK! ... NOW

[GODzilla]

New unit...you mean it's a completely new unit? Because I've never seen these guys in the game...how did you make it?

[burrek]

special burrek skills

( it's an unused model so I just made new textures for it and now it's in the game )

[randir14]

They look good, the only things I would maybe change are

1. Maybe instead of having different colored nasal guards you could either make them all metallic but remove some, or replace some of the chain hoods with leather or cloth hoods. I just think the multi-colored nasal guards look kind of weird

2. I don't know if i'm right but is the chain armor that covers their shoulders supposed to be part of the hood? If it is maybe you could make it drape down a bit instead of having it go straight across. If i'm wrong and it's not part of the hood just ignore this, lol.

[Dooz]

burrek, this is the coolest thing I've seen for M2TW yet. Great job! That new unit is freakin' incredible. What is it called? How can I add them to the Long Road mod? Matter of fact, can I add all these releases to that mod without problems? Early, High, K&K? (Is K&K only for Early units at the moment?)

Oh and I totally agree with randir's point about the nasal guards. It's a bit off-putting that they're different coloured. Just plain metallic and some not there would be excellent .

[Trajan]

Nice job as always burrek. Instant download. I'll just close your other thread.

[burrek]

They look good, the only things I would maybe change are

1. Maybe instead of having different colored nasal guards you could either make them all metallic but remove some, or replace some of the chain hoods with leather or cloth hoods. I just think the multi-colored nasal guards look kind of weird

2. I don't know if i'm right but is the chain armor that covers their shoulders supposed to be part of the hood? If it is maybe you could make it drape down a bit instead of having it go straight across. If i'm wrong and it's not part of the hood just ignore this, lol.

Thanks for the feedback randir14, much appreciated, as always.

1. The reason for my choice is that it is historically accurate for the dark ages to have colored noseguards. I know it looks off from the "standard" image of a medieval warrior, but in all the historically accurate pictures of noseguard+chainhood the noseguard was colored. I'll add some non-painted noseguards but the paint is a nice historic touch so I want to keep it.

2. I wanted to make the hood smaller so there would be no confusion but due to the way the texture is stretched that was not possible.


GODzilla,

The reason for keeping K&K and Unique Euros Early Period Pack separate is that K&K modifies text files and so it will be less compatible with other mods.

[Dooz]

The reason for keeping K&K and Unique Euros Early Period Pack separate is that K&K modifies text files and so it will be less compatible with other mods.

I'm curious, what text files does it affect and why? Also, would that cause problems with compatibility with the Long Road mod?

[burrek]

I'm curious, what text files does it affect and why? Also, would that cause problems with compatibility with the Long Road mod?

battle_models.MODELSDB, changes this file to add more textures to the game; and no.

[Rammstein]

your skins are getting better and better.
what did you change in the battle_models.MODELSDB now? Is some unit been added or made available for other factions?

[edit]

I found it in the readme, so you added:

71 unit_models/_Units/EN_Lmail_Hmail/textures/en_kmail_kmail_mercs.TEXTURE
74 unit_models/_Units/EN_Lmail_Hmail/textures/en_kmail_kmail_crusader.TEXTURE

not to have always the same skins for these 2 units

[Methoz]

i have problem...what in custom battle have units example "scotland knights" texture "A" and in game (campaign) have this same unit skin example "B" .... ??

[Godfrey von Bereau]

I think the sergeant-swordman looks quite good, but are those nasal-guards without a metal-helmet really authentic?
And what about the metal-look of the shield? Aren't they supposed to be out of wood?

[GODzilla]

GODzilla,

The reason for keeping K&K and Unique Euros Early Period Pack separate is that K&K modifies text files and so it will be less compatible with other mods.

What the....text files?? Oh...yeah...just read the readme. Should've done before.

Didn't realised there is a text file in ...\Medieval 2 Total War\data\unit_models

The good thing is that I don't have any mod that messed with the battlemodels.modelsdb file so I can just use the one you provided with your mod.


PS: The battlemodels.modelsdb belongs into \data\unit_models, right? I was quite unsure, maybe you should write it in capitals in your readme. I used to think all text files are just in the data folder and nowhere else (despite the localisation text files of course).


PPS: Question: How do you plan to balance these new units into the game. In general I'm absolutely against giving swordsmen to a nation that lacks good swordsmen (for instance). It's actually good that there are different nations with advantages and disadvantages, makes the game more interesting. I remember that back in the rtw days many players gave swordsmen to the macedonians and greeks, cavalry to the greeks and good archers to the macedonians. Lame!

[Fra70]

Oh great you are working on models now !!

two suggestions for italian units

-Change that stupid condottieri unit ( the condottiero was 1 person , not many people ... ) , more realistic will be the "Fenditori" unit ( 1200-1350 ), that were the best knights (or MAA ) of each city that fought in the first line , to break the enemy charge or break the enemy line ... they should be very distinctive looking with painted helments and leather and better equipped than the others ( and of course with an higher courage to fight in the first line ) .

-give italian infantry the big rectangular shield ( like the polish ) , even infantry used a sort of Pavise to defend himself for crossbows bolts ( that were very common in italy)

[PurpleScotch]

Hey if your using unused models, maybe do me and the people who want this also a favor?
Can you find the model of the first used turkish swordsmen (look at the first screenshots of the game) and add it to egypt and turkey? I will be so grateful!

[GODzilla]

Oh great you are working on models now !!

two suggestions for italian units

-Change that stupid condottieri unit ( the condottiero was 1 person , not many people ... ) , more realistic will be the "Fenditori" unit ( 1200-1350 ), that were the best knights (or MAA ) of each city that fought in the first line , to break the enemy charge or break the enemy line ... they should be very distinctive looking with painted helments and leather and better equipped than the others ( and of course with an higher courage to fight in the first line ) .

-give italian infantry the big rectangular shield ( like the polish ) , even infantry used a sort of Pavise to defend himself for crossbows bolts ( that were very common in italy)

First one: Possible, you can assign another model to the condottieri, but only one soldier is not possible (hardcoded minmum number of soldiers). New unit (the knights you mentioned) is not possible, he could only use an existing model and make a new texture for it. But it's limited, the new texture must fit the model, there's no way to change the uvm-mapping or to create a new uvm.

Second one: Not possible, similar reason! As of now you cannot change or create new models. Burrek used an existing models for the new unit and "just" made a texture for it!


Summary:

Possible: Use an existing model, make a new texture, create a new unit out of it. Playing around with alpha is always possible so it's at least possible to change the overall look (at least a bit) of a unit without using a new model.

Not possible: Making a new model, making a new uvm / changing uvm.

[burrek]

i have problem...what in custom battle have units example "scotland knights" texture "A" and in game (campaign) have this same unit skin example "B" .... ??

Umm.. eh... que? Units always have the same textures.

I think the sergeant-swordman looks quite good, but are those nasal-guards without a metal-helmet really authentic?
And what about the metal-look of the shield? Aren't they supposed to be out of wood?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Here is one picture of a hood with a nose guard:
http://www.totalwar.org.pl/gallery/T...1670%20-01.JPG

Since everyone is complaining about the (historically accurate) noseguards I'll try add a helmet in there as well, similar to the crossbowman's on this picture http://www.totalwar.org.pl/gallery/M...1300%20-07.jpg

Unfortunately the model has an openable mouth so I can't cover it up with chainmail.

What the....text files?? Oh...yeah...just read the readme. Should've done before.

Didn't realised there is a text file in ...\Medieval 2 Total War\data\unit_models

The good thing is that I don't have any mod that messed with the battlemodels.modelsdb file so I can just use the one you provided with your mod.


PS: The battlemodels.modelsdb belongs into \data\unit_models, right? I was quite unsure, maybe you should write it in capitals in your readme. I used to think all text files are just in the data folder and nowhere else (despite the localisation text files of course).


PPS: Question: How do you plan to balance these new units into the game. In general I'm absolutely against giving swordsmen to a nation that lacks good swordsmen (for instance). It's actually good that there are different nations with advantages and disadvantages, makes the game more interesting. I remember that back in the rtw days many players gave swordsmen to the macedonians and greeks, cavalry to the greeks and good archers to the macedonians. Lame!

The sword sergeants will be for all factions that have sprearmen sergeants. They will be a very expensive early game units that is vastly inferior to Feudal Knights. They are there as an arrow-soaking heavy infantry for early game. Their cost will be very high compared to their effectiveness so they won't become mainline infantry.

The HRE, Denmark, and Scotland will get a 2h swordsmen instead of the sergants. The Poles, Russians, and Hungarians will get a 2h axemen.

All factions with mailed knights will also get a dismounted version that will be using 2h axes.

All of these additions are intended to add varied heavy infantry to the early period.

I'll also add a Pavise Sergeant unit to all European factions.

Hey if your using unused models, maybe do me and the people who want this also a favor?
Can you find the model of the first used turkish swordsmen (look at the first screenshots of the game) and add it to egypt and turkey? I will be so grateful!

That model is not included in the release package.