Greetings Europa Barbarorum fans.
We were so pleased with the reception our video got we wanted to show in more depth the wonderful work our unit artists and historians have been doing. Focusing on the units that appeared in the video we are going to introduce you to the modellers, skinners and historians who helped bring these units to life in such stunning detail.
Unit Conception
We've completely changed how we tackle the creation of units from when we worked upon Europa Barbarorum I. In Europa Barbarorum II we wanted to bring a little order, not only in the creation stage, but also in the all important conception stage. Over the many long years that Europa Barbarorum I was in the works we had many researchers leave us and with them we lost some of the all important information that we wished to pass on to you. When EBI was released there were obviously some areas, particularly with units, where people were sceptical about accuracy. Unfortunately in many cases we were unable to answer their queries satisfactorily, much to our regret, because some of our historians who had worked upon those units using privileged information had left us and we could not contact them.
We don't want this to happen in Europa Barbarorum II, so we have endeavoured to make sure that any unit is adequately researched and furthermore that that research is archived so that when Europa Barbarorum II is released we can answer any questions our fans have with the decisions we have made. We want people to be inspired and to learn something about the ancient world we choose to represent in Europa Barbarorum, and to do that we have to be more respectful of the historical research that we use and make sure that it is available to all when the time comes.
How this works with unit conception is relatively simple. When a unit has been discussed within a faction's specific thread and it has been okayed by our Unit Co-ordinator and Lead Historian it is then given its own specific thread, which we call Unit Conception Threads (or UCs for short). This then holds all the information, including links to articles, pictures, quotations, or other sources of information that have been decided upon. Then this unit is assigned to a modeller and skinner/s for creation. During this creation process new issues may arise and the UC thread is there for correspondence between the unit artists and the historians so that any discussion is recorded and any changes noted for future reference.
Videos:
Cascos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cXpnM3vZcY
Escudos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_lrTdoHv4Y
Linothorax:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APc23RVWetc
Animaciones (queda chulísimo):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVZC8sf1qWU
Unit Creation
As you may have noticed units appear a little differently in M2:TW. By allowing variance within a unit, CA have opened up a new, and very beautiful, world for us to represent our time period’s soldiers with ... and in doing so have also created a ton more work to do. Whereas in Europa Barbarorum I a unit would generally have perhaps 5-6 different skins tops (and many would have less), in Europa Barbarorum II we have 5-6 different skins for just one faction. In Europa Barbarorum I we could get away with the Koinon Hellenon skin having one type of pattern on the Linothrax for Peltastai and Makedon having another, in Europa Barbarorum II we need 4-5 different patterns for just one faction. At first glance it does appear as if the task of skinning our units has multiplied by 5 times. However, we should not be so hasty to judge. When one door is closed another is opened, and with some degree of heterogeneity within a unit it allows us to have some degree of homogeneity between units.
We are, in essence, developing a modular approach to unit creation. Where a new helmet or shield is created it is saved as a separate piece and catalogued and archived so that when another unit needs to use the same armour of weapon then it is as simple as adding that piece to the base model. At the moment this is still in its early stages as the database is not fully stocked yet, but eventually it will take very little time to model new units as the parts for it will already exist.
The same is also true for the skins, but this has an even greater impact on how the units look in Europa Barbarorum II. There exist now, two types of skins, Figure and Attachments, and they are assigned individually for each faction and for each unit. This not only allows more detail on the skins but allows us to quicken the skinning process dramatically. The Figure texture, for example, can hold the faces, torso, legs and arms; elements that can be shared between several factions without losing the appearance of heterogeneity. The Attachment texture, on the other hand, can hold the shield and helmets; elements that we can vary by individual faction as these are the most parts of a soldier most obvious to the player. As you will see for the Hoplitai skins by Martelus Flavius, the Figure skins are shared between factions, while the Attachment skins have been created in the old style: one for each of the main factions, one regional, and one mercenary.
But there is also another way we can reduce the number of skins necessary to create the units we need. By carefully mapping the models to the textures (where each element within a texture is associated with a face or number of faces on the model) we can use the same textures for different units. The Hoplitai Figure textures, for example, can be applied to any unit that also have the same elements (Linothrax, helmets and the like): these include the Thureophoroi, the Phalangitai and others. Not only that, but the Attachment textures have also been used for other units as well, including the Hippeis and Phalangitai. As these are the most common elements to the player they allow for some homogeneity within a faction's armies, whilst maintaining the look of a multitude of warriors from different lands and different cities all serving within the same force.
Over time we will be able to revisit some of these re-used skins and change and reorder elements as we see fit, but for the moment this methodology allows us to realise our units that much faster.
Fuente:
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=108997
Impresionante ¿eh?.
Gracias a Sertorio.