Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Just as a warning in advance: I will demand blood sacrifice for my dying dominion.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

'E's not dead. 'E's restin'! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Dammit Sombre! You're making modding look so darn easy. Fie, I say! Fie!

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Slann! Want a Slann!
err...
Very nice sprites by the way. Do you work from scratch?

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

A Slann eh? They seem like they're going to be one of the trickier sprites. But ok, probably a 5th gen Slann next.

I work largely from scratch and I don't resize miniatures or pictures or anything like that. However I do sometimes use dom3 basegame sprites as a template and I always do the graphics while looking at pictures of miniatures/artwork from the army book. After all I'm making a warhammer mod so I want the sprites to be recognisable.

Couple of examples. The Saurus warrior was done while looking at 3 photos of saurus miniatures and one piece of artwork from the army book. I also used the dom3 ctisian slave warrior as a template, though if you compared them side by side now you'd probably be hard pressed to see evidence of that. When I do any graphic I try to look at various dom3 basegame sprites and sprites I've previously made to work out size and pose and so on too.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Haha, I'll sacrifice my brothers to your dominion any day.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Will say that your sprite work is extremely impressive, then. Drawing stuff from scratch within the constraints of the dominions millieu (not the right word, but you know) is not an easy thing to do. Well, not for me.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

I more impressed at his speed and dedication. I can't bother myself to draw that fast. Doing that many different base shapes would take much, much longer for me...

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

It's basically one graphic per two days - I do them in the lunch break at work, spending about 30 minutes of it per day. So an hour per graphic pretty much.

The Slann might well take a bit longer, because he's big and hard to get looking right. If I get too frustrated I'll do something easier like Saurus veteran leaders, skink chiefs and priests and so on. Those are basically the troop sprites with such extra doodads, maybe a slight size increase.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Aargh. I had a slann virtually finished and the memory stick it was on died. Thankfully that's all I lost, but it was still a few days work. It was looking badass too.

GAH.

I'll do some attack sprites or something instead. Right now I'm too irked to try the Slann again.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Awwh. That really sucks. Did you even get down the skink that they use to attack?

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

I don't think that regular infantry should have Magic Weapons :O

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Caelum's regular infantry do.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

As do EA and LA Atlantis, and really quite many sacreds. And the various R'lyehs obviously have magic ranged weapons.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Caelum has fluff behind it. and just because someone has it, does not mean you have to have it too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
Don't get me wrong, you are a wonderful mod maker, and I love your work Sombre but I dont understand, Why are the lizardmens STONE/bronze weapons magical?

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Why don't you wait and see what the fluff is in the lizardmen descriptions?

We know Sombre'll do a good job. He's a smart guy.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

The Unfrozen Warriors already use magical stone swords, and the Tir na N'og tuatha use magical, non-iron weapons. They had gold instead of bronze, IIRC, but that's even less practical than magical bronze weapon if you consider how soft gold is.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

It actually says in the armybook that the obsinite stone the lizardmen use is unknown even to the metal lore mages of the empire. It's stronger, sharper and more durable than steel. To me that seems pretty special, so I give them the magic tag on their weapons, reasoning that the stone is something like the 'high magic' version of warpstone.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

If you really want magic weapons of a primitive material, take a look at LA Atlantis Bone Glaives. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
EA atlantis uses stone (basalt) magical weapons.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

It also says in the army book that the weapons are powerful enough to cut through heavy armour/bone etc. So either the Saurus are exceptionally strong, even by their standards, or there really is something special about this stone.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Then that is all I need to hear!

I too play a Lizardman Army in the TT, but I guess I overlooked the weapon description.

Thanks for clarifying my doubts, and I'm sure you'll do a fine job indeed Sombre. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Thought I'd chime in here: The very best stone weapons of Neolithic actual reality, earth, right now, as in: down the street some guy with a degree dug it up and carbon tested it to be over 10,000 years old, are pretty amazing.

For one thing, they're as much as 5 TIMES as sharp as the average modern scalpel. Obsidian can be manufactured, right now, today, this very minute, in the real world, sharp enough that it's used instead of metal for eye surgery.

As for bronze...well, let's step back a minute from bronze and consider copper. Copper's a pretty amazing metal. For one thing, the ancient Egyptians-6000 something years ago, at the time of the Great Pyramid, old dynasty, could manufacture copper chisels that were every bit as hard as steel. They did that by compressing the copper, under extreme pressure, using wood that they soaked in water. The copper atoms compacted, creating a highly tensile surface suitable for carving even the most royal of cartouches.

Bronze, itself, is not a bad metal at all. It's a lot better than poor quality iron, and it's way better than even good iron for the purpose of making armour. With the added bonus that it doesn't rust. The problem with bronze is that tin is expensive and relatively rare. We don't even use tin cans anymore because aluminum is so plentiful.

Another problem with bronze is that it's harder to make large blades out of it than it is to make them from decent quality steel, and so an additional pressure to use iron occurred, since the Romans, when they went all Byzantine, were feeling a little insecure after losing the western Empire, and getting into phallus symbols in a AHEM *big way*, they shifted their armies to larger and larger weapons.

Actually, that's not entirely true. It'd be kindof funny (atleast to me) if it was the whole answer, but bronze was pretty much on the way out when the Hittites showed up, having invented iron, and really stuck it to the old bronze-using empires. Iron was a fad. Iron was popular, iron was successful, and iron was cheap. With the added bonus that iron, ultimately, was the better invention, because it could be refined into steel, in all it's myriad excellent forms.

We still use bronze today, though. It's tough, it's-especially in the case of beryllium bronze-extremely corrosion resistant, even to salt water, it's easy to work with and melt down, and it's a good looking metal.

I've seen some outstanding modern bronze knives manufactured using freezing processes, special mouldings, and magnetic fields. If we can do all that today, surely we can imagine magic also enhancing bronze.

And consider that in Dominions, magic has the tendancy to become less and less powerful, over time. Entropy definitely exists. So, old bronze, stone, wood, bone weapons might very well be several degrees more magically powerful, and common, than iron weapons, even if you don't factor in the common belief that iron was anti-magic.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Sombre always does great work, unfortunately he also eats, sleeps and does other things. I enjoy his mods, NI map mods, and general wisdom / insights. This looks like another winner and I cann't wait till it is completed!

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

I've been really busy recently and I've had to scale back my mod plans. I will continue working on lizardmen and get a beta ready, but I'm dropping a bunch of other ideas I had simply due to lack of time.

I am still truckin' though ;]

The new patch is awesome.

Re: Sacred spawnings
 

Come on Sombre, back to work! *cracks whip*

Now, I shall vanish into the mists once again..

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Here's the old graphics I had ready. As per llama's sage counsel, I shall be working primarily on the lizardmen until I've made some real progress on them. I tidied up a couple of these graphics, but my real upcoming work will be doing more attack sprites and sorting out some of the lesser commanders like Skink shamans etc

I am leaving the Slaan for a while because like I said, I had done a lot of work on one and lost it all. That's a real demotivator believe me.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/27aafaf9c3.png

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Yes, more excellent warhammer races appear on the horizon!

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

These really are very, very nice.

Also I agree with my past (but forgetful) self that the salamander is an awesome sprite.

Losing the Slann must have been infuriating. I _hate_ it when that kind of thing happens.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

I had exactly the same thing happen to me. Really nice graphics set, maybe 18 units with attack sprites, that went bye bye along with my laptop. Immensely frustrating. That's why now, if I do a single graphic, I post it to the board that night.

And I know how hard it is to get back up on your horse and ride, but if it's any consolation, Sombre, I've had similar things happen before, and mostly the second time comes out a little better than the first set did.

Anyway, I'm still very excited about the lizardmen, Sombre. You do beautiful, creative work, very consistently, and these are certainly no exception.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

> I am leaving the Slaan for a while because like I said, I had done a lot of work on one and lost it all. That's a real demotivator believe me.

Yep! At times I've lost a number of sprites due to save format of the .trs file. A long number of sprites are stored in the same file. If I accidentally save over army12.trs with a new file I lose all sprites since last backup. Quite annoying. It happened in CoE andÂ*I've been quite careful ever since. Still, I have lost a couple of sprites at times.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Arf. I have done a little work on attack sprites today. The real progress will come on the weekend when I have more free time. I'm really happy with the way the skinks have turned out.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/8105897c2a.png

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Are those grey fellows in the middle the undead version? If so, good show!

The skinks (I'm assuming the little guys at the top right?) look very good, as does your...thunder lizard rider?

I think my favorite would be the unit at the top left with the helmet. I always find heads hard to draw, especially if they're non-human. And adding some other critter's head ofcourse just compounds the problem. You've pulled this off flawlessly in two different versions.

I'm very jealous of your sprite-making ability, Sombre.

You do inspire me to work harder on getting graphics out, though, and ofcourse, making them look better. I'll try to add some graphics to my speculation/placeholder mods sometime this weekend, and give myself a break on dragons.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

That's just a Sacred Saurus of Huanchi. They're stealthy and have poisoned weapons and 100% DV.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Oh very nice.

Out of curiosity's sake, have you had any thoughts on doing undead/Longdead versions for your Warhammer nations? If the Devs were handed a couple nice graphic sets (and Kristoffer seems quite interested in this mod), they might be convinced to allow us to mod them in. Not that it's necessary for Warhammer Lizards or Ogres from the Warhammer point of view, but as far as Dominions goes, everybody seems to use undead in Dominions once in a while.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

I'm not doing it on the offchance they'll be motivated to add that modding feature.

The Ogre Kingdoms Slavelord Braugh graphic sort of demonstrates what I might do if reanimation table modding was available though.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Well, we can hope that they'll add it sometime soon. Seems reasonable, since we now have variating longdead for vanilla nations (Jotuns, C'tis, Demonbred, and such) so we know it can be done, and that the Devs are interested in doing it.

P.S. As far as ogres go, with their huge guts (and all the gas you can imagine would build up inside a dead ogre), if we ever get the reanimation tables-and if by then we got the ability to add an Amulet of Vengeance power to modded units-I can just imagine Soulless ogre corpses exploding messily all over their enemies.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

I need an opinion on the Skink Priest.

With or without feathers?

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/c7c3d9cab0.png

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

All I would recommend is to put both into the montage of sprites on page 8 of this thread and see which one is easier to visually identify.

Both look good.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

I find the feathered one more visually impressive, and if only one were to be used I would prefer that one.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Ok feathered one it is.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/3762a4c981.png

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

And here's the Sotek version. B1 mage and heretic with 40 leadership.

Want to bloodhunt? No dominion for you my friend. He's carrying a snake in case it isn't clear. I can't draw snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? [/indy]

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/0135f72ebb.png

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

The attack version(bottom) looks great, Sombre-the whole thing looks great, actually-although the top looks a bit like he's holding some kind of weird flail. I think it's just that the curve close to his face is slightly too sharp, so that it looks like a solid, straight handle, attached to something flexible.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Well I might tweak them a bit.

Here's a Saurus Scar Veteran. He's the standard 40 leadership dude, but he's also pretty buff in combat and will have a small standard effect. He's slightly larger than other Saurus and his weapon is a little scarier. The 80 leadership Saurus, the Oldblood, will be larger and buffer still, plus sacred and white, bearing the mark of the Old Ones. He'll onebattlespell something like personal luck.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/be6a20a28a.png

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Having a unit carrying a snake sounds like an impossible task with the scale of a size 2 sprite. Even with your skills.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

I think giving a recruitable leader auto luck is overdoing it a bit Sombre.. sprites look nice though :D

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Snake flail, **** yeah!

http://www.legaljuice.com/snake%20bi...ce%20weird.jpg

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

luckily there are not that many snakes in the netherlands :D

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Why? It isn't like he'll be some uber thug because of that. Plus being cap only he'll probably never be built.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

I actually like the idea. Takes a total thug unit with probably a brain the size of an avocado pit, and adds a sweet low-level alien vibe that's absolutely appropriate for a race that was genetically designed by beings from the stars, without quite crossing over into that nasty bad sci fi mess that must be avoided at all costs.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

According to the literature, Saurus are actually quite smart. It's just that their smarts are all warfare based, while the skinks are better suited to administrative duties and communication. This leads to them being falsely identified as stupid, when in fact they are just specialised/instinctual.

Oldbloods, having lived for thousands of years, are very experienced and it would stand to reason that they haven't lived that long by being stupid. Of course their brains are still limited to combat.

The luck comes as an additional blessing. The various sacred spawnings of Huanchi, Chotec etc all have their own benefits in addition to being sacred and those with the mark of the Old Ones, the greatest of all marks, will get boosted stats and personal luck. They are marked by the Old Ones to do great things, after all.

Being cap only will mean you'll see very few of them. It's hard enough getting people to build anything other than mages, without limiting what I'll put on recruitable commanders.

It's interesting you mention the 'alien' aspect of Lizardmen, because that is something I want to get across. They are cold blooded and unemotional creatures whose motives are entirely obscured other Warhammer races, since everything they do follows Slann interpretations of knowledge left behind by the Old Ones and various portents. In a certain sense they are almost like the Rlyeh of land, trading the unknown of the deep ocean, for the unknown of dense forest and the New World. They're definitely going to be one of the stronger Warhammer races, but they'll also have some clear disadvantages.

Re: Warhammer Nation: Lizardmen
 

Well he'd have higher than human stats and then have luck.. no need for a luck pendant anymore so that is an extra slot and 5 pearls for free.. seems like decent thug material to me but cap only does make it better