Armour development thread. (Brainstorming for the Version 1 port)

[Markus II]

Guys, I'm looking for ideas on different types of armour to create/include in the Version 1 port of 867 A.D.

Please use this thread to post ideas/pictures/meshes/textures.

Keep in mind the historical constraints of the time period and location. (Ie, While the armour in The 13th Warrior looks cool, it's not what I'm looking for in a quasi-historical 9th Century mod )

 

[Triglav]

You already got it pretty accurate.
Some capes should be added (I've already repainted a bunch of 867 armours with capes...), chain mail should be made much more scarce and difficult to obtain for our aspiring hero, more variety in colour and types of armours should be made (perhaps by utilizing extra space on the texture sheets which currently only use the top right quarter).
Some lamellar and scale armours could be introduced.
More variety in helmet design should also exist, as well as shields.

Probably you chould share a lot of armours with the Arthurian mod, as items from that period didn't change that much until the Norman invasion...

Here are some most commonly available pictures:

http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/130/reG.jpg[/erimg]

[img]http://www.murphsplace.com/owen/arthur/images2/osprey2.jpg

Viking shields

Viking mail

Saxons and Vikings in Britain

 

[Ulfhednar]

If everything from those pictures appears in game, I'll fall in ecstasy
I'd especially like to see some armour or shirts with cloaks and fur - having a warrior in a mail and some fur bulking up his shoulders would be cool More variety in armour is certainly needed, it's boring to fight all the time with enemies either clad in mail or in padded jack.
I'm adding two pictures from book I own (don't care about the text, it's in Polish )

 

[Triglav]

Repainted some vanilla armours to fit the above suggestions.

 

[Markus II]

Looking good Triglav.

I've sent you the contact addy via PM.

 

[Triglav]

Thanks.

Here's another few thingies:

I'll mail it to you when I've compiled all.

 

[grailknighthero]

Looks nice.

 

[Ulfhednar]

The one on the left and the one on the right look strange. Look at his back, it's a bit unrealistic. The peasant in a shirt looks bad as a whole, imho. If you can, try making them less angular
Anyway, three first warriors (with coats) are damn nice

 

[Triglav]

The one on the left and the one on the right look strange. Look at his back, it's a bit unrealistic. The peasant in a shirt looks bad as a whole, imho. If you can, try making them less angular
Anyway, three first warriors (with coats) are damn nice

Well I didn't do anything with the models themselves.
These are all vanilla meshes (the bandit ones there), I just replaced some textures for them, put a tunic under the pelt, rather than that strange huge belt and brown jacket.
The left one has a thick pelt on the back, that makes it look like a hump, the middle one's pelt is thinner so it looks more natural. But it's a model issue, and I can't change that, as I can't re-rig the armour models once I'd edit them in Wings if I wanted to make them less angular.

The light shirt is just a light shirt. Can't really do anything fancy about it. That and vanilla pants and boots.
I'd like to see some plain shirts in game and not all tunics, just for the variety of it all...

 

[Eumolpus]

All of them look just great except the last one on the right.

 

[Markus II]

Looking good, Triglav. I'm a definate fan of the fur cloaks - i'll see what I can do about fiddling with meshes to make cloaks that sit over a bare chest.

 

[Servitor]

I would love to see some normal pants in the game. Not sure how that would be possible, but still I fancy the idea of fighting bare-chested. Problem with doing so in the native and most other mods is that you then see that ugly underwear of our character. -.-

Servitor

 

[Triglav]

Markus, you never answered whether you received my mail with the stuff.

 

[Markus II]

Apologises Triglav, I've been pretty busy with work and something else. I'll send you a more detailed PM later today.

...and yes, I received the files, cheers.

 

[Sigmund]

I would like to see more variety in the footwear department aswell please. As it is right now everyone is running around with the same wretched footwear like some evil welsh shoe maker has some kind of damned monopoly in the game world, selling only his ****ty brand of clone boots to people for cheap labor. Something needs to be done about this.

There are some good examples of Viking age footwear in some of the concept art above, and i believe somebody said something about pants. Pants are good. This link can give someone with more skill then myself a good idea of Viking age variety. http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/VIK/index.asp 

Love the mod by the way just take into consideration what it is I say.

 

[Hrotgaar]

More Vendel era items would be nice

 

[pentagathus]

An armour with the heraldic texture (so it has you're banner on) but looking much less medieval would be good. I'm not sure how that would be donje though. Heraldic might not be needed with the standard bearers in you're screenies anyway.
Are you planning to have sheilds with their own devices or are sheilds going to be heraldic?

 

[Markus II]

I would love to see some normal pants in the game. Not sure how that would be possible, but still I fancy the idea of fighting bare-chested. Problem with doing so in the native and most other mods is that you then see that ugly underwear of our character. -.-

Servitor

It's something i'm working on. Not quite bare-chested, but bare-chested wearing a cloak...

I would like to see more variety in the footwear department aswell please. As it is right now everyone is running around with the same wretched footwear like some evil welsh shoe maker has some kind of damned monopoly in the game world, selling only his ****ty brand of clone boots to people for cheap labor. Something needs to be done about this.

It's something that i'll be taking a look at eventually.

An armour with the heraldic texture (so it has you're banner on) but looking much less medieval would be good. I'm not sure how that would be donje though. Heraldic might not be needed with the standard bearers in you're screenies anyway.
Are you planning to have sheilds with their own devices or are sheilds going to be heraldic?

Nope, no heraldric armour at all. New shield designs are below:


+++ New armours/shields +++

Maille Coats:



Maille Shirts:



Padded Jacks:



Padded Cloth:



Maille Shirts with Fur Pelt:



Padded Jacks with Fur Pelt:



Maille Shirts with Cloak:



Padded Jacks with Cloak:



Padded Cloth with Cloak:



Pattern Edged Tunics:



Tunics with Cloak:



Plain Wooden Shields:



Wooden Shields with Iron Boss:





Wooden Shields with Iron Boss and Rim:

 

[Adorno]

Bandwith overload 

Amazing. Especially the shields actually look like they're made of wood. I particularly like the plain ones with no colour - just wood.
No more green and blue smurfs 

 

[Triglav]

All very pretty and the mod is definitely gaining a wonderful array of variety with these.
Maybe it would be nice if some of the chain shirts would not be straight cut at the bottom, but would have the pointy cut like the saxon on this pic:

And of course, I just wouldn't be myself if I didn't bug you some more with the texture load saving details.

Maille Coats:

These chould all use just one texture sheet with the cloth part being some neutral light grey cloth pattern, and in BRF Edit you would make five copies of the same mesh and vertex paint the sleeves and bottom of the tunic in appropriate yellow, red, blue pastels. Saves many texture sheets, less load for the same ingame effect.

Maille Shirts:

Same as above. This particular mesh is easy to vertex paint as the overcoat is clearly separated on edges from the tunic underneath, so sleeves and bottom can be painted in any combination without touching the chain and padded coat bits.

Padded Jacks:

Same again.
Already that's at least 15 texture sheets less, at least 7-8 MB less to load.

Padded Cloth:

Same as in all above, and a texturing detail. From a distance the padded cloth looks a bit too much like tartan cloth. Maybe the seams would be made lighter, so at a distance the armour just looks brown, and the seams only show when you're much closer...

Maille Shirts with Fur Pelt:



Padded Jacks with Fur Pelt:

These meshes cannot be nicely vertex painted in the upper body, maybe the wolf pelt is separate enough that it could be given various tones of grey or brown, even the occasional black wolf, but the legs are well separate enough, that jou can vertex paint any of them in different tone. Check the armours I sent you, one of the chain+wolfpelt meshes has nice red trousers while the other one has native grey-brown.

Maille Shirts with Cloak:


Pattern Edged Tunics:

This mesh is pretty impossible to vertex paint nicely, so I suppose many texture sheets get wasted on this, however, as it is a pretty small central part of the sheet that it occupies, at least a few other textures can be fitted onto the same sheet.

Also same comment about the "tartanish" looking padded cloth.

Do check out BRF Edit's vertex painting tool. It's utterly simple to use and can save a ton of texturing work, not to mention huge savings in texture loads.

Otherwise congrats once again for a great push forward in the variety department!