Recent content by Hypno Toad

I don't mind a lack of a deadline, but I feel like if we transgress the 2019 new year mark, that's becoming a bit long for a development cycle. Bannerlord may be an open world game, but a lot of it is contained within the campaign map. So unless development keeps backtracking, or is stuck on the development of multiplayer, then I don't see why it'd take much longer than 6 years. The perfect can't be the enemy of the good, and some sort of flexible deadline does need to be met, even if its just a 2018/2019 quarterly deadline. Peoples opinions of the game will fluctuate regardless and you're never going to please absolutely everybody.

On that note, If we're going to be waiting a long time it'd be nice to get some info about the game engine so we can start making mod content ahead of time. I'd be nice to know exactly what type of PBR shading system is being used and what corresponding textures.

It's a bit much to hope for, but even a little "content development kit" would be incredible, with PBR texture samples, a few orthographic samples of the body proportions for making armor over top of, or a weapon layout sheet so modders could make and export weapon models and textures. Honestly I'm not hopeful at all because that'd be such a first for any game developer ever to release sample content before the release of the game, but given how prolific modding is for M&B it'd do a lot of good to have a bunch of day 1 mod content already made by release. Just a thought

Sorry fellas for the lack of updates, the mod isn't dead, but it is semi-dormant. I'm out of school and focused predominantly on freelancing and my portfolio right now, but I am going to continue this. The plan is to move to M&B:2 Bannerlord when it comes out. All the armor models done up to this point will be a write-off, but anything world and texture-related can be ported to the sequel, this may be for the best however because I've gotten a lot better and modelling and texturing since I made those armor sets and will be able to do much better work in an engine with newer shaders.

I'm still unsure as to when exactly M&B: 2 will be coming out, but work will resume in full once I can get my hands on M&B:2 and assess the capabilities of the mod-tools.  I hadn't been entirely sure about it previously, but after seeing the "engine power" devblog moving to the new engine seems like an unquestionably better option. The tools look worlds better, and starting a mod project at the beginning of Bannerlords release will be developmentally preferable to working at the figurative "end" of Warbands release.

I'll be doing a relevant environment project in the next few weeks and should be able to post a large media update (world assets only, though) somewhere within that timeframe. I'll begin posting more regularly once we know more about bannerlords projected release date.

Yes, to clarify warband is still the goal for now since we know next to nothing of Bannerlords release time, or what state it will be in for modding.

However with that said, modelling and texturing *priority* is going to be put into things that will be easy to port over (ie; world model and texture assets) rather than rigs/skeletons and armors build to warband body proportions, since those will be very messy to port.


In the long-run by the time enough assets are done to have this be a nearly "total conversion" (well, as much as is possible by warband stanards) bannerlord will probably be out and warband will be relegated to being very low traffic, much like M&B: original is now. It simply doesn't make sense to put in thousands of hours of work into something that very few people will play in the lognrun

*sneaks in abruptly*

Alright school carried over for about an extra month, but I'm all finished up now.

Been keeping an eye on M&B 2's development and I've decided that porting over the mod content to MB: bannerlord (have) to be a realistic possibility at some point. With this is mind Ill be focusing less on armors and other M&B:W-proprietary stuff, and am going to start working on portable world assets like buildings, dungeon kit-pieces, as well as creatures and monsters, and *possibly* high detail face models for the races... models that will carry over to a new game fairly easily, or at the very least (in the case of creatures and monsters) will still be just as hard to model and rig anyways.

This is still up in the air, and may not have a bearing on any early warband alpha releases, as it probably will take quite a while for bannerlord to come out, and even longer for working mod tools, so I may be able to pop out an alpha or beta release before that in warband. Nonetheless I'm changing gears and will be working on universal content as apposed to things that may only work in warband, or be really messy to port over (specifically armor, in this case)

Don't have any media for you guys just yet, but expect to see more stuff along the lines of houses, buildings, props and dungeon assets in the coming months. I need some practice making modular environment assets anyways, it's something I've never really tried before

habeo123 said:

Yeah any progress? I want to conquer Tamriel.

Click to expand...

Progress is going to be very slow for a while, I'll just do little things here and there. I'm in final term for my program and basically all my time needs to be spent working on my demo reel. My program ends in April and I'll probably take a few months off that I'll spend working on this.

On the bright side the modelling/texturing content quality level is going to be staggeringly higher come april with the experience I've gotten.

theinsane4 said:

Are you guys going to replace the regular animations? I have been digging through random parts of this topic but I haven't come upon anything about the animations.

Click to expand...

I've considered grabbing a couple of block/parry animations, as well as the bow drawing animation from the combat animations enhanced mod, as well as a couple select swing animations. Beyond that most will remain vanilla.

I forgot where the settings are to manage how geometry/UVs mirror over for face models.

The mirrored half of my face is displaying the UV in the wrong direction and I need to change it, if that won't work then I need to disable the mirror operation entirely and do it manually myself, anybody know where in openbrf/python modules that I might find the options?

I'll probably replace most of the stock environment textures with more tes-ish ones so I can reuse some modelling assets, the more exotic provinces will need new models and textures.

I'll need to make some dungeon interior pieces as well

Extradaemon said:

One Question... Will Elsweyr be a single faction? Or will it be Anequina and Pelletine as separate factions, or even multiple tribes?

Thank you for your time. The prospect of an Elder Scrolls mod gets me hard.

Click to expand...

Will just be the main provinces unfortunately. The plan was/is to have great houses, clans or tribes operate as sub-factions, so they have their own reputations and enemies and you can win/lose favor with them via interaction. Same thing goes for churches, cults, etc. It'll operate like TES:II daggerfall, basically

Incoming argonian pic, still haven't gotten the head ingame (usual dicking around with module system files...)



This is the final lowpoly version

Will probably have to do it like that for head-wear. Either that or I'll make a couple of race-specific helmets designed so they don't look stupid when a khajiit/argonian wears them.

Figure I should post a small update of some sort

So, WIP argonian head (next to the human head mesh)



(updated)

Honestly I wouldn't get bogged down in trying to use commercial student software. If you're a hobbyist or a freelance artist you should just download Blender. You get completely unrestricted rights to the software and you don't have to pay anything or jump through hoops to get it. It was ten years behind soft/max/maya in development (started development 10 years after), but considering how rapidly it's caught up (and surpassed them in areas) I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's an industry standard piece of software within the next 5 years.

Closed-circuit 3000 dollar software packages and Mental Ray can only compete for so long with a program that's completely free, has virtually no end user restrictions, and is sporting an unbiased path tracing renderer that has full GPU integration.

The nightmare fuel contained within the autodesk EULA was enough to scare me away from using the student version of Maya to build this mod.

6.3: "Work product and other data created with Licensed Materials made available under certain License Types, may contain certain notices and limitations that make the work product and other data usable only in certain circumstances."

6.3: "In addition, if Licensee combines or links work product or other data created with such Licensed Materials with work product or other data otherwise created, then such other work product or data may also be affected by these notices and limitations.

Click to expand...

Not sure what the appeal of livestreams is, may as well just shoot some video while playing the mod, then cut it up into relevant sections of footage. Sort of like an LP but with less/no commentary and then you can selectively cut out any slow or possibly buggy sections of the video.

The Dark Robin said:

2 Questions:
1) Where can I find this?
2) Does it cost money?

Click to expand...

Well it's post secondary so yes it costs money. Generally art schools and tech schools will offer short certificate programs

I've heard that some highschools also have entry level 3d art as elective classes... probably because open source software packs such a whollop now.  I had no such priveledge when I went to high school

Yeah its only a one year modelling/animation program and it's 2/3 done, so once it's over that'll give me the time and experience to push my end of the mod out. This project is my exercise/trial run for independent game development, and I intend to at least see it through the point of being a good and playable mod before I move on to other stuff. Don't worry about it

Yes indeedy. Lots of schoolwork though so nowhere near as much as I'd like to. I should be work-free by the 21-23rd however, and my school won't start up for a few weeks.

My project for the end of December/early jan is to get the race head models done, and maybe take a chunk out of the body models. (orcs, argonians, khajiits, etc) and get that imperial city model onto the world map.. then maybe porting in some more WoTE weapons, and getting some more of poison courtesans stuff in. My school is over (period) in April so until then work will be off and on whenever I get time... and I might make some environment stuff for school that can be re-purposed for the mod

Though in the mean time here's a dual project I did.



Will break that up and bake it down/reposition it onto a new warband-grade mesh sometime soon