197 replies to this topic

[Mephistoned]

No way that i know of, ill pull from my sources but i believe your up the proverbial creek without a paddle on that one.

Well, I can KIND of work round it, but it's bloody fiddly and therefore slows work flow. Grrrrrr. It may cause problems later as well for all I know, bad problems. <distant howl>

[Brother-Captain Vesuvious]

eh, then ill find the same problems, but my models are simi rigged and i dont have things flailing around when i move them, you should be fine

[Long Fang]

suggestions for blood claws: need variety of weapons which i hope ur working on eg plasma pistol , handheld flamer power fists and chainswords.
also need some of those nice mouth pointed helms. good to see some bloodclaws wearing helmets andsome not tho generaly majority wont wear them as it stops their senses.

apart from that good work.

[Mephistoned]

suggestions for blood claws: need variety of weapons which i hope ur working on eg plasma pistol , handheld flamer power fists and chainswords.
also need some of those nice mouth pointed helms. good to see some bloodclaws wearing helmets andsome not tho generaly majority wont wear them as it stops their senses.

apart from that good work.

Thanks for the suggestions. However, at the risk of disappointing you, no, we are not giving the BC weapon options. The reasons are eminently simple. I have played mods where each unit has ten possible weapon upgrades, every possible codex option is accounted for, and though I praise the endeavour of those that realise them, my personal feeling is that that is not the ideal realisation for a DOW army (as opposed to a tabletop army). There are some of our units that DO have a LOT of options (ie. Wolf Guard Terminators), but that is because that is their role - flexibility and being all round nasty. In other units however, I want to limit them to a certain role, because then they don't encroach upon the role held by other units. We are going out on a limb with the BC, because they won't even have bolt pistols, just axes. Blood Claws are bloodthirsty viking bezerkers who crave CC, and that seems to have become rather lost in recent GW incarnations and models. And remember, GH also have a CC role, but they ARE all rounders. I want you to NEED each unit for its own purposes, and that does mean limiting them somewhat. And then there's dilution - if EVERY unit can have a flamer or hand flamer, a plasma gun or plasma pistol - they're just not special anymore.

The good news is, by choosing different units, you do get different options in your army. BC Alphas have chainswords and powerfists. Wolf Scouts have a lot of different options, and can take on just about anything to some extent (I know - have just been playtesting them!). Long Fangs are good at range against everything. GH are all-rounders. WG Terminators can each carry a heavy weapon or CC upgrade. Wolf Guard in power armour get combi-weapons and frostaxes - and so are pretty much good against everything. And by removing a lot of the special weapons options - well that just makes combi-weapons and other instances where they DO appear all the more special. And equally - and this is forward thinking - even vanilla SM need to be special when compared with SW. I beleive to balance a faction, you can't just add, you have to take away as well. Vanilla SM have tactical marines with loads of ranged options. SW have GH - less options but they have chainswords and powerswords and are good in a scrap. Wolf Scouts have more options than normal scouts, but BC have no options at all. Every WG terminator can have an upgrade, but you get smaller squads and HC at 1. You can't have everything.

Sometimes less is more, but trust me - you're gonna like it!

[Long Fang]

suggestions for blood claws: need variety of weapons which i hope ur working on eg plasma pistol , handheld flamer power fists and chainswords.
also need some of those nice mouth pointed helms. good to see some bloodclaws wearing helmets andsome not tho generaly majority wont wear them as it stops their senses.

apart from that good work.

Thanks for the suggestions. However, at the risk of disappointing you, no, we are not giving the BC weapon options. The reasons are eminently simple. I have played mods where each unit has ten possible weapon upgrades, every possible codex option is accounted for, and though I praise the endeavour of those that realise them, my personal feeling is that that is not the ideal realisation for a DOW army (as opposed to a tabletop army). There are some of our units that DO have a LOT of options (ie. Wolf Guard Terminators), but that is because that is their role - flexibility and being all round nasty. In other units however, I want to limit them to a certain role, because then they don't encroach upon the role held by other units. We are going out on a limb with the BC, because they won't even have bolt pistols, just axes. Blood Claws are bloodthirsty viking bezerkers who crave CC, and that seems to have become rather lost in recent GW incarnations and models. And remember, GH also have a CC role, but they ARE all rounders. I want you to NEED each unit for its own purposes, and that does mean limiting them somewhat. And then there's dilution - if EVERY unit can have a flamer or hand flamer, a plasma gun or plasma pistol - they're just not special anymore.

The good news is, by choosing different units, you do get different options in your army. BC Alphas have chainswords and powerfists. Wolf Scouts have a lot of different options, and can take on just about anything to some extent (I know - have just been playtesting them!). Long Fangs are good at range against everything. GH are all-rounders. WG Terminators can each carry a heavy weapon or CC upgrade. Wolf Guard in power armour get combi-weapons and frostaxes - and so are pretty much good against everything. And by removing a lot of the special weapons options - well that just makes combi-weapons and other instances where they DO appear all the more special. And equally - and this is forward thinking - even vanilla SM need to be special when compared with SW. I beleive to balance a faction, you can't just add, you have to take away as well. Vanilla SM have tactical marines with loads of ranged options. SW have GH - less options but they have chainswords and powerswords and are good in a scrap. Wolf Scouts have more options than normal scouts, but BC have no options at all. Every WG terminator can have an upgrade, but you get smaller squads and HC at 1. You can't have everything.

Sometimes less is more, but trust me - you're gonna like it!

i realy wasnt suggesting we give them possible upgrades of which the user can pick out and customise a BC squad. BC are unique i think to some other units in space wolves and in other chapter. they are not uniformed other than their blue power armour. i was simply suggesting that in a squad 1 could have a power fist 3 a chainsword 2 an axe and for gods sake all of them should have bolt pistols for bringing them closer to CC , they wont deal much damage. A player shouldnt have any say on the BC squad other than what it comes with ie weapons and helmets. i would appreicated there being more than 1 model for a blood claw ie personalty and looks etc.

and standard blood claws have bolt pistols and chainswords / axes dont they :S ?

[Mephistoned]

Yep, codex BC would have bolt pistols - but let's be honest the damage thereby dealt is minimal. You want to get these guys into CC - and then they really earn their metal (against infantry at any rate). The double axe attack is quite dangerous - and that's the pay-off for the lack of a pistol. Remember GH also have chainswords. and use their bolters like pistols - so if that's what you want, buy GH! You get the powerfists and chainswords with the Alphas - see them as part of the BC group effect.

As for randomized models - we'll see. I am currently against it just because I don't think the extra work involved is really justified when there is so much already to do to help this mod see the light of day. I know WH did it - but that was a work of art with a large team working on it, and I might add that they have yet to actually finish it with all intended models in game - maybe they never will. I would rather do something achievable that gets finished. IDH and SL chose not to randomize, and I think they was just as good (well, better because they got finished!). Although in nice screenshots you obviously notice if units are all the same, or have variety, in truth, on the battlefield and ingame, it's far less of a concern since the different look of the units themselves provide variety.

All that said, I have my own high standards for artistic content, so this will look good. Ideally yes, every WG should be an individual, and all basic models would have randomized variety of heads, torso's etc. It's not impossible, and for some units it's fairly easy, but if you do it for one, you really need to do it for all, and then that's a lot of work.

But I may become inspired to consider it sometime. Perhaps when we have a polished Beta, that can be the final flourish.

Once nice thing you can look forward to is seeing upgrades actually appear on the models as you build them ingame- ie. talismans, wolf pelts, wargear etc - thus changing the look of the army significantly as the battle progresses. The Space Wolves should look increasingly savage as they become veterans.

Edited by Mephistoned, 14 May 2009 - 01:01 AM.

[Chaplain261]

Great work, man wow this mod is coming along a a fascinating rate.

[Long Fang]

great new work, is our base a parked thunderhawk? awesome. regards to the hud its awesome but i feel we need the space wolves symbol on it. The wulfen is great, would look great in animation. However i always imagined wulfen a little differently from the descriptions.... perhaps it is too wolf like? is it not that one can turn during battle (when scout transforms) but it will take a long time for them to fully become wolves , increased hair ,bestial snarl , elongated snout, teeth and nails extended, muscles rippleing.

thinking back to the start of the 3rd book where ragnar follows and protects one of his forgone wolves rush on in a killing rampage to finaly meet his dark end by the heretic who brings butchaluz greetings. bloody plague demons >:S

anyway i hope im not being too negative on what looks to be awesome models that i could never achieve. just the suggestioner >

[Mephistoned]

Not at all Long Fang - feedback is always appreciated, even the negative. I think a number of people have been surprised by the Wulfen model, given that GW went for the 'Wolf-Man' style of Wulfen, and I've gone for the 'Lycan' style. I was never very impressed with the GW Wulfen - and they certainly never looked as fearsome as they should have - could those talons really ignore armour? I swear they were thinner than normal marines! I don't want SW on a diet, I want the bloody Hulk for my Wulfen!

Another problem is that at a DOW persepctive, wolf-men would not look significantly different from other Space Wolves - after all normal Space Wolves have elongated fangs, more hair, extruded muzzles etc. Our Wulfen are also lone models, and so they really needed to stand out. I've actually amended the model a little since, sorted out the legs, and also shortened the muzzle to give it even more of the Lycan look - somewhere between a human and wolf face, rather than outright wolf. It's still more pronounced than GW's wolfmen however.

As for transformation - I would LOVE it if we could get the wolf scout to actually morph into the wulfen onscreen, but I suspect this is impossible (or incredibly labor intensive) so it will be an 'upgrade' style transformation. Which doesn't mean we won't make it dramatic however... However, if Hollywood is to be believed, a sudden transformation is far from impossible!

[Long Fang]

ok im agreeing with what your saying. and how much hulk are we talking about u , remember Haegr the mountain ? who is my second favourite space wolf. next to sven who i would also like to as a unit perhaps? perhaps not. hers probably a wolflord of his own.

as for the transformation animation, i havent seen anything much like this , but you could compare it to the becoming of the demon prince of bloodthirster. In fluff the wulfen would become from the marine but i can only suggest that we hide it from view or else it would be uber hard to make.

anyway were well on our way to completion

[Mephistoned]

Not total Hulk - but certainly larger than he was before - towering over other space marines without being a giant. The transformation will indeed need to be a clever model swap.

[Long Fang]

Not total Hulk - but certainly larger than he was before - towering over other space marines without being a giant. The transformation will indeed need to be a clever model swap.

the demon prince and bloodthirster arent how i would imagine them. is it possible to do what seems like the impossible of a real transformation? teeth and claws extend hair grows etc. ? i couldnt imagine seeing 1 of my scouts turning into that in DOW no matter how much i wish i could

[Mephistoned]

Not total Hulk - but certainly larger than he was before - towering over other space marines without being a giant. The transformation will indeed need to be a clever model swap.

the demon prince and bloodthirster arent how i would imagine them. is it possible to do what seems like the impossible of a real transformation? teeth and claws extend hair grows etc. ? i couldnt imagine seeing 1 of my scouts turning into that in DOW no matter how much i wish i could

No no no - the Wulfen will be werewolf size - 8 foot tall - a little taller than normal marines, but nowhere near a Bloodthirster!

Erm - forgive me - possible of the impossible of a real transformation? If you mean can we get them to morph into werewolves before your eyes... DOW doesn't support rescaling bones within an animation, and only bones can be moved, which means to do it you would have to fill the model with enough bones to enable all the skin to be pushed into new positions - in other words it would be so incredibly complicated and difficult, not to mention hard on processing power, that it's just not worth the attempt. But don't worry - I plan to do it justice.

[Long Fang]

i was seriously not suggesting a wulfen was the size of a bloodthirster. that would be ludicrus, i mentioned them as examples of model animation in game, a transformation. so thats our wulfen animation scrapped

[Chief_Scout]

i was seriously not suggesting a wulfen was the size of a bloodthirster. that would be ludicrus, i mentioned them as examples of model animation in game, a transformation. so thats our wulfen animation scrapped

could we not use a cool FX to cover up then change? i have no idea if this is poss as my knowlage of FX is limited (it dosnt even extened to knowing what it stands for) but could we use that to show the guy tranforming i.e. hide the model, run the fx of all the stages and then show the new wmodel at the end?

[Long Fang]

<-- out of his depth XD

in other news, awesome avatar chief

[Mephistoned]

That might be a workable solution Scout - maybe a kind of stop-frame animation where we replace a sequence of gradually morphed models at various stages of transformation - if the WS and Wulfen's poses were the same....

It's a maybe. Remember animation is 24 frames a second to be smooth - so even a 1 sec transformation would need 24 different models. And we can't just morph from one to the other directly - the armour needs to come off the legs for example. Still - keep thinking guys.

As of yet I too know little about FX...

Another way would be if the WS could go into something, then come out transformed - but what? A cloak? A mysterious cloud of mist? A cocoon?

[Long Fang]

only way i could picture it is if the scout crys out in pain and falls into a small huddle , hunched over, he rises as the wolf u cant rly see his transformation because the majority of armour covers him + remains of a cloak perhaps u see the wolves feet and ears? however the new scout rises and howls hungrily to the moon and is fully transformed. sounds quite awesome

and for some unknown reason i feel that we should have this song playing

Edited by Long Fang, 20 May 2009 - 08:36 PM.

[Brother-Captain Vesuvious]

i havnt read everything in the above posts so sorry if this is repetitive, but i think the wulfen should be a lil beefier, they are space marines after all.

[Long Fang]

not much point in forums if u dont read previous posts, but yes wulfen should ripple with muscles perhaps more so than a space wolf? anyway stealing glory from my animation idea above