Hi-Res units ambition.

[Fortified Hooligan]

Hello all,

I am thinking about tackling the Hi Res re-do of the classic Myth and Myth 2 Units.

I have the 3-d modeling, animating, and texturing handled. What i am not familiar with is porting the animations, or stills as may need be, to the myth engine.

I feel motivated to do the cheracter models and animations, but annoyed with the prospect of working with the software to port it over.

Is there anyone familar with the porting aspect that would like to point me to some tutorials, or even take the animations i produce and do the porting themselves?

I have never made any kind of plugin for Myth so i am unfamiliar with what is involved.

Thoughts?

[Pyro]

There are some hi-res versions of some units already, in case you weren't aware of them. Some of them can be found in plugins made by Project Magma. For example, load up a map from Frenzy and take a look yourself.

As for porting units you will need an image editor like Photoshop. Each image has to be saved as an 8bit BMP, with the first 3 colors not being part of the actual unit you are making. Theses images are then imported into Amber, the only collection making tool for Myth II. Amber is a classic Mac program, but Mac OSX and Windows users can emulate it. For Windows, you can use SheepShaver to emulate Mac OS. If you want SS or more info on it, PM me. For Mac OSX, I know there is a way, but I don't know much about it. Something called Classic on Intel might be it.

Once the collection is complete you just place it into the local folder where you can then make tags for it using Fear.

[vinylrake]

There are a couple of unit making tutorials in the Myth Graveyard (mything.org click the graveyard link) that cover the basic of unit making and importing/sequencing from camera angle you should while rendering to the #of colors in the render, etc.

Once in the Graveyard section of mything.org look over in the sidebar there's a heading called 'mapmaking articles' click the 'SB' link and you'll get a slew of articles - not suprisingly, the ones you will be interested SHOULd have the word 'unit' somewhere in their title. (the

I don't remember them all off the top of my head but a couple of relevant ones are Strangelet's Unit making guide("Making New Units" mb?), and one by Vista about making their mascot, the Vista Sheep.

[Fortified Hooligan]

Thanks for the heads up guys.

I will check into those tutorials and the plugins.

I was reading some of the backlog here on the forums when i ran across mention of Hi res units and that they had not all been updated, only a few of the units.
That is what got me started on the idea of doing an update.

[Renwood TWA]

WEll fortifide, depending on just how good your modeling/texturing and animation skills are, the team i work with would be happy to help you in any way with creating "HI RES" units for tfl and SB. Ooga and Road ARE REALLY good at making collections for all new myth units.

do you have a link to some of your work?

I belive you are thinking of makin true high res units, for all the units in myth (Giant task BTW) the current "HI RES" units IMHO are hardly hi res.

sure the look better then normal myth 2 units, but they could have been much higher res/larger per image.

The hard part would be getting the look and feel of the tfl and myth 2 units to carry over to the newly crated HI RES units. Look at the hi res Zerk or the hi res FG on acts of cruelty, sure they are higher res (not by much though) but they seem more ridgid and stiff with more choppy animations then other myth 2 units.

The ones that seemed to fit in flawlessly are the hi res J man, high res Wight and hi res mortar dwarf and hi res trow. they all look like Iron had the actual models of the units from bungie and just rerendered them into new collections.

have you seen the close up images of the actual 3D textured polygon models of the TFL units that bungie used in some of their print adds?

Those i belive would be a great place to start if you want to see what some of the bungie units REALLY looked like in the 3D animation program that bungie used. (power animator) They would give you great insight into how to build new myth styled units from classic myth characters.

-Renwood

[Fortified Hooligan]

Ren,

You have a link to those original Bungie models? I would like to see those.

[Fortified Hooligan]

What are the size constrictions on these final images?

I would hate to model the rivets in a soldiers armor and then find out that the sprites have to be 200x200 pixels or less.

[Renwood TWA]

Well our team (TWA Dev team) and carlinho in his projects have come up with around an average maximum of 350 pixles tall x 250 wide.

they can be bigger or smaller then that. you dont want to go too much into small detail and more into "whats this guy gonna look like from across the room" since in myth you will hardly ever zoom all the way or get super close up to a unit while playing myth. i would put more effort into getting the overall look of the units and animations to match the bungie versions.

take a look at TFL units vs myth 2 units, you will notice that the tfl units are higher res then in SB but with fewer animations.

i have those print adds im talking about from game magazines from 1997 with the 3D poly close ups, and i will scan them and upload them. i think some of them are on the net in different places.

-Renwood

[vinylrake]

Ren,

If the tfl images you are talking about are on this page, you can save yourself some scanning.

http://mything.org/news/myth-galleries? ... ent_art%2F

[Graydon]

The physical models themselves though, were only aquired by a few select individuals, and if I'm not mistaken, Iron had the full collection at one point, but then lost everything to a hard drive crash, which is why the rest of the units never got done.

I don't know if anyone still has those originals kicking around anymore. Might mean actually modeling stuff from scratch. Which would be a gargantuan task.

[Fortified Hooligan]

I saw that link after Rens response about the original images. I plan on doing better than that.

So, what about that pointy bit on the Heron Guard's head? I thought at first that they might by hard material like a stiff kind of basket weave, but after closer inspection im leaning on the "sock hat" as seen worn by Link or wizards the world over.

There seem to be shadows from cloth folds behind the Heron Guard's left ear in game, also the fact that they are slighty off center makes me think soft.

What is the general opinion around here? Hard or soft pointy hat?

Thanks for the general parameter Ren.

I am starting on the Heron guard first. I will post some images when i start getting the shape out. It is a hobby project for me between my other work, so it isnt going to come too fast, but i appreciate any input you guys might have.

Fortified H.

[Renwood TWA]

Thanks VR!!! thats exactly what i was talking about, and those wireframes i had not seen before. i have the warrior and ghol close up, you dont have them on the page, so would you like me to scan them and send them to you?

Fortifide, that Heron helmet is indead modeled after a Samurai version wicker weaved style, so no its not cloth.

Also remember the herons are the best armed highest ranking melee that Muirthemne has, so they would be well equiped.

Do you have some link to your other work i can check out?


-Renwood

[vinylrake]

Thanks VR!!! thats exactly what i was talking about, and those wireframes i had not seen before. i have the warrior and ghol close up, you dont have them on the page, so would you like me to scan them and send them to you?

happy to help - if you get a chance to scan the ones I don't have and could send them to me, that would be GREAT! I'll add them to the gallery when they arrive in my inbox.

thanks for offering!

[pompey]

Is anyone else's heart warmed by the spirit of cooperation between VR and Ren? It's lovely.

As to Fortified, I hope you have "fortified" yourself for this task, as has been mentioned it seems monumental. It sounds like you have the correct mentality behind it though, slow and steady does indeed win the race.

Just wanted to put a word of support out there and thanks for the effort. Uupdating the other units to hi-res is really a solid step toward modernizing the look of Myth. Best of luck.

[The Elfoid]

Thanks VR!!! thats exactly what i was talking about, and those wireframes i had not seen before. i have the warrior and ghol close up, you dont have them on the page, so would you like me to scan them and send them to you?

happy to help - if you get a chance to scan the ones I don't have and could send them to me, that would be GREAT! I'll add them to the gallery when they arrive in my inbox.

thanks for offering!

From the Myth Clips website:
http://mlcsmith.com/games/bungie/myth/m ... -print.jpg
http://mlcsmith.com/games/bungie/myth/m ... orleft.jpg

Also has larger versions of the images VR linked to:
http://mlcsmith.com/games/bungie/myth/m ... tcolor.jpg
http://mlcsmith.com/games/bungie/myth/m ... nwhite.jpg
http://mlcsmith.com/games/bungie/myth/m ... rmwire.gif

Don't think it is Bungie but also has a cool Heron shot that you might find useful:
http://mlcsmith.com/games/bungie/myth/m ... onshot.jpg

The site also has some sculptures Bungie had made that you might be interested in.