Merlin's Graphics Mod

[merlin2199]

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Two Decked Man-o'-War:

*drum roll*


---


(make sure you are seated)


--


(no, really sit down)

--









There she is, in all her glory! Totally new hull skin and texture, including gunport hatches. The stern cabin has been redisigned completely from scratch. Also, lighter/whiter sails, tweaked rigging, and darker deck. But my favorites, golden figurehead, gilded bow latticework, and bronze cannon!

It took me nearly three days but the result is worth it! Here is the before and after comparison:



I'm torn between taking a break and moving on to the three decker That one is scaled 1:1 in game so alot of the detail from the dds file will remain... oh it's gonna be fun

[gigau]

Great great work

With such a good work, no break authorized ; we want all the ships !

[17blue17]

Great work merlin2199 - Please let us download what you have so far including your british uniforms!!

[Yuste]

Great work, congratulations.

A web militaria link (flags and uniforms XVII and XVIII):
http://vial.jean.free.fr/new_npi/enter.htm
example:
http://vial.jean.free.fr/new_npi/rev..._inf_querc.htm

A historical Spanish flags link:
http://www.fotw.net/flags/es_his.html
http://www.fotw.net/flags/es1785.html

A Spanish military flags:
http://www.banderasmilitares.com/inicio.php
"Austrias" military flags (...1713)
http://www.banderasmilitares.com/austrias.php
"Borbones" military flags:
http://www.banderasmilitares.com/es_bor_gi.php

Good look

[Zwackus]

I'm torn between taking a break and moving on to the three decker That one is scaled 1:1 in game so alot of the detail from the dds file will remain... oh it's gonna be fun

Is scaled 1:1 in game? Does that mean the models are all similarly sized, and are then scaled up or down according to file settings?

I ask, because for my ComboMod I'm looking for different ship models for various things - Armed Caravels versus Caravels versus Small Caravels, for example. Being able to change the size would be really helpful. Honestly, the work you are doing here will be really helpful, too - I can use your new skins for some ships, and the old skins for other ships.

[merlin2199]

Is scaled 1:1 in game? Does that mean the models are all similarly sized, and are then scaled up or down according to file settings?

I ask, because for my ComboMod I'm looking for different ship models for various things - Armed Caravels versus Caravels versus Small Caravels, for example. Being able to change the size would be really helpful. Honestly, the work you are doing here will be really helpful, too - I can use your new skins for some ships, and the old skins for other ships.

Hm, I hadn't thought of that, but yes the models have different sizes, especially ships. The textures are all the same size, 256x256 pixels. However, if you put a two decker and a three decker in adjacent sea-zones you will see that the two deckers is 75% the size of the three decker.

There's three sets of large warships, Carrack and Caravel, Galleon and War Galleon, and the Two and Three deckers. In each case the earlier variant is 75% smaller than the later versions. Small Warships are scaled to be about 75% the smaller of the heavy warship duos corrisponding to the age. So a heavy frigate is 75% the size of a two decker and 50% of a three decker. Same applies to transports, though the Merchantman is actually rather large.

If you can figure out how to work the scales, possible through the fx files, let me know. I'll like to set the range of scales to 15, possibly 10, points rather than the current 25.

Yuste: Thank you for the kind words and the links! Great resources. While making these ships I found some photoshop techniches I didn't know about which will come in handy for uniforms. So stay tuned they aren't done yet, although the amount of work will be about one uniform per week

Blue17: You can download it from them from the first post in this thread. If you are talking about the last screenshot of the Brit uniform, that is still a work in progress as I am testing a few things

Gigau: Do you have photoshop? You can save those "after" as .dds and use them, you'll be missing the alpha channel, but that's not that big a loss at it just controls the cannon's transparency. Hell, Im gonna try it without the alpha and see if it looks better.

Started working on the three decker... my eyes are bugging out, really need a break

EDIT: I wonder if I can get a custom avatar for being here for seven years, because at this pase it will take another 43 years to reach 3000 posts

[jarnomiedema]

Wow.. Great job, Mr. "Lord High Admiral"..

Those are some amazing ship models.. I can't wait to put them in the game.. (I know, I can copy the stuff you've posted here and incorporate it into the .dds files myself, but I'd rather wait for the finished mod to come out..)

Good luck with the work that's coming up!

[Lord Boreal]

Smashing. I just found this and downloaded it immediately. Nice job.

[merlin2199]

Alright, here she is, far and above my best work so far




And for a before and after see here:

Before and After

You can see how much bigger she is compared to the two decker. Also, you can have them all!!!

EDIT: LINK REMOVED, CONTENT INCLUDED IN LATEST VERSION

That was alot of fun, and I learned new photoshop tricks while doing these Now I need a litle break, my eyes will thank me

This skin was modeled after the HMS Royal George. I was looking for a ship from the mid 18th century with enough images laying around to provide a good base to work from. The classic Victory paint scheme didn't come about till the Napoleonic Wars so I felt it wasn't appropriate for the games time period. Also, since it is just the ships it wasn't necessary to make everyone download the entire mod again. Just unload these into whichever folder you are using my work from and presto.

In the to-do list are:

1. 15th/16th century uniforms for Austria, England, France, Ottomans, Poland, Papal States, Russia, and Spain (these are chosen mainly becuase they are the ones I have reliable sources for, any other nation from that time period I have very few sources for atm. That could way for another time.)

2. 17th Century uniforms for all the "Majors." This is a tough century since many nations used very similar military dress, mainly in the HRE and Baltic.

3. Update the 18th Century uniforms with the new techniques I learned while making the ships. It should make variations and details much easier for all three epochs.

4. Re-skin the city view as well as the map cities, needless to say European/Orthodox cities will take priority. After than it will probably go Muslim, Eastern, and so forth. This is going to be a huge undertaking, and I am thiking of doing it before continuing on the uniforms as it will hone my skills even more. Don't hesitate to bombard me with some nice city scape paintings, all inspiration is good inspiration. Plus, the less time I have to research the sooner we can have all these goodies.

Lord Boreal: Thank you sir, spread the word!

[Fulcrumvale]

That’s absolutely frigging gorgeous.

[gigau]

Thank you , thank you , thank you

Great awesome job... already downloaded

[Modestus]

Great cant see how you could make them much better, thanks a lot for your hard work.

[tretii_sleva]

Well done mate. Very good stuff!

I will be expecting your future work with great pleasure.

Cheers

[jarnomiedema]

Woohoo.. Downloading now!

Regarding the city scapes you plan on doing (excellent idea, by the way), do you have any intention of modding in new variations? I've been walking around with the idea of doing that in EU3, but I'm just completely handicapped when it comes to writing code..

What I'm talking about is that English cities will look different from French cities, cities in the Low Countries will look different from German cities, Italian cities will look different from Spanish cities (although somewhat similar) and so on and so forth..

Because if that were possible, it'd be a major step forward in the development of the game..

Anyway, I can ofcourse always provide source images for Dutch uniforms from just about every period, so just shout if you need a few!

[tretii_sleva]

Merlin, here is some pics of Russian Kremlins I found. I got it ziped and ready to download for yee.

Link http://rapidshare.com/files/24268379/kremlins.rar.html

I hope it will give you an idea about those early Russian city looks.

[Lord Boreal]

I like the sound of the work you are planning on doing here, excellent job on that triple decker btw, very nice. I like.

[einfall]

Some Tatar warrior (leader) here:


And some "private" Tatar with Russian Strielec:


Tartar's clothes should be white (not very clean, of course - some bloody marks maybe)

[einfall]

Polish units:
Early (colonel - private soldier should have less rich clothes - hat without feathers etc.):

Middle ("Wybraniec"):

Late ("Grenadier"- this one needs some white pants and black boots of course):

[Lord Boreal]

Right ive downloaded your gfx mod v1.2, and TOT. How do I get them both to run at the same time?

[jarnomiedema]

Well, I have both of them installed directly into my main game folder, so that they run all the time.. As for combining mods, sorry.. I'm afraid I can't help with that..