Mod: FW thugs - working on art

[zlefin]

I'm making a mod for Zeldor to add some fire and water thugs/scs to the game, to help those gems have more uses.
I made the units, but the art is a bit trickier, if necessary i'll draw them myself, but my art skills are poor, so the units would be ugly, and who wants to have piles of ugly units around?

So i'm asking if someone could do any of the arts.

Long as i'm here, might as well ask for comments on the units.
Zeldor will make any final decisions on unit balance, since the mod is for him.
I'm sure there's a few bugs in the units, as i haven't gotten to the testing yet (as i may as well test the art while i'm at it, which waits until i have art)




Mod text below:
#modname "FW thugs n summons"
#description "A mod created to add some thugs for fire and water to the game"
#version 1.00

#newweapon 922
#name "Stinging Vines"
#dmg 0
#att 1
#len 0
#bonus
#secondaryeffect 53
#end

#newweapon 924
#name "Purifying Flood"
#dmg 1
#len 6
#nostr
#aoe 5
#bonus
#secondaryeffectalways 497
could use an effect sprite, but which one?
#end

#newmonster 2920
#name "Rage spirit"
#ap 14
#mapmove 2
#descr "The focused rage of warriors made manifest to destroy all who would stand in its way."
#hp 31
#prot 3
#size 3
#str 16
#enc 0
#att 14
#def 12
#prec 11
#mr 16
#mor 20
#gcost 0
#weapon 8
#weapon 6
--broad sword and short sword
#armor "Iron Cap"
#armor "Chain Mail Cuirass"
#eyes 2
#magicbeing
#fireres 100
#poisonres 100
#neednoteat
#ambidextrous 3
#berserk 6
#heat 3
#okleader
#poormagicleader
#end


#newmonster 2921
#name "Solarion"
#ap 30
#mapmove 4
#descr "The Solarion is a piece of the Sun made manifest to destroy the enemies of god. Any foe striking it may be blinded
if it is not burnt to a cinder first; nor shall those at a distance find him an easy target as its fire will destroy
most missiles before they can hit."
#hp 60
#prot 0
#size 6
#str 18
#enc 0
#att 10
#def 10
#prec 10
#mr 18
#mor 30
#gcost 0
#eyes 0
#weapon 48
#magicbeing
#flying
#blind
#fireres 200
#poisonres 100
#neednoteat
#heal
#ethereal
#fireshield 20
#heat 40
#eyeloss
#noleader
#onebattlespell "Air Shield"
#end


#newmonster 2922
#name "Pyrevine"
#ap 8
#mapmove 2
#descr "A strange predator that is a mass of vines and mushrooms. The mushrooms emit spores which
are not only toxic, but can burn as well.
They travel in packs and prefer large prey, though they will eat whatever is available.
They usually try to immobilize their prey, holding it still until the spores kill it."
#hp 27
#prot 8
#size 3
#str 12
#enc 3
#att 9
#def 8
#prec 8
#mr 13
#mor 15
#eyes 3
#weapon 922
#animal
#forestsurvival
#swampsurvival
#fireres 100
#poisonres 100
#darkvision 50
#heat 3
#poison 3
#coldblooded
#entangle
#poisonarmor
#itemslots 12288
#end


#newmonster 2923
#name "Snow Giant"
#ap 14
#mapmove 3
#descr "A simple creature of packed snow, it is nonetheless quite dangerous
due to its size and strength. As a being of snow, it's solidity is affected by the
temperature of the province it's in."
#hp 38
#prot 6
#size 4
#str 19
#enc 0
#att 8
#weapon 165
great club
#armor "Iron Cap"
#armor "Full Scale Mail"
#def 8
#prec 8
#mr 16
#mor 50
#eyes 2
#magicbeing
#coldres 100
#fireres -50
#poisonres 100
#neednoteat
#noheal
#cold 3
#iceprot 2
#end



#newmonster 2924
#name "Cleansing Warmaiden"
#ap 16
#mapmove 2
#descr "A mighty warrior who served the previous Pantokrator. She specializes in
destroying those who do not belong in this world. Whenever she strikes, the waters around
her will surge forth and wound demons and undead grievously."
#hp 55
#prot 1
#size 5
#str 20
#enc 2
#att 13
#def 13
#weapon 924
#weapon 75
-- enchanted sword
#armor "Plate Cuirass"
#armor "Full Helmet"
#prec 11
#mr 18
#mor 30
#eyes 2
#female
#magicskill 2 3
#superiorleader
#end



#newspell
#name "Harness Rage"
#school 0
note - maybe it should be something else, ench, thaum?
#descr "Coalesces the rage of many great soldiers into a being of rage with a dash of flame to fight"
#researchlevel 6
#path 0 0
#pathlevel 0 3
#damage 2920
damage needs to match the rage spirit unit id
#effect 10021
#fatiguecost 1000
#end


#newspell
#name "Solar Fragment"
#school 4
this doesn't really feel conjurationy to me, but what school?
#descr "Takes a tiny piece of the sun and gives it human form to fight the enemies of god."
#researchlevel 9
#path 0 0
#pathlevel 0 6
#damage 2921
#effect 10021
#fatiguecost 4000
#end

#newspell
#name "Summon Pyrevines"
#school 0
#descr "Calls forth a pack of Pyrevines to fight for the caster. Pyrevines are masses of
vines and fire mushrooms that wear their prey down."
#researchlevel 5
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#damage 2923
#effect 10001
#nreff 10009
#end

#newspell
#name "Craft Snow Giant"
#school 4
#descr "Animates a large block of crafted snow into a warrior to fight. The Snow Giant
is not very skilled, but can be dangerous nonetheless."
#researchlevel 5
#path 0 2
#pathlevel 0 3
#damage 2923
#effect 10021
#fatiguecost 1300
#end

#newspell
#name "Call Cleansing Warmaiden"
#school 0
#descr "Summons forth a Warmaiden to serve you, as she did the previous Pantokrator.
The warmaiden is a water mage with a powerful attack that destroys undead and demons."
#researchlevel 8
#path 0 2
#pathlevel 0 5
#damage 2924
#effect 10021
#fatiguecost 5000
#end

[Aezeal]

I like the pyrevines a lot, I'd make them blind though not darkvision 50, I like the solarion but eyeloss is very powerfull certainly in combination with airshield, I'd certainly remove that last one. I don't like the others very much to be honest and doubt they'll be very cleansing warmaiden is sort of a stupid name IMHO I also don't really match her weapon (which is nice and I'm all in favor of using it) with a sword wielding female warrior.

Might sound a bit harsh and I'm pretty sure in my mods there can be found much worse idea's but I think that if you keep the solarion and the pyrevine but change the others the mod will be better in the end.

PS for pyrevine you might just recolor a darkvine?

[Burnsaber]

Here are my suggestions for the art problems:

For Rage Spirit & Warrior Maiden: See the prewiev pick in the first post of this thread: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42638. Take a look at the "Guardians" in the bottom-left corner. Slightly edit the fire guy to hold different weapons (same for the water woman)and you have your sprites.

For Solarion: Take the "Star" pretender from this preview pick*: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=36309, make him slightly bigger and recolor to red/orange.

For Pyrevines: No clue.

For Snow Giant: Perhaps take the torso of niefel giants and attach it to Ice Elemental? Bit like I did with the guardians in Holy War?


I didn't take a good look at stats, but the descriptions could use some fleshing out. But I tend to write way too long descriptions to anything, so perhaps I'm not the best judge.

Like Aezeal said "Cleansing Watermaiden" sounds kinda.. lame? How about something like "Purger of the Unclean Ones" or "Cleanser". Perhaps you could flesh out their backround a bit. What did these water maidens actually do when they were in the service of Pantakrator? Did th

*Actually the preview pick is pretty bad because of the backround. You can get the .tga by downloading the mod.
ey constantly hunt for things to purge? Or did Pantakrator send them out on missions?

[Calchet]

I don't know exactly what you're looking for with the warmaiden, but here's a slight modification of one of my sprites that might work - it's sized as a regular human, but the pool of water may well qualify it for size 5-hood. Also doesn't wear a full helmet, but meh.

Screenshot and zipped sprites attached to post.


(Note that the screenshot is of the attack animation - she just stands in a pool of water otherwise.)

[rdonj]

I don't know, cleanser sort of makes her sound like detergent, or something you'd use to get rid of acne. That said I don't have any good name ideas off the top of my head. She sounds a bit like a naiad, or some other sort of nature spirit. Perhaps run with that?

Whatever her name is she's much too expensive. She is not worth more than a wraithlord. And the solarion is probably much too cheap. They should probably be more like 30/60 imo.

[Aezeal]

I'd say the warmaiden (at least the one using that nice attack) could much better be either some priestly woman, or some higher sort of watersprite/nymph
... ow wait I see rdonj says similar things.


For priestly I meant something like a hihger power version of those vanilla chick with their buckets of holy water. (with their death magic male counterparts) don't know what nation they are in though.

That sprite clachet has is very nice btw should you follow the priestly idea it would fit perfectly.. actually it would fit with the naiad idea of rdonj too. (PS rdonj it's cleansing warmaiden not cleansing watermaiden imho watermaiden would even be better though.)

Burnsabers suggestion for hte solarion pic is nice.. you could also use the ball shaped summons the game provides or one of these (loose the lame sword I made)

[zlefin]

thanks for the ideas and suggestions. i'm using the water one, thoguh i agree a better name needs to be found.
I used burnsaber's sprite dump and was able to color mod and change the weapon on a unit for the rage guy, looks ok to me.
i'll probably use a jotun recolor and weapon change for the snow giant. the vines i wanna see if i can get the tangle vines graphic and recolor it reddish. Not sure yet what to do about Solarion, but it shouldn't be too hard, i just need the right morphology, other than getting that right he's fairly bland.

[Burnsaber]

Morpholgy? Is the Solarion supposed to have full slots? If not, may repropose to doing him as a reddish star? You can use the star from this pic as base ( http://xs539.xs.to/xs539/09201/modspritedump1563.png ). I have noticed that the star graphic works especially well on ethereal troops (since the borders keep on disappearing, making it seem like it is pulsing)

Hmm. I just got an idea concerning the watermaiden, you know, to flesh her backround up a bit. Feel free to scrap it if you don't like it.

"Cocytys (spelling?) and Inferno are filled to brim with horrible demons hellbent on devouring and enslaving the humans. The ground is full of spirits and their longdead corpses, who are just waiting to get their conceived revenge on the fleshlings above. Pantakrator knew this of these dangers all too well and thus placed powerful blessing on all living creatures. Whenever tears are shed for those who have lost their loved ones to a profane menace, they will not just disappear. Turning to invisble mist, the tears will travel to skies and form watermaidens. They are the living vengeful memory of those fallen before the unholy ones, and will purge them from the face of the earth. They take the form of [whatever] and can [description of powers]"

So yeah, the main idea is them to sort of "tear" elementals. If the description gets too long, you can sort of.. divide it between the summoning spell and the unit itself (the summoning spell could explain more backround, while the power descriptions coud be left for the unit itself)

[Burnsaber]

Here's the solarion pic we talked about in IrC.