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Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals

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Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals Empty Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals

Post by AOE_Fan Thu 9 Aug 2012 - 21:46

Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals Header-6

Two weeks ago Synecdoche told you about our Town Square building, what it does and what civs have it. Back then I said there might be a second Friday Update about the Town Square, and here it is. This one will not be about the gameplay mechanics of the Town Square, or its strategic importance. No, this one will be about its artwork.

Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals PicturesIntact
The fully intact Town Square model. The Skirmisher is there for size comparison. Also please note that there will be a flagpost in the center of this model.

The Town Square may not look very special at all, but it rather is. Most of you will probably have noticed that this model didn't come with Age of Empires III, and some of you might have guessed that it isn't from another game either. Both assumptions are right, as this is a brand new model, made to measure for K&B specifically. Once again though, that is not very special. Creating new models from scratch may not be very commonplace in AoE3 modding yet, but this isn't the first time it's been done either. No, the special thing is, and please bear in mind that this is a modding first, that this is a building with more than one model. If WotTA uses a new model or one from another game, they just have a model for an intact building, NE the same. This doesn't look too bad on screenshots, but when actually playing the mod, it makes for some proper graphic horror. If a building gets attacked, it doesn't change shape at all. Even when it's destroyed, it just stays as it is, and then slowly fades away. Not so in K&B. We like to put time and effort in to make the process of destruction look just that bit better, with all the means we have. I say that, because obviously nobody has figured out how to make Havok (the AoE3 physics engine) work its tricks on new models yet, so our models won't have the smooth animation feel of standard AoE3 models, but we like to think that we've come close. We can't do destruction anims, but we can do destruction models. So we have...

Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals PicturesDamaged
The slightly damaged Town Square model. This would be seen when the building has lost just a few of its hitpoints.

As for the rest of the design of the building, this is the Town Square for civs with the Southern European buildingset, which is the Italians, Byzantines and Spanish. The Spanish however, aside from not being in the Prologue, are part of the Crusading Civset, so they don't get the Town Square, which is reserved for the European civset. This building remains for the Italians and Byzantines then, which explains the horses. This may sound odd, but the copper horse statues on the Town Square are based on the Horses of St. Mark, who are most famous for adorning the facade of the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, but there is a bit more history behind them than meets the naked eye. They were originally created by a Roman sculptor in Greece, long before the Middle Ages. Some estimates even suggest that they were created in the 4th century BC. They were used in various locations throughout time, but at the start of K&B's timeline they would have stood on the Hippodrome in Constantinople. They would stay in the Byzantine capital until the 13th century, when the Fourth Crusade led Venetian Crusaders to conquer Constantinople, where Doge Enrico Dandolo (which also happens to be our AI personality for the Italians) ordered the horses to be removed and transported to Venice. There they would take their famous place in front of the Venice's most famous church and become a landmark of the city as a whole, even though the horses are considerably older than Venice itself. With such symbolism for both Byzantines and Italians, I hope you understand why we couldn't help but include some horse statues in our Southern European model for the Town Square.

Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals PicturesDestroyed
The highly damaged Town Square model. This would be seen when the building is almost completely destroyed.

For next week's Friday Update, we would like to know what you would like to see. We've got the following things ready:

  1. An ingame view of Chapter House
  2. The Crusader age-up system
  3. The Qal'aat or Headquarters
  4. Outlaw or Mercenary units made by Pepp
  5. Barbarian settlements

You can vote for any of these things in the poll that I added to the thread.

Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals SubheaderQuote

Here's the ever historically based but equally appreciative Synecdoche on a feature that we haven't been much bothered to tell you about yet:

Synecdoche wrote:I don't know why Lithuania's cavalry is portrayed as so bad when it was a cavalry-based military as well, but the duality thing is cool enough that I'm not going to lodge a formal complaint.

Friday Update: Week 29/2012, Town Square visuals SubheaderSalute-Refute

K&B salutes... Fransesca des Sales. With the original Fransesca des Sales, the Daily Pepper and the Peppic Epic, Pepp will soon be a newspaper millionaire. Probably. Possibly. Perhaps...
K&B refutes... WotTA's Forums. Patacas are gone, oh noes!!!




- Quoted from peugeot407
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