Dune mod for Mount&Blade Warband (tryout)

[Davidu]

Thanks. I will need to code a new type of terrain with a rock texture so I can apply it around there. The "mountain" texture is impassable so I cannot use that for "solid rock" :D for now I used the steppe texture but it's not ok in the long run.

[Davidu]

Update

[Davidu]

I have finished placing the Fremen faction on the map. It took so long because it was boring hahahahahaha. I have also created a whole bunch of naibs.

Here are the pictures to each of the sietches (the rest of dots on the official dune map jpeg from the internet I have made into "villages" forming the "metropolitan" are of a sietch):

Sietch Tabr | Sietch Sihaya | Sietch Gara Kulon | Sietch Red Chasm | Sietch Pasty Mesa | Sietch Tuek | Sietch Chin Rock | Sietch Habbanya | Sietch Wind Pass

Great Naib Stilgar | Naib Korba | Naib Otheym | Naib Engusku | Naib Farok | Naib Namri | Naib Muriz | Naib Argraves | Naib Buer

I know the back banner does not match the real fremen banner but I will solve that also in due time. On the world map everything looks perfect:

[MrFlibble]

That looks very neat! The only thing for now IMO is that the desert looks very flat and featureless mostly. I've always had the impression from the books that there was more variety, including terrain height differences, rock outcroppings, even some desert plants in some places.

[drnovice]

Have you ever played Dune RPG (Dune 1)?

What a wonderful game!

P.S. Sorry about OT, I saw that you took a lot of inspiration from elements of the first game.

[Davidu]

I still need to work on the map :) It's not ready yet. One BIG thing I want to change is the freackin' texture that is greenish-reddish and annoying me to hell. And yes, I will add more eyecandy to the map, but that will be in a later stage when the framework of the game is properly set up.

Right now I have two more M&B factions to take out, together with their respective map places. The Fremen are all set up. Next are the Smugglers. And then the Harkonnen. Takes a lot of time to go through all the files and take out the code. Actually I'm not taking it out right away, i'm just "commenting it out" so I still have the code there in case I need to see how to do stuff.

A bit of vegetation would do :) and some rocks and stuff... that should be fairly easy to place on the world map. The one thing I need to learn is how to unwrap and export a model's texture onto a 2ⁿ image file (128x128, 1024x768, etc.). That way I can do my own models. That way I can start work on the interiors also :D I might have found a guy who's good at this but I didn't have enough time to meet him up and talk about it. Moving out of my apartment and having to find a new one has a bit to do with this :D

Yes, Cryo's Dune was a constant obsession for me. Years ago I tried to remake it in HL engine using Hammer editor but dropped it to switch to Morrowind engine. But that died also. So now, armed with enough experience and patience I hope I can pull this off :D It's been going quite well so far, the engine is flexible and the code should be simple enough once you understand the syntax. It's not Python btw, it is just compiled with Python. So most of the time I'm trying to understand what did the developers were tryong to do there, haha.

Actually, I think one might mod it into an RTS, but it would require some serious coding experience.

Thanks for the attention guys ;)

[Davidu]

Harkonnen Fort map icon *not much detail needed). It has the Smugglers banner for now because they're next in line to be placed on the map
 

And an ingame view (a bit unintelligible though ):

 

[MrFlibble]

Nice! However if you want to stick to the book, the didn't use any cannons, especially of such calibre (the artillery during the decimation of Atreides forces was an exception).

The book mentions garrison towns on the planet, I guess those were more like (small) towns with barracks where troops were stationed.

BTW, there's one passage in the book that suggests that armoured ground vehicles might have had limited use on Arrakis as well:

[T]he Duke said. "Turn your crew over to a lieutenant. Have him give a short drill on water discipline, then bed the men down for the night in the barracks adjoining the field. Field personnel will direct them. And don't forget the men for Hawat."

"Three hundred of the best, Sire." [Gurney] took up his spacebag. "Where shall I report to you when I've completed my chores?"

"I've taken over a council room topside here. We'll hold staff there. I want to arrange a new planetary dispersal order with armored squads going out first."

Halleck stopped in the act of turning away, caught Leto's eye. "Are you anticipating that kind of trouble, Sire? I thought there was a Judge of the Change here."

I remember a discussion of this moment and I think it was agreed that the Duke is talking about armoured groundcars, although there's a small possibility that he could be referring to some kind of heavily armoured troopers.

[Davidu]

I was trying to replicate Cryo's Dune Harkonnen forts. And those looked as if they had some cannons of some sort. I can't find any pictures online and I don't have the game to do a screenshot of that. But I remember they looked badass :D

[drnovice]

Harkonnen Fort (outside far): 3:50:55

Harkonnen Fort (outside far): 3:51:07

Harkonnen Fort (outside): 4:17:35

Harkonnen Fort (inside): 4:17:37

Harkonnen Fort (inside): 4:17:39

Harkonnen Fort (outside): 4:19:51

Harkonnen Fort (inside): 4:19:53

Harkonnen Fort (inside): 4:20:10

Harkonnen Palace (outside): 5:25:44

Harkonnen Palace (inside): 5:25:50

[Davidu]

Wow. The difference between the floppy version and the cd version is huge. I only played the FDD one and I thought it was cool :D

In the video the fort seems to have some horizontal stuff coming out of it. Definetly those are some kind of guns. I'll try to keep those strictly in the AntiAerial department for the game. Maybe also some long distance shooting on the world map, but for sure those are not going to play any role in a siege.

Maybe they're laser guns? That would make more sense.

[Davidu]

Ok. I remodelled the fort using this as reference:
 

And I got something like this:

 

I'll have to work a bit more on the textures. But I got some weird problem that doesn't recognize the texture ingame. I'll sort that out.


Ok, one more

 

[MrFlibble]

Ah, I didn't even realize you were using Cyo's Dune art as the model :D

In the book, they used lasguns against aircraft too, so there were no AA cannons either. Of course, it's up to you to decide the design, since FH did not provide any detailed descriptions of forts on Arrakis.

[Davidu]

Yeah, I'll just pretend those barrels are for some AA lasguns :) Maybe I'll manage to code that if you're an enemy of the faction occupying the fort they will shoot you down in a certain range on the world map.

Actually I should get to modelling the smuggler villages because I have the whole faction placed on the map now. Next it'll be the Harkonnens.

[Davidu]

Hey guys. Please take a look at the Dune Map here:

I cannot make it out which are the Pyon Villages/Smugglers and which are the Botanical Stations. The difference is so small. For example: Bight of the cliff and Cave of Riches are Notanical stations? I would look like it. Chin Rock also? But then the Smuggler communities have the same kind of dot on the map. I have placed all the smugglers and all the botanical stations and there are more botanical stations than the smugglers and it's not normal :P

Now I'm placing the Haga and Imperial Basin settlements. And even there there are some small dots representing Botanical stations... though for me it woyld make sense to be smuggler villages... to do commerce.

I could really use a high resolution map of Dune right now :)

I'l post some more stuff soon.

[Davidu]

Update!

[Davidu]

Guys, I'm moving into a new house and also I have some trips (teambuilding & stuff) at the moment, so don't expect an update until half of October.

The project is NOT dead :D

[Davidu]

Right. I'm back. I'll try to get the scene of a village done by next week, just to test importing new models (scene props) into the game.

[Davidu]

Crysknife early model

 

Crysknife tryout. 30k polygons so I need to simplify that handle down to 700-1000 polys. but i'm quite proud of myself. My first non-architectural modelling experience, wasn't so bad

[MrFlibble]

The handle looks cool but I have some doubts about the blade itself. Its shape looks too much like a regular metal blade, I'd suppose the worm's tooth was sharpened on the edges but the centre of the blade was roundish, without this conic protrusion (hopefully you get what I mean, I don't know the terminology for blade parts at all! :)).

[Davidu]

Ingame view (a bit too bright - I think I should not include normal and specular maps to the weapon, it already has a light color). Couldn't find it in the city to buy and show a better image. I'm still going to have some work to do on the model. It now has 504 polys, and I want to take it down to 200-300, but I'll have to remake the handle from scratch. And, as MrFibble said, the point is too sharp.

[Davidu]

384 polys - Khukuri blade. Used by the Ghurkas from Nepal. I am thinking to equip the Sardaukar with it, they kinda' seem to have the same mentality as the Ghurka, and the weapon looks fierce.

Atreides will have the kindjal (Russian Cossack/Caucasus blade) and for the Harkonnen I am thinking of gladius/spatha (good for stabbing, close combat, blood on their hands, etc. :P ). For the Smugglers I am thinking of a fake Cryskinfe (same shape, but metal blade) because of their similiarities with the Fremen (same planet, same environement, same ideals).

I was wondering if F.H. was thinking of the Indonesian Krys when he discribed the Crysknife. That would really change the design.

[Davidu]

Atreides Kindjal 

 

 

Atreides Kindjal without and with scabbard. I'm not very sure of the scabbard but for now it'll do. Now I must redo the crysknife and the khukuri also with scabbards because I kinda' got the hang of how to do a clean and neat triangulation. BY HAND!!!

[MrFlibble]

Somehow the kindjal blade seems to long compared to the handle. I've always envisioned a kindjal as a medium or short blade, but maybe I've been influenced by the fact that in Russian kinzhal means 'dagger'.

As for the Kris, I think it's pretty certain that FH took the word for his use but I'm not sure if the shape of a real-life Kris is relevant to the crysknife. After all, there's a description in the book - in case you still have no access to Dune books currently, here it is:

Slowly, Mapes reached into the neck of her dress, brought out a dark sheath. A black handle with deep finger ridges protruded from it. She took sheath in one hand and handle in the other, withdrew a milk-white blade, held it up. The blade seemed to shine and glitter with a light of its own. It was double-edged like a kindjal and the blade was perhaps twenty centimeters long.

Paul glanced at the crysknife. There was no shearing-guard; only the slim round ring of the handle with its raised lips to protect the hand. And even so, he realized that he did not know the breaking tension of this blade, did not even know if it could be broken.

He heard a rustle of hangings, thought it was Harah returning with food, and turned to watch her. Instead, from beneath a displaced pattern of hangings, he saw two young boys--perhaps aged nine and ten--staring out at him with greedy eyes. Each wore a small kindjal-type of crysknife, rested a hand on the hilt.

[Davidu]

i used photos for reference for the kindjal. probably there are different types, like the 2-edged one, etc. i might have strethed the blade a bit... you're right it was supposed to look a bit like this:

damn! that's an elegant blade!

Well... thing is I want to expand the armory a bit. I know FH didn't go beyond the fighting knives but, frankly, I think it's too restrictive and will annoy the hell out of players. Besides, at least for fremen, why on earth wouldn't they have throwing knives, spears and swords made out of sandworm teeth? I know it's not "canon" but I will introduce a bigger array of weapons. Think about it! It's almost comical to imagine a fight between thousands of sturdy fremen with thousands of huge sardaukar all having these 20cm blades in their hands. It looks like they're fighting with toothpicks. and besides, can't I get a bit or "artistic license" here? :D

BTW, I kinda' recruited a guy for modeling and texturing, especially for the armor/clothes stuff :D So it might work a bit faster and better from now on... hopefully.