Helping A Newbie With His Faction

[Buster's Uncle]

I should really do a tutorial just about shields and placement of same, shouldn't I?  It's covered in that one, but sorta buried in a lot of other stuff and not gone into in fine detail.

...Faction artists and aspiring faction artists I meet all seem to be self-starters good at filling in the blanks, but I like to make it idiot-proof not so much for the idiots as persons of other nationalities whose English language skills aren't strong.  That's why all the screenies...

[Flux]

Wow, the shields you posted are likely going to be something I come back to every time I make a faction. It's a shame that the actual blue&yellow shields are too small for 2 bigger bases. Oh well.
Yeah, you might want to do the tutorial if you have nothing better to do, I suppose. I could see some people less creative people getting stuck with things like, say, the bottom of the base being over the fence.


I'm pretty sure by the end of today the "epic" conclusion to this thread will come, putting me into the AC modder community officially . I'll post the finished fac once I'm done.

EDIT: I decided to take a different course with my fac, and made a new type of base so it definetly isn't ready yet.
It might actually be something original enough that people may download it. Who knows?
Hint: Followers of Ron(ald)

[Flux]

Alright, I finished my first faction. THE REAGAN REPUBLIC

[Flux]

Alright everyone. I really appreciate the help, and I've now created my first faction available to the public. "The Reaganites".
You've definitely won a long-term member. I will continue making factions. Who knows, maybe one day I'll learn to code and make one of those city view things they have in CIV 1 and 3, so you can see how pitiful your capital is.
Anyway, I appreciate the help. Followers was a test faction, because as soon as I finished it I realized I'd rather make a new-america faction.
With that said, I'm done with this thread. I'll check it for the next day or two.

Thanks for the help.

[Yitzi]

Alright, I finished my first faction. THE REAGAN REPUBLIC

Do you have gameplay info/txt file as well?

[Flux]

Yeah, I do. I started a thread called"Flux's Factions". If you go over there you can download all the stuff you need for it. I'm actually quite proud.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, you're really coming along, but the perspective on those shields for the Regan bases (which are excellent, BTW  ) is way off and there's nothing to distinguish the tachyon fields from the basic shields.

I jiggered around the brick walls to fix the perspective better (and make them symmetrical - I believe I created those for elongated rectangular bases in one of my earliest factions) and made a shinier blue version that tries to look metallic.  Try these.

---

Is the distorted small council portrait a deliberate artistic choice?

[Flux]

Meh, you don't really notice ingame from my experience.
It looks better than having the whole picture really small when your looking at battle portraits.
...So you changed the perspective? Looks like I can't just drag them over after all...
Maybe I will just put the normal perimeter def. as the wooden fence instead...
I have to say, since I've had quite a bit of freetime this weekend I've already made three faction graphics. (Latest one is gungan, but I haven't put it up yet.)
EDIT: I see what you mean on the wall perspective... I guess i should just man up and redo it, eh?


The base graphic is actually a random drawing I found online, don't give me much credit.

[Flux]

Alright, so I cleaned up the Reaganite tachyon field and perimeter def.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay.

You're going to have the same perspective problems with the sea platforms on the shielded sea bases.   Ingame, that'll look like an UPRIGHT disk BEHIND the bases.  If you made this by laying out the first row of unshielded land bases then copying that row five times, fixing it would take just a minute to fix: replace those rows with the unshielded sea row, (which has good platform perspective,) and then copy/paste the shielded land rows over them.

I really should right this up in fine detail with screenies...

[Flux]

Okay.

You're going to have the same perspective problems with the sea platforms on the shielded sea bases.   Ingame, that'll look like an UPRIGHT disk BEHIND the bases.  If you made this by laying out the first row of unshielded land bases then copying that row five times, fixing it would take just a minute to fix: replace those rows with the unshielded sea row, (which has good platform perspective,) and then copy/paste the shielded land rows over them.

I really should right this up in fine detail with screenies...

Gah, effort is required.
To think I have to restart half it... Actually, I might be able to just delete some of the blue on the last 2 rows of bases... Let me try that

[Flux]

I sincerely hope you don't have a keen enough eye to point out another flaw.

[Buster's Uncle]

Really, it's all select>delete>copy/paste.  Just take a few minutes once you're used to it.

[ninja'd] That's better...

[Flux]

It's a fun faction to play as.
So I've already finished 2 factions, although the other is a bit rough (Imperial Army). I'm rather proud of myself.

Hey, I know you make base packs sometimes. Look up some bases from Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. It's basically a giant mod to AOE 2 that went on sale in 2001, so the setting and angle is perfect.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okydoke.  Thanks for the tip.  Easy to google base images?