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Silvermoon Town Hall/Keep/Castle

Finally I managed to conceptualize and animate the Main Elven building with 3 Tiers:
- Town Hall
- Keep
- Castle

I want to thank @Trolldaeron for his concepts and inspiration



Also I want to thank @Darious for his attemps to make those buildings - I used his models as alpha versions and then improved them.

There are separate models for each building. The birth animation is made in such a way to fit previous tier.

When you import the model and replace the native Town Hall / Keep / Castle models - note that death time must be changed


All buildings have the propper animations and effects.

The models were made for Chronicles of the Second War Campaign.

UPDATE 22/12/2021: Blood elf versions from @Liebanas_dn. Smaller trees in town Hall and Keep, grey homogeneous colour for all buildings parts and fel look on crystals.
Contents

Bloodelf castle (Model)

Bloodelf keep (Model)

Bloodelf townhall (Model)

Silvermoon Castle (Model)

Silvermoon Castle Icon (Icon)

Silvermoon Keep (Model)

Silvermoon Keep Icon (Icon)

Silvermoon Town Hall (Model)

Silvermoon TownHall icon (Icon)

Reviews
Mr Ogre man
Great buildings that look as if taken straight from reforged, approved
Level 2
Joined
May 18, 2021
Messages
2
Amazing! This is perfect for any and all Blood/High Elf themed campaigns from here on out, I can't wait to put this to use in my own custom maps. Fantastic work!
 
Level 8
Joined
Apr 30, 2021
Messages
134
This is Awesome! I think pretty much I say the High Elf/Blood Elf Race is complete. I mean all the Buildings are like done.

Town Hall, Keep, Castle: Done.

Altar: Done

House/Farm: Done

Arcane Sanctum: Done

Blacksmith: Done

Lumber Mill: Done

Aviary: Done

Barracks: Done

Towers: Pretty much Done

Vault: pretty much done in terms of High Elf Shop

Workshop I say pretty much done unless you add in the Druid Tree with set Nature Units but I say done.

Units so far:

Footman: Swordsman

Knight: Elven Lancer

Rifleman: Archer

Peasant: Enginner/Worker

Priest, Sorceress, and Spellbreaker pretty much same unless with High Elf Skins.

Another Copy of the Priest Unit: Druid

Dragonhawk Rider Same and Gryphon Rider: Elven Archer Flying Unit.

Captain: Blood Elf Lieutenant

Motor Team: Ballista if the WC 2 Model is out.

Heroes: Archmage, 4 Ranger Hero Skins, Swordsman 2 and Blood Mage with High Elf Skin.

So pretty much I say the High Elf/Blood Elf Race is pretty much done unless I forgot about the Elven Docks for set Elven Destroyers from WC2, Silvermoon Guardians from TBC, and of course well basically Assassins or Scouts like Valeera Sanguinar but overall I say pretty much the High Elf Race or the Blood Elf Race is complete. You guys did a great job with this.

I hope we see the Human Nations, Orcish Clans, and of course even the Draenei Race that were in WC2 unless if somebody does something crazy like a Highborne Race with Units and Buildings of their own, Arakkoa in Outlands Draenor, Ogre Race if someone wants to recreate the Ruined Civilization of Highmaul of the Once Ogre Nation, Forsaken Race, and of course well Void Elves in terms of WC2 Meets WC3 but Void. But overall Great Job Folks and thank you for the Amazing Race Packs.
 
I wonder if it would be more natural to the game if you guys made a single model with upgrade animations for all three versions. That way, this model will also work for maps that are using the Melee gameplay data, which enables the hidden gameplay constant to cause upgrading structures to retain their previous model file until the upgrade is complete. When the game is in that mode, if each building has its own model like this, then the user will see:

T1 birth (building town hall)
T1 stand (finished town hall)
T1 birth (upgrading to keep, bugged case, user expects to see T2 birth)
T2 stand (finished keep)
T2 birth (upgrading to castle, bugged case, user expects to see T3 birth)
T3 stand (finished castle)

And I know that when you tested the model in game you probably did not have this problem because your map would most likely have been using the Custom game data set. But I think that if your model supports either game data set, then it is even more versatile :D
 
I wonder if it would be more natural to the game if you guys made a single model with upgrade animations for all three versions. That way, this model will also work for maps that are using the Melee gameplay data, which enables the hidden gameplay constant to cause upgrading structures to retain their previous model file until the upgrade is complete. When the game is in that mode, if each building has its own model like this, then the user will see:

T1 birth (building town hall)
T1 stand (finished town hall)
T1 birth (upgrading to keep, bugged case, user expects to see T2 birth)
T2 stand (finished keep)
T2 birth (upgrading to castle, bugged case, user expects to see T3 birth)
T3 stand (finished castle)

And I know that when you tested the model in game you probably did not have this problem because your map would most likely have been using the Custom game data set. But I think that if your model supports either game data set, then it is even more versatile :D
Well in that Case i need to merge everything in one file which is painful cuz you have many animations and you need to regulate the visibility and the only way to do that is text editor. If you want - you can improve this model)
 
painful cuz you have many animations and you need to regulate the visibility and the only way to do that is text editor
it's OK, i have a plan, instead of doing it in a text editor, i can go back in time with a time machine and then spend 8 years building an automation software for doing model merging and by the time i get back to the present I'll probably have something that can merge these in 5-10 minutes by clicking a couple of buttons...
 
Level 2
Joined
Oct 22, 2015
Messages
8
Very interesting model. A bit overloaded perhaps, and the low walls give a warped perspective of it at times, but it stands strong nonetheless.
The concept arts of it were just as cool, especially the Castle one who looks almost like an Observatory.

Nitpicking, but could you make the icons blue-team-couloured instead of red ? High Elven buildings follow the same blue convention as Humans (HEBarracks / Observatory / Towers / Arcane Sanctum) and it makes it stand out in the toolbar when you have a builder.
 
Level 21
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
2,934
Pretty useful and it's high time that the Blood Elves used their own buildings, and not the Human ones...

This is pretty awesome as well...
Great and I will give credit when I use it...
 
Last but not the least!!
 

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  • BTNHighElfKeep.png
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  • BTNHighElfCastle.png
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  • DISBTNHighElfKeep.dds
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  • DISBTNHighElfTownHall.dds
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  • BTNHighElfCastle.dds
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Level 3
Joined
Aug 24, 2021
Messages
21
This looks great.

Can you make it as a skin for using in melee and advise if there's anything specific that have to be done in order for it to work just like other skins for buildings, units etc.?

That would be really appreciated.
 
Okay. I love the Architectural synapsis. It really gives the Elves their mystical and artistic feel that they typically have. I am more fond of the Keep and Castle though. I don't know why, but if there is an additional particle emitter that is supposed to be shown in the working animation on the Townhall, it just doesn't appear in the View in 3D. I may just grab these models to use for myself on a project when I feel ready enough to start on it.
 
if there is an additional particle emitter that is supposed to be shown in the working animation on the Townhall, it just doesn't appear in the View in 3D
Yea, Reforged uses particles specifically designed so that you can't reverse engineer them in a way that would allow displaying them. That's also why these particles will not preview on Retera Model Studio.

The format is not made by Activision, but rather licensed from another company. I emailed that company and asked if I could pay for a license to put into Retera Model Studio, but they said that this was not available and the only open source software they support rendering inside of is the O3DE from Amazon or whatever. This format used in Reforged is specifically designed to be immensely complicated so that it cannot be displayed other than in the intended places that have a license to the code.

Edit: that's also why the Reforged campaign was crashing after the 2022 patches, because this format is so complex even the folks using it at Activision don't always understand it, nor do they have permission to learn since it's from another company. Makes a guy miss the elegantly simple, single structure PRE2 chunks used by Frozen Throne models :p
 
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Yea, Reforged uses particles specifically designed so that you can't reverse engineer them in a way that would allow displaying them. That's also why these particles will not preview on Retera Model Studio.

The format is not made by Activision, but rather licensed from another company. I emailed that company and asked if I could pay for a license to put into Retera Model Studio, but they said that this was not available and the only open source software they support rendering inside of is the O3DE from Amazon or whatever. This format used in Reforged is specifically designed to be immensely complicated so that it cannot be displayed other than in the intended places that have a license to the code.

Edit: that's also why the Reforged campaign was crashing after the 2022 patches, because this format is so complex even the folks using it at Activision don't always understand it, nor do they have permission to learn since it's from another company. Makes a guy miss the elegantly simple, single structure PRE2 chunks used by Frozen Throne models :p
That explains that and the .pkb files. The lack of licensing is probably why we should keep everything custom that we make as nearly simple as the original TFT stuff.
 
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