Villagerino's Work in Progress

[Villagerino]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like all your case fans are exhaust fans (maybe with the exception of the top fans, but I can't see them)? Ideally speaking, the rear fan, side fans, and bottom fan should all be intake, and the top should be exhaust. Positive pressure in a computer case is always better than negative pressure. The rear fan would blow fresh and cool air on your CPU cooler, which is set up in a push-pull fan config. The bottom fan blowing fresh air onto the GPU fans, and the side fans blows even more fresh air into the case, creating the positive pressure. The top fans will then exhaust the naturally rising hot air, gaining optimal cooling capabilities.

I may be wrong about your fans, but if those fans are like normal other fans then they are most definitely all set to exhaust.

At first I thought you were talking about my followers as WC3 fans and I thought why should they be exhausted lol.

Well, I'm not sure what to answer, I only know that everything works fine and I have more then enough fans xD The build was tested by some trusted peeps who said that the air flow was alright and the CPU fans worked correctly

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

At first I thought you were talking about my followers as WC3 fans and I thought why should they be exhausted lol.

Well, I'm not sure what to answer, I only know that everything works fine and I have more then enough fans xD The build was tested by some trusted peeps who said that the air flow was alright and the CPU fans worked correctly

Haha alright, well, congrats on the new computer.

 

[Villagerino]

A few buildings I've been working on lately. These are Night Elven income storages for Tree Tag.

They must have 7 tiers and a 'Stand Upgrade' animation so I was looking for a shape that can let this happen and the pagoda shape seemed to work.

To add to this, tiers should be easily readable and the first 4 of them should preferably have one texture (High Elf), as well as the final 3 tiers (Night Elf).

These are rough sketches and experiments but might be inspiring for some
I only hope to find the perfect visual balance and nail it soon.

Cheers!

 

[Villagerino]

Say hello to a simple Uncommon skin for a smart Ent Engineer for the Tree Tag map!

Why not make the turbine run and emit some carbon to make a skin? This is exactly what the skin is called - "Turbine".
Some global sequence action here.

 

[Villagerino]

Speed Crystal

Among many other buildings Ents in Tree Tag will need this one - the Speed Crystal.

Initially there was only a Doodads\Icecrown\Rocks\Icecrown and bla-bla-bla crystal with no animation, base and team color, just a mere doodad.

Here I quickly combined a platform that Ancients use for their 'Morph' animation with the crystal. I also repositioned the roots, added a few curly smaller roots and left them with one-sided material so that when you look through the crystal you don't see the roots' inner parts

Time for TC but we'll make some "fake" TC.

When the model lacks detailed geosets just copy some parts of them you may find suitable, separate them and make the TC layer a bit above.

So here I copies the root parts, made them a TC layer, picked the bottom vertices (the top were left attached to the model, see the gif) and moved them up. Then I adjusted the size and shape so these TC parts look like they are in-built.

And here is the result:

Make sure to check this in-game or in the Sanity because sometimes when you put parts too close to each other they can glitch!

I decided to use the Ancient of Lore texture for the TC from its staff. It looks like a cloth wrapped around the root. Seems quite fitting

Here I put this building (just by simply copy-pasting it) into another building that has a 'Stand Work' sequence, stuff like Night Elven birth attachment point, rally point, collision and so on. Before deleting the previous building's geosets I set the visibility (because you can copy geoset's visibility, ez) and also left the 'Stand Work' particle emitter (that already has proper animation timings) for the latter

The building must have a square base and should be not much wider than a standard Moon Well. Here I can also adjust the height and see how deep the base of the building should stay under the ground (when you put buildings on cliffs their underground base details show up).

And of course I couldn't resist adding some bushes:

Definitely looks fresher now!

Let's go for our 'Stand Work' sequence.

There could be A LOT OF variations with various particle effects, glowing, texture animation and so on. But it's very important to keep the balance. I think I like this simple "wisp" glow effect thing and will remove the particles that go up.

And some in-game tests:

From this perspective, I realized that some details needed to be done differently or removed altogether. So I got rid of the fourth root with bushes which was behind the crystal.

Then I the revealed the crystal more to the eye by making it higher and by stertching the whole building: in the end, this building is more about the crystal than its roots and foliage.

And here we finally go:

A nice Night Elven pylon, isn't it?

Wait a second. I got some great advice from @Vinz and added a drop of his talent here:

That's what I call team work Thank you, @Vinzerino!

 

[Villagerino]

Ent Ranger

You've already seen Ent Mystic, Ent Scout and even Ent Engineer, what could be crazier, you ask? How about Ent... Ranger?

Mission. We need to create a model that is easily recognizable as an Ent Ranger, has a design that fits perfectly with the visuals of Warcraft, and also has a clean/edgy look to serve as a great base for future skins.

There are 9 general Ent classes in Tree Tag.

Pic 1. Class selector in the Fountain of Destiny.

See this bottom right icon? It's his!

The task of this Ent is to constantly distract the mighty Infernals from searching for other Ents, to constantly remain in the center of the map to save other Ents, because he is the only non-melee Ent! This sapling also has a range of useful spells that can win some time for him to escape the danger.

Here we took our Ent Template and made his branches grow wider:

See the difference?

Next we made some clothes for our sapling:

This hat, a bycocket, with a feather on it will resemble one of the most popular archer images of all time - Robin Hood!

Here we re-texture the clothes, added a feather and a bow:

Yes, green is the color we need to further develop Robin's Hood charisma.
We also decided to use the popular shape of a bow among the Night Elves but we replaces those round spheres with the Priest's texture.

Next we put on a quiver and re-texture (AncientOfTheWind.blp) the bow:

Now he looks almost like a real old-school archer, doesn't he?

On the left gif you can see regular attacks and on the right we are preapring a shooting one:

You might have also noticed that we added a small sharp Robin-styled beard to the chin.

To make this attack beautiful, we constantly spied on how the Elven Archer was shooting:

We also need to show this impulse of retraction in the hips and branches of our Ent.

Looks like he's ready, you say? No, guys, we need 3 more 'Spell' animations. Yes, THREE, to shoot more arrows.

About the same.

Let's copy our 'Attack' sequence and make the pose have more pathos:

See how our Robin Wood is trying to pull the string tighter? We need to make it look like he's charging up a magical bolt.
But what are those magical bolts? They are Poison Arrow, Frost Arrow and Stun Arrow.

To keep things warcrafty let's use Blizzard's Frost and Poison arrow effects. This way we can make a smooth transition after the shot (since a missile will appear at some point):

Ah, hard we tried and here we go! Now the Ent is 100% ready to shoot his first Frost Arrow.
The visual effect decreases and becomes less and less transparent the closer the shot is, like the Ent is gathering some magical force on the tip of his arrow.

Let's add some particle effects (taken from the missiles) and make an 'Attack Spell' for our Poison Arrow:

Nice! The posture is cool and the animation also looks fine.

It's time to check out how the shots look in-game and work with real in-game missiles:

Seems like it's working well. Good!

We had to set all the 'Spell First, Second, Third' parameters exactly as it was in the the 'Attack' sequence. Thus, the sapling can have the same 'Animation - Cast Point' parameter and his spells will appear as special shots.

The final 'Spell' sequence is left and it's the Stun Shot! So let's make a Stun Arrow:

We took Blizzard's Storm Bolt, changed this and that and got this arrow.

But how do we show that this is a stun shot? And here's the answer:

1. Change colors. 2. Add a stun effect. 3. Make it billboarded (seen from different camera angles).

A short in-game check, please:

All three 'Spell' sequences work fine. Great!

We also need some other animations like 'Spell Throw' for the Sentinel spell, 'Stand Ready', ect.:

Remember that the 'Death' sequence should inherit its opening keyframes from 'Stand Ready'!

To further support the image of our forest bandit we added a smirk:

We also made a thin face and slightly narrowed cunning eyes.

The Ent Ranger has his class building and also a few cool skins. So stay tuned if you don't want to miss them!

---

Thank you all for your attention and I sincerely hope you enjoyed our little journey!

I look forward to seeing you again!

Best regards,
your Robin Wood

 

[Tuwnew]

Magnificent!

 

[Villagerino]

Skins for Ent Ranger

A few skins for Tree tag for this guy.
This is an Uncommon skin called Golden Eagle Bow:

This bow's texture is taken from Warcraft 1 and I stole it from this user @Rhapsodie because he was using it too often!

And this is an Epic skin called Golden Eagle, featuring a cool set of armor, some particles and an omnilight:

"This Ent is so proficient with weapons that he was entrusted with an epic and elegant bow of the Golden Eagle, and now he has clearly become much more confident in himself."

And this is an Epic Black Lion skin, featuring the same cool stuff as above:

"This masterful Ent Ranger was entrusted with a powerful and elegant bow to conjure infallible enchanted arrows."

Some Paladin and Lord Garrison armor textures here. For the string shine I used Flare.blp which can be found in the standard MPQ in the

folder. How did I made these particles along the string? I looked up for it in @Vinz's amazing frost bow attachment!

By the way, I made these skins for winners and participants of the Tree Tag fall tournament. If you'd like to watch some competitive custom map games here's a list of games with commentary and a nice streamer's UI: 2023 Fall tournament playlist!

 

[Carefree World]

Skins for Ent Ranger

A few skins for Tree tag for this guy.
This is an Uncommon skin called Golden Eagle Bow:
View attachment 463861View attachment 463862
This bow's texture is taken from Warcraft 2 and I stole it from this user @Rhapsodie because he was using it too often!

And this is an Epic skin called Golden Eagle, featuring a cool set of armor, some particles and an omnilight:
View attachment 463863View attachment 463865
"This Ent is so proficient with weapons that he was entrusted with an epic and elegant bow of the Golden Eagle, and now he has clearly become much more confident in himself."

And this is an Epic Black Lion skin, featuring the same cool stuff as above:
View attachment 463864View attachment 463866
"This masterful Ent Ranger was entrusted with a powerful and elegant bow to conjure infallible enchanted arrows."

Some Paladin and Lord Garrison armor textures here. For the string shine I used Flare.blp which can be found in the standard MPQ in the View attachment 463867 folder. How did I made these particles along the string? I looked up for it in @Vinz's amazing frost bow attachment!

By the way, I made these skins for winners and participants of the Tree Tag fall tournament. If you'd like to watch some competitive custom map games he's a list of games with commentary and a nice streamer's UI: 2023 Fall tournament playlist!

I love your golden eagle bow the most.

 

[Villagerino]

I love your golden eagle bow the most.

By the way, most of the winners chose Black Lion, but I personally like the Golden Eagle skin more

 

[Vinz]

Fantastic! Always loved your style. ♥

By the way, most of the winners chose Black Lion, but I personally like the Golden Eagle skin more

Black Eagle as a middle ground?

 

[Villagerino]

Fantastic! Always loved your style. ♥


Black Eagle as a middle ground?

Thank you!
Or call it Desert Eagle lul and just give him a pistol

 

[Tuwnew]

Lord Garrison lmao

 

[Villagerino]

Lord Garrison lmao

 

[Tuwnew]

Never trust a Bestiary.

View attachment 463961

Anyway, pretty neat stuff as always

 

[stein123]

This bow's texture is taken from Warcraft 2 and I stole it from this user @Rhapsodie because he was using it too often!

I maybe wrong, but i'm sure that golden eagle texture is actually from the old Hearth of Storms mod, specifically from the crusader's model helmet

 

[Villagerino]

I maybe wrong, but i'm sure that golden eagle texture is actually from the old Hearth of Storms mod, specifically from the crusader's model helmet

Let's see... Here's the texture:

Called wc1knight_helmet.blp. You must be right

 

[stein123]

Let's see... Here's the texture:
View attachment 463968
Called wc1knight_helmet.blp. You must be right

Yup, WC1Knight's fancy hat

 

[deepstrasz]

Yup, WC1Knight's fancy hat

More like Heroes of Might & Magic V knight:

https://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/48/47905/thumb_620x2000/KNIGHT.png

https://cliosport.net/attachments/h5_game2009-09-2322-12-42-51-jpg.593993/

 

[Villagerino]

Yup, WC1Knight's fancy hat

A whole separate texture for the helmet, so much honor. They still use it in some ways

More like Heroes of Might & Magic V knight:

https://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/48/47905/thumb_620x2000/KNIGHT.png

https://cliosport.net/attachments/h5_game2009-09-2322-12-42-51-jpg.593993/

Yea, I definitely like Heroes 5 aesthetics Seems like winged helmets is a thing lul.

 

[Deolrin]

I wonder if Heart of Storms was in development before HOMM5 came out.

 

[Villagerino]

Rune Ent

Mission. We need to create a model that has a very unique appearance because this is a secret class Ent!

There are 9 general Ent classes in Tree Tag. But Shrune Ent is very special and has a number of abilities that can make a huge difference in the game in the right hands: for example, Rune Obelisk, which summons and saves an Ent that is being pursued by the evil Infernal.

Sometimes it's best to start by creating a concept model so you can visualize your idea:

Why is he a shroom? This is a bright model that does not have foliage or branches, which stands out from the ranks of ordinary Ents, but is ideologically connected with nature (and mushrooms that play an important part in Tree Tag gameplay).

Fine! It's time to find some fitting runes for our dude:

These are cool but not TC, let's see what else we can find.

These are colored.

And uncolored TC runes are only a few so that our dude won't have a good variety of them but he must because he's a RUNE Ent!

What to do, what to do...

We also spent plenty time with @Deolrin in order to find something fitting. (He is a very wise troll that knows a lot of textures, so you can you can poke and disturb him, hehe.) By the way, he has models of fly-agarics, whose caps he made from the texture of a ladybug:

Brilliant and simple! Tree Tag still uses those.

Oh, how about this one? Let's take some runes directly from his obelisk ability:

Yeeesh, this is Icecrown_Obelisk.blp! See this line of runes on the right? We're going to use it right now!

Okay. Now he has a huge noticable hat that can carry rune texture, very handy!

So here we continued to develop our concept art, and we added TC runes: we needed that team color that doesn't get covered by a hat.

This looks... kind of good, but the connections between the textures are quite rough. We can clearly see this Icecrown Obelisk stone cracks.

Let's create a few layers for the hat and try to use some wrapping techniques to make things look cool:

Here we added and then cut things into several separate geosets so it's easier now to manipulate the textures.

Now let's connect our geosets to see what we get:

Hmm, this looks fine. Kung Lao must be proud of him now!

We can further simplify the hat so that the edges of geosets blend and become one whole thing:

We carefully matched the dark edges of the textures and dark spots to each other to make a smooth transition between textures. Nice!

Oh, do you remember the initial shroom model by Blizzard? It has a cool shine made via texture animations. Let's make our Ent shine as well:

We just used Magos to make the same thing work for us, easy.

You can also see the portrait and how glowing the eys are now:

That's because we didn't touch the eyes and let them stay in their own geoset. We also wrapped the face the way as if our Ent has a semblance of a nose and eyebrows, and then our brain itself will draw the rest

Personally, I like the look of this Ent, it is one of my favorites, for me it is very laconic and bright. I love its simplicity and uniqueness.

Time to let this Ent have a walk with his fellow brothers and meet new friends:

From now on he will never feel alone!

(I can also make some alternate animation when he transforms into a mushroom and can pop up back to become a Shrooment again. But for the map it's redundant. Maybe when I upload the model )

 

[MasterHaosis]

I like how it switches color shade, that pulsing!