New Uniques and Legendaries - Brainstorming

[Silver_fox 398]

I forgot about the Inquisitor's weapon and armor selection for some reason. Well, on the bright side - there is no need to be concerned about his flowing robes if we decide to model an arm-protector-like shield.

 

As for looking strange with handguns - the modern clothes designs that Pesmontis made for the Elf (Range Array and the one that is a part of CM) look better with pistols than with pretty much everything else.

[Flix 5,184]

As for looking strange with handguns - the modern clothes designs that Pesmontis made for the Elf (Range Array and the one that is a part of CM) look better with pistols than with pretty much everything else.

 

Agree once again, and I also think that means a modern shield wouldn't look out of place on her in those outfits. So if you didn't mean a shield like that used by modern police, etc. what kind of modern look did you have in mind?

[Pesmontis 168]

> ".. look better with pistols than with pretty much everything else.."

Isn't it something?

Maybe with the Range Array set it was part of my intention, and with testing I was just lucky to have a Desert Eagle lying around. My highest level character doesn't even have one.. But it's true that I quickly adopted the combination for screeshots. In fact I should try a combination with fistweapon 'The Night', because the colors nicely match. And with a nice slight saber it doesn't look too bad either:

 

 

Or maybe she should always remain half submerged..:

 

[Silver_fox 398]

Agree once again, and I also think that means a modern shield wouldn't look out of place on her in those outfits. So if you didn't mean a shield like that used by modern police, etc. what kind of modern look did you have in mind?

No, it won't look out of place, but... well, you remember that picture you posted of an Elf with a Troll shield (now that's the one that should have been called "Unyielding Wall"). With the real Riot Shield she would look only slightly better.

 

As for what I wanted, I wanted to discuss the idea and see what the community can think of in regard to the shields. My own thoughts were about something that is classified as a shield but does not look exactly like one - like an armband, or a heavy gauntlet, or a throwing dagger in a shealth, or a shoulder holster (guess this one is not doable). Though maybe just a shield texture that does not look incredibly medieval can be created.

 

Maybe a tech-looking "Energy shield" - a semi-transparent energy field in a frame, is a good idea, though I know that LazyTomcat attempted it and ran into trouble with texturing the back side of the shield. Something akin to this Sacred 1 shield design looks like a good match at least to all T-energy weapons:

 

Anyway, it was just a thought, not something that has to be done. If no ideas for a specific designs would appear - the game now has a lot of good shields and nobody would complain if you won't implement more.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Silver_fox

[Pesmontis 168]

Ow yes, that looks very nice..

 

> ".. a semi-transparent energy field in a frame.."

That would be a bit of a challenge, a good idea anyway.

 

[edit]

I'm thinking: use a diffuse map with an Alpha channel for transparency and then use the 'SURFACE_FLAG_SHELLFX' with the surface..

Something like this might be checked quickly with the robe of 'Ilgard's Judgment'.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Pesmontis

[Pesmontis 168]

I think it will work like that, I quickly copied the green channel from the 'rj_inquisitor-bloodpoison-skirt_d' texture into a new Alpha channel & saved as DXT5. The surface definition I used is:

 

newSurface = {
  name         = "in-bloodpoison-legs_rj",
  texture0Name = "maps/heroes/inquisitor/sets/bloodpoison/rj_inquisitor-bloodpoison-skirt_d.tga",
  texture1Name = "maps/heroes/inquisitor/sets/bloodpoison/rj_inquisitor-bloodpoison-skirt_sg.tga",
  texture2Name = "fx/noise.tga",
  flags        = SURFACE_FLAG_TRANSPARENT + SURFACE_FLAG_SHELLFX,
  shader       = obj_trans,
}
mgr.surfCreate(newSurface);

 

Result:

 

[Flix 5,184]

That is so trippy. Very neat work. I had wanted to explore the possibility of some transparent armor, though not for the Inquisitor of course since he doesn't have a body under those robes.

[Gilberticus 374]

WHOA! Flix, remember how we were talking about see-through, ethereal armor? The lower robe is what I was talking about, I wonder if that effect can be duplicated on other armor?

[Pesmontis 168]

> ".. not for the Inquisitor.."

When I looked through surface.txt, the Inqui's bloodpoison robe was the first I saw with the SURFACE_FLAG_SHELLFX, so I just used that one for testing.

It's a good test, because the green lines for the effect are quite thin, so this means that we can use this to create good detail.

Also, because I used SURFACE_FLAG_TRANSPARENT, we can probably fade the effect much better than with SURFACE_FLAG_MASKED.

Not an easy job for the renderer though..

[Pesmontis 168]

Another idea might be to use SURFACE_FLAG_TRANSPARENT with the ball on To Mega Therion..

[Silver_fox 398]

I'm not sure whether or not it would be of help, but LT's attempts on creating an "Energy Field" shield are still on Mantis. He and Czevak discussed the possibility of using the texture effect of seraphim's Ancient Wings for the shield. It did not end all that well (not all that bad either), but may at least give some ideas of what works and what does not. It's the Lichtschild der Sophia issue.

[Yoshio 91]

Getting this shield or a similar one back from Sacred I would be just too cool!

I can remember when the first trailers for Sacred II had been out. If I'm not completely wrong therein we could see a Seraphim with this loved shield from Sacred I and after the community found out that this shield is not a item in Sacred II actually, some had been quite disappointed.

A shield which is a bit similar to the Seraphim one, are those you can see in Start Wars when the Gungan fight their battle. They also use energy shields.

One shield which is already in Sacred II and which might be a good start to play around with retexturing it, might be this oval metal shield which has a frame and a cross "inprinted" and therefore does show four "fields". Moddifying these four fields might make this kind of shield look amazing!?

[Pesmontis 168]

> ".. effect of seraphim's Ancient Wings.."

It's a bit of a hodgepodge really (multiple materials, transparency channels, and clearly can't use a z.shader with that effect).

I don't think that this effect fits a shield - if it would be used then I don't recommend a frame around it. And rather have it light inside & fading outwards.

 

With the ShellFX + Trans flags it shouldn't be too difficult to imitate the effect, it's just a matter of creating a texture for it with an Alpha channel. We might also use a volume texture..

 

> ".. Moddifying these four fields.."

Do you have an example / screenshot?

Edited March 27, 2014 by Pesmontis

[Silver_fox 398]

>"...I don't think that this effect fits a shield - if it would be used then I don't recommend a frame around it. And rather have it light inside & fading outwards..."

I agree with you. The shield would look better if designed like the one form Sacred 1 - a glow generator in the centre and fading shield outside. I linked that issue not because I like what was done here, but because it is good to see what mistakes other people did before, so as not to try those things again.

 

>"Do you have an example / screenshot?"

I believe that Yoshio meant one of these shields:

I guess he wanted to use the first one, but the second one can also fit.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Silver_fox

[Yoshio 91]

Silver_Fox, You are just perfect in guessing correctly what I wanted to say. The shield I had been talking of is exactly the last one.

As I said, maybe this could be used as a start as at least the shape does, accourding to my memory, come close to the original shield from Sacred I.

[Pesmontis 168]

I've created some examples for the model 'l_rundschild-f1' (yes, the round blue one that appears frequently).

I've actually taken out the texture2 "fx/noise.tga" and replaced it with "fx/color.tga", because the noise makes the shield look like it's made of glass.

 

 

 

In both these examples, the specular texture (sg) causes the light edge on the shield, so I've changed it:

 

 

That's strange, now it appears overall very bright.. I guess the second example looks best.

 

 

 

 

[Yoshio 91]

These do just look amazing!

[Silver_fox 398]

The second shield looks very very good. I wonder if it is possible to have a non-transparent round element in the middle ot the shield that would look like a shield emitter, or the transparency flag is applied to either entire texture or none at all. though maybe it just won't look good... Anyway, the second version makes for a spectacular design that would look quite good with different types of things. It's not exactly medieval and you can't tell whether it is magical or hi-tech creation, but either interpretation fits with the Seraphim, High Elf and the general atmosphere of the game.

[Dragon Brother 619]

That is some impressive stuff. Looks pretty!

[Pesmontis 168]

Idea for a new shield:

[Yoshio 91]

The name then should be for this shield, obviously, "The Irish", shouldn't it!?

[Pesmontis 168]

> ".. The Irish.."

Heh, good idea :-)

You know, with Google Translation this might also become "An Ghaeilge". Which definitely makes it more mysterious ;-)

[Flix 5,184]

Well, work on the mod continues onward to the next version! Here's an update with a new batch of unique weapons and shields. Extra thanks to Pesmontis for doing all the heavy lifting with importing these various models into the game!


Desert Rose
This sword reminds me of a flower or an ornamental vase. Silver Fox agreed and came up with this concept:
Desert Rose is a name of a flower-like crystal that appears in sand areas. It has slightly increased base damage and some amount of ice, so I guess the desert warriors who suddenly appear out of the sand would love such swords as they can keep them from overheating.

It now has a slightly more frosted/crystalline look to it than pictured here due to the addition of ice damage.




Phantasm
Probably my favorite new sword. This haunting two-handed weapon is a beast. The Attack and Defense are actually a single bonus unlocked by Sword Lore.



The following 4 swords are some more "inspired by Sacred 1" items. There were much more class-specific weapons in S1, that had their own flavor, so each of these brings some of that flavor over to Sacred 2. I treated the groups of character-specific swords from S1 like a pool of modifiers and names from which to draw.


Magol En Agar
To start with this is a Vampiress sword . It leeches life and energy from enemies and wounds them. This was Silver Fox's idea because this design already resembles some of her swords, as seen on the Wiki and in this artwork.


Bone Blade of Zhurag-Nar
Here is a sword inspired by the Dark Elf swords. It's focused on attack speed, efficiency, and Dual Wielding. Some poison damage was added to give a slight green toxic look.

 

Astral Longsword of Warlocks
This one is a Battle Mage sword. Magic-using sword specialists should like this weapon. The Chance to Halve Regeneration Time is unlocked by Sword Lore. Magic damage added to it gives it purple streaks of energy.



Heridon's Jade Saber
Finally we have a sword inspired by one of the S1 all-class swords. This sword has a large number of useful modifiers, but as a trade-off no extra sockets with which to customize it.

 

 

There are also 2 new shields coming to the mod:

 

Dyria's Canopy

Dyria D'Arquelyght is the empress of the Dryads, and this shield adorns various spots in Dyr-Leigh, the green tree-top city under her protection.

 

 

 

Amazonian Aegis

With this shield the wearer gains the protection and combat prowess of the legendary Amazon warriors.

 

 

Parabellum

One last thing, is that the Desert Eagle is now no longer the only pistol in the game. Now the player can fire a Luger as well. There are two stats pictures here, so you can see that the player will need the Ranged Weapons skill to get the most out of the gun.

 

And before you ask, no you can't really Dual Wield them or any guns, this pic was just from a test (if you tried to attack, you could only pistol whip enemies with them).

 

 

More updates coming soon! Some good, good stuff on the way....

Edited April 4, 2014 by Flix

[Dragon Brother 619]

Moar lewt!!

[Yoshio 91]

First of all thanks for another lovely Friday morning, because I could see some great stuff coming along our way!

But, is it just me or why do the characters hold all the new swords at the furthest end of the handle? Would it be possible to give them a more realistic grip position on the handle? I mean, everyone who does or did sword playing knows that in a one hand grip you hold the sword close behind the guard.

It would be very much appreciated if it could be changed.