Cuirass Pack

[Grey Roger]

@Athanasius has created a lot of new texture files which are versions of previously existing textures, with added armour. You can download the pack from here:
http://piratesahoy.bowengames.com/potc/Grey Roger/Cuirasspack.rar

The filenames are all just numbers. You'll need to examine the files with TX Convertor and try to find a set which matches the model you want to armour. Alternatively, find any texture files which are the same layout as the one for your model; then use Photoshop, GIMP or your choice of picture editing software to copy the armoured parts from these files to yours.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Cool!
I hope some good use can be made of this.
Would be nice to see more armoured variations make their way into the main mod.

 

[Grey Roger]

Would be nice to see more armoured variations make their way into the main mod.

As you wish.

This has put me in mind to make armoured textures for the models used for the officers in "Ardent", but they're not story-specific models so they can be used by anyone. First is "9S_Pir", used for Louwe Louman, whom you'll meet if you choose to play as action/adventure/romance hero:


There's nothing suitable for this model in the cuirass pack, and when I tried to apply armour of my own, I found out why. That long coat hangs out from the main body and appears to break the armour. If I shorten the armour to limit it to above where the coat separates from the body, it appears to leave half his stomach unprotected. So I clipped off all the armour where it overlapped the coat, leaving only that part of it over his waistcoat, which makes it look as though he's wearing the coat over the armour.

Next is Gheerkin Kamalaas, Louwman's evil counterpart if you choose to play the black-hearted sea-robber. His model is "33_Ronal2", and there are textures for this one in the cuirass pack. In fact, his "armour" is just a harness, with only his back protected by armour plate. There are a few other models with similar armour. Some of them have studded gloves for the battle armour and gold armour, so I copied the gloves into these textures.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ooh, nice ones!

 

[Grey Roger]

I couldn't find anything in the cuirass pack suitable for "korsar1", the model used for the second officer you get while playing as hero Ardent, so I made something based loosely on the armour add-ons used for the various "Blaze" models:


They're back to front. Blaze's front plate has a fleur-de-lys, which isn't all that suitable for a model being used for an officer who is not friendly to France. Without that, the front plate is less detailed than the back plate. So I put the better detailed plate on the front.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ooh, that's clever!

 

[Jack Rackham]

How about stretching the front plate a little upwards and adding a little more detail to the straps
holding the two pieces together. Maybe use some belt texture. Just a suggestion.

 

[Grey Roger]

The front plate did originally extend further up, but the animations do silly things near the shoulder and he appeared to have very flexible armour! One of the "idle" animations still looks odd but the armour now looks reasonable for the rest of his actions.

 

[Grey Roger]

The villain of the "Ardent" storyline, Piers Downing, now has armour as well:


Piers Downing uses the same basic model as Artois Voysey, just with a different texture. That means Artois Voysey can use the same armour.


The fleur-de-lys symbol is appropriate here. Piers Downing is secretly in league with the French, and by the time you see him in armour, it's not secret any more. And Artois Voysey is French. (I might change the symbol on the "Add_Armor" textures for Nathaniel Hawk, who starts off serving Britain, specifically Silehard, and doesn't necessarily switch allegiance 180 degrees. Maybe replace his fleur-de-lys with a hawk symbol, such as the one on his Personal flag.)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The fleur-de-lys symbol is appropriate here. [...] And Artois Voysey is French.

Is the Artois Voysey model unique to him or is it available for generic characters as well?

I might change the symbol on the "Add_Armor" textures for Nathaniel Hawk, who starts off serving Britain, specifically Silehard, and doesn't necessarily switch allegiance 180 degrees. Maybe replace his fleur-de-lys with a hawk symbol, such as the one on his Personal flag.

The Standard storyline intends to support the player playing for any nation, so sounds like a really good idea!

 

[Grey Roger]

Is the Artois Voysey model unique to him or is it available for generic characters as well?

Random characters walking around town might use the same model but they won't have armour. The model can, of course, be chosen for your FreePlay character. The model definition for "BadV" in "initModels.c" had the "name" and "lastname" attributes for Artois Voysey but they've been commented out.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Random characters walking around town might use the same model but they won't have armour.

Fair point.

If I recall, Artois used to have a very generic texture, but @Petros or @CatalinaThePirate made a custom one for him.
Would it be worth making that custom one unique to him?

 

[Grey Roger]

Artois originally used the stock game's "man6" model. "BadV" is more or less the same model with a more evil-looking face - perhaps not appropriate as he's supposed to be the good guy?

"BadV" isn't the only model which is used by a sidequest character and whose "name" and "lastname" lines are commented out. "50_33_40Claire" is Claire Larrouse's model, for example; and "maltese" is Jaoquin de Masse (who also has custom armour, and has had for a while). The most sure way to prevent a character model from being chosen at the start of FreePlay or bought from a tailor is to set the nation to "Broken", which is why you can't play as Fred Bob.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

"BadV" isn't the only model which is used by a sidequest character and whose "name" and "lastname" lines are commented out. "50_33_40Claire" is Claire Larrouse's model, for example; and "maltese" is Jaoquin de Masse (who also has custom armour, and has had for a while).

If I recall, I only added those "name" and "lastname" lines to indicate to the Modders which character that model is mainly used for.
We could make them fully unique, but the big question is: should we want that?

The most sure way to prevent a character model from being chosen at the start of FreePlay or bought from a tailor is to set the nation to "Broken", which is why you can't play as Fred Bob.

Personally, I'm not really fussed about the player character and tailor shops.
Main thing I was wondering is random encounters.

 

[Grey Roger]

How about stretching the front plate a little upwards and adding a little more detail to the straps
holding the two pieces together. Maybe use some belt texture. Just a suggestion.

Though I can't extend the plate upward without running into animation weirdness, I can add detail to the straps. Looking at Nathaniel's armour, there is a big stud where the strap meets the armour. In fact, it has the big stud at the front and the group of four small studs at the back. I didn't realise that when I was adapting at the "add_armor" files to the "korsar1" model so I put the four small studs at both ends. Now I've added the big stud at both ends and improved the contrast on the small studs to make them more visible:


Meanwhile here's Nathaniel in one of his alternate outfits, with the fleur-de-lys replaced by a black version of the hawk from his flag:


That could just as easily be an eagle. It's not a proper Russian eagle, which has two heads, but it's still more appropriate than a fleur-de-lys given that the description for the standard "blaze" outfit used by Nathaniel by default is "Give me something with black trousers and vest, in the Russian style."

 

[Jack Rackham]

Now when the straps not are overlapping the armour the plate doesn't look so low placed.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Meanwhile here's Nathaniel in one of his alternate outfits, with the fleur-de-ly replaced by a black version of the hawk from his flag:

Nice one! Looks fitting.
It also makes me think it may be Prussian, but I might be way off there.

Either way, Prussian or Russian is only one letter different.
And given the background of the game, Russian is certainly very appropriate.

 

[Grey Roger]

Meanwhile, back to the original cuirass pack, which includes some more armours for "Danielle" type models. The standard "danielle", "daniell1", "daniell2" and "daniell3" models already have armour (see Armoured Danielles) but the armour can be copied onto the textures of other "danielle" variants.

And not just "danielle" variants. Valerie Downing now has armour:

There's a different battle armour for "danielle" models in the pack but adapting it to this model proved too difficult. Since everyone else's battle armour and gold armour are the same except that the gold armour is shaded yellow and the batttle armour isn't, I just copied the gold armour, desaturated it, raised the brightness and contrast a notch or two, and called it done.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It does look very nice!

 

[Grey Roger]

Finally I managed to get something usable for "corsair3", used for Giraldo Annibal's evil counterpart, Morys Badlad:


It's not perfect but it will have to do. The model does weird things around the shoulders. It's not even the same weirdness on both shoulders. In an attempt to get some idea of how to arrange a strap for the armour, I copied the belt and sash from the right shoulder, flipped it, pasted it to the left, and even that was weirdly distorted. So the left shoulder strap for the armour is just basic black leather without any texture. The back is also a lot plainer - I copied the gold armour from a texture file I'd found in GoF, and that armour also has a plain back. (In fact, the original isn't even gold on the back.) So the armour looks a bit patched, which is fair enough, as this character probably got it second-hand, so to speak, and had to do a bit of repairing.