I'd rather keep the Valkyrie to just a multilas or heavy bolter, since it's for dropping troops in this case, not full on assault. Balance and all that.

As for the SR, I'm 99% sure it's based on the ones used by Scout Marines in Dawn of War judging by appearance. Other than that I have no information about it.

yea, dawn of war or most of relic games isn't really reliable for fully correct weapon lore at least.

i'm going to have a quick read in my brothers codex tomorrow to check up on the sniper


on the news of the spriting, i done some quick rushed gibs of the Valk Not fully keen on it since it only 4 pieces of Gibs but it will do untill myself (or anyone else if they wish) want to expand the number of gibs.

now to do the turret, i think i may go with bolters since Lasguns in the game seem's a tad overkill ( i sniped quite often with a normal lasgun let alone the sniper variant.)

speaking of heavy bolters, i'm thinking of spriting some Heavy bolter turrets (much like the dawn of war 2 turrets or at least the dawn of war 1 heavy bolter turrets)

Just curious if you wish to add these in.

For the Valk, I'd suggest getting some more feedback from others before proceeding. There are plenty of good spriters around you could ask... I know Kettenkrad is busy with other projects but he might be able to give you some critique.

As for turrets, maybe something smaller, around the size of the Coalition Gatling Turret? Big turrets are nice and all, but very impractical. Similarly, a small lasgun turret for the IG could be useful.

The Tarantula (featured in DoW2) is the best bet I'd say herr Lord. The one from the original DoW, or rather, the Forgeworld model that it is based upon, is essentially a light tank turret stuck onto a small bunker dug into the ground. The Tarantula is imposing but a good bit smaller.

Alright! I've more or less finished work on the Astartes' rocket launcher. Forgive me for not doing better shadework; I only used the standard colors of the Cortex Command pallete, and the shades of grey it offers are mostly nonvarying shades of black or slightly tinged grey. I did a very low-resolution mockup with the standard GraphicsGale pallete which had some nice shading, but that was of course a low-resolution mockup for practice and to put my idea into pixel before I improved upon it. It'd be simple, at least, to reshade the original empty version and then re-attach the rockets to it. It also may be a little TOO chunky; not sure if CC allows for faffing about with the size of each pixel relative to another, and the first mock-up version had too little detail and seemed too small in comparison to the rocket, so I scaled it up. This is the first sprite I've ever made, so if it's too shoddy to use, I won't be surprised. And it still needs gibs, muzzle flash and backblast. Thoughts, Mr. Arcalane?

You need to shade that, otherwise it looks like a flat 2d outline instead of a 2d object imitating 3d. There shpoudl be some decent spriting tutorials lying around in the stickies somewhere on here (mod making methinks?). The trick to a game pallete is that you have to see it like a 'game' and be willing to not get exactly the right colors you want.

It can't scale sprites, no, so those are way too large, and as Glowsticks says it definitely needs shading.

Keep trying. Can't be a master from day 1!

The gun and the magazine/rockets should be seperate objects. Look at some of the existing sprites. Personally, I use the GIMP and Duh102's palette file.

I know, Mr. Glowsticks, I know, but I'm just not quite sure how to work the in-game pallete to shade it properly. I'm submitting this base for critique nonetheless. I'd like to think I got the base shape alright- although it's too fat- but it is unusable without shading, aye. But since Cortex Command has a very limited pallete and won't accept any colors outside it, there aren't enough shades of plain gray for an inexperienced spriter to shade with. It's either flat or looks like a color-drained rainbow with the defaults.



Damn. So I'm left with a sprite that is much more than the needed size and a mockup which isn't usable because it isn't in the CC pallete. But the way I was thinking, was that the rocket object- which I looted from the existing sprites for the current launcher- would give me a reference to work from. Fits four of those, three visible on the rack. Thought that'd be roughly the right size for a Space Marine rocket launcher, approximately, but maybe not. How much of it do I have to cut away, sah? A fourth, half? Giving it another look, it's probably because I directly scaled it up from the mockup to double-size, but that's far chunkier than I actually need it to be to look like the rocket could fit. Maybe cut away a pixel or two at the top and bottom to start with, that might make it a little leaner while still being to-scale with the existing rockets from the 'portable launcher.'

But wait, this 'Duh102' fellow has managed to make an expanded pallete that CC can read? Perfect! Do you happen to have it on-hand?

I'm more of the old school kinda guy, i've always stuck with paint, any other tools tend to be far too.. Tedious for my liking, the general shape is alright so all i would suggest is get used to how to shade and get used to how to size things accordenly, i tend to use existing weapons and judge it based on that.
for example the grenade launcher i made was based on the lasgun where i just mainly cut and changes parts of it.

I have a tut on youtube about one of my old "iconing" test, (basicly 32x 32 sprites for BYOND) I done shading in some detail on it,

But you may want to mute it since it has my taste of music in it.. which isn't really everyone else prefer taste from personal experience, PM me if you want it.


in the meantime here the Valk with gibs and the Gun in a beta form, Just so you have it around in-case i don't improve it in time for the next release.

It's not that I can't shade, Mr. Kain. If you take a look at this miniature mockup I did before moving on to make the proper model, I did at least some rather basic shading- darker on the bottom, lighter on the top- for an illusion of three dimensions. And I suppose with some more experience I could figure out how to shade it in a manner which gives it a distinct shape without depending on the player not paying attention to the fact that the shading is entirely relying on its top and bottom facing upwards and downwards respectively to create an illusion of light and three dimensions. I'm just having trouble adjusting to using the CC pallete, because it's not organized properly. I say, do you happen to have a version of the pallete with the colors grouped and ordered in a convenient manner? Because that would really expedite the whole process, I think.

If you chaps want advice and / or help on spriting, head over to the Sprite Help Thread in Mod Making for (hopefully) some tips. A solid outline generally helps things stand out from the background, and, as mentioned before, good shading. The CC palette is indeed a little confusing, but you'll get used to it. If you can find a good reference pic, I'll take a stab at cleaning up your sprite a little.

EDIT: Nvm found a ref pic.

Guys I just skipped all your techical discussion.

So, can I have a BRIEF description of the craft?

It's a VTOL transport/gunship, with a dedicated gunship variant which sacrifices its ability to transport infantry for mo' dakka and manueverability. Has an extra-large PEW PEW laser, which is like an upscaled Hellgun, and two heavy bolters in the side doors troops jump out of. Looks like a mix between a 20th century aircraft, a jet, and a late 20th century gunship.

So it has like 20 billions of guns?

Ha ha, not nearly. Not by 40k standards. The Vulture gunship has roughly twice as much dakka. And then there's the tanks, which would be superheavy tanks by our standards- on the scale of, say, the Nazi Maus, but with a larger main gun and larger secondary weapons- and then there's the superheavy tanks, which are small landships by our standards. And then there's regular old landship-scale stuff, and of course, the Titans.

Depending on the angle you're looking at it from, it'll have either one or two side mounted heavy bolters, and a nose mounted lascannon.

In other news:

It only took a little while, but it sort of outlines my point on... outlines.