ShinGouki

------------------EDIT June 2009----------------------------

Due to never having the time to devote to the project to get it to where I was happy I decided to make where I'd got to available to the public--

Here is the rough unfinished mod for those that want to play with it including source code. Do whatever you want with it.

http://uber-micro.net/eldar/craftworld_mod.7z
http://uber-micro.net/eldar/attrib.7z

Credit goes to those of you that helped back when this was worked on, special thanks to Stranger who made so much of the models possible. Sorry I never got to get it even close to where I wanted. This should not be viewed as a released mod, more as insight into a mid staged project and something for you all to play with rather than letting everything go to waste.

Many things were placeholders, textures, animations, fx etc... so don't waste time saying how much any of those suck please .



-------------Original post-------------------------------------
Ok not really posted any updates about my own mods in a long time. Believe it or not neither Harlequins or Craftworld eldar are dead despite my lack of advertising. Both have been progressing gradually and recently a burst of new art content gave me reason enough to come here and post some progress.

So first off I'll introduce you to what is tentatively known as the Craftworld Mod. *Unofficial name, yet to be decided suggestions welcome*

The primary focus of the first race in this mod is a generic craftworld eldar which aims to bring the true spirit and feel of eldar to Dawn of War along with numerous new content.

6 Aspects are now available and will be suited to their true dedicated roles. Seer council no longer exists *it's ulthwe craftworld specific after all*.

First up the boring stuff "Tech Tree"

Tech Tree Click Me

All units + weapons have been coded by hand from scratch and do not resemble the existing eldar race in any way other than appearance. No more warp spider / prism spam you'll need to use each unit carefully and with some level of intelligence. You will still be able to play against regular eldar if you are curious.

Now the stuff that people here tend to go in for. Screenshots.

First up we have the WIP War walker, this is kind of like an Eldar Hellfire Dread equivalent and serves a similar role in the craftworld army. This is WIP as the pilot canopy and pilot themselves are not attached yet. Upgrades will include bright lance, star cannon, shuriken cannon and scatter laser. Modelled by Vince Csizmadia.





Ok staying with vehicles for now, first up we have custom upgrades to all falcon variants. The falcon will now be in it's true role of tank hunter at tier 4.

From forge world for reference and from Eldar codex for code reference I bring you

Vectored Engines, Star Engines, Soul Stone, Holo Emitters, Crystal Targetting Matrix, Pulse Laser. The pulse laser model also replaces relics bright lance model in it's smaller variant. All modelled by Stranger of Blood Angels mod fame. WIP textures by myself.







Now we need some new tanks to use all these shiny new upgrades. Well fortunately Stranger has helped out here too. First widely regarded as the best troop transport in the 40k universe. The Wave Serpent.




I won't go into the details of how this unit works just yet. I'll save that information for later.

When you need to pin down the enemy from afar nothing beats the range and ensnaring capabilities of the Night Spinner artillery tank. Also modelled by Stranger.




When the enemy brings out his baneblades, stormblades etc.. However you need a beefier variant. You've all by now seen Catwell's Scorpion Mk II in action. However Stranger had allready been working on this monster for me and for the sake of variation between mods I will be using our vary own Falcon Variant. *Other mods will be welcome to use the fx and anims i made for Catwells Scorpion II however as it is a great model too*. Obviously seek Catwells permission first.





Now we wouldn't want the Infantry feeling left out with all these new shiny tanks to play with.

So first some changes to some well known familiar faces from Dawn of War.

This mod will feature a certain amount of randomised visuals to reduce the dullness of duplicated models.

First units for the makeover of this kind again by Stranger.

New warlock variants.




The banshee sword always kind of bugged me. So I bring you
New Banshee Swords




Now some of you older forum lurkers I'm sure will recognise the next bunch of units. Silent Mobius a long time ago allowed me the use of his Aspect Warriors.

Striking Scorpion, Alternate Fire Dragons, Swooping hawks + Dire Avenger *will be modified for use as an Autarch*



For comparison and reasoning about why I would go to the effort of using a new fire dragon model ill just use these comparisons they should speak for themselves.





If Silent Mobius still lurks on these forums and has any issues with me using his models could he please let me know immediately. I did get permission from you a very long time ago but it would be nice to know you are still willing to let me use these if you are still around.

Also I have rigged and begun texturing another unit modelled by Silent Mobius.. This should please the Rogue Trader day members of Relic forums.

I bring you the Ghost Warrior or Eldar Assassin droid as it is also known. This cute little guy should not be confused with the much bigger and tougher Wraithguard, it is only about one and a half metres in height and will be used in a similar role to the IG Assassin.

The texture is very very early in development so don't worry about the quailty just showing that it's teamcolourable allready.




Ok thats it for Craftworlds for now. Expect to see Wraithguard, New Storm Guardians with flamers + melta upgrades, new male farseer and other new toys in the not so distant future. Also I will be posting about Harlequins new content in here very soon for those who are unaware of that project.

Mirage Knight

Shin:

That's just...wow...I've been following the Craftworld mod for a bit and it's becoming VERY impressive.

Congrats to you and your team on the great work so far

havoc

ROX!!

alf

Tip my hat to you.. thats awesome!

Grabnutz

"zomg" just about sums it up

ShinGouki

Thanks for the positive response guys an encouraging start considering the people giving the feedback.

Right now onto progress on the harlequins mod.

First a quick recap. Harlequins have very scant information and over the last 15 years I've hoarded just about every snippet i could lay my hands on. Seing as Games Workshop want to leave these guys on the sidelines I decided to be a bit more liberal on the implementation of these guys. I tried to stick as true to the fluff as possible. But i still wasn't happy with the original models design going slightly against their descriptions from various sources. So here is my own intepretations, as drawn by GodRugal.

First here is the physical emobidement of the Laughing God himself, Cegorach or The Great Harlequin as he is also known.


He will wield dual pistols whilst firing.

The basic Choregrapher is the core harlequin trooper, playing many various roles in the play.



The starting scout type unit, sneaky eldar special forces if you like is the mime. They play the role of demons and other malign entities in the play.



And the modelled rendition of this concept.




He currently has close to 100 animations and growing . *Randomisation of visuals and anims will be a big theme for the Harlequins mod I wanted to show how unique they are as a race*

Next up is the heavy support infantry that most people know and love. The Death Jester. Now to be a little controversial here i wanted to show that in Eldar Society, men and women have an equal spread in almost all roles.

So i bring you the female death jester concept



And here is the model / textuer done by a very talented artist who works on our project when he has time. This is one of the male variants of the jester.




The concept for the relic unit "Spirit Walker" came from various mentions of this unit in fluff and is inspired from the revenant titan unit from forge world with a fair bit of our own artistic licence. Modelled version will come without the trogdor logo obviously.





Next comes the work of another extremly talented artist from Chile known on my forums as eeek

We went with a female Solitaire. One of the most feared characters in the 40k universe.




The late tier vehicle of the Harlequins is an adaptation of the vyper known as the mocking bird armed with a highly destructive Virbo Cannon.



These are backed up by the more lightly armed skimmers the harlequin jetbike. New version courtesy of Maestro robertus of Steel Legion fame. With our own rider, textured by the same guy that did the death jester.

First our old version for comparison *My very first unit modded into the game back in August last year*



And the new and improved version





And of course last but not least the model most of you probably remember from Harlequins is the Shadowseer based on Grant Yerkovic's conceptual artwork and modelled / animated / textured by AB.



And here's a sync kill to show what happens when a marine gets too close.

Shadowseer Sync Kill 1

Mirage Knight

That Shadowseer Sync Kill animation is really smooth

CrossOrion

How's this for a name?

Craftworlds: Dawn of The Eldar. :P

Nevin

So wait, this mod is.. Adding more to the Eldar, and adding a new race, which would be the Harlequins correct?

By the way: Great work.

ShinGouki

It's not so much adding to the eldar as an alternative representation of them.

*At least for the craftworld side it's two races as you said*

1) Craftworld Eldar
2) Eldar Harlequins.

I just put them both in the same mod now seing as I run both myself.

Think of Craftworld Eldar as being a bit like the difference between Steel Legion and regular guard. I'm going to be removing some squads such as Seer council, Avatar, Fire Prism possibly Vyper jetbike.

I basically just don't like the way Relic have made the Eldar tech tree and so I'm putting my own version of Eldar out there. I also know that most eldar fans have been dying to have the other aspects in the game as well as things like wraithguard so i wanted to make a tech tree that would allow you to use them but still stay balanced against the core races. Hopefully one day people will be facing off against Steel Legion with my Eldar .

As for Harlequins they are a totally new and independent race nothing like any of the races currently in DoW. For more information on them go to my site.

The Danse Macabre Site

alf

You just keep pulling out awesome work.. keep it up my friend!

davisbe

Shin... we freakin' love you man!
The Craftworld mod already has everything, no, everything I thought DoW eldar units were missing. As for the Harlequin mod, I initially thought, "Why waste resources on another Eldar offshoot?" But I am not stupid anymore!! I can't f-in wait!
to you, your team, and the non-team members who contributed!!!

Devarius

I am SO very grateful for this modding effort! I just cannot wait for this to finish. However, though I really don't want to criticize anything, i noticed that the solitaire's ears weren't pointy like eldar are supposed to have. Also, howcome you aren't modeling the wave serpent off the newer version? And I also have a small request that you allow the howling banshee exarch to use an executioner that relic decided to use as a witch blade. Everything looks great, harlequins especially. And have you thought of giving the exodites a shot (though I know there's so little out there about them) and perhaps the eldar pirates?

ShinGouki

Eldar pirates... well i won't say anything just yet but anway.

Exodites are on my craftworld list as part of the Alaitoc craftworld though to be honest it's highly unlikely ill ever make it to them other projects have much more priority. I'd rather finish one at a time to a high level.

As for criticisms, throw em at me I can take it . Yeah someone else pointed out that the ears aren't pointy enough. I'll have a word and see if we can't make the pointiness a bit more obvious.

New wave serpent you say... ? Care to link me to it I don't think I'm aware of it's existance I went purely off the one on forge worlds website assuming it was the most recent . Still time to change that if there is a nicer looking model out there, wouldn't really require any changes to the anims anyway so get me pics and ill see.

As for the executioner on the banshee exarch, well you'll be pleased to here thats her upgrade. She'll have a regular power sword and later upgrade to the executioner. This will have a random chance to do extra damage to commander armour + it will allow her to attack a small radius of models rather than a single target *Same effect as the power blades in my harlequins mod*

Thanks for the response Davisbe always notice your stuff on Mede's thread and generally around the mod forums . As for the eldar offshoot Harlequins was actually the primary project, I just decided to finally work on the Craftworlds as Harlequins has real trouble getting support and interest being such a vague and unsupported force.

Klaus88

*Darth Vadar voice* Impressive. Most impressive. * end Darth Vadar voice*

davisbe

I'm pretty sure the Harlequins mod has attracted some notice... it got mine!
I'm just now getting the hang of re-texturing, or I would happily offer assistance, but new textures are still scary.
Actually, if you have any blank models I could practice on, with reference pics, I'd certainly be game. Still, I'll keep you updated on my learning progress, and let you know when I feel ready to do textures worth drooling over. Cheers!

ShinGouki

You're welcome to practice on a model, even if something doesn't make it in doesn't really matter. As for retexturing existing models well there is room for that in the eldar mod as well. You can contact me at admin@thedancemacabre.com if you'd like to discuss it further. It's a very relaxed working environment on the mod, even if you just want to learn stuff thats fine too.

newghost

sounds great shin, infact your mod's work is looking as good as the TS mod's.

can we get some kind of progress bar on these great mods?

Hands_of_Fate

Excellent news Shin. I must confess that I worried a bit seeing no updates on the status of your mod. Thanks to for dispelling them.

Keep up the good (well, Eldar, anyway) work.

Shinryuu

I thought the Eldar assassin drone was gone and forgotten D:
It's so great to see the Eldar in their full glory. The DoW Eldar always felt broken simply because they are a specilized race missing a couple of their aspects.

In addition, the work being done on this mod is amazing... That you'd just drop a bombshell like this on the mod community is awesome. It really is of the highest calibre.

Finaldeath

I'm glad eldar are getting more attention then I thought. Looks really good

Tyconius

Mmm Eldar Aspect Warriors

Zany Reaper

Well it looks like I won't be modeling the wraithguard anymore!

maybe I should just screw modeling for all the other armies if everyone else is doing it. I'm useless if no-one's contacting me. Maybe I should just give all the modeling up & not bother with the new building I created specially for the scorpion

DarknessKnight

Hya Shin!!! Dude, ya just got in to my Heroes list... Im a proud owner of an Ultras army and a Harlequins Troupe. Since the Game went out i cryed my yes out for not having the Harlequins, but now, OMFG!!! Just got a few constructive criticism... Use the minis as ref for the Swoop Hawks, they're a bit weird on the helmets...

http://uk.games-workshop.com/eldar/gallery/18/

thudmeizer

Zany - please don't give it. Sometimes I wonder if the community needs a GRANT LIST which reveals to everyone what infantry/vehicles are being working on by the various teams so dupping does not occur OR is minimized. Zany, you just seem to be a victim of bad timing thats all. Look at it as a Max experiment and learning experience.

Zany Reaper

I'm still wondering what Catwells doing with the my Scorpion turret & weapons that I gave him. I hope he's mergin them so that I can use them.

If Shingouki wants, he can have my building.

DarknessKnight

if shinkouki is smart (and he is!!!) he will invite ya for his team... You can never have enough moddelers with talent...

Zany Reaper

I could try to make the construction animations for the building in Gmax too, that is, if Shingouki actually accepts & gives me the sgm & whe & whm files with luas of the finished building!

& of course, the Falcon with my Pulse laser bitz.

compiler

Awesome work, ShinGouki !
It's beautiful, the models are just right. I was disapointed by the recent evolution in Eldar design, but you just bring out once more the curved design seen in the Eldare of old.
Many thanks to you to bring us such beautiful units.
Plus, as a modder myself, I am amazed at the quantity of work you churned out ! I know most of these models are still 3dsMax WIPs, but it is already impressive ! Come on 100 animations ! That's really really awesome !
All thumbs up !


@ Zany Reaper, if you wish to join a mod team and work as a modeler/riger/animator, just click on my signature and apply in the forum... cause we need

Khorgor

totally impressing, finally some competent person takes care of the eldar!!
I especially like your harlequin concepts. and btw, is it just me, or does your great harlequin sketch looks a little like.. shin gouki (hair, arms, neck)? ^^

http://www.sfgalleries.net/art/sfa3.../SFA3_gouki.jpg

Zany Reaper

Compiler, I'm more of a freelance worker. Thing is that I have my own mod to work for, therefore I can trade any models that I happen to make that involve Marines & the Inquisition with you. As of such, nothing yet, except fot the IG heavy weapons team that I textured.

I'm more of a Xenos modeler & texture artist. I can also (try to) do basic animation (vehicles & buildings) in Gmax.

Devarius

Here is the newer wave serpent :

http://store.us.games-workshop.com/...&ItemNav=304528

And another picture:



I don't know which I'd prefer, but if you want to go with the latest design then that's it.

-Thanks

:bow2:

stranger

Well, seeing as we took the vechicle upgrades, the spinner and scorpion from forgeworld, I guess the serpent will stay their as well. Besides, I don't really like the new GW turret... It's too edgy compared to all those curves

Ficadin

Okay- first off- i registered w/ this forum for the sole purpose on keeping tabs on this mod! I think it looks incredible- Big Eldar Fan - The models for the night-spinner & scorpion are great- I cant wait to play them. Is this mod for Winter Assault or DOW? I really like the fact that the Falcon is being beefed up in this mod(i think). Keep up with the work & those screenshots coming. Cant wait...

-Noob, i know.

stranger

Okay, here's another update for the Craftworld mod.

First we have the War Walker, made by VinceCsizmadia




Mind, it's still a Work in Progress.


Next, you can see the briliant texture work by Catwell. Enjoy







And the last item of news for today- the wraithlords smaller brother. Texture by catwell, mesh by my humble self.

newghost

catwell has done awesome work, esplly that dragon.

thudmeizer

:omg: Eldar Aspect goodness!!!!!!!! Striking Scorps, Swooping Hawks, Dire Avengers, and the Termie eqivalents: The WraithGuards! <dies>

compiler

Excellent ! Brilliant work, especially on the textures !
Are they 512x512 maps ? Wonderful details !
Can't wait to see these in game.

ShinGouki

Originally done 1024, the ones you see are the scaled 512x512's .

soldit

I can see this mod suffering from the orginal deamon hunt syndrome, i.e. too many units. Pretty though.

thudmeizer

Shin is NOT DaemonHunters. He is FAR too organized and super-passionate than almost all of you can comprehend.

dreddnott

That's right, thud, almost all of us... :thumb:

I don't know much about these other Eldar aspects, so I expect to get quite an education with future Craftworld releases...

Looking very nice as usual. The textures are quite striking.

Zany Reaper

Wow, Shingouki churns out things fast. Wish I could do that with my Scorpion grav tank!

Grabnutz

Awe inspiring

Rudy86

great stuff keep on the good work

ShinGouki

As much as I'd like to I can't claim any credit for those particular models Zany. The war walker is by Vince, The wraithguard model and parts of the swooping hawk by stranger, the remaining aspects were modelled by Silent Mobius a looooooooong time ago and the texture work is by Catwell.

All i did was some skinning and some tweaking to the wraithguard texture *plus posed it but thats hardly anything* Of course thats not to say i'm not doing anythign with them but it's a lot more work before they are fully working in game .

As for your scorpion you are getting there, the first few units are always the longest, 9 months back I was the one always asking questions, getting OE headaches, getting confused with all the settings in max etc... and working out why things didn't work right in game. Stick at it and you'll get the hang of everything don't worry.

Thud + Dredd thanks for the show of confidence hope i dont' let you down. And yeah don't worry I am being very careful not to fall prey to the *lots of units = cool* problem.

Units only make it into my mods if they have a specific role. Wraithguard being a minor exception as a a unique single squad of 5 with a warlock leader *similar in role to say Mega Armoured Nobz* Currently the vyper and fire prism are allready slated for removal from the standard eldar tree, there is no avatar or seer council and the existing aspects are very different to relics. They will have a very specific battlefield role and it will be about combined arms rather than spam. Any units that seem like they serve no function during beta testing will also be removed and reserved for mini mods like the biel tan craftworld or possibly even just campaign missions. People of course will be able to use those spare models in their own mods so they don't go to waste.

Zany Reaper

Ah, I see! You're a big working team.

compiler

We know how well you manage crowded Tech Tree, ShinGouki. You did an awesome work on Steel Legion.

Please consider the following suggestion :
Why not making several races instead of one ? I mean one race for Biel Tan, or race for Saim-Hann, etc... This way, you could have a rather similar tech tree, but with different and specific units available for each craftworld.
As a rule of thumb, you could take the standard eldar tech tree and remove 1 standard unit to add 1 specific unit.

Delta7

Hey SinGouki,

One question Shin'...so now the awesomeness is out i the open...will you now stop pimping the psychadelic, morris dancing, tree huggers on our BA forum???!!!

In all seriousness everyone should be aware of just how many Mod's this guy is pushing into completion...without me constantly hounding him for new builds of the Blood angels Mod...there are many people who owe Shin a beer or two...I owe a keg at least

Now he will definately be sending Solitaire through the webway to my home address...for a little chat...ouch

Great models, great progress definately great news for the community

Cheers,