Orazio's New Galleon: The Sant'yago (Saint James)

[Stéphane]

Sorry to hijack Staphane’s query on the mega patch, but the new version of GOF ERAS2 (1.6.0) is very close to release and this topic has become more of a feature thread showcasing Orazio’s new galleon based on Landstrom’s drawings extracted from a contemporary model in the Naval Museum of Madrid. The meat of the discussion and illustration of Orazio’s incredible work is below.

Again apologies Stephane, but you don’t have long to wait now!

MK

Hello guys, i was looking for all your great work from a long time now, and i read the mega patch will be up this month …

Can anyone confirm when it will be available ?

• This topic was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by modernknight1.

[modernknight1]

I have been working on it. However some major real world issues have prevented me from finishing. The water main has broken below my foundation (slab) in my house. I have no water and we have been digging under my foundation. This has been consuming all of my time for the last week. Sorry. This has been very destructive. It has flooded the backside of my house.

As soon as it is all repaired, I can get back to finishing up the patch.

MK

[Stéphane]

Hope your real world issues are fixed by now, any ETA for the patch ?

[Orazio]

I see there is still almost no activity here… which is kind of disappointing!

Anyway, I’ve recently decided to model a ship for this game, after too much time thinking I wasn’t ready yet.
So I picked a spanish galleon from 1540 (according to the tables), without knowing if it’s already in the mod (that I don’t have installed right now, so I can’t check; besides, I think 1540 is outside the time frame of ERAS2).

Still working on it, this is the progress so far:

[Devoidbrah]

Looking GOOD!!!! Is the polygon count still moderate? Seeing as this looks so nicely polished.

WoW, just WoW!

Im having some issues though In my game with the boardings, with the new interiors the waypoints are inverted so you spawn below deck and the npcs cant fight eachother. I will upload a pic soon to display this. maybe Theres already a fix or did something wrong 😛

[modernknight1]

Sorry Gents on the ETA for the new patch. If anything my personal problems have got even worse than before. I am hoping to have time over the holidays to get everything finished and over to Jeffrey for a new full complete version of the mod.

Several new ships are in the works. I just saw the pics of Orazio’s new galleon. All I can saw is WOW!!!! Just FREAKING WOW!!! I have ALWAYS loved that ship. I have plans for it and Bjorn Landstrom features it in his landmark book on the history of ships.

@ ORAZIO: You are giving me the will to continue when I have been totally burned out on life. Ships just have an effect on me which I cannot put into words.

This is indeed a galleon from the 1540-1560 era. It will be perfect for MoD1 and can still be found as a rare surviving ship in MOD2. You have totally made my day, my week and my month. Thank you Mate!

A lot of new stuff almost ready to go up if I can just get some free time tonight. My father saw the doctor today and is much better. He’s got an oxygen machine now and I don’t have to change his bottles every hour or two. If he will go to sleep early tonight maybe I can get some work done. I am getting a nurse to come check on him everyday as I have to leave here in a week.

Maybe Dennis is right and you will all get a Christmas gift. I will try hard to make that happen.

MK

[Orazio]

@devoidbrah In that picture the triangle count is around 10k. I checked some of the other ships made by other modellers, and see they can go up to 70/100k; somebody on the other forum recommended a maximum of 100k. Now, I think 100k may be a bit too much, because usually in the game there are more ships together, so I plan to use a much less number of triangles, below 40k (but actually I still have no idea of the final polycount!).

@modernknight1 Didn’t expect this effect, but I’m glad I gave you motivation!
In the site where I downloaded the plans, they say this galeon – called Sant’Yago – was based on the researches of Bjorn Landstrom and on a model in the Naval Museum of Madrid. So you recognized it just by looking at an unfinished model! You’re truly an expert! (though I never doubted that :D)

[Orazio]

A small update on the ship:

The rigging took more time than I had expected, and I was starting to hate it!
There are still things missing, but it’s slowly coming together.
And of course those aren’t the final colors, texturing will come later.

[Jeffrey]

Orazio, I agree with Schiavonna. That ship is stunning. Seriously great work so far.

[modernknight1]

Orazio Mate, I am going to go out on a limb here and tell you that I am having a somewhat dramatic emotional response looking at your model. It nearly brings tears to my eyes and I am not kidding when I say that.

Lets take the “way-back machine” back to 1972(3). My father was a musician and I got dragged across the country as a small child. Much of the time we would spend months in hotel rooms because my Dad’s contract would get picked up for additional months. I got LEGOs for my 4th birthday and loved ships because my mother had bought me the How and Why book of Ships (which I still have). So I built ships out of my LEGOs. We returned to Idaho Falls (my home town) that Christmas and unbeknownst to me my Mom and Dad bought me several model ship kits at a now long out of business retail store known as TEMPO.

I had turned 6 years old in November. On Christmas day I was presented with the PYRO models of Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria…. and…. the Madrid (Landstrom plans) Spanish Galleon you are now building. My father helped me (did most of it) with the kits and I would play with them in the bath tub. These little models held up for years and I took great care of them. I had them until my teens when they disappeared after I moved out of the house when my parents split up at 14 years old.

That ship model was by far my favorite and I always wished they would produce a larger model kit of it. On my bucket list are plans to eventually scratch build a version of it into my old age.

Recently I have been trying to acquire as many of the old kits still available and have been somewhat successful. Amazingly these things still turn up on e-bay. Just this week a box arrived at my house and inside is a pristine 1960’s version of this same model still in its original box. I plan to slowly build her with meticulous accuracy over the next month or two. Here it is:

I have another version of a different Spanish galleon I have been building for years which is RC remote control capable. She already has ballast and floats perfectly. She has an external engine that attaches to the keel and both the rudder and masts all move. The rigging will all be elastic so that it will flex as the sails move back and forth. Only the rigging remains left to complete. Once the next version of the ERAS mod is complete I plan to start working on her again at the same time I work on the new world map and ERAS mod 1 and 3.

The pictures you show for paint scheme are perfect and the correct ones. It would be nice if you could have three separate skins as we have for most the other models. A clean wood colored one as you already show would be nice with only the shields on the gun wales colored. In addition, an nice dark tar coated version would also be very appropriate as Schiavona mentioned. The galleons in the tropics were often very dark.

I took these great picture myself at the national gallery not too long ago. Its a painting of a small Dutch galleon (probably a zee roover privateer) chasing a much larger fleeing Spanish Galleon circa 1600 timeframe – so a few decades after your galleon, but I love the wood coloring in this painting.

Thanks so much for the renewed inspiration! I greatly look forward to your completed work.

This next version of the mod will be the best so far. I have lost count of all the new ships going in!

MK

[Orazio]

I had no idea of the meaning that this ship has for you. I just picked it (almost) randomly from a website that had a bunch of plans: I was looking for something not very complex, and also a ship that isn’t too famous, as I wanted to do something unique.

The ship is definitely the one in the box you showed, but on the plans it’s not called Madrid, rather Santiago de Compostela, and on the stern it’s painted what I believe to be Santiago Matamoros, on his horse killing Muslims (I don’t mean any offence to them here, it’s an iconographic representation).

About the paint schemes, I wasn’t really planning others apart from the one I showed, but if it won’t take too much time I may consider doing also the other two you suggested.

And your real model looks good! I looked at many different real models as a reference for parts I wasn’t sure about, and also checked different modelling forums. Sometimes the problems and challenges faced by a real modeler are very similar to those faced by a 3D modeler, so I think there’s a lot in common.

[Schiavonna]

Wow!! Orazio…that is breath-taking! The rigging looks fantastic, as much as you may find it frustrating, it’s starting to pay off well. Very professional 🙂

Early days yet – but regarding texturing, I hope you go for the deep, dark wood look. Already looks gorgeous with your first “coat”.

Seriously mate, that is stunning!

[Orazio]

Thanks for the appreciation.
For the colors, I have found at least three images that show the same color scheme (which I find pretty good), so I believe that is accurate and will be using that.

[modernknight1]

Orazio, Actually I wasn’t referring to the model as being named the Madrid. I was referring to it as the Madrid model. This is because the later plans that have been extracted from that model by naval architects and artists serve as the basis for the later Landtrom (your) model.

I have never seen the model in person only in diagrams and photos. It appears in Chatterton’s 1924 book on ship models. It also appears as a figure in Landstrom’s book.

There are some new screenshots up on my flickr showing a couple of the new ships. I have all of the ship models that I can’t do anything with bundled up into a rar attachment and will be getting those to you today. I did get MAYA working again, so the pseudo Wasa model I was working on is almost finished as well. Let me know if you want to get your new ship into the next version. Jeffrey and I are nearing completion in the next few days.

I have new articles published and just tweaking them now. They will appear on the site later today. Your galleon is front page news!

On the Santiago Compostela image – check out the stern of one of the skins of the Flemish Galleon and also check out the stern of one of the War Caraccas in the game. There are two different version of Santiago de Compostela on those sterns. One of them shows decapitated muslims being trod underfoot. He was very popular at that time and would be fitting for your galleon as well.

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by modernknight1.

[Orazio]

I started to texture it, doing the colored version first. I’m organizing the psd files in a way that will allow me to easily create the other two paint schemes (one like the first two images of the ship I posted here, and the another one pretty dark).

Here is the texturing work till now:

And this is a quick and dirt render I did some time ago to have an idea of the dark version:

If the patch will be completed in a few days as you say, that’s not enough time for me. I think the patch should be released when it’s ready without further delay because of my ship, that I’ll release later separetely.

[modernknight1]

WOW! Incredible Orazio! I am in love with your work and this gorgeous beauty of a vessel!

Yeah don’t worry about getting it in the new release. I told Jeffrey I want to try to release the new full mod by Friday or Saturday. Its a lot of work getting so much new stuff all packaged into the game. Very time consuming.

BTW Jeffrey has changed the code so that we can get even more skins than just the base three. So a bunch of extra skins I’ve had for a long time that I didn’t like quite as much as the others will finally be seen in the game. There are numerous ships now with working Hull4 and Hull5 folders in this upcoming version. All this to say that if in your work to get skins done for the ship you eliminate ones that you aren’t totally happy with, they can still be included if you still think they are good.

Still gonna feature your ship on the main page though.

MK

[Orazio]

I’m not sure where to post this, but I’ll continue here since all the images of the galleon are here. A small update.. still texturing it, I’m slow but it’s coming along.

In these screenshots there are still things that need to be finished and refined, but they show the progress. Unfortunately, the ship will look a little worse in game because I rendered these images with a very good render engine included in 3DS Max; in AoP there aren’t even shadows on ships and the light is very simplified.

On the stern there is one of the few images of Santiago Matamoros that I could find that was wider than tall. Otherwise I would have needed to stretch the image to fit it in the stern, and I want to avoid stretched textures as much as I can.

[modernknight1]

WOW! That looks absolutely INCREDIBLE Orazio. I told Jeffrey just the other day that I’ve never played the Spanish Questline after all of these years playing the game. There are some awesome new Spanish characters in the new version and with the new flags Spanish ships will be more glorious than ever! So when she is ready to sail, I will be starting the Spanish Questline and going to look all over for her to be my flagship.

Thanks for all the great effort!

MK

[Orazio]

A thread for my ship? Thanks 😀

This time it won’t be an update on the progress, but a discovery I’ve recently made about textures and their quality.

Age of Pirates (like the majority of games I think) makes use of texture compression, for a more efficient use of resources: compression can reduce a texture file size up to 4 times. However, there is a downside, which is the creation of artifacts in the image.

The algorithm used for compression in AoP (and again, in many other games) is the DXTC, or S3TC. TX Converter, that should be the official program used to DXT compress and convert textures in a format readable by the game (tga.tx), generates a lot of artifacts, often making an image kind of grainy and ruining the little details.
But the DXT compression can be made using other tools as well, like the NVIDIA DDS plugin for Photoshop. Testing this method, I noticed the artifacts generated in the texture are far less noticeable than using TX Converter, while keeping the same level of compression. The only problem is that now I have textures in DDS format, which is not usable in AoP, and simply changing the file extension doesn’t work.

So I fiddled a bit with a hex editor, changing the file signature (the very beginning of the file, is it the right word?) of the DDS file to resemble a tga.tx file, and also changing the extension to tga.tx. To my surprise, it worked!
So now I can use the better compression provided by the NVIDIA DDS plugin, and still have a texture that is usable in AoP. Check the following image for a comparison (open it in another tab to see it at the full resolution).

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Orazio.

[Jeffrey]

Yes, the code looks for a file header to match their expected data structure defined in texture.h:

//Formats
enum TX_FORMAT
{    
	TXF_A8R8G8B8			= 21,
	TXF_X8R8G8B8			= 22,
	TXF_R5G6B5				= 23,  
	TXF_A1R5G5B5			= 25,
	TXF_A4R4G4B4			= 26,
	TXF_P8					= 41,
	TXF_L8					= 50,
	TXF_V8U8				= 60,
	TXF_L6V5U5				= 61,
	TXF_DXT1				= '1TXD',
	TXF_DXT2				= '2TXD',
	TXF_DXT3				= '3TXD',
	TXF_DXT4				= '4TXD',
	TXF_DXT5				= '5TXD',
};

//File header
struct TX_FILE_HEADER
{
	long flags;				//info flags
	long width, height;		//texture size
	long nmips;				//number mip levels
	TX_FORMAT format;		//texture format
	long mip_size;			//size of mip 0 (width*height*pixel_size)
};

That TX_FORMAT bit is their own definition, that they then map to DX format codes when they send it to DirectX:

SD_TEXTURE_FORMAT textureFormats[] =
{
	{TXF_DXT1, D3DFMT_DXT1, true, "D3DFMT_DXT1"},
	{TXF_DXT3, D3DFMT_DXT3, true, "D3DFMT_DXT3"},
	{TXF_DXT5, D3DFMT_DXT5, true, "D3DFMT_DXT5"},
	{TXF_A8R8G8B8, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, false, "D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8"},
	{TXF_X8R8G8B8, D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8, false, "D3DFMT_X8R8G8B8"},
	{TXF_R5G6B5, D3DFMT_R5G6B5, false, "D3DFMT_R5G6B5"},
	{TXF_A4R4G4B4, D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4, false, "D3DFMT_A4R4G4B4"},
	{TXF_A1R5G5B5, D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5, false, "D3DFMT_A1R5G5B5"},
};

So you were correct in thinking to change that beginning file info, because that is the very first thing checked and if it doesn’t match their expected file structure, it won’t load it. But eventually, they send the remaining file contents to DirectX, which appears to handle the rest of the image bits.

[modernknight1]

So I feel like the dummy here. Are you telling me that we can enjoy higher quality textures in the game with less memory involved in the process?

Also Orazio, I don’t see your images on this page now. Did something happen to them. I can upload them to our repository on the this website if you like. I can probably figure out how to give permission for you to do that yourself as well if you like.

MK

[Orazio]

No, I didn’t mean that. I have only found out a better way to compress textures, but the impact on performance is exactly the same. Most of the textures have been compressed using TX Converter, that generates more artifacts (mainly grain) than the NVIDIA DSS plugin, that is much cleaner. Those textures can’t be improved, because once an image is DXT compressed, it can’t be restored to its original state (I think).
Only new textures, that haven’t been compressed yet, can benefit from the method “DDS > hex editing > tga.tx”.

This is only valid assuming we are using compressed textures, because they can also be kept uncompressed, like if I recall correctly the items textures that were causing big delays when opening chests or stores.
For me, textures should always be compressed for better performance.

About the images, I can see all of them correctly. Maybe it was just a temporary problem?

[Jeffrey]

Same here…I can see the images fine. I am wondering, after that last pic episode, where I never saw what you did, if there is something amiss on your end of the internet connection? Provider routing or something? It just seems similar to the last ordeal where WE are all fine, but yours is somehow different.

[modernknight1]

OK Thanks for the explanation….. and that reminds me that I owe you those other texture files as well. I will get right on that. Sorry I would forget my head these days if it weren’t attached because I am so busy with so many things right now.

Yeah it was temporary but I think it was that icube site because when I entered the native addresses for the illustrations there was nothing there. An hour later everything was back and I could see stuff at the native addresses as well. I have been pulling a lot of all nighters lately to try to get everything done for this version of the mod. So I was wanting to copy the illustrations to put on the front page of the website when I refresh everything to reflect all of the new content about to go up. When I went to copy them they were not there and that’s why I commented.

Thanks fellas

MK

EDIT: OK I think I know what’s going on. It’s Firefox. Because the site is https: Firefox has a filter that screens out image content that comes from other websites that are http: Once I disable that filter on my browser the images show up consistently. So for anyone who has these settings enabled on Firefox, they will not be able to see the images either.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by modernknight1.

[Orazio]

The texturing phase is almost complete: I’m working on the two boats now, then the cannons and a few minor details I left for the end.
Here are some renders — NOT in game screenshots! — you may notice floating/missing objects, as they’re still work in progress:

[Anonymous]

thumbsup!
and one question : winter is almost over now, we are preparing for spring 🙂
any good news about the mega patch release?

[Galleon]

That is some incredible beauty of work! I am called Galleon on here and other places because I love Galleons and with this ship I will play the game again after months away from it. Words do not describe the work here. I was so already astounded by new cabins to begin but now this? My heart almost stops now. This man should be working for game companies but he is here with us! Good for us I say maybe right.

I talked to MK in person tonight. He says he is too busy to say anything until ready. He says files are passing to Jeffrey now for final work and will be ready any time. He says that though we cannot see changes on website presently there is much changing and we will see it at any time. I thought maybe he was dead or something so I called him. He is fine just busy and asked if I would make a comment. He is very unhappy that people don’t comment more.

EDIT: There I commented. Happy? LOL

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Galleon.

[modernknight1]

Indeed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Words CANNOT describe this pure genius work of art SIR! I am at a loss. I’m too old to fall in love with girls anymore, but this – this takes my breath away.

@RAM and Stephane, Sorry for the hiatus. Many issues but the new mod is done. Just some final tweaking by Jeffrey is required so that everything is native in the newest version and that our (SPOILER) new pirate colony of Boddon’s Landing and new cabins and decks in addition to Orazio’s gorgeous cabins are all fully functional.

The website will be refreshing in the next 24 hours with TONS of new content.

@Galleon. Thanks. You get a gold star my friend. I will tell Nella to give you a raise the next time I talk to her. LOL

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by modernknight1.

[Stéphane]

that’s great news, we have the final new version with all the good work 🙂 , well done !

[Orazio]

Almost there! The majority of the ship has been imported and properly set up in Maya for the conversion process; yards and other small details are still missing:

Inside the forecastle:

After I have imported everything in Maya, the only things left will be locators, the path file, the sailorpoints file and some testing.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Orazio.

[modernknight1]

Oh my Lord, she is stunning. Just WOW! Just stunning!

Orazio you stand a giant among modelers now.

This is amazing work my friend.

MK

[Blas de Lezo]

WoW!!!! Amazing ship and great homage for this saint.

Santiago Matamoros “The Moor(muslim)-slayer” or literally translation “killer of Muslims”, Spain’s patron saint and Protector of Christendom.

The phrase “¡Santiago y cierra,España!”(St. James and attack, for Spain!) is war cry of christian troops during the Reconquista, and of the Spanish Empire and continued to be used.

Im glad to see this because historical Saints,heroes,battles even phrases etc are literally erased from spanish history books because political correctness and no offense others (example:Anti-system want to remove a statue with 300 years old from the church because is offensive).

Thanks you for this amazing work.Looks espectacular incredible

[Orazio]

Thank you for your kind words.
I agree, here in Europe we are getting almost ashamed of our history and traditions because of this fear of offending others, to a point where we are even willing to hide our art, like it happened in Italy when statues were covered during Rouhani’s visit because they were showing nudity.

Anyway, I was testing locators for sails and ropes, and I have a doubt. Are those last two sails, one triangular and the other one almost triangular, supposed to work like this? I’m not an expert of sailing, so I want to be sure the sails are correct.

[modernknight1]

Hello Blas! Nice to see you here. I will answer your bug report shortly. Thanks for the information on the proper additional name for Sant Yago. Awesome! This is the kind of information I like to see shared on our website!

I am so sorry about what I am hearing. I didn’t realize it was effecting Europe so badly. Here in the States political correctness is ruining everything this country used to stand for. The confederate flag debate got so bad a couple of years ago that many cities and universities have now taken down statues of Confederate Generals and renamed streets and buildings that were named after Robert E. Lee etc… This is such a shame, because these were great men with distinguished careers and major military/historical achievements. Revisionism is becoming a disease in the historic discussion and in its teaching to new generations. I believe this to be very deliberate and most are too stupid or uneducated to even see it. In short this is part of the NWO/Neocon agenda and why I am so fervently anti-NWO (New World Order)

I see our tiny little website here as the smallest of bullwarks against political correctness and revisionism. I am going to continue this discussion in the off topic forum because I think it is so very important.

Orazio, So good to see your galleon with sails! It’s unfortunate that the Storm Engine games suffer from limitations in how sailing is portrayed. I have often thought that there might be ways to achieve different or opposite measures of yard arm rotation for sails, but no one to my knowledge has ever taken the time to tweak varying yards with different rotational parameters and I don’t know if it is even possible.

The game puts everything in the sail rigging on left or right rotations.

Traditionally lateen sails were a very versatile way for caravels, carracks, galleons, and later 17th century ship types to sail partially into the wind and they also assisted in the steering and stability of the ship. I believe their value and versatility is why we see the fourth Bonaventure Mizzen mast so prevalent on the ships of early exploration and on large lumbering war carracks as well (which sometimes carried more than one lateen per mizzen!)

These lateen yards were easy to manipulate and they could easily be reconfigured. Both their foot and top sheets along with the running rig and tackle could quickly be un-tethered. This way the lateen could be run within or outside of the shrouds/ratlines. The top of the sail could be rigged to run to either port or starboard depending on the conditions so that the foot of the yard could be controlled from the center of the deck or the railing.

Unfortunately our game has no way for us to configure it to run in these multiple configurations. We have only one. Because of this the lateens are generally set to run in line centered when the ship is running and then they rotate to the right or left with the rest of the square rigging as it turns one way or the other. This makes for an unrealistic look to the ship much of the time but I don’t know how else it can be done. So as a rule of thumb both yards should be located on the same side of their mizzen masts and both rotate together along the same path.

I have ginned up a could of diagrams to look at. Here is an explanation. The first two pictures are used in training modern sailors to handle a sailboat and illustrate winds and points of sail in the chart. The third and fourth chart shows historic diagrams for square rigged sailing ships. Notice that they cannot sail upwind to any effective degree. Certainly they would go into “IRONS” to stop “Heave To” for various reasons with the yards being splayed in opposite directions from one another to provide the ship with stability.

The last two charts are ones I made for this discussion so that you can see how your galleons sails/yards would be canted in real world sailing and can compare that with the last chart which illustrates our games limitations as far as portraying realistic sailing. I would also suggest taking a look at my Flickr ships repository to see illustrations of the sails on similar ships here: Spanish Galleons
Carracks and Naos
English Galleons
Dutch Galleons

Finally I would just recommend the lateens be mounted on the port side of their mizzen masts and the only reason is because there are more illustrations with them on the left traditionally than right. Really its your preference because long distance wind direction and conditions could call for either configuration.

Modern teaching guide illustrating the “wind clock” of Points of Sail

Defining the points of sail from the vessel

Historic diagram illustrating points of sail for a square rigger

Historic diagram illustrating points of sail for a square rigger

Diagram showing points of sail relative to their yard configurations for a Galleon

Lastly a diagram illustrating the limitations and subsequent configurations of sails we see in Storm Engine games.

I hope this is helpful.

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.

[Orazio]

Thank you MK for this info. Unfortunately, as you said, there’s no way to get such a realistic sailing behavior in this game, so things have to be simplified.

For the lateen sails, the best option is probably to have their yards running from stern to bow with 0 degrees of rotation when exported to GM, like other models do. This way, their rotation amount will be the same for both sides, although it may not be realistic at certain angles.
I was thinking to export them already rotated, but if I do so they will look good only when the wind blows fron one side, so I would avoid this solution.

I’ll try to experiment a bit, but there isn’t much to be done I suppose.. it’s just how the engine works.

[Blas de Lezo]

I edited my post and now i cant see the reply that i posted but the forum says i did it and show me like the last participant. I’ll try again.

Despite this espectacular galleon is and old ancient for Eras Mod 2 period,exist the possibility to see this in Eras mod 2 like the old carraca de guerra?

for example in my recent game i put a loyal companion in a old war carrack that i captured to a spanish empire and i use it for trade purposes, despite the ship is extremely slow and no maneuverability the old war carrack have certains of pros like a 38cannons,17.000 hull and near 6000 cargo hold(i think with hold improvements can reach 8500) so for low levels enemy ships is very difficult to sink an old war carrack or board it against 600 crew.

I captured the old war carrack with a lot luck,i destroyed his sails so the carrack cant move and sail away but with my Queen anne’s revenge i have 0 possibilities to board or even sink it(not enough powder)but i resists the idea to abandon a big prize and still fighting and firing in front of his bow(the carrack only has two cannons in bow) with grapes shot and no hope to obtain nothing,except leave alone the carrack in middle of sea when i use all the remain powder.
But after a time in battle the miracle occurs and his captain suddenly struck his colours i dont know why hehe for my was a surprise because both cant win.

Sorry for the off topic MK but i like the idea and i support you about creation a post in off topic section about the recent events in the western countries under politically correct dictatorship,in this convulsive and uncertainty period that we are living and know the opinions of others participant about the situation in his countries.

[modernknight1]

Oh yes indeed Blas. This galleon will not be common, but it will absolutely be included and encountered in ERAS module2.

There are several reasons for this. First consider that galleons of this 1540 pattern were still built largely unchanged in style appearance and design for the next 50 years. There were many galleon designs. So I think it is safe to say that one just like this one may have been manufactured by this old Spanish or Catalonian shipwright here and there clear up to say 1585 or 1590.

Second we know that old ships often had long lives. Simply look at a few historical examples. John Hawkin’s Jesus of Lubeck was a carrack from around 1480 and fought hard at the Battle of San Juan de Ulua in 1568.

The Sovereign of the Seas or Royal Sovereign was built in 1636 but participated in most of the great battles of the rest of the century, only being lost to a negligent fire (“an oveturned candle”) in 1697.

The HMS Tigre built in 1647 had just short of a hundred year long career and was rebuilt three times. She was wrecked just north of Havana in 1742. I could cite MANY MANY more examples.

Consider that the Spanish Empire could not afford to buy new ships for the Guardia Costa of New Spain or the Barlovento Flota (Windward Fleet) which was responsible for protecting Spanish cities in the New World. The Spanish Governors were supposed to fund their coast guards and the Barlovento fleet. However, often Spanish governors were corrupt or were more concerned with improving fortifications (because towns were attacked by both enemies and pirates so often in the 17th century) than with building new ships. Thus we know from historical records that the Spanish governors preferred to keep old ships in service and refit them numerous times rather than build or buy new ones. It was more economical for them. One of the reasons I believe the old paintings of Spanish ships in the tropics illustrate them as being so dark, is that thick tar was applied to them to preserve the wood.

This presented problems for the Spanish commanders who were responsible for defending the coasts and hunting pirates. Old Spanish craft could never catch pirates – they were too slow. This is why we know that commanders like Layseca preferred the small fast Spanish Zabras.

We also know that Pardal didn’t even use Spanish craft. His flotilla was made up of fast ships that had been confiscated or captured from enemies. I have heard it posed that during his attack on Jamaica, that he flew a false flag and no one knew they were Spaniards because not one of his vessels was Spanish. The year before he was killed by Morris we know he sacked a couple of small English coastal colonies and called out a challenge for Morgan to stop him. During these attacks he was in a small 20 gun “fragatte”.

Alonso Huidibro used his own personal fortune to buy four fast Dutch Fragatas in 1666. One old account says that these ships were built to order. This was because he needed fast ships that mounted enough fire power to catch pirates. We know that he was unsuccessful in defeating Morgan’s fleet, however, his 1667-68 cruise with these ships was so successful that he was able to completely recoup his costs from buying the Dutch ships and made a large profit “to boot” over and above that cost in prize money. He was considered one of the most successful Spanish pirate hunters.

So long answer, but old ships would have been seen everywhere during the Golden Age – just like we still see so many old cars still on the road now. This ship won’t be super common, but you will be able to see it in convoys and find it in shipyards. I will probably give it to one of our character captains as well.

I absolutely HAD to put Amaro Pargo in the game. He is like the Spanish Francis Drake. What pirate game is truly a pirate game without Pargo. The Anglo-centric west never or rarely considers the Spanish or Dutch contributions to history.
Pargo was a giant in his own time. I used a Spanish celebrity for his face and a model I thought was fitting. I used the couple of surviving paintings of him to select that celebrity face and the model. I think he is a reasonable facsimile of the man. I am playing a game with him right now because I am making new Youtube videos.

Yes I will start that new off topic discussion shortly.

Cheers! (BTW What do Spaniards say in place of “Cheers”?)

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.

[Blas de Lezo]

Amargo Pargo is very unknown in Spain.If you talk with a spanish people about Amaro Pargo probably they say that they dont heard that name in all his life.

In canary island probably more people know Amaro Pargo but sadly only for the reason that the popular belief and legend that he keep treasures in his house.

Amaro Pargo house is in strategical zone to see the ships aproach, people destroy to ruins looking in the walls for treasures that in theory the popular belief says Amaro Pargo keep there, even blow up a cave of 88 metres under the house.Today is only ruins.
When in 2013 exhumated the body,the experts noticed that the crypt where Amaro is buried was plunder too,they stolen everything includes his clothes…

Various politicians group were discussing about half year ago to repairing the Amaro Pargo house, but i dont know if they finally did it and i doubt it,i believe they dont care they only care for money.

The equivalent of “Cheers!” is “Salud!”

[Orazio]

I’m having some trouble with locators when creating the rigging.
I can attach a rope to the bottom corners of a sail, but when I do so the sail gets smaller.

Mainsail without any rope attached

Mainsail with ropes on the corners

I could avoid attaching ropes to sails, but then the rigging would be less accurate. Even making the sail bigger before exporting the model to compensate for the shrinking had no effect… So I’m not really sure what to do here.

Besides, I can’t get the ship to work in ERAS, so my testing is done on the vanilla game. Maybe in ERAS that sail issue doesn’t happen?
When I go to the ship in ERAS (if the game doesn’t restart on its own) I get this and I can’t do anything.. if I press the left mouse button the game crashes.

EDIT: We definitely need to get that new website. I think it might think this reply is spam and so hid it.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.

[modernknight1]

It still looks great Orazio! Did you intentionally hide your post? Because I think the site might have done that because the tab to “unspam” came up.

I have no experience in actually rigging sails other than changing sails around from other models. Its something on my list to learn this year as we have some nice models that would look better with more rigging.

Is it possible to define a larger sail to begin with so that it looks bigger when it is rigged?

There are some tricks to see if specific rigging might be causing the problem in the game. You can substitute certain reys with invisible models. I have done this many times. I can send you one that I use if you want. You simply name the small non textured and invisible surface (which could be a single poly or a cube) the name of the rey in question and substitute that rey. The game looks for Rey A1 A2 B2 B3 etc… if there are ones missing or named differently than usual convention it could be causing the anomaly you are seeing.

If you provide me with the rigged model I might be able to help. Another thing you might also try is stealing some yards that are already rigged from other ships and see how they behave on your ship. I could certainly help you experiment with that.

We are all in learning mode here. I learn so much every day! I am certain we will come up with a solution. Its a pity we couldn’t get Bava or Yo Ho Ho to help us out. They probably aren’t even watching this topic. PhillipJN from PA! graciously gave us his Swedish Indiaman for the mod and he didn’t finish it that long ago. Perhaps he might be willing to help as well. Perhaps Galleon or Jeffrey could PM him to take a look here.

We will figure it out I am certain! It still looks AWESOME! Very exciting to see it at this late stage!

MK

[Orazio]

I was editing my post, and when I hit ‘submit’ it simply disappeared!
I thought it was gone forever for some kind of bug, but apparently only moderators can see it?

Anyway, in ERAS I forgot to increase the number of max ships in ships.h, that’s why my ship wasn’t working. Everytime I applied one of Jeffrey’s updates I had to edit the files all over again, so that variable just slipped my mind.

For ropes attached to sails, it seems that the longer the ropes, the more the sail will be shrunk, especially if the ropes pull the sail backward. So I will probably make them shorter in the end..
I tried to make sails bigger before exporting them (in Maya they are defined by four locators, one for each corner), but once in game the situation was almost like before, with sails getting way too big when furled.

That was the only problem with the rigging, the rest of it is quite simple, it’s just placing locators around, one for the beginning and one for the end of each rope. It may get a bit confusing to track all those ropes at some point, but overall it’s not a difficult process.

Bowsprit, foremast and mainmast are done:

[Orazio]

I can’t see my post anymore! What happened?

[modernknight1]

I don’t know why that happened Orazio??? I think the site saw you as a spammer for some reason which is the same reason why I think a LOT of people have problems signing up. I have had it with Go Daddy because of this and we are changing hosts. They can’t seem to fix it. Anyway I reset your profile and gave you moderator and editor privileges, so this should never happen again. I “UNSPAMMED” all of your messages which the only reason I can figure they happened to be tagged that way was because of the pictures.

So this is the first time I am even seeing your actual replies and actual pictures even though you put them up TWO DAYS AGO. URRGGGG!!!! Really got no love for our host at the moment.

SHE LOOKS GREAT! What a beauty! I have made that same ships.h mistake myself in the past.

Can’t wait to try her out!

Sorry for the website problems my friend.

MK

[Orazio]

Ok now everything works! And thanks for the promotion!

The ship is almost complete, I’m still experimenting with sails and trying to understand why they get smaller. The rigging is 90% done.
I was able to get the lateen sails to work properly, although within the limitations of the engine. Their default behavior is to rotate opposite to the other yards, and they stay mostly flat, as if there was no wind at all. I used the trick of inverting the ‘rey_x’ locator (the same trick used to fix spankers), and added another locator to give the effect of the sail being blowed by the wind.

This was before:

[modernknight1]

Looks fantastic! Its as good as you will be able to get with our game mechanics anyway. Great job!

BTW I have some textures you are expecting from me nearly ready to send you. Expect it in the next day or so. Sorry it has taken so long.

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by modernknight1.

[Orazio]

The ship is complete now.
I’m modifying the textures to get some variation. One will be the dark version, the other one I don’t know yet but I have an idea.

Are the colors of the dark version right?

[Orazio]

Ship completed and ready for download.
There are only two skins, light and dark; I was getting tired of modifying textures to create the 3rd skin, so instead of delaying the ship even more, I’ve decided to release it with two skins. I can always make the 3rd one later.

There are a few things to adjust:
– In RESOURCE\INI\texts\russian\common.ini, the general name of the ship is “Early Spanish Galeon”.
– In RESOURCE\INI\texts\russian\ShipsDescribe.txt, a description needs to be entered.
– In Program\Ships\Ships_init.c, I’m not sure about the values I entered. I copied the Galeon_l stats, and changed few things. I’m not sure about the crew number and its organization (boarding, gunner, cannoner and sailor crew) and the cannons type. This ship has 18 big cannons in the gun deck, and 32 smaller cannons in the other decks. However, in the game all cannons in a ship can be of one type only..

DOWNLOAD (Mediafire)

Screenshots

[Jeffrey]

Nice, Orazio! Got it in the game, assigned it to my character and looks great. I’ll upload it as part of the new version shortly.

[modernknight1]

Congratulations Orazio! She is stunning my friend!!!

I feel both extremely honored and privileged that you chose to share your creative talents, hard work, and this gorgeous model in our community on the Reef.

If we lived in the same area we would have a HUGE party to celebrate!

This is an incredible achievement. IMHO She rates as one of the most beautiful, meticulously crafted and historically authentic 3D model sailing ships that could be found anywhere in the world online.

But she is here. I can only hope that this might inspire others to come here and also share their work.

I also wonder at what I am certain many other members are also wondering….. “what will Orazio choose to build next?”

Thanks again Orazio. This model warms my heart like no other could as I describe in the discussion above. Its almost like having a childhood friend restored to me. I have been very busy with home and family this last week. I can’t wait to insert her in my game and try her out. Perhaps late at night after everyone has gone to bed.

Truly outstanding work! If I could hand out medals for best model – I certainly would.

MK

[Orazio]

You’re too kind 😀

When making this model, I’ve been constantly concerned about the polygon/vertex count, so I’ve made many simplifications and even left out some details. Obviously a model created without restrictions on polygons/vertices (so not for a videogame) would look much better, but in the end I’m satisfied with what I created.

There are some ships made by other modders that are very high on polygons, one even around 180.000 (mine is 80.000), and the game handles them pretty well even on my poor system. So next time I may add more details without being too much worried about the polygon count.

I don’t know what ship I’m going to build next (and if I’m going to do it), right now I want to take a little break. But I’m curious to know what ship you would like to see.
I’d also like to hear some negative feedback on this galleon: is there something that could have been done better? Something wrong? Something missing? Stuff like this.

And yes, if other modelers could come here and share their work, that would be great.

[modernknight1]

Sorry for the late reply. I have had my Grandkids with me for the last several days so they are taking up most of my time. I am actually getting back on the road right after I write this to take them back to their parents who have been in Florida. Its a 9 hour drive to their house so not looking forward to it.

Anyway I have given your question a lot of thought and am not quite ready to answer. If I were wanting the model for myself and a favorite model it would obviously be a small Dutch Fregat like the ones in my story on the Shackerloo vs the Tigre and in the paintings by Arnolde de Lange.

However, as far as the game is concerned I am thinking about what we are missing. We lack some small and mid range 17th century craft for all nationalities but Spanish, and we lack some mid range ships for all factions. I looked through my own plans and have some very good full plans of Busses, Cats, Boyers and Cromsters.

I also looked at Bennerson Littles webpage where he has dug up a bunch of contemporary images of small pirate craft. http://www.benersonlittle.com/_i__center_the_sea_rover_s_practice___br__pirate_tactics_and_techniques__1630_17_50627.htm

I guess if I had to pick one little ship – it would be a Cromster or a Piragua. Both of these ships would have been everywhere in our era in the Caribbean. We do not have a good representation of either of these craft in the game. I have tried to change some models and descriptions to add a little of this in the game to an extent – a flavor of it at least.

If I had to pick a middling ship – it would be an English 5th or 4th rater like the one Yo Ho Ho has done which I show a picture of in the 2017 announcements. I still hope that someone can eventually bridge the gap between our communities and we might be able to trade resources.

I will be home for a week starting Wednesday so I will upload all of these small ship plans I have and you can look through them and see if there are any that you like.

MK

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by modernknight1.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by modernknight1.

[modernknight1]

Thinking about this a little more, forget the Piragua or Pirogue. I think I could square rig a tartane like I did for the Dogger to give us a Piragua. There are really no definitive drawings or plans for these anyway.

So I would narrow it down to a Cromster or an English 5th/4rth rate like the HMS Tigre. Judging from your work on the galleon I think you could build a better model than Yo Ho Ho at this point.

Once I have some better English ships I plan to retire a few of the bad old POTC models that I reskinned.

MK

[Orazio]

Do you have pictures of these ships?
I can’t find much on cromsters, can’t really figure out how they look… similar to galleons?
Also do you have something on English 5th/4th rate?

I may build something new if I feel inspired..
And creating a better model than the one in the announcements would be an interesting and probably tough challenge 😀
I still need to practice with human and animal figures, some ships are full of them especially in the stern decorations.

[Author]

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