Tau WIP Status

[Caeltos]

Hello everyone!

I'll be posting some Tau work-in-progress stuff here. I'm currently working on the T1 and Shas'O stuff, as well as setting up the general army roster.

Be ready for an absurd of wall of text.

[Kilgarn]

Oh sweeeeet This will be nice ^^

Cael let me know when I should get started to work on the Tau unit portraits or other artwork
Until then, I'm doing GK and the others^^

[Caeltos]

Tau stuff will first of all need to be animated & modelled (Unless we utilize some of the existing stuff, which I guess could be done?). Despite already, with some of the natural designs I've made so far, they're going to need some work regardless. Just need someone to step up to the task. Not sure if David-CZ wants to pitch in on it, but I'm sure if he did, he'd appriciate more assistance.

It'll take me a good month at least to get a good sense of how I want things to plan out. I'm currently writing and getting the Shas'O done. I haven't set any pricing on the wargears, or energy cost for the matter and all those important stuff.

So yeah, roughly about a month or so until I'm done with the draft. Maybe 2 weeks if I work like I'm doing right now. But then again, might need to do some revisioning to ensure that all the design & stuff can be implemented.

[TomastheTankEngine]

My partner is on leave and is looking for something to do, she is animator. If you need animation/modelling done let me know.

[Kilgarn]

Hm, do you guys need concept art for the tau units or thats unnecessry ?
Just asking, though the tau were done a few times before But a few concept art might help the animators... ^^
Your choice

[Caeltos]

My partner is on leave and is looking for something to do, she is animator. If you need animation/modelling done let me know.

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

[David-CZ]

I'd definitely like to help out as much as I can. Though I may get a bit busy with school starting in September. Also regarding modelling it shouldn't be a problem to actually make the model but so far I don't really know much about animating.

[Shas'el Doran'ro]

Caeltos you should use all of the Shas'O DLC assets as you see fit, and after seeing the work of Kilgarn's Unit Portraits it would be a pleasure to see his work with a Tau roster! If you guys can make this additional faction to Elite it would be of Awesome proportion!!

[Helios]

I wonder if, and how, you'll incorporate Kroots...

Oh, and just one hero like GK's?

[Kilgarn]

Tau can get more then one heroes

A Kroot Shaper, similar like the Ork Kommando Nob, an Etherial, similar like the Farseer, and the Shas'O in the crysis suit, similar to the IG general a bit
Though it would be lovely to see the Shas'O in the advanced battlesuit they used in DoW I and what Shadowsun uses as well ^^ Would be a hell lot easier to animat also, since it has human-like proportions But yea
Just an idea ^^

[Orkfaeller]

Caeltos you should use all of the Shas'O DLC assets as you see fit, and after seeing the work of Kilgarn's Unit Portraits it would be a pleasure to see his work with a Tau roster! If you guys can make this additional faction to Elite it would be of Awesome proportion!!

Its not allowed to rip assets from paid DLC or other games ( like the previous DoWII games ).

[Shas'el Doran'ro]

Caeltos you should use all of the Shas'O DLC assets as you see fit, and after seeing the work of Kilgarn's Unit Portraits it would be a pleasure to see his work with a Tau roster! If you guys can make this additional faction to Elite it would be of Awesome proportion!!

Its not allowed to rip assets from paid DLC or other games ( like the previous DoWII games ).

Bawh, I'm sure they won't mind, you still need to buy the game to use it, besides Relic dropped support for Retribution and left the multiplayer in an unbalanced and bug-filled mess.
It would only help promote the game! Also they haven't mind Caeltos borrowing other of his assets I'm sure it'll be fine if he uses the model assets too.
He has used the blue flamer effect, Anti Armor missile tracers (for the Dark Reapers) and some ability/upgrade portraits already in the Mod.

[Lulgrim]

Relic dropped support for Retribution

No, they did not. THQ did.

I will start banning people who can't differentiate between developers and publishers soon...

[Nuclear Arbitor]

relic has dropped support, as well as thq/sega, although the reason lies with thq.

[Lulgrim]

THQ owned the game and Relic. If they say stop touching it, that's not Relic's decision.

[Caeltos]

It's a really odd situation, because I know that other modders have spoken about the same matter, and the answer has been so vague, or indecisive. The only ones that seem to care about anything when you're treading on "thin" ice, are the actual moderators.

He has used the blue flamer effect, Anti Armor missile tracers (for the Dark Reapers) and some ability/upgrade portraits already in the Mod.

I think using some of the subtle specific stuff was considered okay in some books on the RelicNews forums. I think it's just the complete package + Tau model that is just a little confusing.

[Ar-Aamon]

Yeah, a new faction is about to enter Elite Mod. Caeltos and team keep up the amazing work! You are awesome

[Nuclear Arbitor]

THQ owned the game and Relic. If they say stop touching it, that's not Relic's decision.

right, but relic was supporting the game with balance patches just as THQ was with tech support. i don't think the reason relic stopped supporting the game matters here much.

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

Its not allowed to rip assets from paid DLC or other games ( like the previous DoWII games ).

Even for personal uses?

Because I'm using parts of the Wordbearers/Ultramarines DLC to make my personal Legion.

[David-CZ]

I suppose it should be alright as long as all of this is non-profitable.

As was already stated, it only helps promote the game.

[fok12]

Great news, but can't you guys ask the permision to use the already existing Tau models from Destroyer 40k mod? Also, I'd be happy to help Caeltos, if we wants, with the general unit stuff like ability effects, wargear and such (on a written level only, as I suck at modeling )

[Orkfaeller]

Its not allowed to rip assets from paid DLC or other games ( like the previous DoWII games ).

Even for personal uses?

Because I'm using parts of the Wordbearers/Ultramarines DLC to make my personal Legion.

Well, if you bought the Wordbearers/Ultramarines DLC packs its okey,
if you didnt, well, its obviously not.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

the short answer to all these copyright questions is that, no, you cannot use them. the longer answer is that people are unlikely to care if you do.

[Jazz-Sandwich]

Because I'm using parts of the Wordbearers/Ultramarines DLC to make my personal Legion.

The issue only arises when you circulate this work for public use, it's fine to do whatever you please with the files you purchased for personal use.

And even then, it's like Caeltos said... it's only really forums like RelicNews that seem to take umbrage with re-appropriating assets from add-ons, DLC and different titles for public mods. The entire thing is damn vague, and the debate re-emerges in different forums every couple of weeks.

In the end it seems to fall down to what is subjectively considered to be 'reasonable' usage of such assets. Which does not even nearly approximate a real answer to the question, but it's the best answer the community has, for the time being at least. Some mod devs absolutely point-blank refuse to move these kind of assets around to be absolutely 100% safe, others just take a measured approach and are prepared to fall back on their definition of 'reasonable' usage if push ever comes to shove with the publishers/developers. But to date I don't believe there has been an incident where THQ/sega/Relic/IronLore have taken action against any modder.

(And then of course there are those that just ignore it completely and go nuts, but they can't host their work on forums like Relicnews and find themselves having the same bloody argument every couple of weeks.)

[Shas'el Doran'ro]

Great news, but can't you guys ask the permission to use the already existing Tau models from Destroyer 40k mod?

If those are the assets I think you're referring to I don't think those Tau assets would live up to the quality standard of the Elite mod with, no offense to the modders because I can see the rest of their work is top notch, the Tau assets however is not...

Also what about Unit Voices, how are you guys going to cover that if I may ask? And background music, there is nothing more off putting to the theme of a Race if these things doesn't fit, it just does not feel like I'm playing Tau when my Fire Warriors reply me with Guardsmen voices... Or the feet of my "agile" XV8 Crisis suit are the feet of a stompy sentinel.

I had a little test of the Tau race in the Destroyer mod just now and it really seems like all the assets that weren't put on top of Sentinel legs are simply crude conversions from Dawn of War I.

I would really love to see the day a proper Tau Race was implemented into DoW2 but it just seem like such a huge load of work. If you guys are serious I wish you luck and hope you can pull it off. Sincerely Shas'el.

[EDIT] To Lulgrim. I spoke with a Relic public relations man on the Official Dawn of War II Retribution forums some time ago about some graphical issue I had with 'retail' Retribution and he told me that Relic had dropped support (in his words "Support is dead") for the game and there were no more help to get from them. It may have been from THQ the decision were made but this is what I was told, or what I assumed I was told.

[Shas'el Doran'ro]

There were actually one mod that went to lengths to use the Tau assets from the Tau Commander DLC, but I think it died out, don't know the exact reason why though.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dawn-of-warhammer-40k-2-warpstorm-over-aurelia

[Arbit]

Also what about Unit Voices, how are you guys going to cover that if I may ask?

I'm curious, is there anything in the lore that indicates Tau have asian-y accents, or was that just relic going "anime theme.... ASIAN ACCENTS!!!"

I was not crazy about the Tau voice work in DoWI.

[David-CZ]

I guess they had asian accent partly because they were made in a way to attract eastern market and partly because their army was inspired by the history of army of Chinese empire.

[Orkfaeller]

Well, the whole race is very much asian themed in one way or the other.

Their caste system, their Philosophy/Code, their Statestructure, their Armour with the huge square shoulder pads; the whole Mecha-Theme.

So I think, the japanese accents relic went with was thematic, IMHO.

[Shas'el Doran'ro]

I think the Tau voice work in Dawn of War 1 was actually pretty good, very believable.
I also played the THQ title Fire Warrior which I think was the first video game featuring Tau, in the lore it says that Tau have very eloquent and fluid voices differing from Caste to Caste, but since you really only hear one Caste in DoW1 (the Fire Caste) you can't really make a picture of how the other might sound.
I don't suppose it's possibly to recycle some of those voices for Tau units in DoW2, or someone said they could but it would be inadequate or very difficult to do so.