New civilizations also mean… new buildings! And we were presented with a big plate of fresh challenges. Looking back at the new architecture sets introduced in Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten, we knew we had to step up our game. The Italian set was masterfully photoshopped from the Middle Eastern set (with some exceptions) but we wanted to go the extra mile for the African set. Time to brush off our 3D modelling software!
References & Concept Art
The first task is to find pictures of existing African buildings, we gathered hundreds of pictures of Northern African architecture. However, here we met our first challenge: we’re not making a set just for the Malians, we’re having them share their set with another African civ. So we had to make a “generic African” set, which is not something that exists. Time for concept art! We started with the market as our first building. The reason for this was two-folded. First of all, the market is a building that changes in all ages, so we can use its style and texture as a base for the rest of the buildings. Secondly, it’s a big building with a lot of variety, which helps us define that proper style.
Basic Blocks
Time to turn this pencil & paper artwork into digital models. We jumped into our modelling software and came up with the following models:
However, we made a big mistake, which we didn’t notice right away. All buildings in Age of Empires II have their characteristic shapes and sizes. Although the market was “roughly” following the proportions of the existing markets, it wasn’t close enough, and it felt like the buildings stood out too much. Back to the drawing boards, where we analyzed the existing sets to turn all buildings into basic blocks. Playing with LEGO as it were.
Now we had the basic shapes, we could start modelling again. This time we focused hard on the Feudal Age set. A lot of improvements were made as you can see on the images below. Feudal Market V1 shows the market prior to our block-building analysis and V2 shows the revamped version with proper AoE2 proportions.
However, we weren’t happy yet. The shape was right, but the building looked a lot more simple than the buildings currently in the game. This was due to two reasons: firstly, African feudal architecture was mainly mud-based, which has functionality over aesthetics, but secondly is because we made it look simple. It’s not because it’s simple, that we can’t make it look more special, time to step up our game!
So we began experimenting, which eventually led to all the images below. First we tried with some more complicated textures. Then we started to change the shape of the building, which eventually led to V3, which we nicknamed “Flintstone-melted potato with a tennis sweatband”-style. Needless to say, we ditched that one in the end.
Many iterations later, we ended up with the final Feudal Market, which is the one you will see in the game.
Rendering & post-processing
Now, what was the reason we got the market to fit in with the other buildings in the end? Once again, two important reasons. The first one is because of the way Ensemble Studios created their buildings. In the 90s, 3D modelling wasn’t as evolved as it is today. Each and every object was created individually, down to every brick in a wall. Which is exactly what we did. The straws in the thatch roofs on the Feudal market are all modeled individually. Which you can also see in this detail of the Imperial market.
Now comes the most difficult part: we’ve seen the models in high-quality 32-bit renders this whole time. But for Age of Empires II, they need to be converted to 8-bit images, which means from 24 million colors to just 256! Luckily we can use Photoshop to help us in that conversion so that not too many color-ranges get lost, but it’s still a shocking difference to see sometimes.
Last but not least, we add eye candy! The last step in post-processing to make the buildings fit with the rest of the game. We copy some barrels, items and little plants that can be found on other buildings and paste them on our new models.
It’s been a month-long journey, and at the time of writing, we’re not at the end yet, but I would already like to thank our lead artist Jorgito, for all the hard work he has done and still maintaining his sanity over it 😉
To top it all off, a small teaser screenshot of a Feudal Age Malian village!
… looks like someone is white-washing history.
what are you implying?
Malians are not white people.
Well neither mongols, chinese, japanese, indians, turks, etc.
Yeah, but for some reason I find this one to be the most striking one.
I got the same thing. I suppose the reason why the old civs got away with it was because the difference in skin tone between for example: a lighter coloured Asian and a tanned Caucasian person, isn’t really that much. So it didn’t require that much of suspension of disbelief. But that doesn’t work when the civ is meant to be ethnically Black, simply because the models are too pale to be passed of as paler Black people. Hence I guess the unintentional white washing. I hope they will add new villager models for this purpose not only because some… Read more »
This is just a game so it wont matter much what color skins the units have.We have the same set of European units for all the civis and that should be changed first to make scenarios more realistic,ever herd of a aztec with platemail armor?
I understand where you are coming from, but IMO my point and that of many others still stands. Depicting an ethnically Black culture as white has the potential to offend some players, and if a change in skin colour can be done easily even to just avoid a possible controversy why not do it? In fact I’ve always been a proponent of making separate unit sets for each region. There has been individual modders out there doing this with varying degrees of success for year so why can’t FE Studios do it?
Any rough idea on when we will hear more about that new Age of Mythology expansion?
Great work from the dev team here! itching to buy this expansion!
When is this going to be released?2016?
i just love the buildings! would it be possible to have a tax collector and a transport cart for crops available in this expansion? i mean the peasant should carry the collected harvest to a cart, and the cart to mill (realistical). also i would like to ask if there would be any chance to have an iron resource (nova) activated…hmm
DJ These ideas are good for a city building game not a game like AOE.I dont think the 5th resource will be added now there is no point or real use in adding it.
mahazona, you might be right, but a real succes would be turning aok in a city building game, with a strong developped hack and slash part. i don’t think the point is to preserve the original gameplay, but to explore also different approaches. the creators can try this and that because the game is in a continuous developpment, so they could return if they failed, but what if i am right and people would love city building features, even in multiplayer games. immagine the bridge beeing available to be built – and combined with a migration map – the player… Read more »
The point is to preserve the original game play and not change the whole game play type,if they wanted to t that they can make a total new game.AOK is still popular because of the simplicity and enjoyabilty of the game play adding extra things will keep players away more than attract from competitive play.All the things you want are in the stronghold games city building and hack slash but its not popular like AOK.As per your question I would not play such a game unless its a total new game.
if you will not try how would you know mahazona? they should try to modify as much as they want, as much as the audience wants, or something that could be worse or better! am i right? but we need to be able to have more buildings available, like the good old bridge, or more tower types, larger smaller and roads? i would like that my trade units travel on roads that might be guarded by towers or outposts, or caravanserai. remember i am an architect and i have a certain viewpoint, maybe it is time for a wider approach?
I have played city buildings games with features like the once you want but after a while you get bored of the game because of its complexity.
mahazona, you are so damn right! but, there is something else you might consider – the other games were not modable, and you were bored by the fact that you needed to walk the same way in each play, so i might say they were either not complicated and realistical enough, or complicated in an unsuficient way. i stated so many times aok won because it is simple, but i got bored of that fact! immagine a stone quarry or an iron mine placable over a cliff, and that cliff far away from your town center – what a thrill… Read more »
Stronghold has the best siege warfare I have seen in a game and total war has the most realistic battles with moral and flanking tactics and both games are modable too.But because of the over complicity I don’t think they are popular like this game for over 15 years.
But I guess this conversation is about personal preference of the type of game,the devs wont and should not risk loosing the current fan base by adding more elements to the game.
No no no. There are wayyy too many city building games. Meanwhile, there are basically NO good real time strategy games. AoE2 will never become a city building game. You do build a city with trade and agriculture, but the point is to destroy your enemy.
Please fix the skin colour it’s kind of odd that all villagers are depicted as “white” :/
I agree. It desperately needs to be done.
We have been using the same European villager set for Asian and Meso civis for 15+ years and no one complained.There is no real use other than looking nice by doing this,They should first give different looking unit lines to the type of civis before going to change villager skins.
Give this man a cookie.
As mentioned in my other comment: the difference in skin tone between a darker European, a lighter Asian or Native American aren’t as different when viewed from a distance. Technical limitations in games 16 years ago probably helped too. IMO just because its been been like that for a long time doesn’t mean the tradition ought to preserved. Changing the skin colour of villagers will be much easier than introducing skins for an entire unit set but I do agree that having separate unit sets is something that should be done.
I dont think they can do this because of game limitations just like the monk skins.we already have a mod with black villager skins but no one has been able to add it in to the game yet.
true, true, mahazona! yes, and we want not half naked villagers – they are christians and muslims! if you want to depict realistical the middle ages!
Half naked? It is more realistic forcing somebody to wear pants than to change the race of a whole nation. We need black villagers for a black civ.
Think twice before you come up with bulshit.
I kind of wished the meso villagers where different looking. The Asian and european ones are believable as is.
OMG .. You are one crazy person.. The current villager is perfect for europeans, asians and american natives in the game. From above you can’t see asian facial features well.
It was just like a mixed race villager for all AoE2-civs.. but the villager can’t be used for subsaharan africans.
VILLAGERS AND ARMIES SHOULD BE BLACK WE WANT LOGICAL GAME NOT ADREAM YEAR IS 2016 SOON! 2016 MAN.
Meso civis Aztecs/Maya/Inca using trebs and having petrads are realistic?
Lol. :v
Maybe the game will be release in December 😀
You should learn to differentiate. It is not realistic but MORE realistic because those things are THINGS. Changing the race of a whole nation is worse than changing the technology.
Having a mainly white population in a black civ is the biggest sickness ever.
I will boycott it if they won’t change the race of the villagers.
You get pretty hysterical about minor things, don’t you?
Any chance of trash unic feudal units for each civ?
This could improve the early gameplay experience.
I hope the 3d rendering doesn’t make the new buildings look out of place compared to the hand-drawn looking style of the other buildings. Also, when are the devs going to address the countless bugs in the The Forgotten? Half the things work right in the expansion, which is why most people stick to conquerers. Military units barely attack when you tell them to attack move or patrol, compared to conquerers where they only freeze if you pass 300pop per person. And when you tell them to hit a building directly, they often stop halfway to attack enemy units. Makes… Read more »
Are you serious? This is exactly how the graphics were made for AoK and The Conquerors. The buildings made in Photoshop are mostly copy-paste collages of the existing AoK buildings and recoloured. If anything looks off, they do because of how recycled they are.
Can we all just be content that they are updating the game even more?