New creatures (to improve) for DK-FX : Dark Knight and Gemstone Knight

[TazioFirelli]

Hi keepers,
A long awaited minion is maybe about to born : The dark knight is coming into your dungeon, beware!
Basically i used the knight resources to make a more "darky" one by working onto the png pictures colours, learning by mistakes.
I didn't forget the broken horn but i'm not an artist to do that really properly.
I wanted him to be easily recognised from the heroic one, I hope it's works.
But the colours are different ingame, due to the limited palette; but when I apply the palette within a picture program the result is more ugly than when the game do the same thing himself, so I lay this ones for now.
He comes with his lair (ugly, yes); a dark form of the heroic generic with war trophies took from other creatures (dragon skull, human skulls, gold bag, sword and helmet in a compostion. The perfect "y point" for the lair is to be found.
Finally, I purpose stats for the dark knight to make him a good warrior but not a tricky one, really weaker than the common knight but more resistant than an orc and reliable than a mistress for example.

To be more accurate, some extracts from the config files (quite different from the picture) :
Name=DARK_KNIGHT
Health=750
Strength=65
Armour=85
Dexterity=125
Defence=90
Luck=13
BaseSpeed=32
AttackPreference=MELEE
Pay=320

Attraction :
EntranceRoom=TRAINING BARRACKS TORTURE
RoomSlabsRequired=25 9 9
BaseEntranceScore=14
TortureTime=1500

Annoyance :
StandingOnDeadEnemy=-200
NoSalary=2500
Slapped=500
StandingOnDeadFriend=-50
InTorture=18
InTemple=-40
GotWage=-1000
WinBattle=-1000
Untrained=10000 250
LairEnemy=NULL
AngerJobs=KILL_CREATURES JOIN_ENEMY

Powers=SWING_WEAPON_SWORD NULL ARMOUR NULL SLOW NULL NULL SPEED GRENADE WORD_OF_POWER
PowersLevelRequired= 1 0 2 0 5 0 0 8 10 10

PrimaryJobs=TRAIN FIGHT BARRACK
SecondaryJobs=GUARD
TrainingValue=3
TrainingCost=30
ScavengeValue=3
ScavengerCost=45
ResearchValue=0
ManufactureValue=1
PartnerTraining=75

... => what do you think about this stats? Which adjustments must be done?

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By working on the dark knight, I made an other unit by remember the "stone knights" at the end of DK2 and I thought a "gemstone" knight covered by gems will be fancy...
So let me introduce the gemstone knight, a really hard to destroy alternative to the common knight to end a level with a spicy and long-resistant final boss.
He's slow but determinate, not really strong but enough resistant to need several attacks and a well thought path to dungeon heart to be defeated.
The ideas is a creature FULL of gold that come by script directed to dungeon heart with a dig capacity, who explode on death, without imprisonment or torture (but he comes with death and torture animations)
But if he is a keeper creature, I want him to be very greed and irrascible, week to slaps, always at work (train, manufacture) without rest except for (enormous) pay; going psycho on angry, with no way of healing.
The visuals are... shinny with A LOT of gems and quite uninvolved according to be a fancy work but i hope it will please.
For the stats I purpose (quite different from the picture) :

Name=GEMSTONE_KNIGHT
NameTextID=276
Health=4500
HealRequirement=0
HealThreshold=0
Strength=60
Armour=150
Dexterity=75
Defence=150
Luck=6
Recovery=0
HungerRate=0
HungerFill=0
HurtByLava=0
BaseSpeed=24
GoldHold=50000
Pay=1500
SlapsToKill=1
Properties=UNAFFECTED_BY_WIND IMMUNE_TO_GAS HUMANOID_SKELETON LORD IMMUNE_TO_BOULDER NO_IMPRISONMENT IMMUNE_TO_DISEASE TREMBLING_FAT ILLUMINATED

annoyance:
EatFood=0
WillNotDoJob=150
InHand=10
NoLair=0
NoHatchery=0
WokenUp=0
StandingOnDeadEnemy=-100
Sulking=4
NoSalary=4000
Slapped=2500
StandingOnDeadFriend=100
InTorture=25
InTemple=-75
Sleeping=0
GotWage=-1000
WinBattle=-150
AngerJobs=STEAL_GOLD MAD_PSYCHO

Powers=SWING_WEAPON_SWORD ARMOUR NULL SIGHT NULL WIND NULL REBOUND WORD_OF_POWER FIRST_PERSON_DIG
PowersLevelRequired= 1 1 0 4 0 6 0 8 10 1
LevelsTrainValues= 3500 5000 8500 12000 18000 25000 33000 45000 60000
SleepExperience=HEART_PEDESTAL 100
ExperienceForHitting=30

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But I don't only want to share but to learn and increase cause I have more projects : Can someone help me by answer?
I'm to tired tonight to think about everything :
- How to modify "gtext_eng" and the others properly to add the true name of the creature and remove the base unit name id? (I tried and failed, loosing all the texts ingame by adding a new entry...)
- How to use the palette properly? I discover gimp (and bimp) to follow other creature creators advices but I don't understand half of bimp use... more specifics questions will follow later.
- How (if possible) to config a creature to not sleep neither eat, and to not be allowed to be healed at all?
- How to create a now creature spell properly (to don't learn by to many tests and oversights)
- How to ... I forget my questions for tonight, more will come throught the following messages on the same theme of applicate creature making here and in other threads.

Thank you for reading, english is not my langage, and thanks for answers. I hope this stuff will enjoy someone, it's free to use and improve.

dark_knight.zipgemstone_knight.zipdark_knight.zipgemstone_knight.zip

[Spatulade]

These are quite cool. The idea of the Dark Knight is quite well-balanced, like you said, weaker than a hero Knight but more resistant than an Orc. I'd have to try ingame but it sounds well thought out. The room requirements and annoyance make sense too.

The Gemstone Knight sounds interesting and quite scary - a slow, very powerful knight that can tunnel toward you, that explodes once defeated. It's a cool boss idea. SlapsToKill = 1 seems a little cruel if a Keeper did own one though. Visually these look okay, but I'd have to play to see how they look.


To answer your questions:

- name:
1 - [how to?] modify the "gtext_eng.dat" file to add a new entry for the creature name "Dark_Knight"
2 - modify the others "gtext" files with the name in corresponding language (or just yours)
3 - in the "dark_knight.cfg" file, specify the new n°# index for the creature ingame name (in place of the normal knight n°#)

The best way I've found to edit the .dat file is to use the Dungeon Keeper String Editor, which will let you change the strings you want to change, and the number in the list is the ID for the ingame name (look at the ID from the normal Knight and see where that is in the list for reference). You can then bundle these modified .dat files for people to use.

- Visuals
1 - find the perfect "y" point for lair and indicate it in the "sprites.json' file in "dark_knight.zip"
2 - Rebalance colour to fit perfectly with the dk palette (but the result is more ugly)

The "x" and "y" offset point for most ingame sprites is usually the sprite's bottom middle, so for your sprite it should be (47,112). (the "y" should be around 112).
As for recolouring the sprites, you may already have it, but there is an ingame palette, and a palette file for use in GIMP, which you can turn on and it will match your images to the closest colour (but this often makes the images look bad). One other way of doing this that will look better but will take longer is to combine all the sprites into a single image and converting each colour one at a time to a new one.

[YourMaster]

The y offset should not be the very bottom of the image, but the location what's the bottom center of whatever item you see, counting for perspective.
So, if this is your sprite:


You want the location of spot A.

[ben_lp91]

Hi Tazio,

i like your creatures. would you mind to upload them on our Workshop on the Homepage? : https://keeperfx.net/

I would like to convert the Campagne from DK2 to DK1 and your creatures, especially the Gem Knight, would be overwhelming in the last Level Am i allowed to use them ?

[TazioFirelli]

These are quite cool. The idea of the Dark Knight is quite well-balanced, like you said, weaker than a hero Knight but more resistant than an Orc. I'd have to try ingame but it sounds well thought out. The room requirements and annoyance make sense too.

The Gemstone Knight sounds interesting and quite scary - a slow, very powerful knight that can tunnel toward you, that explodes once defeated. It's a cool boss idea. SlapsToKill = 1 seems a little cruel if a Keeper did own one though. Visually these look okay, but I'd have to play to see how they look.


To answer your questions:



The best way I've found to edit the .dat file is to use the Dungeon Keeper String Editor, which will let you change the strings you want to change, and the number in the list is the ID for the ingame name (look at the ID from the normal Knight and see where that is in the list for reference). You can then bundle these modified .dat files for people to use.


The "x" and "y" offset point for most ingame sprites is usually the sprite's bottom middle, so for your sprite it should be (47,112). (the "y" should be around 112).
As for recolouring the sprites, you may already have it, but there is an ingame palette, and a palette file for use in GIMP, which you can turn on and it will match your images to the closest colour (but this often makes the images look bad). One other way of doing this that will look better but will take longer is to combine all the sprites into a single image and converting each colour one at a time to a new one.

Thank you so much, I didn't answer immediatly cause i had enough job to do with that and infos from the other thread and I wanted to join the next version of the dark knight with my answer but i still don't have it at day.
About the lair, I used the center of the carpet gave from the original one, if I remember well, according to the plan, finally, so i'm almost good, isn't it? =)
About the string editing: so there is already a tool to do this thing easily... hum... so smart community! =) Thanks again. I didn't try yet, i will do with a clear head and more adds to make in the same time, it looks easier now.

Hi Tazio,

i like your creatures. would you mind to upload them on our Workshop on the Homepage? : https://keeperfx.net/

I would like to convert the Campagne from DK2 to DK1 and your creatures, especially the Gem Knight, would be overwhelming in the last Level Am i allowed to use them ?

Yep sure, you can use everything as you want, it's made to be used and the idea is to complete the dk1 bestiary almost with dk2's when it's easy... so it makes sense with your project.
And the gemstone knight is obviously a joke from the stoneknight, so it's works well!

But the dark knight have to be recolored according to the famous dk palette so this version won't be the last, I prefere to share on the workshop something more finished. But I obsess on imps for now so the dark knight is quite sleeping. You have the basic material here to use in mapping by adding him "by hands", until the final one shows off properly.

More projects I have in mind may be usefull for you at term : I began to work on a dark elf and my favorite is the rogue so i want to make one too; but with more physical differences from thief than from the knight and the archer, so i have the concept but it will take time to realise. If I effectively loose my job on september, i'll have a lot of time ^^"
The problem for now is to understand and use gimp, and above all... bimp(!) properly; I try to get it into one's head with the imp and the dragon experiences but i don't find all the orders I need to automate that I want.
If you want to work onto the casino and arena rooms to make your campaign i'm interested too ;-)

[ben_lp91]

i wrote you a PM.

[TazioFirelli]

Hi guys!
Finally I’ve completely reworked my black knight for three reasons:
- Loose less details by recolorization from the original knight, especially for the desaturated/blue version (cause last version had been recolorize twice from the original with a big loose off details –whom are already tight)
- Add a truly visible detail to distinguish easily the evil one from the original in game on icon and on map; so the plume on the helmet took from dk2’s good knight looked to do the job + rework the horn break to make it more stable frame to frame.
- Prepare the knight to be recolorized again to create an elite one, even two.

So the idea with the plume is to refer to a medieval tournament where the knights have to be recognized easily from the audience, according to the black knight taste for the arena pit as a joust place and the pride of winning.

The plume is made from the mistress hair, so it’s really too much (better than my first work with a too tiny one) The animation is not perfectly realistic with the knight moves but I like it as it is, looking to be almost an autonomous organ that give the black knight mood whom use it as a punk… and also as an emo xD
On torture, the torturer rip off the plume like a scalp to humiliate the black knight; on eat animation a frame shows the chicken head falling while cutted. The complain and dying animations have been shortcut from the vanilla knight according that is a normal minion that don’t need a so dramatic fail (and this animation bored me to rework).

I also remade his portrait to show the plume and the terrific eyes under the helmet; and the two modified ones for the elites. I made it in 64 ingame format and also in 256. And it’s the same with the icons. As for the firefly, I purpose some ressources to harmonize the elite’s stuffs but you can choose to use the colored knights as some specifics creatures with specifics icons, maybe to figure different lords of the land on a map or whatever else.

The lair has been replaced with… an “iron throne”-inspired one, to figure a knight guarding a king sit. With the seven swords, it’s of course a reference to martin’s books and the TV show, where seven white knight guard the throne… so white to black, is the DK’s concept ;-). Of course, it has be made from a reworked horny reaper lair with knight’s swords behind, and a little dragon skull on the sit. Finally I don’t like the “reward lair” I originally made for him so I completely change my mind on his lair concept, I think this lair is more interesting. For the colors, I would to match the lair color with the knight color but tone on tone is not working at all; so the lair is accorded to the plume color… maybe this minion is so ambitious that he sleeps by watching the next throne to conquer? So visually it’s works now… But I need help to make a good alignment between lair and it’s environment; and between the lair and the knight cause I’m a potato with perspectives and for some reason I could find by testing (actually the game doesn’t run on my computer =S ).

I rethought the concept of this minion too (but I don’t made yet the config file with the creature editor; cause I was too lazy and too undecided for now): he becomes angry faster than a spawn if he cannot train a moment; the torture don’t make him angry neither happy, so the player can manually use the torture to make him work harder. He doesn’t want to study in library neither craft in workshop; mostly train; or guard, scavenge... The training is quite expensive and slow and it’s worth with the elite one; so it’s a good fighter but quite hard to manage. He is really happy to win a battle and to walk on dead bodies, of course, friends or enemies. He is also more loyal than other creatures, long to convert or to scavenge. To initiate the elite introduction in game, after lev 10 he can grow to a second form; green with a red plume with exacerbated characteristics of the normal one… but in early levels, the green one is less strong than the previous one on level10; so control the trainning maybe a serious stake and finally this creature always needs to train and so costs more than other ones. And this one grows up to the final elite black knight with a red armor and a golden plume (maybe silver ingame cause the yellow is finally quite insipid); this one is soooo slow and expensive to train but stronger than the green one on high levels and more than the good knight himself (less than avatar, of course) : in this ultimate form, he is also an ultimate minion for the evil side (until I work on an elite reaper or community finds a acceptable “fallen/dark angel” to “elitise”). So I’ve the identity of the minion but I’m not good to balance this stuff to maintain an equilibrate game.

So there are three forms of the black knight, blue, green, red –none in black, finally. The blue try to figure a dark armor according to his name, but the elite forms are more… exotics with these colors. The red one is to refer the “vermillion knight” from Chrétien de Troyes and arthur’s legend; the vermillion knight is bitten by Percival on the myth (so he is a bad guy). In fact, the meaning of vermillion on Chretien de Troyes’s book is not “between orange and red” as I tought by reading it child, but an alloy from gold and silver : that’s why he has a “golden/silver” plume and lair. The bimp list are included if you wish to use it to expand the animations or whatever else.
I will soon make a golden knight directly from the original (so without the broken horn and no plume) to make a kind of elite good knight different from my old gemstone knight (that I really love the concept); or an automaton like in WFTO or for an other lord of the land. But is not so easy to find a credible “golden yellow” so in next posts on this thread I will ask you to choose between different shades of golden armors xD.

Of course, this multiple shades can also be used to figure the princes for a DKII’s remake of level 19 or other uses : the mappers have so imagination that I respect. I’m thinking to make something for the princes than can also figure avatar’s alternatives but to wait this work, this models can be used. The knights can be also shared by colors to the different players according to the colors; or associated to the overlord’s imps I also made : maybe some ideas for maps.

To integrate the black knight easily even in maps where he’s not planned, just modify the thief config to make him grows into a black knight (only evil masters makes thiefs keep training after level 10 so is it logical to choose a kind of evil knight has destiny, isn’t it?). In future, black knight maybe an evolution for the rogue I prepare slowly with love.

So finally he really only miss his special room; the arena. So if someone can explains how to create a new room and how to implement it with the corresponding use (free train when not alone on room, real loose of life by fighting on others, entertainment for other creatures in peripheric tiles : so only common characteristics) he or she is called to help: I do my part of the job with this work XD But obviously I have ideas on the room concept : on external tile a stone paving raised by a cube (two cubes in more internal near from temple with a mix of grey, gray and yellow stones took from actual textures ; no pillars on corners but the projector-floor texture with a local light effect; in the center, the texture in the floor clay from the hatchery, separated from spectators but a railing made as a room object : a bar (shorter than in prison) with an other color (to figure wood maybe)

To finish this post, a thought on the minion’s name : I originally used “dark knight” instead of “black knight” because in french DK2 has translated “Dark Mistress” “Dark Elf” “Dark Angel” “Black Knight” all by “noir” so I forgotten the difference in VO. By the way, I played with the colors along this work by thinking “green/red is the new black” as can says a stylist… But in fact I find that poor to name “black” or “dark” every new evil creature, so can’t we purpose better names? A “rebel knight”? A “renegade knight”? A “perjurer Knight”? Isn’t it better? Which one?

This post is already tooooo long so I let you here with some visuals to the next time,
Let me know your feedbacks and help; I hope the creature will shortly be ready to play,
Thanks for interest,
e

[ben_lp91]

Right now you can't do that type of Arena you are looking for. Maybe in the future

[watler253]

Very nice, sorry I have nothing to add but keep going!

[ben_lp91]

you want to remove the TREMBLING_FAT Property because otherwise his walking animation is interrupted. To still have the shaking screen just use TREMBLING