EF Comic book by Wordsmith

Download and enjoy my first comic book :)

It took like 12 hours of playing and then 10 hours of taking 1200 screenshots, additional 15 hours in Photoshop and 8 hours in Comic life writing text and arranging pics. Result is attached in .zip file. Due to limit 10MB I had to put it in lower quality but still readable.

Higher quality can be downloaded here (12MB):
--> here.

Teaser pic (mix of 2 pages):

Last edited June 8, 2010 at 6:59 PM by wordsmith

awesome

Mr wrote:
awesome

+1

second sniper's shot is just epic  ;)
Mate, you've talent

Heh thanx for support boys! It was fun to create but lot of work too, since I don't have much time I made it like always couple of hours evening for about 3 weeks. I had some more ideas but couldn't fit them, because I feel that it is long enough anyway. The hardest thing was to get proper screenshots :) mainly because when watching replay you can't go back in time so if I missed some good moment in replay I had to watch it all over again... I felt like movie director and paparazzi together, arranging scenes and waiting for the right moment lol

Last edited May 14, 2010 at 8:12 PM by wordsmith

Excellent work, Wordsmith. Usually I have no interest in comics, but I was hooked right the way through this. I even laughed at some points ::) I look forward to your next instalment!

Looks like someone plays IL-2 Sturmovik. ^^
Excellent comic, I loved it.

Splendid! I can't wait for the next installment from Wordsmith's merry forge  ;D

Nice work.

Fantastic. Will look even better with the Ostheer and remaining missing Soviet stuff in there ;)

BurroDiablo wrote:
Fantastic. Will look even better with the Ostheer and remaining missing Soviet stuff in there ;)

Ouch!!! That's what i call a tease ;D.

very good, let's hope there's a new installment when the Ostheer is released  ;D

Thank you boys for good reviews. I'm sure that there is lots to improve, mainly towards the end of the story - but I was eager to publish :D

Anyway I have some other ideas for the next episode, even some other conspiration theory to make story a little spicy. And I have tons of armor fights screenshots - it is possible that the story will take place little more on south, in Prokhorovka on 12th July 1943 ;)

I guess I will wait until Ostheer to make some new screens and then work on new episode lol.

Thinking about it, I wonder if we could lend you any extra German units... You know, just to add variety.

WartyX wrote:
Thinking about it, I wonder if we could lend you any extra German units... You know, just to add variety.

That would be great actually :) because it's hard to pick different characters, it would help if same model could just wear a slightly different texture f.e. some scarf or different jacket color (with dirt or blood f.e.), sleeves turned up etc... also head and face: different hair colors, or mustaches, glasses, scars.

One thing I missed making this comic was some better control of character's poses - I used Worldbuilder, separated the background and retouch slightly the model in Photoshop f.e. to display handshake, or hand holding a map. Not to mention that in Worldbuilder I was unable to put weapons in hand of characters, so I need to improvise with in-game pictures.

If it could be done like some template of several figures with different skins viewed from several angles and having also different poses. On blank background of course so I can mix it with in-game taken background. Actually background I was able to control quite good, there are dozens of nice scenes in CoH and EF maps I just added some propaganda posters to make it look like it's real war.

Btw I used mainly 4 maps: Vire River Valley, Villers Bocage, Angoville and Vienna but also some shots from other maps. I wanted to include also night scenes but figured that it would be even harder - almost no map has that option no to mention problems with figure models which I took from Worldbuilder - different light...

Last edited May 15, 2010 at 4:02 PM by wordsmith

The NIS tool in Worldbuilder is made for this kind of thing. You can add effects, make characters 'act' and give them weapons - not to mention use custom camera angles. It is all very fun and relatively easy to use after a few hours practice.

Here is a handy tutorial, but there is plenty of other stuff on forums. Relic Mod Wiki - NIS Tool

I didn't know such thing is possible :) well you must pardon me because I even discovered the Worldbuilder only 3 weeks ago when I started to work on my comic lol

NIS tool will require some learning from my part, so it will take some time but I will try and see what I'm able to do with it. Thanx for tip mate!

Wow - great job!

Bang! Boom! :D

Excellent work! You set that up for a definate sequel. I presume they find a nuke inside the research lab? (XD Just Kidding.)

Can't wait for it!

blackbishop wrote:

Mr wrote:
awesome

+1

+1

Hi,

Nice work wordsmith , Hope to see more, Nis in  WB would help , ...

Regards
funnyme

This is very nice, you should get a uninique title naming you Comic Creator.
P.S Is there a way for me to make my worldbuilder not lag like hell?

Akalonor wrote:
This is very nice, you should get a uninique title naming you Comic Creator.
P.S Is there a way for me to make my worldbuilder not lag like hell?

Damn, I have the same problem! I don't even start making my map and the thing looks like it's running on a computer from 1999 >.> And I have a fairly new CPU too!

Akalonor wrote:
P.S Is there a way for me to make my worldbuilder not lag like hell?

I think it's pure matter of HW - I don't experience any lag but have like 3GHz dual core, 4GB ram under XP. My guess is when ytou have some new OS like Vista you need another 2GB of RAM to run SW things smoothly, but I'm not IT expert...

WartyX wrote:
Thinking about it, I wonder if we could lend you any extra German units... You know, just to add variety.

@WartyX: how exactly could we do it? Should I wait for new patch to come out or for Ostheer to be released? Some new models would be handy. I have a frame story preworked in my head :) but not started to work on graphics though. The thing is that I'm quite busy these days too.

I have Vista 64 bit and 4 GB of Ram, 250 GB HD.
:(

Cranialwizard wrote:
I have Vista 64 bit and 4 GB of Ram, 250 GB HD.
:(

That is propably the reason. The sad truth is that with every new OS you need to double the memory needed... so about 6-8GB RAM could propably help...

My pc is an eMachines Premium 64-bit 740 gb HDD & 4GB memory
Atleast it has Windows 7.
I don't have much of a spectrum of whats  good or if my Computer is crappy so I'll just let someone else laugh and explain :)

Being poor sucks. It's the end of my freshman year of high school, I bought this thing, WHICH I SAVED UP FOR 3 YEARS, to do great things.

What do I get?

A 700$ Laptop from Best Buy made by HP.

What has it been?

NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS.

I am also mad because I was going to go with the cheaper and better computer but the guy @ best buy was like:
"Oh dude, theres a high def graphics card in this one, if you play games you NEED it"

Oh, right, sorry, this machine doesn't have the performance capacity to operate on ANY COH setting ABOVE LOW.

):<

I'm surprised you are able to even play CoH on notebook... I have desktop (or tower to be precise) and when I bought it, the good desktop sets were that time from 1200-1500eur. Good in terms with acceptable performance for me (for graphics works and for games of course). I know it is lot more than 600eur which was the price of cheaper notebooks that time... but I needed this PC for work too. If I considered notebook, I wouldn't be able to get it for less then 2500eur with my requirements.

My points is - why didn't you consider desktop PC instead? I think you could have much better power/price ratio. And moreover you could improve it later when you save some more money - with new graphics card or new RAM modules... such thing is not possible (or very hard) in notebook.

I was moreover considering the portability :/

Cranialwizard wrote:
Being poor sucks. It's the end of my freshman year of high school, I bought this thing, WHICH I SAVED UP FOR 3 YEARS, to do great things.

What do I get?

A 700$ Laptop from Best Buy made by HP.

What has it been?

NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS.

I am also mad because I was going to go with the cheaper and better computer but the guy @ best buy was like:
"Oh dude, theres a high def graphics card in this one, if you play games you NEED it"

Oh, right, sorry, this machine doesn't have the performance capacity to operate on ANY COH setting ABOVE LOW.

):<

wow I didn't know that you could play COH on a laptop :o

I sometimes play CoH on a 2.5 year old laptop, it is hardly a taxing game when the settings are lowered.

Cranialwizard wrote:
I have Vista 64 bit and 4 GB of Ram, 250 GB HD.
:(

Wow, I have the exact same specs and can't use worldbuilder :(

Man, this just looks brillant! :o

DOWNLOOOOOADDDingggg ! hehe

AWESOME!!!  ;D

I think the Developers should give Wordsmith a special title/signature
something like Official Comicsmith !

Hehe thanx again! Maybe it will interest you that I started to work on 2nd issue "STEEL MONSTER". ;)

But it will take some time, 1st comic took like 3 weeks of almost all my free time so don't expect anything very soon. And I have to make new replays because I can't use the [1.04] replays which I had any more...

Since there is interest in process how I made some things in my comic, I prepared this brief "guide" for those enthusiasts who wants to create Comic books. Have fun with it!

Last edited June 2, 2010 at 11:02 PM by wordsmith

hmmm.... clear and useful, thanks a lot... maybe it's time for my comic  ;)

Hey, wordsmith, what version of Comic life do you use? And is it original / downloaded from some warez?

PoldekPL wrote:
Hey, wordsmith, what version of Comic life do you use? And is it original / downloaded from some warez?

It was 1.3.6. original, why? There is trial if you want to check it on the http://plasq.com/.

You use trial version or you paid for it?

I used trial but I'm considering to purchase it... or to use other SW, will see. Now I'm actually busy with work so next instalment would have to wait a little :)

I just used the comic makeing thing and it rocks.

Seeme wrote:
I just used the comic makeing thing and it rocks.

It is amazing SW isn't it? Even child could make Comic with it. So when we will see some of your work mate? :)

IN about 2 weeks or so? My replays were in 1.10 :'(

xD

Yes, very :D indeed...