The Steam Workshop is fantastic for creators, but the workshop page puts a sharp limit on how much text can be put into the mod description. As my unit numbers grew and grew, I ran out of space! While this is a good problem to have, I needed a place to expound a bit on my contributors and the units themselves.


Each unit in a mod like this takes anywhere from 10-40 hours to complete...this includes:

• Searching for a good candidate unit and reading the background.
  
  
• Building the mesh in Blender.
  
  
• Creating the UV map.
  
  
• Attaching the bones for animation.
  
  
• Designing and painting the textures to match the style of Gladius.
  
  
• Designing and creating all the icons.
  
  
• Programming all the traits, weapons, and actions for the unit.
  
  
• Writing the dialogue (i.e. "barks," unit descriptions, etc.)
  
  
• And then going back and tweaking it all again to get it working!

This companion guide will give me the space to explain a bit more about my process for each unit in the Scrapyard.

Thanks to DexGattaca for getting me started on mesh design (and inspiring me with his brilliant Leman Russ designs); to Toffster for his patience in teaching me some of the nuances of Blender; Nimajneb for testing, balancing, and lore; and as always to Devian for helping me at the very beginning when I didn't have the first clue. A particular shout-out to Devian for his idea of bringing the Spike to life, pulled from some obscure fan art into reality.

Special thanks to one user in particular, Nexus, who has been a supporter and positive voice from the very beginning of this mod. General thanks to all who have taken the time to comment, critque, and otherwise make each and every unit special!

[All mesh work is mine...reference images and models include Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution, Space Marine (for the medic), various online models, and Algrim Whitefang's Evil Sunz images on the 40K fandom Wiki.

Core predator model is from Gladius, as is the Plaguereaper, with custom skin and weapon attachments. I have used Zephon models and animations, generally heavily modified. Engys Epangelmatikes created the beautiful Custodes model, which I used with fairly extensive modification and rigging.]

Apothecary.Kekoulis modeled Commander Shadowsun; I made minor modifications but did the rigging and animating.

Anyone I've left out, I apologize! Let me know if you deserve some credit!

Some custom animations were assisted by Mixamo, which is an amazing free site owned by Adobe.

Tools include Blender 4.0 and up for animation, Visual Studio Code for .xml and python editing, Paint.net for creating .dds files, and GIMP (and an ancient copy of Photoshop) for texture files.