Well, I've been reading the CivIV C&C forums and digging for information. I was finally able put an unpainted model I built ingame. The model is a Kirov Class Missile Cruiser that I built over a year ago for use in Civ3. You can find my newest Civ3 file for it in the Civ3 C&C Units section. Anyaways back to CivIV. I have the Civ3 model painted, but have to UV Map it for CivIV use yet. I just swapped the Kirov nif with the destroyer nif for test purposes.

I encountered a few problems so far: I can't use the unit command buttons, and also a loud buzzing type sound comes from the Kirov ingame, when I zoom in on it.

Anyway, the main point is, CivIV is not limited to low poly, blocky models. This model I built of the Kirov has 280,236 polygons. Now I am assuming, it will kill most systems if there are probably ten or more of these running around, but I do not know. [My current system has an AMD Athlon 4400X2 (dual core), 2 Gigs PC3200 DDR and a 7800GT 256MB video card]. These high poly units would be good for small scenarios. Now once someone figures out the KF and KFM animation files, and also modding in bombardment for ships (against other units, NOT soley city defenses) that will encourage me to seriously pursue unit making for CivIV

Wow! That unit looks great! I can't wait to see how it looks with color!

One step for Civ4, one giant leap towards ditching low polly units.

I-Can't-Wait.

-Smitty

I bow to your will Oh great and mighty modeler exraordinaire:worship:

Awesome.

Simply awesome.

Whoa...:clap: :drool: :clap:

We could use someone like you for the Star Wars mod. Can't wait to see your other models.

It looks great, it might make it into my mod if it can handle it.

Ya it looks great, but it will probally CTD most systems, or at best cause unbearable lag (mine included). Personally I prefer function over form.
It does look damn pretty though

Truly amazing, Your my role Model NOW!

Very shiny my good modder.

280,000 polys? Maybe 560,000 trisangles? You should dogfood test your civ iv, see how many oyou can fit on a screen at once, it would not be much, I assure you.

Also, when creating realtime models, the real trick is the UV mapping. That is where the illsuion of detail can be created... and I would never want to UV unwrap a 280,000 poly model... no thanks.. that would take me months.

I know of some blender scripts that automatically UVmap, and preserve space, but they do not double up on the map.... meaning every single component would get it's own little space.

For more perspective, a 256x256 .dds has 65536 pixels... that would mean your model would have 4 to 5 faces per pixel!

but it is interestign that the game could support such a monsterosity.

Looks great, too bad you won't be able see all the details in game.

I saw an option in civ-max plugin to disable the details when you zoom out and enable when zooming in, and you can define at what distance. Though I haven't tested it.

About you sound problem. I had the same with my Tiger and I think it's because plugin saves your .nif with only 5 frames (default) and than it loops too fast for the sound in game. It's just my guess. I solved it by disabling the sound for my unit. :mischief:

Regarding the mapping, I do know how to do it. I just figured out how to get mapping to show up in CivIV w/o making a seperate DDS. Check out my C F Adams class destroyer in the units forum to see it with low detail, rudimentary mapping. I just posted this to show my discovery that nothing in the CivIV game limits polys, but the player's computer will limit it, as a few testified above. I will probably not make any fully animated models, or any new models for that matter, for CivIV until proper, detailed information comes out on how to completey add a new model with animations.

I saw an option in civ-max plugin to disable the details when you zoom out and enable when zooming in, and you can define at what distance. Though I haven't tested it.



Thats called LOD (level of detail) in 3d engines. but for models, they have to be made in at different levels of detail, (NVidia had a tool for a whiel called MeLODY and other programs have "decimators", but they tend to mangle the mesh)

I am not sure, but that LOD probably has to do with the .dds files, (which can be rendered at differnet dimensions of 2)