Art discussion and what not is what this thread is for. Also will post what I'm looking for. If you find any models you think would look good in this mod, suggest them here. We'll see about adding them in. If you are a modeler, please look at the list. If you produce good quality models that are under 2000 polys and below a 512 texture size, they are sure to make it in this mod.

Here Is The List:

Grand Stuff:
-Needs an opening screen (achilleszero is on this :))

-Need Intro Music

-Need Music for the Modern era to differentiat it from the Future era

-Need music for Hitler, Bolivar and Ataturk


Unit Models:

Pathfinders needs more ethnic variants. Mainly Asian, they all look Japanese

Motorized Infantry needs more ethnic variants

Jet fighter needs more era apropriate ethnic variants (it's an early jet fighter)

Special Forces needs more ethnic variants.

If anybody can come up with a good picture of a civil war union soldier uniform, that would be great. I need it to reskin the 54th infantry legend for the intro screen as the current one is not detailed enough. It would need to be color and would have to be a straight on view or drawing, as long as it is detailed. A picture or diagram of one hanging in say a museum would be ideal, as it would be laying flat and I could easily make it fit into the texture file.

Phungus, are still doing the polynesian wonder. If so do you think it would be better as a raft with sails as in the meso galley you pointed out. Or like an outrigger canoe with pontoons, sails, and possibly oars?

EDIT: nevermind, saw in other thread you are still doing Wayfinder.

Outrigger, most definately :)

Ok Phungus, how in the world do I control which main menu gets used. The only thing in the Mainmenu.XML is this:

<MainMenus>
<MainMenu>
<Type>MAIN_MENU_BEYOND_SWORD</Type>
<Description>Beyond the Sword</Description>
<Scene>MAINMENU_SCENE</Scene>
<SceneNoShader>MAINMENU_SCENE_NO_SHADER</SceneNoShader>
<Soundtrack>AS2D_OPENING_MENU</Soundtrack>
<Loading>MAINMENU_LOAD_BTS</Loading>
<LoadingSlideshow>MAINMENU_SLIDESHOW_LOAD_BTS</LoadingSlideshow>
</MainMenu>
</MainMenus>

It doesnt look like any of these lines call on a specific file. Is it actually controlled elsewhere.

To be honest I'm not sure :lol:

I do know it's controlled in Python though, like the era pictures and music. Ask in the main Custom and Creation Forums. You'll probably get an answer in an hour or so.

To be honest I'm not sure :lol:

I do know it's controlled in Python though, like the era pictures and music. Ask in the main Custom and Creation Forums. You'll probably get an answer in an hour or so.

Nevermind. I put the nif into art/interface/main menu and it shows up. It seems its programed to automatically call up any nif thats in that particular folder. Oh well still lots of adjusting to do.

Cool, I thought that might work. Don't you need to use the correct name for the nif though?

I'll still need to adjust the python call for the music, but that means you don't need to be concerned with it.

Ok next question, for the title do you want the CivIV + Beyond the Sword title and then Legends of Revolution under neath that. Or do you want Civilization IV and then Legends of Revolution subtitle as if it were its own expansion. Also what style of writing do you want and do you know of any programs that have good text abilities. Gimps text graphics are fairly plain and simple.

Don't you need to use the correct name for the nif though?


Apparently not, but I havent changed the name of it, so I guess it picks up any nif called CivIVMaindMenuBG.

Definatly it's own Expansion, drop the Beyond the Sword, this is Legends of Revolution :king:

As far as your other questions, I don't know.

Hey achilleszero I removed the FAR_EAST_ASIAN references from citystyles because that string was tripping an assert (another left over bug from Wolfshanze). But I have recently realized the assert was caused by it not being set in Globals XML, and not a problem with the art. Since it hasn't been in the game since 0.9.0x, I'm wondering if you removed the models from the game, or if they are still in there. If they are I can add that artstyle back into the CityLSystem, and Civilizations infos, if they are not, it's OK. Just wondering.

I know not of this Far_East_Asian art of which you speak. Are you talking about SouthEastAsian city nifs? I never removed them, I just edited one of them.

Nice, will add them back in then (currently they are not being used).

I need to set up opening screen music, and get diplo music for Hitler, Ataturk, and Bolivar. Anyone have any suggestions?

I need to set up opening screen music, and get diplo music for Hitler, Ataturk, and Bolivar. Anyone have any suggestions?

Ataturk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zrVu42YD2g (Turkey Anthem; non-vocal)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu6tnM7Oscs (Turkey Anthem; vocal)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NznrEYP3ldc&feature=related (National Turkish song)

Hitler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckrk1iqYdfM&feature=related (Nazi Party Anthem)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvT3XAPGenI&feature=channel_page (Third Reich Anthem)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfzZdSxkzMw&feature=related (Former German Anthem; Vocal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deutschlandlied-novocals.ogg (Former German Anthem; Non-Vocal - very short)

Not sure what to search for for Bolivar... I guess you could use various anthems of countries that he liberated, like Bolivia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPNwJjdPgBs), Peru (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UScSL30GLA&feature=related), Venezuela (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFecZ8unRqw), Colombia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1_La4zblI), and Ecuador (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fERHkk6BC7Q).

:Edit: Even better, I found an anthem for Gran Colombia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj6jjG1WDsY


Note: When recording the music you may want to use the HQ version. I'm not sure if it improves audio quality, but it can't hurt.

I need to set up opening screen music, and get diplo music for Hitler, Ataturk, and Bolivar. Anyone have any suggestions?

For some reason when Im working on the opening screen I have the music from when Obi Wan and Qui Gon finally face off against Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace:). Could be Im a little bit crazy, having star wars music playing through my head while working on something completely unrelated.

For some reason when Im working on the opening screen I have the music from when Obi Wan and Qui Gon finally face off against Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace:). Could be Im a little bit crazy, having star wars music playing through my head while working on something completely unrelated.

Link? Maybe it'll work well. This would also allow me to use the music I really want to use for hitler, because I was originally going to use it for the opening screen - but don't want to associate the mod with hitler by tying the opening screen intro music to Hitler's diplo music. If I could use something else for the opening screen intro music, things would work out quite well.

Edit: Nope, nevermind. That music is used all through the prequils, and the prequils sucked, bad association :mad:

Man, I can't find this operatic piece at all, it should be really easy to find. I thought it was wagnar. What's that one epic operatic piece that goes:
Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-duuun-duun---Dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-dun

Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-duun-dun-Dun-dun

lol, hope that's understandible.

Man, I can't find this operatic piece at all, it should be really easy to find. I thought it was wagnar. What's that one epic operatic piece that goes:
Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-duuun-duun---Dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-dun

Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-duun-dun-Dun-dun

lol, hope that's understandible.

Oh yeah, understandableto madman like me. Only problem is that your duns come out sounding like 'Qui Gon's Noble End" in my head:lol:. I have a faint glimmer of a Wagner song that you might be referencing but I would not be able to tell you a title.

and the prequils sucked, bad association

Agreed. A more hardcore fan than me you will not find, but even though i liked them they still sucked!

I have a faint glimmer of a Wagner song that you might be referencing but I would not be able to tell you a title.I guess it's Ride of the Valkyrie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V92OBNsQgxU) - probably the most used and famous Wagner piece of all times (probably because of Apocalypse Now! ..."I love the smell of Napalm in the morning...")... ;)

Cheers, LT.

No.

That goes:

Dun dun-dun-dun-Dun
Dun dun-dun-dun-Dun
Dun dun-dun-dun-Duun
Dun-du-du-DUN

The one I want is the one that goes:

Dun dun dun dun
Dun dun dun dun
Dun-dun-dun-duuun-duun---Dun-DUH
Dun-dun-dun-dun (rises in pitch)

Dun dun dun dun
Dun-dun-dun-duun-dun--Dun-DUUUU

And it's really epic sounding.

I might have some suggestions for opening menu music. There's a one-man project from Russia playing high quality ethnic/ambient/industrial/awesome music which he releases for free, if you give me an idea of what you are looking for I can suggest a few songs. Here's a link to get an idea of what he plays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FJrUzR-iTw . He plays a LOT of different styles, so if that's not the type of thing you're looking for there's plenty more if your interested.

I guess it's Ride of the Valkyrie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V92OBNsQgxU) - probably the most used and famous Wagner piece of all times (probably because of Apocalypse Now! ..."I love the smell of Napalm in the morning...")... ;)

Cheers, LT.

Ride of the Valkeries, thats gota be what hes thinking of. I couldnt quite translate his duns. If its the one your thinking of, phungus, Id be on board with it. Back before everyone thought it neccesary to subject you to their cellphone ringtone, I had that as a ringtone for a friend. He was quite unique with a strange mixture of timidity and delusions of granduer in a ironic Barney Fife kinda way. You could almost hear Ride of the Valkeries playing whenever he entered a room.

So we've been talking about leaderheads that aren't deserving of their spots in the game.

Here is my list of leaders that could get axed:
Lech Welasa
Hirohito
Napoleon III

What do you think of dropping Lech Welasa and swapping in Xerxes?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11061

Hirohito gives way to El Cid:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11060

And finaly Abu Bakr replaces Napoleon III
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10727


Thoughts?

Me personally I'm not too happy with El Cid or Abu Bakr. I'd certainly be fine without changing those, but what I'd really like is to remove Hirohito and Napoleon III with leaders that are more deserving (just not convinced Abu Bakr, and particularly El Cid fit this bill). But Xerxes seems infinitely better then Lech, and is pretty much a lock at this point.

Yes definitely out with Lech and Napolean the lesser. But even though I dont like Hirohito, I like having him in there. Theres so many WWII leaders in already but with Hirohito in there it gives a nice 4 good guys, 2 bad guys ratio. The games not really about just the good guys, and it gives a little credance to having Hitler in there by not having the evil bastard in there alone.

Xerxes is great. Someone for my spartan to rewrite history with.

I guess it would be a toss up between El Cid and Abu Bakr. Theyre both famous as hell and important to boot. Either one has just as much right as some other leaders in LoR, to be called a leader. And both Arabia and Spain only have one ruler each. Hmm.. and they both have cool names too.

As you said were kinda running low on top notch leaderheads. Making harder for future modders. But definatley should have the best possible leader roster in the main mod. Its a shame that having 65 traits and 65 leaders gives such great symmetry to the mod, other wise I would be down for cutting more guys out. But would really have a tough time singling any one out, other than the ones youve mentioned.

Man, I can't find this operatic piece at all, it should be really easy to find. I thought it was wagnar. What's that one epic operatic piece that goes:
Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-duuun-duun---Dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-dun

Dun-dun-dun-dun
Dun-dun-dun-duun-dun-Dun-dun

lol, hope that's understandible.

Um... Beethoven's 5th (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKbkpokQ-hE&feature=fvw)? As embarrassing as it may be you could upload an audio file of yourself humming it. The tone enough should help us out a lot. Unfortunately it's probably near impossible to identify a song through text :(.


For the theme song are you trying to go with something soft or powerful? Dies Irae (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_YSEbAWA0Y&feature=related) is pretty cool, but it might scare people, heh.

As for leaders... I like Hirohito in terms of his skin, but yeah, there are definitely people who are "more deserving" of being a leaderhead (and on that note, I'd say Reagen isn't entirely "deserving" of having a leaderhead, either - but I don't know much about modern history, so maybe he did more than I know).

If we're trying to limit ourself to a certain number of leaders, then I'd prefer we "spread the wealth". Some civilizations have 3 or 4 leaders, and I think it might be more favorable to try to axe some of those leaders in favor for adding leaders to civilizations with only one leader. Spain and Arabia are two great civilizations that are really deserving of a second leader (so it's great that good leaderheads exist for them). There are probably quite a few Viking candidates, too (not necessarily in terms of leaderhead art, I just mean historically). But yeah, finding the appropriate art definitely does pose a problem, unfortunately.

Anyone know a program I can use to convert MP3 to bik? More importantly does anyone know a program I can use to combine mulitple MP3s, and then convert the new music file to bik. Single song seems a bit short for the intro, need to extend it.

Carl Orff -O Fortuna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTlz9hiFYJE)

That's the piece I was thinking of. It would make good intro for sure, but I'm going to use it for Hitler's Leaderhead music instead. Think I'm going with the Mozart Dies Irae for the intro music. My step dad who owns a World Music store is going to track down some good leaderhead music for Ataturk and Bolivar.


Gangster's Paradise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxF-ImXaUdE) Will definatly be added to the music for the Future era when I go through and split the Modern/Future era music so they are more unique. Will also be throwing in something by Jimmy Hendrix for the Modern era. If anyone has any good ideas for music to include for the modern/futer eras to work in the splitting for music for these eras, feel free to make reccomendations. (I'll probably also rename the future era to Information Era)

Phungus, I dont think it would be a good idea to subject the players to anyones taste in popular culture genres of music.

Theme music, the way its now is the way to go. Something that will appeal to most people but also melts away in to the background to where you dont even hear it if your more focused on the game.

Phungus, I dont think it would be a good idea to subject the players to anyones taste in popular culture genres of music.

Theme music, the way its now is the way to go. Something that will appeal to most people but also melts away in to the background to where you dont even hear it if your more focused on the game.

I agree. I would not want to hear Gangster's Paradise while playing, and even though I like Jimi Hendrix, I don't think it's the right way to go. I think instrumental music is the way to go.

I agree with the above two posters. I would go so far as to mute the music if things like that were implemented, to be honest. I know that my brother would be the same way (who also plays this mod).

O Fortuna is cool (I like it a lot, actually), but it seems kind of weird to have it as Hitler's background music. I dunno. It sounds like some kind of "end of the world" music, and even though Hitler does seem evil, it seems like a bit much. Maybe not, though. What are other people's thoughts on this?

I agree with the above two posters. I would go so far as to mute the music if things like that were implemented, to be honest. I know that my brother would be the same way (who also plays this mod).

O Fortuna is cool (I like it a lot, actually), but it seems kind of weird to have it as Hitler's background music. I dunno. It sounds like some kind of "end of the world" music, and even though Hitler does seem evil, it seems like a bit much. Maybe not, though. What are other people's thoughts on this?Ditto on both - especially considering the motto of LoR - inofficial expansion pack.

Both are things I wouldn't expect in an expansion - why?

1) It's music with lyrics. Lyrics are distracting, especially if you can understand them (Gregorian chants and so on are slightly different, because you don't actually listen to the text) - but something like Gangster's Paradise? Impossible to ignore that - also breaks with Civ's general music style.

2) Sorry, but O Fortuna for Hitler? Doesn't fit at all! History-wise, definitely not. But also theme-wise - it's more "ancient evil" or something like that, not really like "history" (which is Civ's - and hence LoR's theme) - something Wagnerian or a march would fit better (especially as Hitler was a fan of Wagnerian music).

Cheers, LT.

Hitler adored Carl Orff. As for Hendrix, I'm definatly going to use one of his blues pieces that will melt in the background and fits the modern era, I'm not going to drop in Purple Haze or something that comes out too hard, and will sound off from the rest of the track. Personally I also think Gangster's Paradise will melt in the background pretty well, and will definatly test it, but if it's a problem will drop it. There isn't much epic sounding background modern music around that fits the information era. Most of the current modern music stuff Civ uses is crap actually, and does grate you, at least I don't find it easy listening. Which is a complete contrast to the other era music, ancient till industrial is all good, but I think the current modern/future music is crap, and could definatly be improved. I can see what you guys mean about Gangster's Paradise though, will see if it works, if not I will drop it of course. But Hendrix has some great blues stuff, that really will fit in nicely guys, and actually be perfect modern genre background.

Here's some "future" music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUJdRrmKdkU (( I'd get rid of the first few seconds because it annoys me ))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkQfGzbLBGI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf6n6p-h2Kw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewUfKHHwM1w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWGSTTxMjI4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsLGIGaf6BY&feature=related

I'm not sure what "feel" you're going for, though. And yes, I picked a lot of trance-style music because it has that "future" kind of vibe to it. I'd also prefer not to have vocals in the music, so these work pretty well in that regard, too.

Vocals in and of themselves ain't a bad thing. Most of the Mideaval era is vocals. I think you guys have a problem with english vocals. The thing is though, english vocals are commonly used in modern music. I've been in France and Korea and seen live concerts sung in English by people who can't speak it. In modern music english is like how German/Latin was in pre industrial music. I just can't ignore that fact, and I can't accept the complete dropping of english vocals because it ignores the role of English in modern popular culture.

I just can't ignore that fact, and I can't accept the complete dropping of english vocals because it ignores the role of English in modern popular culture.While true, it's also depending on the style of the music - for example, rap music is very vocal-based - you sort of cannot ignore them, because of the heavy emphasis on the vocals, whereas something like Teardrop (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yftOy8kz7aE) puts the emphasis on the instrumentals, making the vocals less obtrusive.

Cheers, LT.

Opera puts the emphasis on vocals...

This is particularly evident in the Mideaval music in the game.

Im not really concerned with what language the music would be. My only concern is that picking the wrong type of music is one of those things that can make or break a presentation. The impact of a bad soundtrack is much greater than that of a good one so I would prefer to err on the side of caution.

Popular culture songs are sometimes ok in movies when played for a short scene. But civ is much grander than that. I dont know if Gangster paradise or Hendrix would fit in with Leonard Nimoy and quotes from the Bagahvad Gita. Firaxis did throw some 'fun" things in there along with pop culture references. But the music is going to be in the players face for hours not just in passing. I actually like both those songs/artists, but I just have a hard time envisioning it with my civ. Could you post a link to the Hendrix themes you had in mind? The only thing I can think of when I think of him is rippin' guitar rifts.

Phungus: Since LoR doesnt work with frozen animations, can I delete any freeze nifs that I find in the unit art?

Anything that is strictly ethnic unit art would be fine to delete, yes. I'm going to make a LoR light that will use default BtS art for the most part. It will need to use some added art for the added Leaderheads and units, so if you find any freeze nifs in these, leave them be, at least until LoR light is released. Finally related to this, do you think you could make freeze nifs for the essential models for added units, so that they will fully work for LoR light users that turn on freeze animations?

I dont know to make the freeze nifs. And I dont think anyone on the forums knows how either. It would seem to be a simple thing being just a mesh but apparently bones are and integral part of the nifs. The meshes will always revert to the nuetral/ armsspread out position if the bones are deleted.

I will have to post in C&C and ask around. I have a theory and will test it out later. It has to be a very simple process, but thats provided we can figure out what that process is. But if I do figure it out, i can do those units no problem.

Cool, kind of busy this next week, so it might take me a while to get LoR light out the door. I'd also like to update things, the New Alex, and leader replacements at around the same time. So hoping the opening screen works by then. How is that looking anyway? You have any screenshots?

A bit out of the blue, but here is an alternative icon that I made for LoR. Used the famous French Revolution picture.No, you're not gonna see the boobs.

That's a cool Icon. Could you change the LoR to CIV (all the Expansions say Civ, not their XP name in the Icon picture). Also the main picture in the icon isn't really visible, the color contrast probably needs to change slightly so that you can more easily see the picture in the circle.

Now you can see the main image (more or less), but the text isn't as visible. Maybe I leave a final & third try for tomorrow.


Edit
Who needs sleep?

Cool, kind of busy this next week, so it might take me a while to get LoR light out the door. I'd also like to update things, the New Alex, and leader replacements at around the same time. So hoping the opening screen works by then. How is that looking anyway? You have any screenshots?

Ermmm, well the individual pieces are kinda working the way I want but the screen as a whole isnt assembled. The red baron is a lock it took 30 seconds to put him in. TheCoyote has given me a clue to how I can make the Spartan in the middle act right, just need to tweak the motions and make the cape flow seamlessly. But I still need to reskin the 54th as they are not detailed as the other units. I also need a better peasant model. All the ones I see in the DB are ancient farmer types. I would really like some revolting medeival/french revolution type peasants with pitchforks and torches and what not.

The most important thing hanging this up is the lack of a good terraing graphic. All the units need something to stand on. And DaVinci's crib needs to be sitting on a hill. Once I find that everything will fall into place within two days after that.

Also I need to make a satisfactory Legends Of Revolution title, Im just using the vanilla Civilization IV title. I dont know how to make all these fancy letters. Once I have that I was thinking about having the main Civilization IV title already be in place when the screen appears. And then at about the 2 second mark make LoR fade in over about 1-2 seconds. Still making all this stuff do that will be easy but finding the terrain and title is the hard part.

No, you're not gonna see the boobs.

That legends 4 button looks amazing, though the main figure could be bigger as it will appear tiny onthe desktop. How did you achieve the aged look for all the figures in the back ground? And why cant we see boobs?

EDIT: Phungus, so I take it the 3 leader swaps (Xerxes,El Cid,Akbar) are a go? If so Ill start looking into another trait switching party.

EDIT: Phungus, so I take it the 3 leader swaps (Xerxes,El Cid,Akbar) are a go? If so Ill start looking into another trait switching party.

Yeah, they will be switched.

Ok, I guess there going to need buttons. Hmm, Xerxes, another aggresive empire builder guy. Who could switch traits with you???

Hopefully a final version: I increased the size of the man and the CIV text in the smaller icons, while leaving sizes 256 x 256 and 128 x 128 as they were. Now you can finally see some detail even in the smaller icon sizes, you can even kind of see the gun he is holding in the 16 x 16 icon.

How did you achieve the aged look for all the figures in the back ground?
I selected the guy by hand and made him his own layer. Then I applied some opacity to the old layer.

As you probably guess, I'm not a natural graphics artist (or merely "editor") and simply have to do things multiple times to get them right :)

And why cant we see boobs?
... Don't bring boobs in to a gun fight? (But here you go (http://www.historywiz.com/images/frenchrevolution/delacroix-liberty.jpg))


Edit!
The icon has been updated with a 64 x 64 size.

Merri, you need to adjust the button to 64x64. I can obviously do this with GIMP if all you're going to do is scale it, but i figure you might want to touch things up a bit once it's reduced in size (64x64 is the largest size an icon can be to be used by the desktop).


@achilleszero

Well since you're the art guy, I'm going to wait until updating the new leaders until you've checked and approved them. I am certainly capable of adding these though if you prefer; so if you have other stuff you're working on I can do that. It just seemed last time with the new leaders you wanted to set things up first before handing it off, so I'm happy to oblige.

Phungus, i have actually already added them (atleast made them display/no pedia text etc.)and am working on switching the traits. Should be easy as finally a military trait has been freed up with hirohito leaving. I most likely will have things up tomorrow if I dont have to work.

I will be including the whole FPK this time as I have made a revision of it that I think you will be pleased with. No xml or folder changes this time so it should all work and I am checking it all right now. This is probably one of the biggest optimizations that I have done so far. I have massively reduced polys on 300+ units. When I say massively I mean like 200 of them were reduced by around half and the other 100 by like 20%. It seems that alot of unit makers are too lazy to delete the meshes of the original unit and instead just hide them. This pretty much doubled alot of units poly count. If this doesnt help graphics performance, I dont know what will. I even got the early flyer below 2000.:). There are still a few single unit graphic/mechanical units hovering right over 2000 though. And the only non-machines over 2000 are a few chariots, but I dont know if theres much to do abbout those, sice there a complicated model.

All this whole sale reduction has also shaved around 20 MB off of the FPK (actually 10 were from the cutting of Hirohito, as his folder alone was 19MB!!) I did all this when taking breaks from the intro screen over this week. Now back to the Intro Screen!!

Cool, cool. Releasing a patch right now, but it'll take a while for Strategy Informer and ModDB to aprove the submission (they have to review all submissions, that's the price you pay in using a file service that doesn't bombard your users with adds, they require checking the content). So your art improvements and changes will go in the Next test build. We haven't had one of those in nearly a week :). Also when it comes to units over 2000 polys, I'd prefer to just drop them. Even if they are 2001, and a cool looking chariot. You gotta set the cut somewhere you know, and that's the line for LoR. And there is nearly always a model available that looks good, and passes the 2000 poly standard. If nothing else we can always just use the default BtS model, and I'd rather do that then have a 2001 poly model being used, lol.

Also Finnish is making it in the Patch thanks to Merri's Work. I'd still love to get some translations for spanish, french, italian and german, but no one is jumping at the chance, :deal:.

Ok then, unfortunately I didnt really keep track of which ones were offending the 2000 limit. So I will have to track all those down again. So I might not get to them for a bit. And just to let you know these 300 units werent +2000. 95% were units that were passing by the 2000 poly screen at like 1300 to 1900 and are now half of that.

Any quick suggestions on whose LeaderheadInfos to copy for the new leaders? Rght now I have Xerxes as a Alexander clone ( a bit Ironic, but I see a resemblance), El Cid as a Mehmed clone and Akbar as a Saladin clone (though Id like to make him a little different as not to pigeon hole Arabia with cloned leaders).

:hmm:

El Cid should definatly be a warmonger, and religius zealot. Not really sure who fits that bill, but that can definatly be modified in the XML. Akbar is more of a backstabbing consolidator type, probably Napoleon would fit him the best for personality.

Sounds good! When do you think the next test build will be uploaded (just looking for a general estimate to work on the profiles for those three leaders).

and Akbar as a Saladin clone

Akbar is more of a backstabbing consolidator type, probably Napoleon would fit him the best for personality.

Wait I meant Abu Bakr. Are we on the same page or did you just copy my mistake?

phungus420: I made the 64 x 64 icon and updated it to the earlier download. I simply used the 256 x 256 image, shrunk it down and applied some careful sharpening to bring details better out. The guy is pretty much the same size as in the 48 x 48 icon.

Wait I meant Abu Bakr. Are we on the same page or did you just copy my mistake?

Just coppied your type, :crazyeye:

Thanks Merri, will use that icon in the next test build.

Debug dll (http://www.filefront.com/13945729/Debugdll.zip/)

I've found the debug dll to be immensely useful when doing art stuff. If you're missing a string or whatever, something obvious like in the artdefines, it'll actually tell you the problem, rather then just crashing on you. So uploading the debug gamecore in case you find it useful when modding. To use it, just extract it to your assets folder, and overwrite the original gamecore. You need to play Civ4 in windowed mode though, otherwise things can get annoying.

Debug dll (http://www.filefront.com/13945729/Debugdll.zip/)

I've found the debug dll to be immensely useful when doing art stuff. If you're missing a string or whatever, something obvious like in the artdefines, it'll actually tell you the problem, rather then just crashing on you. So uploading the debug gamecore in case you find it useful when modding. To use it, just extract it to your assets folder, and overwrite the original gamecore. You need to play Civ4 in windowed mode though, otherwise things can get annoying.

Coolio. Should be useful. almost done checking the crapton of units in game. Only art defines changes in this go round will be Bakuel's new greek. Just out of curiosity, are you fine with the generic hoplite UU? There are several different hoplites in Bakuels pack from several different city states. Just wondering if you thought the more non descript hoplite would be better for the Greek civ as a whole?

I'd just keep it default. It's a good model.

Phungus: what is this CvGameCoreDLL.pbd file in the gamecore zip? Is it that just a pre-converted form of the gamecore dll?

I believe it references the source code for the debug dll, I'm pretty sure you need it. Without it, I can't see how it can reference specific strings and source code failures, as everything in the dll is compiled, and it would just come out as 000100100100101, and be utter jibberish, so I'm pretty sure it needs it so us humans can make sense of the debugging info.

Edit: At least that's my assumption. It's entirely based on common sense though, and could be incorrect, but I'd wager a donut on it.

Does anybody here know a good program for drawing/making text, like in the CivIV main title? I am in need of one to make the LoR main title screen, and unfortunately the supposed art guy doesnt know jack about art programs.:crazyeye: (Merri, I know you know of one since you made that cool button and all)

I'm a dinosaur, I use Paint Shop Pro 7 released in 2001. The good thing about it's shareware version is that it runs forever when you open a file into it. It simply skips the dialog that is supposed to prevent you from launching the program :D It also runs instantly which is something I like (with modern programs like PhotoShop you can almost go make yourself coffee while it is making itself usable). However, to get anything done with it you have to spend time learning it (although the same holds true for PhotoShop, Gimp & others - but PSP7 needs more manual tweaking, there are less automated candy tools).

Civilization IV logo (http://www.cyberstump.com/civ4/logos/civiv_logo.png) - made a backup in attachments and also a quick LoR text you can freely work with or just ignore it.


For working with icons, I use IcoFX (http://icofx.ro/), best tool I've found for making the icons and getting all the sizes done. It accepts PNG as source format which is something I like.

Thanks Merri. Both of those logos look really good. Will probably wind up using one of those.

I have GIMP 2.0, but it either must be outdated or I dont have the required plugins. The text functions seemed really limited. Ill install the IcoFX and see what it has to offer. Ill also have to get the PaintShopPro7, as programs that start up instantly are much more desirable to me.

Quick Guide: in PSP7 you can create text as vector images, which you can transform to be the way you like. However, you can't apply any raster effects to vectors, thus you need to convert a vector layer into a raster layer. To raster layers you can apply all kinds of effects that work on the non-transparent area. Also, you may lock a layer's transparency in the layer window (lock icon). Out of the effects department I tend to use a lot of Drop Shadow, Inner Bevel, Unsharp Mask, Gaussian Blur, Noise (Uniform), Edge Preserving Smooth, Texture Preserving Smooth and several of the Enhance Photo effects. It is pretty much trial & error to get anything worth looking at. Most often to get the best looking results you must have several layers (with those texts I did several effects, but also created a mask to avoid having too soft edges - lor2.png is actually based on lor.png, just a few more effects applied).

Masks work separately for each layer which may be confusing at times. Handling mask data is rather limited from my experience. To merge a mask to layer you have to make other layers invisible, do an empty extra layer and then do Layers > Merge > Merge Visible. This then destroys the mask and you get a single layer without the mask.

Ask freely if you need to figure how something is done, it is likely I know at least something with the eight years of experience I have :)



Regarding the opening screen: the current Wolfshanze one has it's text out of my screen. I play it windowed in 1280 x 800, although I can't see it properly in my main resolution either (1440 x 900). It would be nice if the new opening screen would take varying resolutions better into account. Seeing the name of the mod and the Civ4 logo text would be nice :)

I more than likely will have many questions to ask you, as you have 7years, 9 months more experience than I;).

So I gather form what you say about the Wolfshanze screen, is that the game doesnt resize it in both dimension to fit the exact resolution, but rather just makes both dimensions larger by same percentage. I belive this is because he only used the 1024x768 plane that is part of the BtS opening screen. I am using an actuall 3D scene/nif based on the BtS screen. So I actually have the scene spilling over on all sides. The logos will be on a similar plane but the rest of the plane will be transparent and the scene will be larger. So I hope since Firaxis thought of this, then I wont have this problem with different resolution.

Just so every one wont think that Im not making any progress on the Opening screen here is a half done screenshot:

220243
Remember there will be the menu box covering the 54th and the right spartan.

There will be 3 more spartans, 2 way in the back, and one in the fore ground centered between left of screen and main menu box. He will raise his sword at about 2 second mark and then the LoR title will appear. And then he will just stand there with sword held up and cape flapping in the wind. There will be 1 or two more 54th gettin smaller and trailing off towards the valley to the right. Those are all done just need to attatch them (except main spartan/leonidas, still making the animation look seamless). Still playing around with the scale of everything, as I cannot tell what it will actually look like in nifskope. I to fire up the game every change I make. The screen looks through a camera that I cannot look through so prespective is all kinds of messed up.

The valley is where i will have the peasants trailing the spartan/54th as if their leading them to incite more revolutions elsewhere. I just havent found a suitable model and may windup making card board cuts from picture out of them since they will be tiny any way.

There is smoke rising from Leo's house chimney (just doesnt show up in screenshot). And I will paste the ancient road graphis leading up to the door, possibly having some peasants near it. The red baron is now a problem. He flies across the screen every 16 seconds but I cant make him appear off screen. It disappears off the right side, but he reappears in the screen. I am trying to find out how the fighter in game actually is controlled when it is on patroll, as I think that would look cool if he was actually flying in a circle instead of straight line.

Also thinking of having a city in the very back, with the revolt flames rising up. But i dont thing there will be enough room to see it.

EDIT: Suggestions welcome. Also any help with pointing me to good peasant units or picture would be much appreciated. As well as any help locating how fighter special animations like Patrol/intercept are handled would be useful.

...one in the fore ground centered between left of screen and main menu box. He will raise his sword at about 2 second mark and then the LoR title will appear. And then he will just stand there with sword held up and cape flapping in the wind.

That was going to be my only suggestion, so if you've got that going sounds very good. I had to stop working on LoR light last night, as I have a family member that just go diagnosed with terminal cancer, and having experience with medicine (worked in the ER for 2 years), I've kind of been busy with that this last week, especially yesterday. It's not looking like things will lift up anytime soon, so development from my end will be slow for a while here. I have a few hours to work on things though. I'm hopeing I can get everything done at the same time as the title screen, as that would be a perfect time to release LoR.

BtW, you may try using a simple mod, like just a blank mod folder with an ini file, and put the opening screen you are working on in that. That way you would only need to wait for the core BtS game to initialize when testing, rather then being slowed down by all the extra art, and python that LoR introduces. Might make in game testing go a bit faster.

That was going to be my only suggestion, so if you've got that going sounds very good. I had to stop working on LoR light last night, as I have a family member that just go diagnosed with terminal cancer, and having experience with medicine (worked in the ER for 2 years), I've kind of been busy with that this last week, especially yesterday. It's not looking like things will lift up anytime soon, so development from my end will be slow for a while here. I have a few hours to work on things though. I'm hopeing I can get everything done at the same time as the title screen, as that would be a perfect time to release LoR.

My condolenses. Same thing is happening to my father. I dont think we really need to ruch things anyway.


BtW, you may try using a simple mod, like just a blank mod folder with an ini file, and put the opening screen you are working on in that. That way you would only need to wait for the core BtS game to initialize when testing, rather then being slowed down by all the extra art, and python that LoR introduces. Might make in game testing go a bit faster.

God, why didnt I think of that?

My condolenses. Same thing is happening to my father. I dont think we really need to ruch things anyway.
Sorry to hear about your dad. That's closer then for me, was my aunt. Loosing your parents would be unfathonable to me, but I suppose it's better then loosing your children, fortunately I have none of those though.

Surreal today, I walked in and all her kids were there and they were real anxious and said she was in coma. So I walk in there, totall unresponsive, checked her pulse, couldn't find it, no breathing. So I asked them if she was DNR or if they wanted me to do CPR, they sad DNR, so basically I ended up pronouncing my aunt dead. Surreal man. She was just discharged to hospice a week ago, and was supposed to have a couple of months left. But it's better this way, she was still lucid and not suffering until yesterday, so at least she didn't go through too much pain as can happen often with cancer, and at least she died with all of her children and her husband in the room with her.

Anyway on the bright side that means I can now focus on LoR again.

I've lost my grandpa to cancer. In his case they never really believed there would be anything wrong with him (a small town hospital in the middle of nowhere) until he turned yellow. And when one goes yellow it is too late to do anything. However, I wasn't very close with him, he was a busy worker for almost his whole life, so even when I did spend many childhood summers in his place he rarely was around. The cancer caught him soon after he was practically pushed away from an active role due to high age.

Thus my learned lesson here: keep yourself active and positive to life and live longer.


Did nothing yesterday after work, very exhausted after work. Hopefully I got enough sleep last night, I really want to get the merge tool done sooner than later.

Sorry to hear about your dad. That's closer then for me, was my aunt. Loosing your parents would be unfathonable to me, but I suppose it's better then loosing your children, fortunately I have none of those though.

Surreal today, I walked in and all her kids were there and they were real anxious and said she was in coma. So I walk in there, totall unresponsive, checked her pulse, couldn't find it, no breathing. So I asked them if she was DNR or if they wanted me to do CPR, they sad DNR, so basically I ended up pronouncing my aunt dead. Surreal man. She was just discharged to hospice a week ago, and was supposed to have a couple of months left. But it's better this way, she was still lucid and not suffering until yesterday, so at least she didn't go through too much pain as can happen often with cancer, and at least she died with all of her children and her husband in the room with her.

Anyway on the bright side that means I can now focus on LoR again.

Thats horrible having to go through that, especially having to be the one to declare your own relative. Sorry to hear about that man.

They are trying to kick my father out of hospice, cuz he was supposed to have a month left, 8 months ago. Now they say hes not deteriorating even though now he cant walk across the room, or eat very well, lost 80 lbs, cant remember the date, or barely finish an episode of Jeopordy with me. And they declare this even though the nurse only comes by once a week for 20 minutes.

That's crazy, I didn't even know they could take you off of hospice. Don't know what else to say on that man, I'd be going stark raving mad if I had to deal with that . .. .. .. ..

As to the topic at hand, I have finished creating a LoR light fpk. Still need to finish the ethnic unit art entries for the default game's ethnic unit art in the art defines (all the greco roman, middle east, european suff, etc), but it's close to being finished. The FPK is still a whopping 138MB though, which surprises me, didn't know the core art was that big. I used default stuff whenever possible, like dropping the new darius, keshik model, etc. Still the leaderhead folder comes out to 103 MB or something, which means the structures and unit models that are core (the UBs, and added unitclasses, etc) is only around 40MB. Will have this uploaded as soon as I have the default BtS ethnic unit art entries in the ArtDefinesUnit file in and I can load the game and it doesn't crash.

Cool. The leaderheads do take a lot of memory. I did find a new way to compress the dds files (DX1 instead of DX3, as long as there is no alpha), but didnt really go all out on the leaders. Still I cut proly 20MB easy and could proly cut another 10 or more. I will go back through them and check every file. Lots of the LH have extraneous textures or the same textures in alternate format. And being LHs each one of those files is large.

I did learn something while messing with new Alex LH. Compressing the file does affect the looks of it. After I make a button I always reopen the new file just to see if it is really 64x64, and i noticed the 4 new LH buttons looked crappy. So I didnt compress them and they looked fine. But its only noticeble on really small things, but still something I need to watch out for.

(( Oh, man... and here I was complaining about just being sick. I'm sorry to hear about that, both of you... Looks like this hasn't been a good week for any of us :(. That would be awful to have to pronounce your own family member dead, Phungus... sorry you had to do that... And I hope that things work out with your father, achilles... that really is a frustrating situation they've put you in... My prayers go out to you and your family. ))

Well being sick like you were is never a walk in the park so you have every right to complain, it sucks. Im not having to physically go through anything just mentally.

So anyways, Alsark did you take a look at the screenshot in post #68, a few posts up, before we formed a sewing circle? I could use some suggestions on what else to add (read notes as there are a few things I already have plans on but they werent ready yet.)

Well being sick like you were is never a walk in the park so you have every right to complain, it sucks. Im not having to physically go through anything just mentally.

So anyways, Alsark did you take a look at the screenshot in post #68, a few posts up, before we formed a sewing circle? I could use some suggestions on what else to add (read notes as there are a few things I already have plans on but they werent ready yet.)

I think I should be all better by tomorrow. That's the hope at least. And sometimes (or many times, even) going through things mentally can be far worse than going through things physically...

But yeah, man, what you have done looks absolutely great! Thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't seen it. I'm really impressed with what you have so far! And from the way you described it and the additions you're still making, it sounds like it's going to be even better once you get everything done. I'll be curious to see what it looks like once you have the road in place; because right now, if I had to be nitpicky, the only thing I'd say is the ground looks a bit bland since there's nothing going on there (but I'm sure the road will help to change that). Best of luck with the screen, and again, terrific work!

Yeah the ground seems to be lacking.. I have no luck adding satisfactory looking rocks and the texture size is already the maximum that I dare to use (1024x1024). It looks grainy due to the extreme proximity to the camera. One thing I might try is to some how add the wheat resource graphics to the ground and that might make it look more realistic (like wild grass). Still cant find good revolting peasant pictures.

Yeah, the wheat thing could work - at least, it would be worth a try (if not too time consuming). I wonder how some forests would look on one of the more distant hills just to add some landscape variety (mountains may be a bit out of place and would have to be too distant anyway). Corn could work, too, and I think dye could pass as a flower of sorts.

Also I think once more is added to the ground to offer variety, like the roads and/or whatever else you end up adding, it'll draw away some of the attention from what looks to be grainy graphics. So that should probably help.

Yeah, those are great ideas. And all simple to add, since they are all pretty much empty shells unlike the units. Definitely putting some trees in there, and provided the dye looks ok they will find a place by DaVinci's shop. (maybe a contraption or two of davinci's might add some life)

Just tried the wheat. Looks ok, but when zoomed in like this is you can see how fat the stalks are. So I gota find a way to make them thinner.

Could you raise the camera, so it's like you're looking across the valley from a hill, and eliminate all the ground that's too close?

Hitler adored Carl Orff. As for Hendrix, I'm definatly going to use one of his blues pieces that will melt in the background and fits the modern era, I'm not going to drop in Purple Haze or something that comes out too hard, and will sound off from the rest of the track. Personally I also think Gangster's Paradise will melt in the background pretty well, and will definatly test it, but if it's a problem will drop it. There isn't much epic sounding background modern music around that fits the information era. Most of the current modern music stuff Civ uses is crap actually, and does grate you, at least I don't find it easy listening. Which is a complete contrast to the other era music, ancient till industrial is all good, but I think the current modern/future music is crap, and could definatly be improved. I can see what you guys mean about Gangster's Paradise though, will see if it works, if not I will drop it of course. But Hendrix has some great blues stuff, that really will fit in nicely guys, and actually be perfect modern genre background.

:goodjob: Can't wait to hear some nice tunes. People can always turn the music off if they don't like it, better to have something a little unique. my pick is Red House from woodstock.

AchillesZero, this is prob a dumb question, do you have ansiotropic on max?

Could you raise the camera, so it's like you're looking across the valley from a hill, and eliminate all the ground that's too close?

Raise it straight up? Yeah I can do that. There just might be some unexpected perspective changes. If you were to actually look at the nif (same deal with the BtS main menu) you would see how jacked up the perspective is. The sky is actually like half a mile behind all the fore ground stuff so I will have to add more terrain in the back. Ill play around with that notion. It will actually give me more to make some things in the back visible. Actually I kinda like that idea now. My original vision isnt looking as good now with the menu box covering so much.

AchillesZero, this is prob a dumb question, do you have ansiotropic on max?

Not sure what ansiotropic is, so im gona say no. I havent had 3dMax for more than a few weeks and I still have a lot to learn on it, but still I prefer it over blender. Except my export script does funny things. So is ansiotropic a plugin, and what can I do with it?

I think he means anisotropic filtering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering).

I think he means anisotropic filtering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering).

Ok I see. But that seems like an advanced method for me. I take it I would use on the terrain to deal with the perspective and the grainy texture. Maybe once I finish putting the whole scene together, I can look into learning how to do that filtering.

It is a setting in display adapter that can be changed on/off either in ATI Catalyst or nVidia's drivers. I have turned it off for better performance, as it slows things down.

Ok I see. But that seems like an advanced method for me. I take it I would use on the terrain to deal with the perspective and the grainy texture. Maybe once I finish putting the whole scene together, I can look into learning how to do that filtering.

You can usually turn on the option in your graphics card settings. But I realized that if the title screen is rendered live then it wouldn't do anything. I had assumed that you took a screenshot of art from the game for the title screen, in which case the aniso would make it prettier for everyone if you had it on. But if it is rendered live then it'll only make it prettier on your system. My bad.

Did some testing and the original 0.9.5 LoR light test build was missing an entry for siege towers, didn't know those were considered a unit, but guess they are rendered as such. Anyway it hasn't crashed yet. We will build the next full version of LoR from this version of LoR light. If you want to help rebuilding LoR full, start filling in and adding ethnic art for the new artstyles, we need to add them in one by one, and test each model (make sure clicking on the button to build in a city works, and that the model can be placed on the map, and is animated properly when moving and attacking). I'm going to start on units and work down, will start with UNIT_ARTSTYLE_AFRICAN, so if you want to begin moving ethnic art back into LoR start with UNIT_ARTSTYLE_ZULU, or start with city art and teh CityLSystem xml file. That's all I got right now.

Here is the LoR light 0.9.5 build

http://www.filefront.com/13999161/Legends-of-Revolution-light-test-v0.9.5-Setup.exe/

Alright, Ill start with artstyle_zulu tomorow morning. Wow 7 minutes for downloading, the no extra FPK makes a big difference.

With the opening screen, how many polys do you think I should stop at. Im getting near 20,000 polys, thats twice the warlord's screen. But I guess in the game 200,000 poly wouldnt be unthinkable to have on the board. Also trying to keep total file size under 10MB. And Do you think a 2048x2048 texture for the ground would be too much.

With the opening screen, how many polys do you think I should stop at. Im getting near 20,000 polys, thats twice the warlord's screen. But I guess in the game 200,000 poly wouldnt be unthinkable to have on the board. Also trying to keep total file size under 10MB. And Do you think a 2048x2048 texture for the ground would be too much.

I really don't know. If the Warlord's screen is 10,000 polys, twice or slightly more is probably a good limit. Say 25K polys. It's only for the opening screen, for now I think would be best to go for a pure aesthetics rather then performance aproach, and then we can see if someone with a crappy computer can test it to make sure it doesn't crash on them, or lag out unbearably. Because it's only the openeing screen it wol't be tied into other things, it wol't effect gameplay, or interact with other models being rendered to cause problems. Either the opening screen will be an issue at high polys or it wol't. I think though it should be safe at 20,000 polys, models with 20,000 polys are pretty common in FPS games as is. As far as texture size goes, I'd go with 2048 if you think it looks better, but look to cut down if it causes problem for low system users.

I really don't know. If the Warlord's screen is 10,000 polys, twice or slightly more is probably a good limit. Say 25K polys. It's only for the opening screen, for now I think would be best to go for a pure aesthetics rather then performance aproach, and then we can see if someone with a crappy computer can test it to make sure it doesn't crash on them, or lag out unbearably. Because it's only the openeing screen it wol't be tied into other things, it wol't effect gameplay, or interact with other models being rendered to cause problems. Either the opening screen will be an issue at high polys or it wol't. I think though it should be safe at 20,000 polys, models with 20,000 polys are pretty common in FPS games as is. As far as texture size goes, I'd go with 2048 if you think it looks better, but look to cut down if it causes problem for low system users.

I'm pretty sure you just described my computer there. So far it seems to be displaying smoothly. There is some slight stuttering with the Red Baron as it flies across the screen, but I kinda get the same thing with the BtS screen too. Still I guess once Im done with it, having other people test would be good. Im sure someone out there will manage to get a MAF in the main menu.

The raising the camera thing didnt work out to great. Pulling it back to a distance throws everything off. To where more terrain and units would be needed. And rotating it downwards almost doesnt work as the camera is a point on the screen so I have no idea what its actually doing. So Ive just pulled it back and up about 10%.

Completely unrelated subject: While going through the normal assets (not FPK) of Civ and the 2 expansions. Ive found art that seems to have been created by firaxis and not used (looked through all the scenario xml to make sure). The most notable is a throne room nif like back in civ3. Its only an egyptian one but its superdetailed. Seems like there were things that Firaxis wanted to do but were too lazy.

@Merri: I seek your infinite wisdom once again. In the drawing program you use is there any kind of filter or tool that provides a "cloth like" texture? I know Ive seen something like that before somewhere but now I cant find it.

The only one that comes to mind is the leather texture filter. Besides that nothing really comes to my mind (mostly as I'm unsure what a "cloth like" would be like).

The only one that comes to mind is the leather texture filter. Besides that nothing really comes to my mind (mostly as I'm unsure what a "cloth like" would be like).

I found it. In GIMP there is a filter called clothify. At first it was giving me very realistic leathery texture, so I assume it is similar to the filter you mention. But after playing with the parameters it gave me a threaded looking surface, like linen or some other coarse cloth. Unfortunately it is hard to see in the screen. The leather texture shows up great however, too bad I dont need that.

Phungus:

1: What is the benefit if any from seperating the art into several FPKs like vanilla Civ or some other mods have done? It annoys me to have to search through several FPK's but does it effect performance?

2: While individually readding each artstlye of units am I to keep the block of art defines in individaul XML files or just put them one after another in one file.

3: After we finish with the individual civs what do you want to do with all the single default unit folders like AA Gun and Pathfinder. Do you want to throw them into a Default_Units folder or leave them alone.

4: Each new expansion has changed the pointer and the loading icon. Do you want to do something like that for LoR?

Phungus:

1: What is the benefit if any from seperating the art into several FPKs like vanilla Civ or some other mods have done? It annoys me to have to search through several FPK's but does it effect performance?
I doubt it has any effect. I don't know though. I do plan on having 2 FPKs though. The core one in LoR light, and a second one for the expanded ethnic art for the full release.

2: While individually readding each artstlye of units am I to keep the block of art defines in individaul XML files or just put them one after another in one file.
Just add the new artstyle into the main ArtDefinesUnit file. That file is now commented in LoR light, with comments seperating the unit types, so just try to keep this the same.

3: After we finish with the individual civs what do you want to do with all the single default unit folders like AA Gun and Pathfinder. Do you want to throw them into a Default_Units folder or leave them alone.
Just leave things how they are currently set up in LoR light I'd say. See no reason to consolidate the units.

4: Each new expansion has changed the pointer and the loading icon. Do you want to do something like that for LoR?
I'd like to, but I'm not sure how that's done exactly, or even if it's possible to do as a mod.

I don't know how they did it, but I know the History of the Three Kingdoms mod does it, so you should probably ask them.

Looks Awesome.

Here are my thoughts on improvements:

Make an arm holding a sword that gets raised in the foreground (With the tip of the sword just tapping the text Legends when fully raised).

Disperse the crowed of peasents slightly, and have them expand back toward the city disapearing into the distance.

Possible move the camera angle, rotating it's field of view slightly to right and down, like the camera is on the top of the hill.

Have the Red Baron run a strafing animation on one of it's passes, possibly making it look like he's shooting into the mob of peasants.


As for me, and getting my stuff done. I have the intro music ready, but haven't even started on the full LoR ethnic art yet. I've been somewhat busy, actually haven't had any time to really work on stuff this week. What little time I've had I've been using to play the game. I think LoR needs a couple of decent play tests, and not just AI autogame checks for the next update. So Working on incorporating the art and getting everything ready for the next official release may be a bit of a ways off for now.

Looks Awesome.

Here are my thoughts on improvements:

Make an arm holding a sword that gets raised in the foreground (With the tip of the sword just tapping the text Legends when fully raised).

Still working on this guy. Having trouble making the main spartan thrust his sword up in a realistic manner. Using the warlords right arm animation and it is really wobbly, but I am nearly there. But with changes to camera angle, his sword will not be able to reach LoR title.

the crowed of peasents slightly, and have them expand back toward the city disapearing into the distance.

Easily done. BTW how do they look. They might look a bit like they are made of plastic if you can zoom in on them. Thats because I took them from a picture of an "Angry Mob Playset" action figures.

Possible move the camera angle, rotating it's field of view slightly to right and down, like the camera is on the top of the hill.

Can try some different angles. Problem with that is camera must also be pulled back if angling it down otherwise you look like you are looking down on them from a ladder right in front of them instead of far off. And then you will also be able to see where the scenery ends. So only small angle changes are possible unless I add lots of stuff.

EDIT: Actually just made a good camera angle from up high just now. Still that stupid blue menu box is pissing me off. Now when you say rotate the camera to the right, do you want it just tilted right or moved to the right. Either way it will be more focused towards Davinci's place and to its right where theres a whole lot of nothing. If I rotate it right I think I should also move it to the left.


Have the Red Baron run a strafing animation on one of it's passes, possibly making it look like he's shooting into the mob of peasants.

Thats a little tricky. Will take some work if I can even do it and make it look right. I have the up and down motion set on a time scale not divisible by the time that the rotation is on so it looks random as if he is actually flying around. Instead of straight like he is attached to a rail. So not sure now to go about having a random strafe in there. Also will have to figure out the machine gun fire effect.

As for me, and getting my stuff done. I have the intro music ready, but haven't even started on the full LoR ethnic art yet. I've been somewhat busy, actually haven't had any time to really work on stuff this week. What little time I've had I've been using to play the game. I think LoR needs a couple of decent play tests, and not just AI autogame checks for the next update. So Working on incorporating the art and getting everything ready for the next official release may be a bit of a ways off for now.

I just got to start on the unit art. Only been able to do the vikings and vietnamese. With the leaderhead folder I just cut it down from 120MB to 109. You say you took out the new Darius, in LoRLite. So do you want to keep him out? He takes up more a hait more memory than the new Alex, and is nowhere as detailed. Ive compressed the hell out of it and its still at 10 megs. Also dont really seems to be much of an improvement over the stock Darius. The other "New" vanilla leaders seem like genuine improvements and dont take very much space.

EDIT: When you are doing the art, are you using my most recent FPK? Only thing with that is the Pathfinders. I had all references to frontiersman changed to Pathfinder in all the folders and XML files. So just remember you will need the XML text file entries I sent. Not really hard stuff but will save you aggravation.

I just got to start on the unit art. Only been able to do the vikings and vietnamese. With the leaderhead folder I just cut it down from 120MB to 109. You say you took out the new Darius, in LoRLite. So do you want to keep him out? He takes up more a hait more memory than the new Alex, and is nowhere as detailed. Ive compressed the hell out of it and its still at 10 megs. Also dont really seems to be much of an improvement over the stock Darius. The other "New" vanilla leaders seem like genuine improvements and dont take very much space.
The point of Light is to remove everything that isn't necessary. So using stock leaders/units if possible. The one exception is Alexander, because the new one is 1000x better then the stock version. But that's it, for anyting else, going with BtS models if at all possible.

EDIT: When you are doing the art, are you using my most recent FPK? Only thing with that is the Pathfinders. I had all references to frontiersman changed to Pathfinder in all the folders and XML files. So just remember you will need the XML text file entries I sent. Not really hard stuff but will save you aggravation.
Use LoR light as a reference point. It is released and meant as a static starting point from which to build off of.

Also any new art that is added will go in a new fpk, might as well name it achilleszero or something else if you prefer. Basically the Wolfshanze pak will be all the minimal necessary art for the mod to work, and the second pak file will be for all the ethnic art that is getting placed back in a full LoR. For models I used your latest upload for the art in the LoR light pak, but there are significant changes to the XML. So again just use the current LoR light as a base from which to build off of.

The point of Light is to remove everything that isn't necessary. So using stock leaders/units if possible. The one exception is Alexander, because the new one is 1000x better then the stock version. But that's it, for anyting else, going with BtS models if at all possible.

Yeah I knew that. I was wondering if leaving him out of normal LoR was an option. Didnt know if you or wolf had put it in there. It takes up 10 MB even after compressing the hell out of it. After I got done with the new Alex it only takes up 9. The new Darius is a good looking LH, I was just looking for places to save memory in the FPK.

I thought I removed him from LoR light. If I forgot, he should be removed. The only extranious model used in LoR light should be the Alexander leaderhead (again because it is overwhelmingly superior to the firaxis model). I've even gone so far as to use the default immortal model as the model for the standard horseman unit, in order to use stock models.


On the opening screen. I meant the spartan that raises his sword should be up close in your face, so that when he raises his sword that would be like the main focal point of the opening screen. At least that's how I'm envisioning it. It looks good currently but I think the animated spartan is still too far away, I think he should be up in your face when the title screen loads.

I thought I removed him from LoR light. If I forgot, he should be removed. The only extranious model used in LoR light should be the Alexander leaderhead (again because it is overwhelmingly superior to the firaxis model). I've even gone so far as to use the default immortal model as the model for the standard horseman unit, in order to use stock models.

Ok were not on the same page here. I havent even fired up LoR lite so I have no idea what youve done in it. I can only assume that you did take the alt Darius out. I just remember you posting that you were taking him out of Lite. So that lead me to the question of do we really need the alternate LH in there in the LoR 1.0, as I am looking for ways to reduce the FPK and for the reasons in my last 2 posts.


On the opening screen. I meant the spartan that raises his sword should be up close in your face, so that when he raises his sword that would be like the main focal point of the opening screen. At least that's how I'm envisioning it. It looks good currently but I think the animated spartan is still too far away, I think he should be up in your face when the title screen loads.

Ah. Ok that sounds good. Will just have to re shape the terrain a little and get his stupid arm working right. I wish I could find how that main menu box is controlled. It is severly putting a damper on the positioning of the units. If it could just be a little smaller that would be great.

Ok were not on the same page here. I havent even fired up LoR lite so I have no idea what youve done in it. I can only assume that you did take the alt Darius out. I just remember you posting that you were taking him out of Lite. So that lead me to the question of do we really need the alternate LH in there in the LoR 1.0, as I am looking for ways to reduce the FPK and for the reasons in my last 2 posts.
LoR light is the template to build from. Any added art or whatever needs to be added to LoR light in order to create a full ethnic art release. The artdefines XML has been entirely rebuilt, so you really need to fire it up, as from here on out LoR light is the Core to use as a frame of reference. As I said above the Wolfshanze.fpk will consist only of the essential art for LoR light, this will be included in the main release. All the flavor art for the full release will be used to build a secondary pak file, probably named achilleszero unless you have an issue with naming the main art pak that.



I wish I could find how that main menu box is controlled. It is severly putting a damper on the positioning of the units. If it could just be a little smaller that would be great.
That was handled in the main executable, it wasn't exposed to the dll (or through any other means) in 3.17. Firaxis exposed more source code in 3.19, but I'm not sure if any of the new exposed code handled the opening screen box, and have seen no references to it. Best to just consider that hardcoded, as it probably is (and if it's not it will likely take a while for someone to locate the new exposed code, and to figure out how to implement it).

LoR light is the template to build from. Any added art or whatever needs to be added to LoR light in order to create a full ethnic art release. The artdefines XML has been entirely rebuilt, so you really need to fire it up, as from here on out LoR light is the Core to use as a frame of reference. As I said above the Wolfshanze.fpk will consist only of the essential art for LoR light, this will be included in the main release. All the flavor art for the full release will be used to build a secondary pak file, probably named achilleszero unless you have an issue with naming the main art pak that.

Ok, thats good to know. But what I am asking is much simpler than all that. All I was asking is that if we can just not readd that alternate Darius model when we are making this second FPK, to try to trim down the load times. As in just leaving the Darius art defines as you have it now in LoR lite, thats all.

Aesthetics really isn't my strong suite. I'll leave that decision up to you, cause I really have no idea of the "new" Darius (or Surneyarvaram or whoever) models are worth it to include or not.

OK, some playtesting stuff for LoR Light.

Ataturk -Looks a little wierd, mainly his eyes. He just looks creepy, lol, if possible it'd be nice to touch him up, mainly his eyes.

Reagan -His BG is broken, maybe something happened in the compression. Of course maybe Reagan should be dropped for someone else. The issue here though is, there really aren't any leaders available that are more deserving of a spot then Reagan, and have a good LH made (suggestions?).


Anyway that's all for now. I really need to work on getting the ethnic art back in, but I also really need to play test through a whole game..., and once I'm done with that, I probably should focus on SDK stuff I need to work on (like the legends promos, exposing hidden values, etc). So I likely wol't get to the art myself for a week or two. So don't let me stop you from diving into the ethnic art, just please follow the new commented structure of the LoR light ArtDefines file.

As far as the Reagan background goes, I think Ive found the problem. Its texture is 512x424. Went back and check wolfRev and apparently its always been like that. So i dunno, its always displayed right in the civlopedia. But it works now so thats all that matters.

Of course maybe Reagan should be dropped for someone else. The issue here though is, there really aren't any leaders available that are more deserving of a spot then Reagan, and have a good LH made (suggestions?).

No I dont see any leaders that might replace him. The Reagan LH is really one of the better LHs, well one of the most true to life at least. And looking through the major LH creator threads, I dont see any plans to do a more deserving leader at the moment. Hypothetically speaking if I were to add another american leader, I always wanted a Theodore Roosevelt. But the only one in the DB looks too much like churchill.

I've got another request for the Opening screen. Can you make the Title Text in the background? So that when the Red Baron flys around he is in front of the text.

I've got another request for the Opening screen. Can you make the Title Text in the background? So that when the Red Baron flys around he is in front of the text.

Yeah i can do that. Would you rather have it completly behind him or in the center of his flight path, to where he is in front of it half of the time

Yeah i can do that. Would you rather have it completly behind him or in the center of his flight path, to where he is in front of it half of the time

:hmm: I don't know. It might be cool to have him flying around it. You could check both ways of doing it and decide which one you prefer based on how it looks. This is a pretty minute detail anyway.

I'm going to compress the art soon, within the hour. Then compile the installer for 0.9.4b once the pakbuild is done. So if you have any last minute changes, or an updated title screen and you want it in 0.9.4b upload it now.

Nope, nothing for now, Its gona be next release before i have anything to add. Still working on the artstyle thing.

Cool, cool. The new diplo music is making it in the 0.9.4b build. I really like the way it turned out.

Phungus: for the opening screen would it be too much if i has the main spartan that you want closer up, to have one foot stepping on the back of a dead persian immortal or two?

Phungus: for the opening screen would it be too much if i has the main spartan that you want closer up, to have one foot stepping on the back of a dead persian immortal or two?

Probably. The intent is to have the mod appear like something that could have come from Firaxis. There has been some deviation from that, namely Hitler being a leader, but I contend this is becuase of the legal issues in Germany, if it wasn't for German laws banning Hitler I'd wager Firaxis would have released Hitler. At least to my mind Hitler, Mao, and Stalin are pretty comperable in terms of evilness, all 3 of these dudes killed millions of people just for their ego, or bizzare political/social beliefs. However dead dudes being stepped on by the main image in a title screen doesn't seem to be something Firaxis would have used as title screen art. I mean maybe it could work, but try to keep in mind that it the goal is too look like something that is official.

Phungus: So the "flavor" UU's like Daimyo and Falshirm-jeagermeister or whatevr, are going to be gone in LoR's core just like in Lite? If so Im just changing thier art to thier civs ethnic unit.

Another small problem: In vanilla civ there are actually 2 units that I know of that are over 2000 poly. The Egyptian War Charit and another chariot. I think thats why a few of those ethnic chariots I mentioned awhile back have over 2000. How are your thoughts on this?

Phungus: So the "flavor" UU's like Daimyo and Falshirm-jeagermeister or whatevr, are going to be gone in LoR's core just like in Lite? If so Im just changing thier art to thier civs ethnic unit.
LoR must be save game compatible with LoR light when an official 0.9.5 version is released. So that means the UnitInfos and UnitClassInfos must have the same number and types of Units defined in them (so yeah, flavor UUs are going by by). Interestingly enough before 3.19 the ArtDefinesUnit file had to match (at least the # of items and the string definitions for the units had to) in order to maintain save game, but 3.19 allows for changes in the artdefines file for some reason, which makes creating a LoR and LoR light split much easier.

Another small problem: In vanilla civ there are actually 2 units that I know of that are over 2000 poly. The Egyptian War Charit and another chariot. I think thats why a few of those ethnic chariots I mentioned awhile back have over 2000. How do we proceed with this?
If it's a stock unit, no sense in removing it. But it wouldn't hurt to, the less polys being rendered the better for performance. Really in the Medieval and earlier eras poly counts from unit art doesn't matter anyway in terms of performance, because there just aren't that many models being rendered (keep in mind the game renders everything that exists on the map though). The hard 2000 poly limit isn't technically necessary, but it is essential in order to have a set standard. A standard like that is something I've found necessary in projects like these otherwise the line just keeps getting moved, and eventually the intent itself is undermined, so that's the reason for the 2000 poly line in the sand. But as I said if it's stock BtS art, I'm not concerned.

LoR must be save game compatible with LoR light when an official 0.9.5 version is released. So that means the UnitInfos and UnitClassInfos must have the same number and types of Units defined in them (so yeah, flavor UUs are going by by). Interestingly enough before 3.19 the ArtDefinesUnit file had to match (at least the # of items and the string definitions for the units had to) in order to maintain save game, but 3.19 allows for changes in the artdefines file for some reason, which makes creating a LoR and LoR light split much easier.

Ok then, all im editing are the UnitArtStyle and ArtDefines, so I guess I wont have a problem.

I have just installed notebook++ and I have to say it is much better. Couple of questions on it though.

a) It seems that a rarely some of my lines will be indented funny. Its only the </UnitArtInfo> or similar headers. I know you said white space doesnt effect xml, but its annoying. Regular notebook did it to me too.

b) Is Notebook++ what I need to edit python?

a) It seems that a rarely some of my lines will be indented funny. Its only the </UnitArtInfo> or similar headers. I know you said white space doesnt effect xml, but its annoying. Regular notebook did it to me too.
Notepad++ automatically indents when you cut and paste based on the line above. This is on the most part helpfull, but can lead to an irritating extra indentation when you cut and paste entries in the XML. The way I get around this is to cut and past from the line above, I mean this:
<FreePromotionUnitCombats/>
</TraitInfo>This is where I make my cut
<TraitInfo>
<Type>TRAIT_ENLIGHTENED</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_TRAIT_ENLIGHTENED</Description>
<ShortDescription>TXT_KEY_TRAIT_ENLIGHTENED_SHORT</ShortDescription>
<iHealth>0</iHealth>
<iHappiness>0</iHappiness>
And then past accordingly.


b) Is Notebook++ what I need to edit python?

Yep, Notepad++ is what you use to edit python, and C++ source files. It's good for any code files actually. Notepad++ is infinitely better then regular old notepad, you'll be happy with the switch.

Phungus, depending on how much time I have this weekend, I might have the units done (its a longshot though). So if you do start on art I guess the cities would be good. Even if I dont finish soon, I am almost done and you would have to do double work anyway considering the base artsyles cross over so much. Im at a point to where it would just be less hassle and confusing to just finish it up.

That being said, the new Ethnic City Styles is out. I was planning on looking through it and see what can stay and what could go. Do you think it would be best to get the old CityPlot files all in order before attempting to add new stuff?

Yep, Notepad++ is what you use to edit python, and C++ source files. It's good for any code files actually. Notepad++ is infinitely better then regular old notepad, you'll be happy with the switch.

Is there a good tutorial for python in the the Tutorials section? Where did you learn python? I have no desire to really be a full blown modder. I only want to learn to make a trait, some new promotions, and unit abilities. Or at the very least understand it enough to incorporate other's pthon into a modcomp.

EDIT: on second that its definately best to wait and pour through these new city styles. There seems to be major changes and its alot bigger.

Phungus, depending on how much time I have this weekend, I might have the units done (its a longshot though). So if you do start on art I guess the cities would be good. Even if I dont finish soon, I am almost done and you would have to do double work anyway considering the base artsyles cross over so much. Im at a point to where it would just be less hassle and confusing to just finish it up.
I'm not done with the SDK work yet anyway, and just got a job :woohoo: so likely wol't pick up on the art, I'll just defer to your expertise on it.

That being said, the new Ethnic City Styles is out. I was planning on looking through it and see what can stay and what could go. Do you think it would be best to get the old CityPlot files all in order before attempting to add new stuff?
The Unit ethnic art is being built from scratch, same thing would be best to do with the city art.

Is there a good tutorial for python in the the Tutorials section? Where did you learn python? I have no desire to really be a full blown modder. I only want to learn to make a trait, some new promotions, and unit abilities. Or at the very least understand it enough to incorporate other's pthon into a modcomp.

Here is how I learned. I wanted to do something specific (rebuild the city distance penalty in Revolutions), so I asked jdog where it was and he pointed to Revolution.py. Then I looked over revolution.py and used common sense to figure out what was going on (most of the code in Civ4 uses common sense names, look at the XML, you can figure out what the tag does by its name, and it's similar with python and even the SDK, you just have to use common sense. Like I was able to figure out pCity.getX() was asking what the X coordinate for the city the code was just by looking at it), then I wrote pseudo code based on what stuff I saw looked like. Obviously my code didn't work because I had no idea what I was doing, just winging it. So I went on the Python and SDK forum and presented my goal, and showed my code and asked what was wrong. Xienwolf and Emperor Fool walked me through it, but the whole time I was actually writing my own code, just getting help. The people here don't like to write code for you, but they seem happy to give you direction when you're lost, and point out mistakes and troubleshooting strategies. You just need to be specific and detailed when asking for help. I still get alot of help on that forum when I inevitably screw up. Anyway that's how I am learning how to code in Civ4.

Phungus, in the LoR lite you still have TROOPER as part of the Mechanized Infantry mesh. But there is no trooper entry in the art defines and its not in the art folder. Also if you could go through and change all the frontiersman references in your LoRLite to pathfinder, so it'll match my xml im making.

Ah, good catch. That's why it's a test build :mischief: If you're using the test build and need a fix (as that is a critical bug), let me know and I'll upload a patch for it. Otherwise I'll put out a new version with the new SDK stuff I've just written in a day or two. I'm waiting to see if jdog responds to me, as I'd really like to clone some of the revolution modifiers from the civics into the traits. Unfortunately I'm stuck because the way these functions operate do so in an esoteric way through a specific revolution python file (RevCivicUtils), and so it's not as simple as most of the SDK stuff I've cloned.

Hey phungus, how hard was it to code in the Blue planet stuff? And how hard would it be to remove it completely? I was just wondering cuz Cold fever used to regularly update BluePlanet, so I might need to knowhow to do it to my own game.

No coding whatsoever. It's just the BlueMarble.fpk (I just took the art and packed it in it's own fpk, and set up the installer to have the option to install it as an add on). The coding stuff from blue marble is all deep in BtS, which I'm not going to alter someone's core game, so I only incorporated the art that can be added as a mod, which all of that uses default BtS names, so no XML definitions need to change, just the art itself.

Ok cool. I was actually thinking about adding Chuggi's Improved Graphics to my own game. It has some genuine graphics imprvements as opposed to just slightly better textures. The only reason that I never suggested it, back when the BlueMarble debate was going, is that it seems to have lost any support with Chuggi's disappearance.

Phungus, I know before last few releases you had the gallic warrior changing according to eras. Did that work, if so Ill put it back that way.

And why the hell is firaxis too lazy to change names. Like the Gallic being called celtic barbarian. And dont even get me started with the Phalanx-spearman name switch without changing the file names.

Yeah, it worked. It was pointing to a non existant kfm, so I removed them before I realized what was wrong, and then when I realized it, I didn't feel like hunting down the different era styles.

Ok, I know the aesthetics thing is my department, but I gota ask since this would pertain to the unit infos and thusly LoRLite. I was thinking that since you would only really get to see the Gallic sword change once since your not likely to have more than a random/forgotten one at industrial age. What would be cooler: a) having the Gallic change as we have it now or, B) Having a 3 mesh group for them, where all 3 units are different to make them really look like a horde of crazy celts.

Secondly, almost missed that you changed the Vietcong to Motown Infantry. Do you want a 2 soldier/1 vehicle mesh for it? I guess they really dont need it.. But if you wanted that, I could find a rickity truck that might fit them.

This one doestn really pertain to Lite. What would make a better keshik. The original one like in LoR lite, or the mongol horse archer like in v0.94 and before. I know keshiks were supposed to actually be the light cavalry, ie: horse archers, so I guess that would be realistic. But the vanilla keshik model looks more like a knight. Theres even 2 more heavy knight mongols to use, that look even better.:dunno:

re gallic: Think it would be cooler to use 3 seperate models to look like a horde, like what is done with the Oromo Warrior

re Vietcong: They are a motorized inf replacement, they are not motorized inf.

re keshik: Whatever floats your boat.


Going through I've realized that the fireworks festival could use a different graphic and button.

re gallic: Think it would be cooler to use 3 seperate models to look like a horde, like what is done with the Oromo Warrior

Ok

re Vietcong: They are a motorized inf replacement, they are not motorized inf.

Good point.

re keshik: Whatever floats your boat.

Crap, alright then...


Going through I've realized that the fireworks festival could use a different graphic and button.

Aww, you dont like the circus. You thinking a better graphic for fireworks festival, or a different graphic as in different building that does the same thing.

Just a different graphic, and the button is just a copy of the hwacha. It's the only straight cloned button the mod has other then the fishery, which is fine, the fishing button makes sense, plus it's such a late game building anyway. But yeah, definatly needs a new button, and I'm not a fan of the circus tent as representing a fireworks display either. Not really sure what would work better though :hmm:

Just a different graphic, and the button is just a copy of the hwacha. It's the only straight cloned button the mod has other then the fishery, which is fine, the fishing button makes sense, plus it's such a late game building anyway. But yeah, definatly needs a new button, and I'm not a fan of the circus tent as representing a fireworks display either. Not really sure what would work better though :hmm:

Yeah the buttons easy, pic of firework exploding in the sky or something. Building though, I dunno. Its not really a structure.

Ok Im completely stumped as to how to make a fireworks festival. Scoured through the DB, as well as I cant even make up something in my head to represent it. I suppose we could make it like the heroic epic where its kinda representory instead of a structure. Like several stereotypical fireworks rockets and firecrakers. But that would be kind of a cop out.

Instead of a structure why not just have fireworks? You can't really see a festival far away, but you can see the fireworks.

Instead of a structure why not just have fireworks? You can't really see a festival far away, but you can see the fireworks.

True enough. But it needs something visible in the civlopedia. So far I dont think any of the FX actually show up in the pedia viewport.

A park with people?

I stumbled across this picture by chance and it made me think of this thread. Admittedly it's perhaps too heavily americanised but is this a possibility for Fireworks Festival?

http://warchild13.com/images/2009/07/CAIROXYN-Clarence%20Holbrook%20Carter.jpg

Edit: Oh and this one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/RoyalFireworks.jpg


As for the title screen have you tried creating anything in Vue? Another exceptional 3d programme and can be used in conjunction with 3d max but concentrates specially on detailed and beautiful terrain.

Cyrano

PHungus, why is there no CityL or PlotLSystem xml in LoR Lite. I understand there is no ethnic buildings, but are those two files completely unnessecary? Im pretty sure I didnt delete them if they were there to begin with.

EDIT: I guess none of that matters, added the 2 XMl files, and updated the Global Defines and it seems to work ok. Just need to make sure there are no screwy buildings. However when loading a game I do get this error message from the DebugDLL:

Assert Failed

File: CvGlobals.cpp
Line: 3575
Expression: strcmp(szType, "NONE")==0 || strcmp(szType, "")==0
Message: type ERA_ALL not found

----------------------------------------------------------

What is CvGlobals.cpp? Is that a DLL file I needed to alter when adding the CityLSystems? I dont really want to be alter the game core.

LoR light uses the same custom city art as BtS, so there was no reason to include a CityLSystem, or PlotLSystem file (as it just uses BtS's).

That assert means that a non existent string is being refferenced (You get the same sort of assert when a unit has a bad ArtDefinesUnit reffernce). We could add in ERA_ALL to the XML, but that may be complex. The best thing to do would either be to ask Geomodder where ERA_ALL is defined in the XML, and any subsequent things that are needed to set that up, or drop it and use ERA_ANCIENT, ERA_CLASSICAL, etc. in it's place.

That assert means that a non existent string is being refferenced (You get the same sort of assert when a unit has a bad ArtDefinesUnit reffernce). We could add in ERA_ALL to the XML, but that may be complex. The best thing to do would either be to ask Geomodder where ERA_ALL is defined in the XML, and any subsequent things that are needed to set that up, or drop it and use ERA_ANCIENT, ERA_CLASSICAL, etc. in it's place.

Alright, Ill ask Geomodder. Strange thing is that ERA_ALL should already be set up. In the begining of both BtS' and LoR's CityLSystem it says this:

Era ERA_ALL or This ArtRef is allowed regardless of the game era.
This is the default if this attribute is not manually specified.
ERA_xxx,[era_xxx,.. ] A list of era types, specified in CIV4EraInfos, during which this
art may be used.


Only difference being is that Era_all is not actually used to describe any art in BtS, but Geo has used it for his CItyL. Its only used 11 times, so if I cant get an answer from him, Ill just ditch it and type in all the other eras.

achilleszero,

Take a look at the Persian scythe chariot when you have a chance. Their heads are ... off somewhat. When the chariots move, the driver's head lags a length behind and rests on the back of the following shoulder.

achilleszero,

Take a look at the Persian scythe chariot when you have a chance. Their heads are ... off somewhat. When the chariots move, the driver's head lags a length behind and rests on the back of the following shoulder.

I dont see the heads being messed up when the chariot moving, but I definitely see the head being off when it does its fidget animation. That models all kinds of jacked up, will have to rebuild it from scratch.

geomodder doesn't know, so should just replace ERA_ALL with ERA_ANCIENT, ERA_CLASSICAL, etc..., everywhere it appears in the LSystem files.

Edit: Looking at the CityLSystem ERA_ALL is in the comments, but it's never referenced. I think this was something the BtS devs were going to implement, but never got around it (because it was never used). It also apears that leaving the era tag blank, defaults to all eras, so actually the best thing to do would be to simply remove the era tags for buildings that use ERA_ALL, as it doesn't look like it's needed.

Ok so I replaced all references to ERA_ALL, and everything seems fine now. Do you have any idea what geo was talking about when he referenced if "ERA_ALL,!ERA_FUTURE" was the problem. And why the hell would you put ERA_ALL and another reference to another era. Shouldnt ERA_ALL be enough (providing it worked in the 1st place). And what are those "!'s" for? Never seen those used in the CItyL before.

Also found a couple of lines that looked like this:
<Attribute Class="ArtStyle">ERA_ALL,!ARTSTYLE_ARABIA,!ARTSTYLE_ASIA,......


Maybe Im missing some thing but shouldnt that ERA_ALL be ARTSTYLE_ALL? (and there's those dam "!'s" again)

Just in case your wondering about all these questions about something you didnt do, I never really get any helpful responses in that thread.

I believe the !ARTSTYLE_WHATEVER means not. And yes that ERA_ALL should be ARTSTYLE_ALL, so it's saying all artstyles except those listed, at least that's the most logical conclusion. BTW I don't think you need to replace ERA_ALL, I think you can just remove it, as all eras is used as the default, unless otherwise defined. So for instance if you see this ERA_ALL,!ERA_ANCIENT,!ERA_CLASSICAL, I'm fairly certain you can just use !ERA_ANCIENT,!ERA_CLASSICAL and that'll be interpreted as all eras except the ancient and classical. Anway the assert you posted definatly means ERA_ALL doesn't exist, so it seems reasonable you can just ommit it, as it doesn't mean anything currently, so removing it should have the same effect.

Ok next question. Any idea what this means?

Assert Failed

File: CvCity.cpp
Line: 10603
Expression: eIndex >= 0
Message: eIndex expected to be >= 0

----------------------------------------------------------


Happened right after I tried to place a city in WB, then CTD. Is this coincidence that this happened right after I deleted all the ERA_ALL and left them blank?

EDIT: I dont understand what the hell is going on. I went back and put in all the eras instead of leaving it blank. So offending city was a greek city. Now with all eras in place of ERA_ALL, greek city was placed and everything was fine. Next tried to place a native city....Same message as above, CTD. So went back and put in Geo's original CItyLSystem with all its ERA_ALL references. Placed native city just fine. Next tried to place an African city....same message, but this time no CTD, game kept on going and other cities were place fine.:confused::confused::confused: WHy is retarded ERA_ALL so important? Apparently Im not ever allowed to mess with it once it has been unleashed upon the world. Only thing I can think of with my last attempt, is the palace might be messed up in the CityL. Since if the game doesnt crash in the 1st city I get no message on the 2nd city. No idea what eIndex ==>0 means.

That assert is not causing a CTD. So must be something else.

That assert should actually be muted, it's asking the city if it has NO_RELIGION, which doesn't make sense, hence the assert. My hunch is that's caused by inquisitions, but anyway, it's harmless, just wasting processor time (you'll find that assert in RevDCM and all it's derivitives).

When you remove the ERA_ALL entries, are you making sure that there is no comma leading the tag.
I mean converting this:
<Attribute Class="ArtStyle">ERA_ALL,!ARTSTYLE_ARABIA,!ARTSTYLE_ASIA...
to this would cause a crash:
<Attribute Class="ArtStyle">,!ARTSTYLE_ARABIA,!ARTSTYLE_ASIA...
should be like this:
<Attribute Class="ArtStyle">!ARTSTYLE_ARABIA,!ARTSTYLE_ASIA...

Anyway it's possible ERA_ALL is needed, but I can't see how, because the assert you're showing is saying it doesn't exist.

You know what, it's possible that ERA_ALL in the artstyle tag entries is what is causing that assert..., fix that and see if the assert goes away. This would make sense because ERA_ALL wouldn't exist as an artstyle.

You know what, it's possible that ERA_ALL in the artstyle tag entries is what is causing that assert..., fix that and see if the assert goes away. This would make sense because ERA_ALL wouldn't exist as an artstyle.

Already replaced the ERA_Alls with the list of all eras, and changed that one to ARTSTYLE_ALL. Still get that religion assert from RevDCM. But it doesnt crash anymore. So maybe I did have something messed up when I pasted. I had checked both ends of all 10 tags, and all were right (no extra commas). Not sure what I did wrong. Usually your DebugDLL tells me what is wrong. Like it told me when I had pasted over a ">".

Oh well now I need to figure out why some base buildings like the default barracks are invisible. That doesnt make sense, as that is untouched in his XML.

Ok so the ERA_ALL in place of ARTSTYLE_ALL was the entire problem it seems. Put back all the original mentions of it except that one and no more assert failures about ERA_ALL (although the error message couldve been clearer, sometimes it tells me exactly what Ive done wrong).

Yeah, the debug dll is only as good as the firaxis programmers made it. All those asserts are programmed in to look for things that are wrong. In this instance all it said was ERA_ALL didn't exist, didn't say where or how, which was the cause of the confusion. Oh well, live and learn.

Would it be worth it to move our art into varying atlases? What's the benifit of using an Atlas anyway for buttons? BtS does this by default in almost all locations, so it seems like it's an optimization, but is it worth it to do with Legends?

Still issues with the game title, giving an unpolished feel. Playing windowed full screen 1440 x 900.

Would it be worth it to move our art into varying atlases? What's the benifit of using an Atlas anyway for buttons? BtS does this by default in almost all locations, so it seems like it's an optimization, but is it worth it to do with Legends?

Im not really sure what the benefit of atlases is. Maybe the atlas button is for the game screen and the normal loose button is for the build menu. Ill have to see, Ill start off with a couple ethnic units and see what happens.

At any rate, having an atlas still means you need the loose button. Going by how BtS is set up (both are present). So that means twice the space will be taken up.

Still issues with the game title, giving an unpolished feel. Playing windowed full screen 1440 x 900.

Is this exactly the same look as how the old LoR screen looked, or is it different. Seems like we just have an issue with the Title.

How does normal BtS look for you? Both these screens are basically the same setup. So Im taking the problem has arose with me trying to raise the camera and point it downwards for a different perspective.

I guess the screenshots tell more. BtS screens handle the problem pretty well.

I guess the screenshots tell more. BtS screens handle the problem pretty well.

Ok so the whole problem seems to be my moving of the title and the camera. It appears in those screenshots that the title is also a little higher than in less elongated resolution. So Ill just revert to the old setup. It should work then, as BtS screen and mine are made of the same components, just different graphics.

Merri, how does this look. The first pic is on 1280x720, which is as close as I can set it to 1440x900. Second pic is on 1024x768, which is what I run it on. I didnt realize how much of a the different resolutions effected the perspective.

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Of course the pic is squeezed out of proportion for some reason. But the title will be in the same place for you as it is in the pic.

The actual resolution of the first picture is 1152 x 808, so if it is 1280 x 720 it is no wonder it is squeezed. The window can be resized and the contents follow the size. That is why I measured from a screenshot the actual size of the window and set a custom resolution to 1440 x 838 to get real pixel perfect screen for myself. Full screen 1440 x 900 would be a bit less cruel, I guess the original Civ4 and Warlords screen would then display the full title instead of getting cropped.

I just wonder why it isn't (easily) possible to set the title to 1) top never out of screen and 2) otherwise to halfway between the top of the screen and the menu. I guess I don't want to know how overly complex the screens have been made... :D

The actual resolution of the first picture is 1052 x 808, so if it is 1280 x 720 it is no wonder it is squeezed. The window can be resized and the contents follow the size. That is why I measured from a screenshot the actual size of the window and set a custom resolution to 1440 x 838 to get real pixel perfect screen for myself. Full screen 1440 x 900 would be a bit less cruel, I guess the original Civ4 and Warlords screen would then display the full title instead of getting cropped.

I just wonder why it isn't (easily) possible to set the title to 1) top never out of screen and 2) otherwise to halfway between the top of the screen and the menu. I guess I don't want to know how overly complex the screens have been made... :D

Merri: Here is the updated opening menu, you can try it out for your self. And let me know if the textures look any better on the landscape.

Not sure why Firaxis didnt make the screens work in all resolutions. But I do know from messing with this one, that everyone gets wildly different views on different res. And on the higher resolutions that stupid blue menu box takes up less of the screen, and that is what I built the whole thing around, but on low res. Now though I am making sure that everyone gets a good looking screen on every res possible.

This model for the legionaire throws a pilum before closing into melee. I'd like to incorporate it into the art for the full version (light can keep the firaxis model, this is just a minor graphix improvement). Could you take a look at it achilleszero and see what you can do? I know there is some extranious stuff like the shovel to cut, and I'm sure you can optimize it in other ways:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11919

Major bug. Ataturk is busted, he doesn't display in the civilopedia as though the KFM is bad.

Edit: Figured it out, was pointing to the wrong background file.

Edit2: There is something wrong with Francis I's art stuff as well. Sometimes he displayes and other times the civilopedia fails to load. Need to fix this leaderhead, but it's "touchy" not compltely broken.

Same with Bolivar.


To replicate this touchiness, just click on them in the civilopedia a few times in a row, and the civilopedia will trip out. So something is wrong with them, but it's minor. Thing is this is probably bad and very noticeable on certain video cards.

This model for the legionaire throws a pilum before closing into melee. I'd like to incorporate it into the art for the full version (light can keep the firaxis model, this is just a minor graphix improvement). Could you take a look at it achilleszero and see what you can do? I know there is some extranious stuff like the shovel to cut, and I'm sure you can optimize it in other ways:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11919
Yeah that shouldnt be too much of a problem.

Major bug. Ataturk is busted, he doesn't display in the civilopedia as though the KFM is bad.

Edit: Figured it out, was pointing to the wrong background file.

Edit2: There is something wrong with Francis I's art stuff as well. Sometimes he displayes and other times the civilopedia fails to load. Need to fix this leaderhead, but it's "touchy" not compltely broken.

Same with Bolivar.

Hmm this touchiness of thiers is strange. I know Ive looked at both of those and they seemed fine. I bet I didnt change Ataturk in Light's xml.

EDIT:

To replicate this touchiness, just click on them in the civilopedia a few times in a row, and the civilopedia will trip out. So something is wrong with them, but it's minor. Thing is this is probably bad and very noticeable on certain video cards.


While were on the subject of the pedia screen. I usually have tha gaem in window mode. I notice long ago that I could not control the pedia viewport like you can in full screen mode. Then while using either 0.95 or 0.96 test version, all the sudden I noticed the viewport was rotating and I could now control it. It was a huge boon for my work. But now with 0.96a I can no longer control it and the view port is back to static. Is there some setting in the options or config ini that I dont know about?

Also I cant change civs in game anymore. I used to do it with impunity, but now I only can find the one setting for change player in the Revolution ini. Ive set it to true but it still does not work. Is there another setting for that?

Last I checked, the pedia viewscreen for units and such is only mobile when the graphics setting is set to high. Below that it is a static screen shot.

Last I checked, the pedia viewscreen for units and such is only mobile when the graphics setting is set to high. Below that it is a static screen shot.

I think you are absolutely right. Ive never heard of that, but I did just reinstall BtS before I noticed it. So it mustve been set on high by default and Ive changed it since then.

Last I checked, the pedia viewscreen for units and such is only mobile when the graphics setting is set to high. Below that it is a static screen shot.

Yeah, pretty sure this is how it works.

As far as switching players is concerned, this is vital to me for debugging. Saw a report in the RevDCM forums where someone stated the same thing, they lost the ability to switch players even when player switching was set to true in the Revolution ini file. Try one more thing, set your BtS main ini file to cheatmode, to do this open up the main BtS ini file and changed cheatmode = 0 to cheatmode = chipotle

Try one more thing, set your BtS main ini file to cheatmode, to do this open up the main BtS ini file and changed cheatmode = 0 to cheatmode = chipotle

I love chipotle! Inability to switch players has been slowing me down for a week or two.

Long while ago you(phungus) mentioned you were unconvinced that Blue Marble actually improved graphics. I partially agree. Most of it is just better color, only a small part of the textures is actually more detailed. What I do think is an improvement is Most of Chuggi's Improved Graphics. It operates the same way as BM. But several of the graphics are actually more detailed with out increasing texture size. Also there are better and more diverse trees, and a slew of better resources (different colored sheep for example). So I am working on taking the best of both and combining them. In the end will probably only increase the size of the BM fpk to no more than 35-40mb.

I am undecided on some of the more frivolous graphics in there and will probably leave them out. Chuggi has added plateaus that randomly appear in deserts (with a little seguaro cactus), and even fields of flowers that appear in grasslands. Niether have any game effect, but I do fear that they do put an extra strain on performance. Also he has improved every vanilla LH, but most I dont see a difference in. I have already added Washington and Monty from there in 0.96.

In my oppinion, performance is not a concern in the extended graphix add on (currently called blue marble). If people select that option when they install they are saying their priority is visual content, so long as adding in the new graphics is reasonable (not 10,000 poly units or something), feel free to add whatever you like. Because it is packaged along with the main install, it needs to be kept to a certain size, because the full install when packaged in the install exe needs to be under 500MB. Currently it's 374MB, so there is alot to work with there.

Even if I went whole hog and put in everything from Improved Graphics2.0 (all frivolous features and brightened LH textures), I dont even think it would more than double the total BM fpk. So maybe it would make the total exe 400mb.

Yeah. My point was that with the extended add on you don't need to limit yourself to improved terrain graphics. You can add new models that are too high poly or texture size to conform to normal LoR standards. Basically you can add anything reasonable to ehanced graphics add on, so long as it doesn't push the size of the LoR download over 500MB.

For ironclad battleships and protected cruisers you could use some of the pre dreadnought art available for ethnic units. For instance the Brenosettes pre-dread would make a perfect Ironclad Battleship ethnic unit graphic.


Also I plan on making 0.9.6 the "official release" tommarow, as no new major issues have been reported. So please try to get in the major fixes and any added content you think is easy to do sometime tomarrow. Here is my list in terms of priorities that need to be put in (already fixed Bolivar myself, just a bad path in the light version, easy fix in the art defines leaderhead file). For anyone who's not achilleszero, more playtesting to make sure there are no hidden graphix bugs would be apreciated in the 0.9.6a build. And thanks Wraith for reporting the art issues you've found.

Required
1) Upside down American Cuirassier
2) Touchiness in Francis I, and Bolivar leaderheads, so they don't blank out sometimes in the civilopedia
3) Updated Intro screen

Preffered:
4) check out Ho-Chi's leaderhead, it seems to wig out on some graphics cards (I have no problem with it, but I suspect nifskope or blender will find some minor issue that is causing a problem on some systems that are more touchy)
5) Put in new Legionaire model that throws a pilum

Optional:
6) Expand expanded graphics add on (blue marble)
7) More ethnic varients for Ironclad Battleship, such as the brenossettes, might find some good Protected cruiser varients as well while doing so



Anyway that's a big list, but really only the required stuff needs doing, as an upside down American curiassier, and glitchy leaderheads are major bugs, the rest of it is just flavor. So please get that top priority stuff done and uploaded sometime tommarrow.

Phungus you should check out the new legion and see if it is what you were thinking it was. It has to be set to ranged in artdefines to throw the pillum. So it only does it when facing another ranged. So enemy melee close in on it just like a ranged and it will fight with sword and pillum, switching spontaneously between the two. I was thinking it threw the pilum and then whipped out its gladius.

I did give it a super sweet, and more detailed shield though.

224302224301
224300

It needs the effects info for the pilum throw.

Oh, nevermind then. I thought it would throw the pilum, then close and fight with a gladius. If it doesn't do that, then it's better to keep it as is. Too bad.

Oh, nevermind then. I thought it would throw the pilum, then close and fight with a gladius. If it doesn't do that, then it's better to keep it as is. Too bad.

Yeah thats what I figured. Although theres a possibility I may be able to get it to do that, but it will take time. I have no idea how to use a hex editor that is required to attatch original effects, but its already there so maybe I can wiggle around some things in the melee animation.

Someone made an editor which changes the KFM into an XML document so you can merge in animations, and customize them. I'll go search for it.

Here it is:

KFM Converter (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=8747)

I've seen people use this to make pretty in depth animations to spaceships, everything in the Star Trek mod used this to get their animations to work. Also it is used to add parachuting effects to units that aren't compatible with the paratrooper animation, as it can be used to cut and paste animations from one unit to another. So this might work for you, not sure though.

Required
1) Upside down American Cuirassier: Fixed also cuirassier button that was just reported
2) Touchiness in Francis I, and Bolivar leaderheads, so they don't blank out sometimes in the civilopedia: No idea whats wrong. Never had a problem with Francis model until you just mentioned it. went to check it and it didnt display at all. Art defines has never been changed and only resizing of textures. Only difference I noticed is that the folder name said 'FancisI', when folder name doesnt have a capital "i". So I changed it and now it works. If I change it back it ceases to display. What the heck is up with that. Capital letters shouldnt matter there. Well that is only problem I saw with it. YOu should try it out yourself and see.
3) Updated Intro screen: You can use this screen found here. It has 2 chnges you wanted: Title in middle of Red Baron's flight path, and peasants trailing back towards city. Title is also much lower and smaller to accomodate all possible resolutions. And Much better texture on terrain.

Preffered:
4) check out Ho-Chi's leaderhead, it seems to wig out on some graphics cards (I have no problem with it, but I suspect nifskope or blender will find some minor issue that is causing a problem on some systems that are more touchy): Again, absolutely no idea whats wrong with it. Nifskope shows nothing, but in all actuality is mor forgiving in most things than the game is. I doesnot do anything strange for me and no programs or the logs give me any errors.
5) Put in new Legionaire model that throws a pilum: BUST

Optional:
6) Expand expanded graphics add on (blue marble): Not finished.
7) More ethnic varients for Ironclad Battleship, such as the brenossettes, might find some good Protected cruiser varients as well while doing so: Also not finished. In the middle of reincorporating several of the lost art from WolfRev. Have found Ethnic Armored cars, a few Ethnic Motor Infantry, and the several ships, new Roman units, new Persian units.

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I've gotta go to work now, so I wol't be up for updating for a few hours anyway, so if you do have any aditions before I post again, feel free to upload them. Otherwise I'm going to go with what you have here. Also Bolivar as well was touchy, if you can take a look at him. His eyes ghost out on occasion as well (which may be related).

Re Bolivar LH: again I cannot get any errors to pop nor does it seem to break on me. With out error log or any program to tell me a if and what a problem is I cant do anything to fix it.:dunno:

I had a similar thing happen last week with Xerxes. It seemed to be broke except the teeth broke. And I had done nothing to it since the last time I saw it work, and XML was unchanged and correct. After switching my XML to newest non-test version it worked just fine and hasnt broke since...?.?:confused:

Invalid attachement for the new intro screen.

Invalid attachement for the new intro screen.

Hmm that sucks, gimme a second to UL another.

Here it is:
224375

New priorities list for you achilleszero:

1) We need a good leaderhead for Trung Trac
2) The Core art models need to be able to work in frozen animations mode, so those who wish to, or are forced to due to poor spec computers can download and play LoR light in frozen animations.
3) Mechanized units need damage states. This is probably a lot of work, but we are getting close to the 1.0 release, and this is one of those proffesional touches that needs to be done to get this up to the "Official Expansion Pack" standard.
4) Replace the Mech with a more realistic LAN warrior model using Power Armor.*

*Edit: A LAN warrior system is something I saw in development while I was a lab rat for the US army, back in 2000 at Natick Labs. Basically it is an infantry unit with high tech gear like UAVs for survailance at the squad level, electronics which connects them for instant communication, their suits use an LED display to sort of simulate Predator camoflauge, they get aim information from electronics in their gun and eyepiece that relays and rangefinds targeting information on their rifle, and their suit can litterally constrict to apply pressure and stop hemoraging when they are hit by bullet rounds--also the suit can update information to the medics to aid in treatment. This was slated for release in 2020, and as far as I know is still in development for the US army. Incorporate that with some exoskeletal armor and you have a realistic future unit for the end game.

New priorities list for you achilleszero:

1) We need a good leaderhead for Trung Trac
2) The Core art models need to be able to work in frozen animations mode, so those who wish to, or are forced to due to poor spec computers can download and play LoR light in frozen animations.
3) Mechanized units need damage states. This is probably a lot of work, but we are getting close to the 1.0 release, and this is one of those proffesional touches that needs to be done to get this up to the "Official Expansion Pack" standard.
4) Replace the Mech with a more realistic LAN warrior model using Power Armor.*


1) Should be easy
2)This will take time but is doable.
3)As long as they have skin instances left on them this is also doable. Just time consuming.
4)I thought it was land warrior. Or is it actually LAN, like as in everybody wired up together. At any rate what are we looking at, a gunpowder unit or something that both the gupowder and armor upgrade to.

It's LAN. It'll be the exact same thing as the mech is now, upgraded from marines and nothing else, extremely costly, with a base 50 :strength: and a unique unit combat class with no counter. Basically the same thing as the mech is, just that it'll be called something different, and use a different model, so it actually fits with the realistic actual in development stuff the mod currently uses. As stated the current mech entry, and even the idea of mechs in general are a joke, so might as well use something that is currently in development and will be at least theoretically deployed sometime in the next 50 years.

Or is it actually LAN, like as in everybody wired up together. At any rate what are we looking at, a gunpowder unit or something that both the gupowder and armor upgrade to.I remember it being called LAN (as in network) for a while, I think currently, it's known as "Future Force Warrior (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Force_Warrior)" - but while the names change every couple of months, the concept is the same (just as phungus described it).

Cheers, LT.

I remember it being called LAN (as in network) for a while, I think currently, it's known as "Future Force Warrior (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Force_Warrior)" - but while the names change every couple of months, the concept is the same (just as phungus described it).

Cheers, LT.

I guess were all right. In the article land warrior is mentioned as a part of the program as well.

Heres a cool pic of a US army power armor concept:
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This what you had in mind when you said power armor? If I had my way Id just randomly pic a character from Metal Gear Solid 4 and make a model out of it :p. Because that would be cool.

This what you had in mind when you said power armor? If I had my way Id just randomly pic a character from Metal Gear Solid 4 and make a model out of it :p. Because that would be cool.

When I hear or read "Power Armour", I think these bad boys...

http://kingmong.deviantart.com/art/THE-EMPEROR-S-FINEST-98944998 ;)

Excellent work achilleszero :)

Minor thing I noticed: the Scythe Chariot and normal chariot use the same button art. I don't remember if it was like this before the art rebuild.

Minor thing I noticed: the Scythe Chariot and normal chariot use the same button art. I don't remember if it was like this before the art rebuild.

Yeah it was like that. The button I made got lost sometime ago, so I need to make a new one.

For all those who use LoR Blue Marble supplement:

I have merged Chuggi's Improved Graphics 2.0 in with the Blue Marble stuff. I took what I thought was the best, most detailed textures from each and combined them. It wound up being 90% chuggi's stuff. The only thing I didnt merge in was all the simple reskins of LH's. Unless it was a great/noticeble improvement over the original.

So I have a prototype FPK for anyone that wants to check it out. All you have to do is replace the BlueMarble.FPK in the LoR assets folder with this one. Dont forget to back up the old one, perferebly stick it in a folder outside LoR for later retrieval. THe only problem Ive seen so far is that the grassland and Plains are very similar, so I may have to brighten up the grassland texture. Besides that you will notice a great deal of improvements. Like animal resources grazing in meadows now, or a single black sheep frolicking with his sheep brothers, or even mixed forests (as in forest plots can have more than just pine or just deciduous).

Prototype Improved Blue Marble

So fell free to check it out and let me know if you think it is actually an improvement over what we have now.

For all those who use LoR Blue Marble supplement:

I have merged Chuggi's Improved Graphics 2.0 in with the Blue Marble stuff. I took what I thought was the best, most detailed textures from each and combined them. It wound up being 90% chuggi's stuff. The only thing I didnt merge in was all the simple reskins of LH's. Unless it was a great/noticeble improvement over the original.

So I have a prototype FPK for anyone that wants to check it out. All you have to do is replace the BlueMarble.FPK in the LoR assets folder with this one. Dont forget to back up the old one, perferebly stick it in a folder outside LoR for later retrieval. THe only problem Ive seen so far is that the grassland and Plains are very similar, so I may have to brighten up the grassland texture. Besides that you will notice a great deal of improvements. Like animal resources grazing in meadows now, or a single black sheep frolicking with his sheep brothers, or even mixed forests (as in forest plots can have more than just pine or just deciduous).

Prototype Improved Blue Marble

So fell free to check it out and let me know if you think it is actually an improvement over what we have now.

If I didn't originally install Blue Marble I'm guessing my throwing it in the folder won't just automatically let it work? I'd like to give it a try, but with the download down it seems I might not be able to for this version.

I found the issue with the Vikings, missing art defines entry for their fighter. So I was going to post up a fix and version, since everything is taken down. But it looks like the terrain improvement art wol't display (cottages and stuff) after the ancient era in the full release mode, so basically it's LoR light, or Blue marble, no in between. Making the terrain improvements graphix be standard would be too system intensive for the standard version, and making LoR light be standard, will in effect remove ethnic unit art from the mod, which looks crappy. I tried to reinsert a African and Native American ethnic city art, and leave the rest default, which would have improved the flavor, but not be too system demanding. But the CityLSystem and PlotLSystem files are way too confusing; I simply couldn't figure out how to do this. Any ideas?

Any ideas?

Actually yes I have an idea or two on that, but Im heading out the door right this second. Will get back to you in 2 hrs.

And yes I agree, PlotLSystem is way too dam complicated.

@Alsark: You would get some benifit by just throwing in that FPK. With the terrain at least. Those use same names as Firaxian ones so they over ride them. You just wouldnt get the improvement art because you will not have the PlotL from the BM install. But then again if you dont install BM with the bugged 0.96, you will have that invisible cottage thing going on. Will post my PlotLSystem when I get back so you can make full use of it without going through reinstall.

Actually yes I have an idea or two on that, but Im heading out the door right this second. Will get back to you in 2 hrs.

And yes I agree, PlotLSystem is way too dam complicated.

@Alsark: You would get some benifit by just throwing in that FPK. With the terrain at least. Those use same names as Firaxian ones so they over ride them. You just wouldnt get the improvement art because you will not have the PlotL from the BM install. But then again if you dont install BM with the bugged 0.96, you will have that invisible cottage thing going on. Will post my PlotLSystem when I get back so you can make full use of it without going through reinstall.

Thanks! I'll wait around for the PlotL and then give that FPK file a go. Do I just stick it in the Assets folder where the Wolfshanze and Achilles FPK packs are and it'll do its thing automatically?

Thanks! I'll wait around for the PlotL and then give that FPK file a go. Do I just stick it in the Assets folder where the Wolfshanze and Achilles FPK packs are and it'll do its thing automatically?

Yep just stick it in there with the other FPKs. Here is the PlotL, it goes in the xml/buildings folder:

PlotLSystem

Phungus: So with the BlueMarble and invisible cottages thing we have two options:

1) The best idea would for me to make a new PlotLSystem. The whole problem was that BtS PlotL refers to artstyles that dont exist in LoR;s GlobalDefines. Changing these pretty much means option 2 (which sucks). So I would take BM's PlotL and isolate the cottages section. I think it is all in its own section so that should be easy. Then I will just have to paste over the cottages section in BtS's PlotL. Since the BtS doesnt use artstyles for improvements no change will be needed to those (I think thats right otherwise people would have immediately noticed invisible farms and stuff). Should be simple in theory atleast.

2) Option 2 sucks, because it is what you mentioned last post. It would mean reverting to Light's CivilizationInfos,GlobalDefines, and BtS's PlotLSystem which use standard BtS art. That would be a big hit to the main mod.

EDIT: Also Merri found this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8363623&postcount=258) in the text file mentioned in the post. Dont know if it eefects anything but it looks like this:

<Finnish>Anarchy</Finnish>
</TEXT><TEXT>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_LEADER_ABU_BAKR</Tag>

I think I just saw it wrong (ie. bolded tags the other way around) when I was quickly looking for anything that could be wrong with the text files. I don't have any XML tools installed on my new computer yet so I'm limited to just viewing by eye, thus that was an easy catch (although not incorrect).


Did I say at some point that I think the title screen could look better if it had trees?

Did I say at some point that I think the title screen could look better if it had trees?

No you havent, but you were reading my mind.:). I keep forgetting to ask if trees would "spruce" it up. Also thinking about having some cavarly (maybe LegioX) riding over the hill on the right, between the options menu and Leo's Workshop.

I think you mean global types, and not global defines. All the artstyle types are in global types, so that's not an issue. Check LoR's and LoR light's global types file, they are identical. I'm certain the issue is that BtS's plotLSystem file is referencing artstyles that aren't being used, and that some of the artstyles don't have anything defined for them in the default BtS plotLSystem file. ARTSTYLE_CRESENT never appears in the BtS PlotLSystem file, this is the issue. I figured things would work, because I didn't realize cottages and stuff are specific to artstyle types when refernced in the PlotLSystem, ARTSTYLE_ALL must not be being used for cottages. Anyway, option1 just isn't an option because it doesn't adress the issue, the issue has nothing to do with the globaltypes file. Rather it is one with compatibility, with the artstyles being used in CiviliztionsInfos and what is being referenced in PlotLSystem.

The longterm solution would be to use a virtual default city ethnic styles for the full version, and add 2 needed types Native, and African. These would then need to be individually added to the default BtS PlotLSystem and CityLSystem files. I tried to do this, but got way too confused. Anyway doing this will also reduce the size of the AchillesZero.fpk file as it'd only need the added art from these two artstyle types.

I think you mean global types, and not global defines. All the artstyle types are in global types, so that's not an issue. Check LoR's and LoR light's global types file, they are identical. I'm certain the issue is that BtS's plotLSystem file is referencing artstyles that aren't being used, and that some of the artstyles don't have anything defined for them in the default BtS plotLSystem file. ARTSTYLE_CRESENT never appears in the BtS PlotLSystem file, this is the issue. I figured things would work, because I didn't realize cottages and stuff are specific to artstyle types when refernced in the PlotLSystem, ARTSTYLE_ALL must not be being used for cottages. Anyway, option1 just isn't an option because it doesn't adress the issue, the issue has nothing to do with the globaltypes file. Rather it is one with compatibility, with the artstyles being used in CiviliztionsInfos and what is being referenced in PlotLSystem.

Actually it does address the problem, but you have used the wrong CivlizationInfos and GlobalTypes( yeah I was calling it the wrong name) for LoR light. I set it up for the two versions to use completely different GlobalTypes. There is more difference thatn just new artstyles like crescent. When I sent you those last xml files for 0.96, that were split up between the LoR and LoR light, the CivilizationInfos and GlobalTypes were in the LoR folder and not in the Light folder. So they should have only been used for LoR. LoR light should have kept using the ones it had already been using. The Light versions refernced artstyles that exist in BtS. The normal LoR xml files referenced new artstyles (Artstyle_Europe instead of Artstyle_European, as well as Crescent and Norse). By using the normal LoR CivilzationInfos and GlobalTypes in LoR Light, you are referencing city art that is only found in the AchillesZero.FPK. So people should be having problems with both Light and LoR, as there is no artstyle_europe,asia,africa,etc, according to BtS. BtS PlotL shouldnt recognize the GlobalTypes being used at all. So thats why I made seperate versions.

The entire problem with 'LoR without the BM PlotLSystem' is that all the artstyles refered to in the GlobalTypes and CivilizationInfos donot exist according to BtS's PlotLSystem. The only reason that the cottages are visible in the ancient era is that all ancient cottages in BtS use sort of an artstyle_ALL thing. THen when classical era kicks in the seperate artstyles kick in. Mostly, its actually more complicated than that.

So we need to fix LoR Light's GlobalTypes and CivilizationInfos to the files that the original LoRlight version used, if you still have those. Then make a plotLSystem that refers to Ethnic city art but BtS improvement art.

LoR light works fine with all the current global types in there. This is done so that LoR and LoR light are save game compatible. Also it works fine, look at it, no issues with LoR light. So the issue is that the PlotLSystem that LoR uses is the default BtS one (unless you load Blue Marble), which the default PlotLSystem doesn't reference the new types in CivilizationsInfos.

LoR light works fine with all the current global types in there. This is done so that LoR and LoR light are save game compatible. Also it works fine, look at it, no issues with LoR light.

I cant check the newest Light version as I never got ahold of it, so I am flying blind on that part. But it is curious that it works at all, none of those files match. Do both LoR and LoR Light use the same CivilizationInfos as well? I would imagine they have to if they have the same GlobalTypes and that defines the useble ArtStyles.


So the issue is that the PlotLSystem that LoR uses is the default BtS one (unless you load Blue Marble), which the default PlotLSystem doesn't reference the new types in CivilizationsInfos.

Yes, this is why I originally proposed making a PlotLSystem for LoR without BM. So that we have ethnic cities but not ethnic improvements.

LoR and LoR light use different Civilizations infos, the only difference between the two is the Artstyles. Now LoR (full) uses a custom CityLSystem file that defines the city buildings so the city structures work fine. However in LoR (full) without blue marble it doesn't have a custom PlotLSystem, so it uses BtS's, BtS's doesn't reference the new types, like Cresent, etc. so it simply doesn't place anything. But here is the problem, pulling all that custom art on the terrains is going to be too system demanding, so it's not a good idea to just plop in blue marble's PlotLSystem. In fact the added city styles are cool, but seem more suited to a graphic enhancement pack. So my idea is to Create a Custom CityLSystem, PlotLSystem, and CivilizationsInfos file for each level of LoR (actually light will just use BtS's CityL and PlotL), where full will use default + the Native and African artstyle types. Then if blue Marble is selected (probably need to rename this to just Expanded Graphix or something) all the artstyles will be added. I'm talking city art here too, not unit art, which works fine as is. Anyway GlobalTypes doesn't apply here at all, they all use the same, where all global types are defined, to maintain save game. I don't know how to better explain what is going on. Here is the best summation I can get. In LoR light, the engine references the civilization, let's use Babylon, everything in it is default (ARTSTYLE_MIDDLE_EAST), it looks up ARTSTYLE_MIDDLE_EAST in global types, finds it so it can continue, then it wants to render city art, it can't find a custom CityLSystem file so it reads BtS's, and places the city art, same for the PlotLSystem. Now when we move on to full, same thing happens, except instead of ARSTYLE_MIDDLE_EAST, it see ARTSTYLE_CRESENT, which agan exists in globaltypes, so that's fine; then when it wants to render the models for the city art, it looks and finds a custom CityLSystem, and finds everything it needs and references everything and renders them fine. The problem occurs when it looks for the PlotLSystem, it doesn't find one, so it reads BtS's PlotL, but it never sees any instances of ARTSTYLE_CRESENT (except when it finds ARTSTYLE_ALL), so it only renders models for objects that are defined with ARTSTYLE_ALL, which doesn't seem to include cottages after the classical era. When the blue marble add on is installed, it does find a custom PlotLSystem file, and so renders the ARTSTYLE_CRESENT models without issue. This is the problem it has nothing to do with globaltypes.xml, as every artstyle LoR uses is in there, and all versions use the same file in order to maintain save game compatibility.

I cant check the newest Light version as I never got ahold of it, so I am flying blind on that part.

I only removed the download links from here, because 0.9.6b was broken, and I overreacted for various reasons. In retrospect it's not such a bad thing though, as this issue along with the critical bug in the viking fighter makes 0.9.6b crtically broken in my oppinion. Anyway LoR can still be download from the sites it was on (except StrategyInformer, where it has been removed entirely until 0.9.6 gets fixed). Here is the modDb mirror, you can find Light and full versions of 0.9.6b there:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/legends-of-revolution/downloads/

I understand whats happening. What I didnt know is that you added the BtS artstyles back into the GlobalTypes. I went through alot of work setting up the XML files that I originally sent, because I was unaware of save game compatibility. So I have been basing my argument upon how I set it up originally. My old way would have led us to the exact same predicament, but I would have known exactly what was going on. The way things are now completely contradicts what shouldve been happening with my old files, so it confused the hell out of me:confused:

However I have been on the same page about creating a new PlotLSystem for LoR without BM. I will set that up tomorrow.

Although this leads me to another thought. How complecated are we going to make LoR. Even though its just a few files, this now makes 3 distinct versions. This will be good from the perspective of "a version for everyone". But bad for future mod-modders and for the more casual users. This does seem like our only hope but now I have another question.

Is it really more system intensive? The city art LoR uses is actually the same or less than Firaxis art. The textures are actually a quarter of what they use. Have we noticed a performance boost since moving the improvement art away? Theres really not much more city art than what LoR had for 90% of its life. And as you saw theres not very much in the way of improvement art.

To be honest I'm not sure. But it seems common sense that it would be more system intensive. Also it's definately easier on the RAM the smaller the packed art is, as all this is loaded into the RAM and stays there, taking up space, so that alone would definatly give a small improvement.

As far as mod mods go, they'll just need to tailor to Light or Full versions, no way around it, I'd assume most mod modders will tailor their mod mods to full though. Some could ignore this and be cross type compatible, but to do that they'll need to not touch CivilizationsInfos, ArtDefinesUnit, and LSystem files, if these aren't changed though mod mods could be cross version compatible.

Edit:
Actually if we really wanted to be slick, we could use the same ARTSTYLE_ types in all versions of LoR, and just make it so at varying levels (light, full, or expanded) the LSystem references change. Ie basically with Light, we'd clone in all the extranious entries in the default BtS LSystem files like so:
</ArtRef>
<ArtRef Name="generic:an_eu.nif::1x1_01">
<Attribute Class="Era">ERA_ANCIENT,ERA_CLASSICAL</Attribute>
<Attribute Class="ArtStyle">ARTSTYLE_EUROPEAN,ARTSTYLE_IBERIA,ARTSTYLE_ANGLO_A MERICA,ARTSTYLE_NORSE,ARTSTYLE_RUSSIA,ARTSTYLE_SOU TH_AMERICA,ARTSTYLE_MESO_AMERICA,ARTSTYLE_NATIVE_A MERICA,ARTSTYLE_ARABIA,ARTSTYLE_CRESENT,ARTSTYLE_E GYPT,ARTSTYLE_INDIA,ARTSTYLE_MIDDLE_EAST,ARTSTYLE_ BARBARIAN</Attribute>
<Attribute Class="Scalar">iBatchGroup:0</Attribute>
</ArtRef>

So this is going to take me a quite a while to do. It just got more complicated by now having to merge in the Native and African styles in to the BtS LSystem.

And now choosing BM will be taking a massive hit compared to playing the other 2 versions. Most everyother mod has Geo's stuff as standard. I like moving the Improvements to BM but all the city art and LoR falls behind other mods.

If total FPK size is the problem, I have almost removed 25 more MB from the FPK in the last few days with more to do. That is almost what the structure art takes up.

Set it up how you want to. Just throwing out ideas here. And yeah, I tried to go in and set things up, but as stated the CityLSystem file was just too unwieldy for me... so good luck to you, howeer you decide to do it.

Yep just stick it in there with the other FPKs. Here is the PlotL, it goes in the xml/buildings folder:

PlotLSystem

Gah, sorry, man. You kind of wasted your time on me there. I ended up getting a very nasty bit of malware on my computer called Braviax. It generated all sorts of annoying pop-ups, and worse, it disabled anything that would scan the computer (anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware programs), even while in safe mode. So there was really no way to get rid of it (trust me, I tried everything I found on the internet and tango'd with the thing for seven hours after giving up). The only solution that was left? Reformatting my computer. In the mean time my Civ 4 computer is temporarily out of commission. Classes start tomorrow as well, so I am not going to worry about getting everything set back up until then.

Gah, sorry, man. You kind of wasted your time on me there. I ended up getting a very nasty bit of malware on my computer called Braviax. It generated all sorts of annoying pop-ups, and worse, it disabled anything that would scan the computer (anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware programs), even while in safe mode. So there was really no way to get rid of it (trust me, I tried everything I found on the internet and tango'd with the thing for seven hours after giving up). The only solution that was left? Reformatting my computer. In the mean time my Civ 4 computer is temporarily out of commission. Classes start tomorrow as well, so I am not going to worry about getting everything set back up until then.

That sucks. Had to wipe my hard drive 4 months ago as well.

Well its probably a "good" thing it happened now and not earlier, with LoR being on a little brake right now.

Hurry back I have lots of UU research I need help with.:p:p

That sucks. Had to wipe my hard drive 4 months ago as well.

Well its probably a "good" thing it happened now and not earlier, with LoR being on a little brake right now.

Hurry back I have lots of UU research I need help with.:p:p

And yeah, it definitely is better off having happened now than later.

Haha. I'll still be around here and there. Feel free to throw some ideas out there and I can get some articles written up on them. Unique units don't take very long to write something up on at all (it's the leaderheads that can take an hour or two). Haha, just don't throw like five leaderhead entries for me to write up at once. I'm glad I don't have to rewrite Reagen (I'm not very interested in modern history or America, so modern America is a double yuck).

Is the idea to eventually have two unique units per civilization, or are we just doing that for individual civilizations? I wouldn't entirely mind two unique buildings, either, but that might be pushing it. I do like having the civilizations be more distinct from one another rather than just two differences between each civilization (not counting leaders).

Is the idea to eventually have two unique units per civilization, or are we just doing that for individual civilizations? I wouldn't entirely mind two unique buildings, either, but that might be pushing it. I do like having the civilizations be more distinct from one another rather than just two differences between each civilization (not counting leaders).

Its not for LoR, its for my own UU add-ons. I dont forsee many more UUs getting added to the main LoR, other than the random addition here and there that pop into Phungus' head.

I am trying to make all civs have atleast 2. I like some civs having 3 or even 4, as long as everyone else could get a second. A 2-1 ratio is alot better than the 3-1 we have with now. I am going to throw up a list of the ones I have so far and which ones I still need ideas for.

UBs are really hard to come up with. I might do a few 2nd UB's for civs that have weak UU. But coming up with a 2nd for every civ is a really daunting task.

Its not for LoR, its for my own UU add-ons. I dont forsee many more UUs getting added to the main LoR, other than the random addition here and there that pop into Phungus' head.

I am trying to make all civs have atleast 2. I like some civs having 3 or even 4, as long as everyone else could get a second. A 2-1 ratio is alot better than the 3-1 we have with now. I am going to throw up a list of the ones I have so far and which ones I still need ideas for.

UBs are really hard to come up with. I might do a few 2nd UB's for civs that have weak UU. But coming up with a 2nd for every civ is a really daunting task.

Ah, cool, cool! Is this an LoR add-on or a vanilla BtS add-on?

And sure, that sounds great - I'd love to help think of some ideas for unique units. There are plenty of civilizations I do not know about in Civ 4, but a little bit of research would help do some revealing.

Good point about the unique building thing. Some civilizations... yeah... it might be hard to come up with two. You could maybe reuse some unique buildings, though. I mentioned this in the bugs forum actually (it got off-topic), but I like the idea of the trading post from Civilization: Revolution, which adds commerce to desert. This unique building could be used for both Egypt and Arabia (and other African/Middle East civilizations if there are no immediate better ideas). Although actually coding a building that gives commerce to desert is surprisingly difficult (you have to edit the python, because there is no way via XML to add variables to desert).

Other civilizations wouldn't be bad, though. I could try coming up with a unique building list after we've worked on the unique units - if you'd like to add more to your add-on pack. That's obviously up to you, though.

Hey achilleszero the mod has been down for a while, any idea on when the art will be updated so we can release 0.9.6c?

Hey achilleszero the mod has been down for a while, any idea on when the art will be updated so we can release 0.9.6c?

Tomorrow probably. I havent had much time to do anything for the PlotL. My first attempt seemed promising then wound up crashing and I couldnt figure out why. So I had to make a different one.

The LSystem files can definately be a pain. Let me know if things aren't making any headway here and a fix is still a whiles off. The mod has been down for far too long now, aproaching a month, so might just need to do a simple and drastic fix and remove the Ethnic City art at this point in order to get the mod back up.

Heres stuff for 0.96c.

FPKs
XML for 3 versions


PlotL for normal LoR is set up. There ethnic city sets and no ethnic improvemnts except for cottages. This way seems to work with no problems. Problems arose when I tried to cut out ethnic cottages. Could never figure it out. One minute I had it all working even added generic african and native city art, next thing I know it wasnt. So I had to throw it all out.

So in xml zip, there are the few fixes from bugged 0.96b.

LoR light:
*artdefines fix for pathfinder and chinese halberd
*2 Leaders had redundant traits

LoR:
*4 missing artfines for vikings
*2 leaders had redundant traits
*New Plot L
*few fixes in unit infos

LoR Expanded:
*PlotLsystem for BM

Thanks, when I wake up I'll work on releaseing 0.9.6c so LoR is back up.

Took a while to go through and remove all the extranious files, like buttons in unit folders, and shortcuts to the internet and nifscope, etc. That's done, in testing though I've found quite a few units don't match their animation, the kfm is wrong so the civilopedia comes up blank. It'll take me a bit to fix these, as I need to check each civ individually. Mainly though I've ran into some units that have their own kfm and still don't work. I had to rip out the Austrian Dreadnought for this reason, and am experiencing the same issue with the American fighter. I'm going to try renaming the main nif from p38 to mosquito so it matches the kfm name, if that doesn't work though, I may need to remove a few more ethnic units. Also there is a jpeg file which should probably be converted to a dds, it's in the American Spearman folder. It'll likely take me a few hours to go through all the units and make sure the kfms work, and change those that need it.

Edit, yeah, renaiming it to mosquito worked.

Took a while to go through and remove all the extranious files, like buttons in unit folders, and shortcuts to the internet and nifscope, etc. That's done, in testing though I've found quite a few units don't match their animation, the kfm is wrong so the civilopedia comes up blank. It'll take me a bit to fix these, as I need to check each civ individually. Mainly though I've ran into some units that have their own kfm and still don't work. I had to rip out the Austrian Dreadnought for this reason, and am experiencing the same issue with the American fighter. I'm going to try renaming the main nif from p38 to mosquito so it matches the kfm name, if that doesn't work though, I may need to remove a few more ethnic units. Also there is a jpeg file which should probably be converted to a dds, it's in the American Spearman folder. It'll likely take me a few hours to go through all the units and make sure the kfms work, and change those that need it.

Edit, yeah, renaiming it to mosquito worked.

Strange, some of those custom animations seem to work sometimes and not work other times. I know for a fact that austrian dreadnaght has broken on me, and then without me doing anything it worked again:confused:. Cant ever recall the p-38 not working. Last time I checked, it worked.

Just disregrad that Jpeg in the American spearman. Its useless. I cleaned out probably 20mg worth of jpegs, redundant kfs, and other stuff. I must have missed that one. The whole art FPK's should be pretty cleaned out. As you can see total art is down to almost 400mb. It was 550 at one point. Pretty good considering there are way over 100 more units now than at that point.

When you say internet shortcut, Are you refering to that internet archive from Jzip? I just found out that jzip does that when I DLed one of my own attatchments. I dont know what other free zip program to use, so Im stuck with that.

There were a few random shortcuts in the AchillesZero.fpk some were to the internet, some were to nifskope, I just deleted them, not really an issue, but just noting it.

I just finished checking Korea, and will now hopefully get through the rest of the civs in the next couple of hours. There are a couple broken models: frozen fighters, there have been a few of these, most of the jets were frozen, and you fixed them by doing something with a broken nose node, so these are probably the same. Here is the list of fighters that are frozen:

German Fighter
Japanese Bi-Plane
Korean Bi-Plane

One last thing, the English light bomber is a bi-plane model, so I'll delete it and make have England use the default light bomber modl. If you fix these broken units, and have something in mind to work better for the English light bomber please upload them and I'll work them into the 0.9.6c build. It'll still take me a while, at least a few more hours, to finish going through all the art.

Edit:
Polish Battleship is frozen

The three planes are working now:226722


For polish battleship, switch its kfm to destroyer. Its the Battleship_Russian in the artdefines.

I should tell Avain this as well because thats where I ripped the model and artdefines from, and he has it as battleship.

Awesome. I'm at spain now, and found another one. The spanish fighter is also frozen.

Awesome. I'm at spain now, and found another one. The spanish fighter is also frozen.

You already have it. It is in subfolder of german fighter (reskin of me-109), and that is where artdefines point to. Ive never seperated them just for this very reason., so that I know it is a reskin and I can fix the model once and then copy it over.

Whats up with red blobbed chinese Halberd from the LeaderLegend thread? I know it works cuz I just looked at it.

achilleszero: on zip files and other archives, PeaZip and IZArc both work rather fine, although PeaZip's UI isn't very Windows-like, and IZArc lacks support for Unicode (which is why I've currently ended up with PeaZip).

Well it takes hours to upload to the internet, and also to compile it into an install script, and I've got to go now, so I'll pick this back up tommarrow, and will finish it then and we should have LoR finally released again, with a download link. If there is anything you want to add/fix/append/change let me know in the within the next 12 hours or so, as I should start compiling LoR into an installer in about 12 hours, I think (but not before then). Also the Russian Battleship is still frozen, well it doesn't wobble, it animates it's attack fine, but it doesn't wobble in the ocean like the other ships, and is just frozen there.

Also the Russian Battleship is still frozen, well it doesn't wobble, it animates it's attack fine, but it doesn't wobble in the ocean like the other ships, and is just frozen there.

Just cut it then. I havent had time to look at it. Its only used by Russia and Poland. Leave it in the FPK and Ill look at it later.

The Roman gun powder units look silly. In the next update I'd like the absurd Legion armored musket, grenadier, and rifleman swapped out for more apropriat looking Italian models of the era. Achilleszero you want to do this?

The Roman gun powder units look silly. In the next update I'd like the absurd Legion armored musket, grenadier, and rifleman swapped out for more apropriat looking Italian models of the era. Achilleszero you want to do this?

Great idea. That vexed me always when playing with Rome. There must be nice Italian models out there.

achilleszero now that LoR 0.9.6 is out and play tested for a bit, seems that the bugs have shaken out (*hopefully). Have you thought about releasing your unit set for standard BtS? I think that with LoR's art organization it would be a perfect set to release outside of LoR as well, and might get more players to try LoR if they can first try the Art in an unaltered gameplay setting. Of course this may be sort of bad as it would directly compete with VD, so I can see why you wouldn't want to do so. But still I think the LoR ethnic art is the best organized and probably overall best art set available in terms of performance and quality. If you do decide to release LoR's art in a custom assets format, I can set up an installer to do this so that it's easy to download and install, and loads like BAT does from the custom assets.

Also apologies for getting frustrated earlier due to the last two reported art bugs. I just really want LoR to be stable, and critical bugs like bad buttons really mess with me.

achilleszero now that LoR 0.9.6 is out and play tested for a bit, seems that the bugs have shaken out (*hopefully). Have you thought about releasing your unit set for standard BtS? I think that with LoR's art organization it would be a perfect set to release outside of LoR as well, and might get more players to try LoR if they can first try the Art in an unaltered gameplay setting. Of course this may be sort of bad as it would directly compete with VD, so I can see why you wouldn't want to do so. But still I think the LoR ethnic art is the best organized and probably overall best art set available in terms of performance and quality. If you do decide to release LoR's art in a custom assets format, I can set up an installer to do this so that it's easy to download and install, and loads like BAT does from the custom assets.

No i hadnt thought about that. Maybe it would help draw more people to LoR. People dont seem to read the OP in the main thread and dont seem to know what comes in LoR. So maybe they need some more incentives.

Your right about it probably being the most efficient art pack out there. I have even recently opened up and examined all 14000 textures, yeah you heard me 14000, and then recompressed the ones capable of further compression. And resized a few hundred.

Ill have to think about whether or not to do a release thing.

I just replaced the roman rifleman, grenadier, cannon, and cavalry with italian ones. Only problem is I dont see a Italian cuirassier or musketman. But Im thinking those two arent too much of a stretch. Being earlier gunpowder units, still in the era of crests and armor.

Glad to hear you've gotten some of the gunpowder units replaced for Rome. I just think the current ones look goofy. Also if you like, feel free to create your own Redshirt model for the Italian Rifleman or Grenadier,:deal: actually the Redshirt could make for a good UU :hmm: Italian Red Shirts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_(Italy))

As far as Musketman and Cuirassier are concerned, found these in the database if you're interested:

Italian Arquebusier (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10167)

Cuirassier Set, 12 models (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/12_cuirassiers_k1r.jpg) Might find something in here.

Mounted Cardinal Guard (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4107) Could definatly work for an Italian Cuirassier.


Also unrelated, but still a good model as an ethnic varient for the bombard:

Culvern (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9861)

Uhm ... just started a new game with 0.9.6c, as Americans, Enhanced Graphics, and the city graphics are missing. That is, my city is invisible. Known issue?

EDIT: Never mind the above. I think I got it. Artstyles were renamed.

Uhm ... just started a new game with 0.9.6c, as Americans, Enhanced Graphics, and the city graphics are missing. That is, my city is invisible. Known issue?

EDIT: Never mind the above. I think I got it. Artstyles were renamed.

Curious, it shows up for me. What was the artstyle? In both regular LoR and Enhanced LoR, the american building artstyle should be Europe. Did you have something different??

Yep. "European". Scenario. Again.

Yep. "European". Scenario. Again.

Ah, ok. I dont know anything about the LoR scenarios's. We will have to check those as we have ironed out many things with the city and building art. And it never occured to me the whole time to check for scenario compatibility.

While your at it you might as well check the others. They all are slightly differnt. No idea why GeoModder felt it neccesary to drop all the n's at the end of the names. Here is a list of what they should be.

ARTSTYLE_AFRICA
ARTSTYLE_ANGLO_AMERICA
ARTSTYLE_ARABIA
ARTSTYLE_ASIA
ARTSTYLE_BARBARIAN
ARTSTYLE_CRESCENT
ARTSTYLE_EGYPT
ARTSTYLE_EUROPE
ARTSTYLE_GRECO_ROMAN
ARTSTYLE_INDIA
ARTSTYLE_IBERIA
ARTSTYLE_JAPAN
ARTSTYLE_MESO_AMERICA
ARTSTYLE_MIDDLE_EAST
ARTSTYLE_MONGOLIA
ARTSTYLE_NATIVE_AMERICA
ARTSTYLE_NORSE
ARTSTYLE_RUSSIA
ARTSTYLE_SOUTH_AMERICA
ARTSTYLE_SOUTH_EAST_ASIA
Basically just make sure there is no "N" on the end of the name. And dont worry about ones like anglo-american, mongolia. They have not been made yet, so dont use those. Also I think south america is only used in LoR light, so just make sure the meso civs have ARTSTYLE_MESO_AMERICA

I just checked Lean's and World War Wolf, and the artstyles are fine. The Big Europe map is clean, so no civs have predefined artstyles.

StMikael could you upload a save with the vanished american buildings?

Sorry, I don't have any save anymore. I just had an old scenario file not made for LoR, and it still had the old artstyle names.

@Phungus: To go along with the Joan of Arc and Trung warlord, I was going to make a couple of more missing ethnic warlords. I was thinking a Greek one that resembles the new Alex LH, and a Sioux Sitting bull/Crazy horse warlord. Any other ideas for warlords? I want to make a byzantine one, but cant really find any pics of a byzantine medieval general. All the east asian civs are pretty well covered with Bakuels's LoTK units.

Earlier you had expressed some interest in releasing some art to drum up business. So I was thinking in the mean time I would release some of the units I made as units found in LoR. I had no intention of ever releasing them, as I made them exsclusively for LoR. But there seems to be some call for units that I have already made. So i figure several releases would draw some attention. Youre thoughts?

My current plan now is after the next release of RevDCM, and the subsequent LoR update to release a new mod CUBE (core unaltered BtS experience) that has BULL/BUG + BBAI + LoR's art. Hopefully such a mod can draw in people that otherwise wouldnt' try a mod, after playing with BetterAI and the improved art from LoR they may be tempted to try the whole game. Also I think LoR's art is the most well organized and optimized available, so it would be a perfect base to build from.

Ok thats cool. So in the mean time Ill start releasing some of the units I made.

Ok thats cool. So in the mean time Ill start releasing some of the units I made.
Yeah, there are quite a few units you've made others can use. In my oppinion none of the modding done in Civ4 is proprietary, ie I think it's best to share what's out there for others to build off of.

As far as LoR's art is concerned my two biggest desires is to get damaged states for the mechanized units, and elminate the errors in the LSystem log caused by geomodder's cityset.

Yeah, there are quite a few units you've made others can use. In my oppinion none of the modding done in Civ4 is proprietary, ie I think it's best to share what's out there for others to build off of.
Mostly its just laziness on my part.

As far as LoR's art is concerned my two biggest desires is to get damaged states for the mechanized units, and elminate the errors in the LSystem log caused by geomodder's cityset.
Damage states is a bit of a problem. Some of the the mechanized units are really complicated, and I dont fully understand how to add a skin instance from scratch. Still experimenting with the tutorials on this one.

I believe Geomodder has said he has fixed most or some of the errors for his next release.

You probably saw these:

Some Infantries (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=340064)

I was thinking it would be cool to set it up so that the flanking infantry for Motorized infantry had a more modern look then the models used for Squad Infantry, at least in the full release. With these new models you could probably do that, as alot of these models have an older WWI style look that would be perfect for squad infantry, and then could leave the same flanking units in the ethnic art styles to give them a more cold war era look (might want to modernise a few of them though).