Extract GR2 to Blender with mesh AND skeleton and re-export to GR2

Shirotora Kenshin · May 9, 2014

Wodhann said:
About the horseman, check if the textures are set to VFS=true in the mod, and if they're refered correctly in the xml, otherwise I have no idea.

Also no idea about the worker.

then thank you .

but its definitely a problem of the way from blender til Nexus Buddy -

i know it for sure because when i replace my gr2 file with the original one,then everything works......

i hope someone can help me,otherwise i have to deal with the fact that i cannot integrate a lot of models i actually want to integrate into Civ ...... :cry:

Nutty · May 9, 2014

lasttry said:
i know it for sure because when i replace my gr2 file with the original one,then everything works......

But that just shows your art defines are OK, not that your textures are added correctly. You could upload your whole test mod...

Shirotora Kenshin · May 10, 2014

Nutty said:
But that just shows your art defines are OK, not that your textures are added correctly. You could upload your whole test mod...

ok here are the mod files.today i will try to export as fbx .because its the only idea i currently have for what i can try.

at least i was able to get the worker working.the mistake was to load 2 skeletons into one blend file,this seems to destroy the blend file.......

( its the converted civ 4 unit from the mod " Oriental Workers " )

Nutty · May 10, 2014

It's odd. I don't know why, but the horseman looks OK in Granny Viewer, but in Nexus Asset Viewer it's distorted and 2-dimensional (and Nexus is actually using the CiV engine to render, so that's more like what you're going to get ingame). Can you post your .blend?

It's minor, but use blank_texture.dds as your SREF rather than leaving the default rifleman one, otherwise you'll get a line of reflectiveness towards the bottom (where the rifle is supposed to be). Even more minor... Nexus works better if you actually reference your textures in the .fxsxml.

Shirotora Kenshin · May 10, 2014

the blend file is already uploaded at post 411 .

thanks for the willing to help !

its interesting what you have seen in Nexus Viewer...

Shirotora Kenshin · May 12, 2014

even fbx brings no success for the cavalry...i will try to not deactivate the " rotate the mesh 90 degrees " option when i import a nb2 file......

its strange,import a nb2 file was made from a gr2 file,change absolutely nothing,then export as br2,
use nexus buddy to open it and save it as gr2 doesnt work only for cavalry for me......

for infantry and even the workers it works perfect....

Nutty have you figured out something new ? and what about my blend file ? ( i hope you had the time and checked them ? )

Civitar · May 12, 2014

When importing vanilla NB2s, I always deselect both Rotate Meshes 90 Degrees and Delete Top Bone, in case that helps you.

Shirotora Kenshin · May 12, 2014

Civitar said:
When importing vanilla NB2s, I always deselect both Rotate Meshes 90 Degrees and Delete Top Bone, in case that helps you.

thats i what i always did too.

Shirotora Kenshin · May 12, 2014

ok when the last idea not will help,then i will give it up to get cavalry models working soon...

-idea : the unit have currently no unit icon....i will change that now.

( so my ideas-list is veery short )

Wolfdog · May 12, 2014

Civitar said:
When importing vanilla NB2s, I always deselect both Rotate Meshes 90 Degrees and Delete Top Bone, in case that helps you.

I always deselect the rotate meshes 90 degrees but I always leave delete top bone selected as the import process from gr2 creates an extra bone that is not present in the original if I remember correctly. By doing this you may have the wrong root bone.

Also lasttry your download link does not seem to work. It links to a .php file.

Nutty · May 13, 2014

Wolfdog said:
Also lasttry your download link does not seem to work. It links to a .php file.

The download is fine...

Shirotora Kenshin · May 13, 2014

Wolfdog said:
I always deselect the rotate meshes 90 degrees but I always leave delete top bone selected as the import process from gr2 creates an extra bone that is not present in the original if I remember correctly. By doing this you may have the wrong root bone.

Also lasttry your download link does not seem to work. It links to a .php file.

the link is at post 411,in the attched files , name : Horse UnitNew as now.zip

Shirotora Kenshin · May 13, 2014

ahhmmm.......now im completely confused :confused:

the cavalry unit works now...thats good,but i have absolutely no idea why...i made nothing different than before....thats bad... :scan:

Wolfdog · May 13, 2014

Nutty said:
The download is fine...

Must be something wrong with my browser then. Stupid IE 11

the cavalry unit works now...thats good,but i have absolutely no idea why...i made nothing different than before....thats bad...

Have you cleared your cache recently?

Shirotora Kenshin · May 14, 2014

Wolfdog said:
Must be something wrong with my browser then. Stupid IE 11

Have you cleared your cache recently?

no,i didnt cleared any cache...

i think i know what was wrong :

-i let " Delete Top Bone " NOT activated before, now i let " Delete Top Bone " active !

-the animations entries in the fxsxml must be from the same unit as the template's skeleton.so when you have the Horseman gr2 imported into Blender,and use this skeleton,then in the fxsxml have to be the Horseman-Animations as entries....

thats what i found out by now...

Shirotora Kenshin · May 19, 2014

thanks to everyone who tried to help me with my modding-problems !!!

now even cavalry and ships works fine for me and now it is an only fun to mod Civ !

Nomad or What · May 19, 2014

lasttry said:
thanks to everyone who tried to help me with my modding-problems !!!

now even cavalry and ships works fine for me and now it is an only fun to mod Civ !

Awesome!!! :goodjob:

Deliverator · May 19, 2014

Reposting this here just so all 3D modders are aware.

This is the how to avoid your converting models having stretching-to-the-edge-of-screen type graphic glitches like this:

Key Point: The Granny format has a limit of 32 bone bindings (what Blender calls vertex groups) per mesh.This means that if you have a model with more than 32 bones in it you need to split your mesh into separate chunks each of which have no more than 32 bone assignments.

This makes sense of something I've always found puzzling with the vanilla models. Why, for example, are the War Chariots split into weird chunks where the back section of one of the horses is a separate mesh? Now, we know - its because Granny requires each mesh to have no more than 32 bone assignments. Presumably this helps the efficiency of the graphics engine.

Anyway, this discovery is VERY GOOD NEWS because it is very simple to take your mesh and lasso select chunks of it in Blender in Edit mode (Ctrl-LMB drag) and then press P to separate the selected chunk into a new mesh before exporting to BR2. The aim is make sure no mesh has more than 32 bone assignments (vertex groups).

I tested this by dividing the Centaur into 5 chunks (a bit excessive but I was testing the theory!) and now because none of the meshes now has more than 32 bone assignments the model works fine in game with no glitches! Happy days. :cool:

Nomad or What · May 19, 2014

Deliverator said:
Reposting this here just so all 3D modders are aware.

Key Point: The Granny format has a limit of 32 bone bindings (what Blender calls vertex groups) per mesh.This means that if you have a model with more than 32 bones in it you need to split your mesh into separate chunks each of which have no more than 32 bone assignments.

This makes sense of something I've always found puzzling with the vanilla models. Why, for example, are the War Chariots split into weird chunks where the back section of one of the horses is a separate mesh? Now, we know - its because Granny requires each mesh to have no more than 32 bone assignments. Presumably this helps the efficiency of the graphics engine.

Anyway, this discovery is VERY GOOD NEWS

AWESOME!!! I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out, Deliverator! Here's a few emoticons for you! :goodjob: