Female Ranger

I'm toying a bit with the 3D characters from Atlantica Online at the moment (tom2050 made some very nice Civ3 units with them, more information about that here). The models from that game have normally a polycount around 5000, so they are not directly usable for Civ4 units. However, just for the fun of it I made a leaderhead out of one of them. I used the Boudica leaderhead as base and made a Bone Weight Copy following The Coyote's tutorial. Here is the result:

I don't know yet if I'll make more leaderheads from the Atlantica Online models because I guess I'm more the unitmaker guy, but it was a nice change of pace.
The models are in fact pretty easy to extract because they are already .nif files. The only problem lies within the .dds files as they are in a strange format. A convertion program is needed but can be found easily following tom2050 tutorial. Here is a link to some pictures of the Atlantica Online models in case someone is interested.

Download link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15064

P.S.: By the way, I changed the artwork a little bit to make the ranger's clothes less revealing. But because I wanted to credit the original concept of the model I made the changes in a way that they can be reversed. More information about this in the download section. The original artwork looks like this:

Awesome!!

I ran through some of the characters in the Atlantica link, and there are some other very cool looking LH candidates there
Hope you are willing to make some more...
For example the Oracle is a perfect base for a great Cleopatra LH!

AbsintheRed said:

For example the Oracle is a perfect base for a great Cleopatra LH!

Click to expand...

Indeed...

@Saibot
How do you obtain the models from AO? If I download the client, will they be there?

This is great, now we have another unique LH that we can rip apart to make our own creations with! Great job on the conversion.

This chick could probably be turned into a good Joan of Arc...

Cheers,
ripple01

Good job. I don't understand why you felt the need to make the clothing less revealing, but I guess it doesn't matter either way.

EDIT: And also, Saibot if you could post whatever AO files you have that would be great, I'd like to see if I can use any of them for LHs.

Thanks everybody. So much praises for so little work.

AbsintheRed said:

Awesome!!

I ran through some of the characters in the Atlantica link, and there are some other very cool looking LH candidates there
Hope you are willing to make some more...
For example the Oracle is a perfect base for a great Cleopatra LH!

Click to expand...

There is in fact a texture set called 'Cleopatra' for the Oracle character. Doesn't make her look much different though.

mechaerik said:

Indeed...

@Saibot
How do you obtain the models from AO? If I download the client, will they be there?

Click to expand...

Ay, installing the demo is enough I think. Under '...\Atlantica\NChar3D\Char' you can find the .nif files, under '...\Atlantica\NChar3D\Texture' the .dds files. The .dds files can be converted with a python script I attached to this post (ndoordss). How the script works can be read here.

charle88 said:

This is great, now we have another unique LH that we can rip apart to make our own creations with! Great job on the conversion.

Click to expand...

ripple01 said:

This chick could probably be turned into a good Joan of Arc...

Cheers,
ripple01

Click to expand...

I'd really like to see that. Go for it.

The Capo said:

Good job. I don't understand why you felt the need to make the clothing less revealing, but I guess it doesn't matter either way.

Click to expand...

Just thought it doesn't look much leader-like and there should be an alternative. But I guess everybody will use the cloth-less version anyway. Can't really blame them.


In other news: I forgot to add a button to the leaderhead. That error is now corrected. Everybody who does not want to redownload the leaderhead can find the button in the attachments of this post.
Btw, does anybody know where the little buttons for the Civilopedia are saved? Then I could also make that button for the female ranger.

Edit:

The Capo said:

EDIT: And also, Saibot if you could post whatever AO files you have that would be great, I'd like to see if I can use any of them for LHs.

Click to expand...

Well, I have about 500 MB of .nifs and .dds, I don't think I have enough space left for that to post. But you can download them for free by installing the AO demo. Only the .dds files have to be converted.

Downloading AO right now...

The monk looks cool. There are actually a lot of leaderheads there. Can't wait to see them in game. So after you have the nif how do you get them?
Need to do anything special for artdefines?

smeagolheart said:

The monk looks cool. There are actually a lot of leaderheads there. Can't wait to see them in game. So after you have the nif how do you get them?
Need to do anything special for artdefines?

Click to expand...

Ah, sadly there is still a lot of Blender work in between to do. To create a leaderhead you'll have to first import the new nif into Blender. Then choose an already existing leaderhead you want to use the animations of and also import that leaderhead. Next you'll have to modify the new leaderhead to have the same proportions as the old leaderhead. Then follow The Coyote's tutorial to copy the bone weight of the old leaderhead onto the new one. Here it is especially important that the eyes and the mouth are in the same place. After that, some fine-tuning will have to be done. Then you'll have to export the leaderhead into a new nif. Now you can test the leaderhead in NifSkope by loading the animations. Once you're satisfied, you can nifswap the leaderhead information into the nif file of the old leaderhead. Then you're done.

Easy, isn't it?

SaibotLieh said:

Easy, isn't it?

Click to expand...

Nope.

Well that sucks.

I was hoping for something for nothing (30ish more leaderheads without any work!) Of course I should have know that was too good to be true.

Excellent work!!
I'd also like to see that Oracle turned Cleopatra, I think it would be awesome!

great work - btw after you finished your next unit i will give you a step by step introduction adding a shader to this unit (leaderheads are a bit different - but only a bit [more texture you have to care and you have to select one export setting])

avain said:

Excellent work!!
I'd also like to see that Oracle turned Cleopatra, I think it would be awesome!

Click to expand...

In fact it is quite awesome: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=372431

The_Coyote said:

great work - btw after you finished your next unit i will give you a step by step introduction adding a shader to this unit (leaderheads are a bit different - but only a bit [more texture you have to care and you have to select one export setting])

Click to expand...

Thanks. I really like the idea of using shader for units. I was too lazy to learn about that the whole time, but now I think I'm ready. Therefore, I'll gladly accept your offer. In fact, I have an unit in the works at the moment. I'll try to finish it this week.

SaibotLieh said:

Thanks everybody. So much praises for so little work.



There is in fact a texture set called 'Cleopatra' for the Oracle character. Doesn't make her look much different though.



Ay, installing the demo is enough I think. Under '...\Atlantica\NChar3D\Char' you can find the .nif files, under '...\Atlantica\NChar3D\Texture' the .dds files. The .dds files can be converted with a python script I attached to this post (ndoordss). How the script works can be read here.




I'd really like to see that. Go for it.



Just thought it doesn't look much leader-like and there should be an alternative. But I guess everybody will use the cloth-less version anyway. Can't really blame them.


In other news: I forgot to add a button to the leaderhead. That error is now corrected. Everybody who does not want to redownload the leaderhead can find the button in the attachments of this post.
Btw, does anybody know where the little buttons for the Civilopedia are saved? Then I could also make that button for the female ranger.

Edit:

Well, I have about 500 MB of .nifs and .dds, I don't think I have enough space left for that to post. But you can download them for free by installing the AO demo. Only the .dds files have to be converted.

Click to expand...

when i went to demo it says client is that it? or some other demo link?

Ay, if I remember correctly you'll have to download the client and the client will download the demo version.

smeagolheart said:

The monk looks cool. There are actually a lot of leaderheads there. Can't wait to see them in game. So after you have the nif how do you get them?
Need to do anything special for artdefines?

Click to expand...

The monk would be a perfect base for a Kangxi LH if there are any takers... and the spartan would make a nice Leonidas LH with very minimal touch up.

Cheers,
ripple01

SaibotLieh said:

Ay, if I remember correctly you'll have to download the client and the client will download the demo version.

Click to expand...

iirc the demo is like 600 mb has all the files

Well there are only two issues I see with using these...

1) They are basically un-shader-able at this point, I'm sure this can be fixed, but as of now there is no potential for shaders on them. To me that means any part used would look out of place.

- and; this one not so much an issue as it is a question -

2) Are we allowed to use this with Civ IV? Legally? And along those same lines, if we are, couldn't somebody just upload all of the parts to the DB?

The Capo said:

Well there are only two issues I see with using these...

1) They are basically un-shader-able at this point, I'm sure this can be fixed, but as of now there is no potential for shaders on them. To me that means any part used would look out of place.

- and; this one not so much an issue as it is a question -

2) Are we allowed to use this with Civ IV? Legally? And along those same lines, if we are, couldn't somebody just upload all of the parts to the DB?

Click to expand...

I guess he did get some shadering done on Cleopatra if you check the other thread. I do not see a big difference between having the files on the DB and going to another website to download them