[Religion and Revolution]: Adapting Iso-Mod ?

raystuttgart

Civ4Col Modder
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Messages
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Location
Stuttgart, Germany
Hi guys,

a few of you probably know that melcher kürzer has made a graphical overhaul for TAC.

It changes the perspective to isometric and improves many graphical aspects (Terrains, Features, Improvements, ...)

melcher is currently working on a new version.
To my opinion it really looks fantastic. :bowdown:

Some small parts (of the old version) had already been adapted to our mod by me.

However, most of the improvements melcher did, have not been adapted .
(This would only work, if we use isometric perspective and look ugly otherwise.)

Also it must be considered, that this overhaul is for TAC.
All terrains, terrain features and improvements we have added to TAC would need to be reworked as well.
This is quite a lot of work.

The questions are:

1. Do you like the new look with isometric perspecitve and graphical overhaul ?
2. Are we willing take the massive effort to adapt this and match all our additional terrains, features and improvements to it ?

Screenshots to understand what I am talking about:
Spoiler :



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I have to agree those graphics look absolutely gorgeous :cool::king: I'd love to have them in the mod if Melcher is ok with our using them.

However I don't quite understand the mechanics involved in how he achieved this, or what we'd need to do to adapt it to this mod :confused: What would we need to do to the RaR terrain textures to make them compatible with isometric viewing? Are existing nifs for Features/Improvements/Buildings/Bonuses etc no longer able to be used if the isometric graphics are adopted, or is there any way to still use most/all of our existing nifs? If not how could we get these to be usable again? There are a huge number of nifs and Schmiddie's already worked hard on many of them.

One of my favorite Civ4 features is the ability to freely rotate the camera to any desired viewing angle, and zoom in/out and do camera flying etc with a lot of flexibility. I wouldn't want it to lose that nice freedom of viewing if the change made it locked to an isometric viewpoint only.

Don't you think Melcher's terrain looks much better than Civ5, even with DirectX11? I loaded Civ5 recently and the water is certainly very pretty, but their forests look like a dish of steamed broccoli :p:rolleyes:
 
I am not a part of the dev. team, but I would still like to say that those graphical improvements are downright amazing. My only concern would be the demand it may place on hardware; is there an increase in performance requirements when using that mod?
 
Hi everyone,
I have to agree those graphics look absolutely gorgeous :cool::king: I'd love to have them in the mod if Melcher is ok with our using them.
I really like those graphics too! I think I already said this, but Melcher is really good. It would be great if he would join us! :goodjob:
However I don't quite understand the mechanics involved in how he achieved this, or what we'd need to do to adapt it to this mod :confused:
I'm probably even more puzzled than you Orlanth! :lol:
I really don't understand graphical terms. Can you start at the beginning Ray (or Melcher if you're here!)? I mean, isn't Civ4Col already in an isometric view?
My questions are probably quite foolish, but If I had to describe C4C, I would say it is a turned based strategy game, with an isometric map view :dunno:
And If I had to describe Melcher's improvements to someone that hasn't seen these screenshots, I would say he has considerably improved graphics. It looks great and somehow it looks as if he has "turned" the whole screen 45° "westwards"...
One of my favorite Civ4 features is the ability to freely rotate the camera to any desired viewing angle, and zoom in/out and do camera flying etc with a lot of flexibility. I wouldn't want it to lose that nice freedom of viewing if the change made it locked to an isometric viewpoint only.
You can really rotate camera :eek:
I've read that somewhere before. Is that really an interesting feature. I've never tried :confused:
But here I'm getting even more puzzled.:eek: I thought that one of Melcher's achievements in his ISO-Mod was to be able to rotate the view. I must really be bad :lol:
(Again, I really like the graphics! Good job ! :goodjob:
But I also really love understanding things and here I don't understand. I know it is very difficult to explain why one finds something beautiful, but I would really like to understand what's the ISO-mod all about ;))
Don't you think Melcher's terrain looks much better than Civ5, even with DirectX11? I loaded Civ5 recently and the water is certainly very pretty, but their forests look like a dish of steamed broccoli :p:rolleyes:
Really! One more reason not to buy it? (Off Topic: Is it now possible to buy Civ 5 in a standard "old-fashion" way, I mean with a physical way, without any net-validation or any other spying device?)
I am not a part of the dev. team, but I would still like to say that those graphical improvements are downright amazing. My only concern would be the demand it may place on hardware; is there an increase in performance requirements when using that mod?
Hum. I don't know. That's a good question!
I'm really bad at graphics, so I would say, the better the graphics are the slower the game would be.
However, this might be a biased opinion ... Maybe Melcher has cleaned up all the graphics and improved performance, so mods might even run faster. Frankly I don't know :dunno:
 
Sorry guys, I had been gone the last days.

So ok, let us clarify a few things. :)

Isometric Perspecitve

The default perspective of CivCol is not isometric.
Isometric is what melcher has done: turned" the whole screen 45°

Rotating the camera

However, it was always possible in CivCol (and the mods) to rotate the camera to an isometirc perspecitve.
(It was simply not the default perspective.)

When adapting Iso-Mod, it would still be possible to rotate the camera.#

What else has been done in Iso-Mod ?

A lot !!!

  • Colours
  • Meshes
  • Height Maps
  • Light Effects
  • Improved Graphics
  • Changes to Zooming
    ...

What would be needed to adapt ?

melcher has allowed us to use his work.

I had already adapted twice small parts from the older version of Iso-Mod.
(Mountains with Snow, Cursor, some small effects, ....)

And basically I would also do the adaption of all parts of melcher's Iso-Mod that we could reuse.

However, I would need the help of a graphical modder for the parts that we have added and need to be changed / adjusted.

So I would take care of the general implementation, adaption of all reusable parts and graphical aspects I can do.

The graphical modder(s) would take care of the rest.

We would check and adjust if needed:

  • our new Improvements
  • our new Bonus-Ressources
  • our new Terrain (Savannah)
  • our new Terrain Features

We would not need to change:

  • units
  • artstyles
  • buildings
    ...

So again, this is about adjusting the graphics related to Terrain.
(We would need to check them all and correct in some cases.)

Performance Issues ?

Although several graphics are more detailled, there are no real performance issues to expect.
Trust me, I would never suggest this if it would destroy our performance. :thumbsup:

Summary:

1. All team members need to say if they want this or not.
2. This will be quite some effort, but I am willing to take a big part of it.
3. At least one graphical modder needs to be willing to work on this with me.
4. If me and the graphical modder would work on this, we would of course not work on other topics in that time.
5. This decision will also affect all future graphics related to Terrain ! (They will need to match Iso-Perspective.)

Comment:

If there is no graphical modder interested in this, we could also stop discussions right away.
 
That sounds good. I can try to help you by rotating or positioning some existing nif Improvements using nifskope if needed, though I'm not necessarily greatly skilled at that. I'm not sure what would be done to update the Terrain textures, would the dds image for them need to be rotated?
 
But if Melcher doesn't want to help us, and without any help from graphical modders, isn't this a little ambitious :dunno:

Let us clarify this, after the clean up of our graphics is done. :thumbsup:
 
In general I'm interested in this feature, but I would like to know how much work it is in detail,

Does it make sense to check the ISO_mod files do get a better view what has to be done?
 
Hey guys, i read in the german forum you guys are thinking about adapting the Iso-Mod. Glad you like the idea.
But maybe it would be a good idea to wait until the release of the first version. Then you could easily test it yourself and decide if you like it or not. But it's your decision.

I will try to answer some of your questions and will quickly explain what has been done.

Basically the Iso-Mod consists of the following 4 seperate major parts:

Part 1: The isometric view.

The name isn't technically correct, but it describes best what i have tried to achieve.
The graphics of normal game have one huge problem in my opinion. The view is straight on terrain-squares, everthing else is rotated 45°. And as you can see the single tiles so easily it looks kind of weird (for me).



In Civ4:Col you can already rotate the camera. However if you just rotate the camera 45°, the game will look strange.
The reason is easy to explain. If you only rotate the camera, everthing else stays as it is. Therfore the light and the shadows are completely off and all the buildings, improvements, etc. aren't isometric anymore.
Another problem is, you need to rotate the camera yourself evertime you start or load a new game.

So, what have i done? Basically i have twisted the default view 45° to the right, the lights, buildings and improvements are rotated 45° back.
Except 3 or 4 buildings (which are directly rotated in the .nif files) everthing else is accomplished through simple xml changes. I did this part in less then an hour, it's pretty easy and simple.

Here is a picture how this looks with normal TAC and only the Iso-part.
Spoiler :




Part 2: The zoom

The normal zoom line of the game makes a curve. If you zoom in pretty close, you have a very small angle. Far away you get almost an aerial perspective.
This dosen't fit very well with an isometric view. Therfore the zoom is straight now.



This change are only 2 numbers in xml, coudn't be any simpler.


Part 3: The theme

The theme defines in Civ4 (Civ4:Col) stuff like the color of the ingame boxes and texts, etc.
The default boxes are blueish. I have changed them to more brownish colors. Fits better with the overall graphic style.

Only some easy xml changes aswell.


Part 4: The graphic overhaul.

Now, that's the most complex and biggest part.
Once again i retextured almost everything on the main map, like trees and the terrain. This time especially for the isometric view.
Also i have reworked the heightmaps for hills and mountains to make them more organic.
There are some little extras aswell. Like nation specific art for improvements, crops around plantations, some new citysets, and many minor changes.

Basically i try to make the overall look as consistent and smooth as possible.

That's it. Easy, eh?:D



I am not a part of the dev. team, but I would still like to say that those graphical improvements are downright amazing. My only concern would be the demand it may place on hardware; is there an increase in performance requirements when using that mod?

I haven't increased the size of the textures or the number of polygons. Therefore the performance is the same as normally. I'm runnig Civ4:Col on an 6 years old machine (graphic card is about 2 years) with no problems.

But i would recommend to use this mod with very high antialising and texture filtering settings for it's full potential (as i do on my old machine).
Ignore the ingame settings for that, they don't work (atleast on my ATI-card).
Need to force them via the videocard drivers.
 
melcher kürzer;11946557 said:
Hey guys, i read in the german forum you guys are thinking about adapting the Iso-Mod. Glad you like the idea.

Of course we do. :)

melcher kürzer;11946557 said:
But maybe it would be a good idea to wait until the release of the first version.

That is the plan, don't worry.
We will wait with the adaption, until you have released the new (final ?) version.

melcher kürzer;11946557 said:
Then you could easily test it yourself and decide if you like it or not.

We will test first. :thumbsup:

melcher kürzer;11946557 said:
Basically the Iso-Mod consists of the following 4 seperate major parts:

Thanks for the explanations. :thumbsup:

melcher kürzer;11946557 said:
That's it. Easy, eh?:D

Well, I believe we can adapt a lot of that by ourselves.
But if you could help us a bit, that would be fantastic of course. ;)

Also, we will also have some work, for the terrain, improvements, ... we have added (compared to TAC).
 
In general I'm interested in this feature, but I would like to know how much work it is in detail.

So would you be interested to work on this ?
(As I said, I can try to take over a big part of the work.)

After
A) melcher has published the newest version of Iso-Mod
B) We have published Release 1.2

Does it make sense to check the ISO_mod files do get a better view what has to be done?

Yes, definitely. :thumbsup:

After melcher has published the newest version of Iso-Mod, we should take a close look.
(I had already done that with previous versions.)

But generally I think we can clarify:

1. Does the team want this ? (As far as I understood, the team does want it.)
2. Do we have people that are willing to work on this ?
 
No, unfortunately the fantastic Iso-Mod is not combatible to RaR so far, but actually part of the mod's art (like trees and jungle) has been incorporated into RaR 1.4 as well. :)
 
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