Civ4: No custom units or buildings=Crap game. Everyone go back to Civ3

What the hell are you people talking about? The units seem very clear-cut to add (graphics wise), just look in C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\American Revolution\Assets\Art\Units\Continental_Regular , I am 96% sure the odd files in that folder are unit meshes.

Don’t blame the game developers for not saying in 1998!

All I can guess is that a plug-in for Maya and 3DS Studio will be available soon for download. That should get the art rolling in.

Dale

vingrjoe said:

I am pissed off about it too, but I'm waiting to see what the SDK will allow us unit creators to do, if anything.

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vingrjoe,

In CIV 3 you can add a new unit by renaming a standard unit
and giving it new stats in less than a minute.

How much time will such a operation consume in CIV 4?
(It will take 10 days until I get CIV 4.)

Rocoteh

bky1701 said:

What the hell are you people talking about? The units seem very clear-cut to add (graphics wise), just look in C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\American Revolution\Assets\Art\Units\Continental_Regular , I am 96% sure the odd files in that folder are unit meshes.

Don’t blame the game developers for not saying in 1998!

Click to expand...

How about you tell us how to get a unit from a 3D program to the game then - just because you can see what files there are doesn't make you able to make them...

Though, as Dale said, there will probably be plugins coming out. I only hope they can make it so you don't have to fork out loadsa cash to be able to make units.

Lord Shadow said:

New units can be added by modding the XML files. Don't know how exactly, but there's a whole thread about it. Look for it.

Shut up. The game's not crap just because you can't figure out how to add custom units/buildings...

Click to expand...

Amen to that!

I was originally going to remain as a lurker. I spend a good deal of time at the Freedom Force forums and am involved in modding for that game, so I did not want to get too involved in this one, although I am a longtime fan of the series.

This panicked discussion has compelled me to reply, however. You see, Freedom Force uses the same basic graphics system as Civ 4. Hundreds of new hero and object models have been made for that game. Thousands of skins have also been made.

There are three basic ways of creating a new unit graphic using this system.

1. Simply change the skin. It is amazing how different the same model or shape can look with a different skin. Since the skin itself is 2d, anyone with any artistic talent whatsoever can make skins.

2. Hex edit the model. There are hundreds of hex editors available for free. By hexing the model, you can remove parts of it, or change sizes or proportions. For instance, take the standard warrior and hex them to be more muscular, with longer arms, and reskin them, and you would have decent ape-man. I am sure I could get members of the Freedom Force community to help teach some of you hexing if necessary.

3. Make a whole new model. This is more complicated, and, at least for Freedom Force, does require more expensive software. Each new model, however, can in turn be hexed, yielding many more.

In addition, in some cases, keyframes from one mesh can be transfered to another allowing for more posibilites. So don't worry. Given time, a plethora of new things will be available. Expecially given how much larger the Civ community is compared to the FF one.

I just want to say something very simple: There is a world of difference between the game not allowing yo to do something and you not wanting to take the time to learn how to do it... it's like getting behind the wheel for the first time in your life and then blaming the car when you can't parallel park on your first shot.

Dont you guys think you should learn to play the game before trying to change it? I assume none of you complainers have it yet because if you did you would know Civ 4 is not Civ 3 with 3D graphics. Its a different game and experience in playing this new game will yield the best results in creating new units for it. I assume that is how we got all of the outstanding work that we now see for Civ 3.

Sword_Of_Geddon said:

I'm sorry but I'm not sure what your talking about.

My entire point is that people are trading in Civ3, with everything it has, for a new game. 3-D graphics do not make a good game, lots of content does, and that is what the modding community provided for Civ3. Without new units you cannot have a mod, so I'm not even sure why this Creation and Customization board is here.

Honestly it goes to show you how far society has fallen when people insult others and tell them to shut up if they don't agree with them. That isn't argueing or discussing intelligently. And curses are only used by those who lack conversation skills.

Click to expand...

All great mods start with a single pixel. (or polygon)

Well, Civ4 is still very new, and it's actually waiting for modders like you to make graphics. If you want new units, then make them. (Provided you have a couple hundred, or thousand to spare...)

DP by a mod?

After all they've promised re: modability, they better allow us to import new units to the game.

Anyway, I'm waiting a bit before buying. Hopefully, this will be all cleared up by then.

Sword_Of_Geddon said:

My entire point is that people are trading in Civ3, with everything it has, for a new game. 3-D graphics do not make a good game, lots of content does, and that is what the modding community provided for Civ3. Without new units you cannot have a mod, so I'm not even sure why this Creation and Customization board is here.

Click to expand...

so wait...you're saying there's no point in modding civ 4 because it's based on a 3d engine? or are you saying that the engine is unable to import custom models or textures (which it can)? I think there will be a lot more content available because of the 3d engine...I never taken a glance at previous civ games but because of the 3d engine it got me much more interested in the game and I've logged about 20+ hours into the game in 3 days...and because it's a 3d engine I think content will be easy to make for people who worked with 3d in unrelated games...like myself for example...I've done a lot of work with unreal tournament 2004 and making custom models is stuff I like to do...I've been kicking around a few model ideas and certainly I'll give it an attempt...

Rocoteh said:

vingrjoe,

In CIV 3 you can add a new unit by renaming a standard unit
and giving it new stats in less than a minute.

How much time will such a operation consume in CIV 4?
(It will take 10 days until I get CIV 4.)

Rocoteh

Click to expand...

Hmmm, I've been browsing the files, and this is my rough guess on how to 'add' a new unit, using CivIV's existing unit model base.

-unpack the Art0.fpk using the unpacking utility on CivIV's website
-follow the directions for moving the files
-make a copy of the art folder of the unit you want to copy and rename it
-make a copy of the unit's text and rename it in the Civ4UnitClassinfos XML
-make a copy of the unit's text and rename it in the Civ4UnitInfos XML
-adjust stats accordingly

Now I'm sure I may have missed a step or two...or more.

Of course, if we eventually do get to add our own 3D models, it looks like there may be an average of 16-20 .kf, .kfm and .nif files required for animation per unit.

Humanoid models may be very versatile regarding changing appearances by painting the skins, but no amount of paint on a skin can make a Nimitz class carrier look like an Essex carrier, or a South Dakota class battleship look like the Bismarck.

I think what he is saying is that there is no point making anything new for this game because no one has made anything new for this game. Circular thinking, if you ask me. Give it about a year, maybe two, and this place will be filled with new stuff.

..........................

I'm trying to understand this... so the game has been out for a week, and just because there isn't a couple hundred units already produced, we should scrap it and go back to Civ3??

You know... I modded for Civ2... and in Civ2, making units was as simple as pulling a picture off the internet, scaling it down, and pasting it into a the single picture file that stored all of the graphics. You could do it in MS Paint in about fifteen minutes... Civ3, on the other hand, required animation graphics and it took days, weeks (and for some people months) to produce a single unit. Imagine if (and there was probably someone) people said upon Civ3's release that because there wasn't instantaneous access to every graphic that had been produced in the years that Civ2 was out for Civ3, that we should scrap Civ3 and go back to Civ2.

And remember... even after having been released, Civ3's modding capabilities were lacking to say the least. People called Civ3 a complete betrayal to the modders (myself included). Compared to Civ2, Civ3 was a modding nightmare, and even after Conquests, scenarios were a joke compared to Civ2.

Civ4 has already demonstrated to me that scenarios can be even better than Civ2 scenarios whereas Civ3 never even got close to producing scenarios of comparable quality to Civ2. Not to insult all the people who dedicated a lot of time to making Civ3 scenarios, but Civ3, no matter how much tweaking one did could not provide the capabilities that Civ2 did and Civ4 does.

I have switched to Civ4 because it offers the hope of producing the kind of mod that I've always wanted. Civ3 fell short in that aspiration. So I can't do it today... so what? I'll learn, I'll work, I'll build... just like we all did for Civ3. The unit graphics libraries of Civ3 weren't built in a day... all of the modding tools for Civ3 took years of patches and expansion packs to be made available...

Personally, I think there is a portion of the population who subconciously wanted to have Civ4 from the very moment they found out it was being made. They wanted to hate it because it was new. They wanted it to fail because they love what is familiar. Fine. Civ3 is still around and if that's what suits you, then continue to work with Civ3. But do not come in here and complain and discourage people from modding in Civ4, and do not proclaim your way to be the best and just say everybody should quit what they're doing and get back to making stuff that helps you.

I think this whole damn thread ought to be deleted.

The ironic thing is that SoG recently posted a thread in CivIII C&C saying CivIII is 'dead', because everyone is going to CivIV. One could think he doesn't want any customization to be done at all.

vingrjoe said:

Hmmm, I've been browsing the files, and this is my rough guess on how to 'add' a new unit, using CivIV's existing unit model base.

-unpack the Art0.fpk using the unpacking utility on CivIV's website
-follow the directions for moving the files
-make a copy of the art folder of the unit you want to copy and rename it
-make a copy of the unit's text and rename it in the Civ4UnitClassinfos XML
-make a copy of the unit's text and rename it in the Civ4UnitInfos XML
-adjust stats accordingly

Now I'm sure I may have missed a step or two...or more.

Of course, if we eventually do get to add our own 3D models, it looks like there may be an average of 16-20 .kf, .kfm and .nif files required for animation per unit.

Humanoid models may be very versatile regarding changing appearances by painting the skins, but no amount of paint on a skin can make a Nimitz class carrier look like an Essex carrier, or a South Dakota class battleship look like the Bismarck.

Click to expand...

vingrjoe,

Thank you for the info.

I appreciate it.

Rocoteh

That's not what I'm saying. If one wants to, you can make a "new" unit but are confined to using Firaxis stock 3D models at this point. Also, painting a skin has it's limits for changing unit appearance.

Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about you, VikingJoe. I think we both replied at exactly the same time. I was comenting on Pointless's response above.

And, as I said, there is a technique called mesh hexing which allows you to substantially modify meshes.

Sorry 'bout that catwhowlksbyhi. These threads get crazy when there are a couple converstions going on at once.

Jonathan said:

For most people, the game is more important than what the units look like. Personally, I am not going back to Civ 3 because I wasn't keen on it and I already stopped playing it some time ago.

I pre-ordered Civ 4 but haven't got it yet. From what I hear, it mostly sounds like an improvement and worth playing -- whether the units are customizable or not.

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