actual modifications of buildings possible, with Blender and Niftools!

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Neomega

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Look! WOW!

:)

I used open source, freeware Blender, and tools found here:

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/ also open source and free.

Believe it baby!

Also used Paint shop Pro 9 (not free, and sucks) , and DDS converter 2.1 (shareware)

this model is not avaialable yet, it is to be used in the Civ IV sci-fi mod Pentagenesis

This was only a test, and it is 2590 triangles, with a 256x256 dds texture.

I tried 512x512 .dds, and Civ IV did not like it.

In this screenshot, what you are seeing is "lighthouse.nif" with "FuelRefinery-256.dds" texture.
 
Neomega said:


Look! WOW!

:)

I used open source, freeware Blender, and tools found here:

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/ also open source and free.

Believe it baby!

Also used Paint shop Pro 9 (not free, and sucks) , and DDS converter 2.1 (shareware)

this model is not avaialabel yet, it is to be used in my sci-fi mod Pentagenesis

This was only a test, and it is 2590 triangles, with a 256x256 dds texture.

I tried 512x512 .dds, and Civ IV did not like it.

In this screenshot, what you are seeing is "lighthouse.nif" with "FuelRefinery-256.dds" texture.

Are you modifying the nif file as a binary or is Blender a nif viewer? If you are just modifying the nif file as a binary then I can do that too using VS.NET.
 
I did not open any files in any text files, nor have to do any hex editing.

I used blender to make the model and create the texture, with a little help from PSP, and tools from the forum I linked to to export them to the .nif format.

Currently, they can only export to version 4.2.2.0, I am not sure what this means, but I civ IV models are mostly 20.0.0.4, so I assume, 4.2.2.0 files may be incapable of soem special effects.
 
So you could use GIMP and these free tools as well?

Looks great Neo.
 
woodelf said:
So you could use GIMP and these free tools as well?

Looks great Neo.


Yes, but I intend to bake most of the textures on using a method of highpoly models baked onto low poly UV maps.... that way, movies can be doen easier, and various levels of modelling can be doen in the future... liek re-used for CIV V or whatever... :D

But the GIMP would work fine for adding details or increasing contrast/brightness.

I am not sure why the building is so dark, and I am not sure if I even want the look that civ IV has, or if I want to try to achieve a more realistic/less cartoony look.
 
So when is the tutorial coming out? ;)

Great to hear from you and Pentagenesis for CivIV.
 
How did you get the dds file? I was able to export a model, but couldn't figure out how to make the texture.

A tutorial would be greaty appreciated! :thanx:
 
vbraun said:
How did you get the dds file? I was able to export a model, but couldn't figure out how to make the texture.

A tutorial would be greaty appreciated! :thanx:

No tutorials for now... very busy man.

The dds convertor was mentioned here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137012

the program is simple and fast.

Also, watch out for size. My infantry dude was 8 blender units high, I changed the rate in the export script (by going to Scripts-> system -> scripts config editor, and choosing export nif...) and changed the ratio to 1:1... at first I couldn't find th eguy he was so tiny.

If your people models are going to be 8 blender units high, I would suggest a ratio of 20:1 at least.
 
vbraun said:
How do you link the texture to the model? Or am I missing something?

Do you mean in Blender or Nifskope?

Don't worry about nifskope... it needs an actual path to see the texture, so it will throw an error

Be sure to have the .dds* texture (UVmapped, of course... right?) in the same folder as the .blend, then link to it in material window, texture tab, as image, (I am flying over this, because I assume you already know how to apply a UV texture)
and make sure map input is set to "UV".

then simply export the blend to a .nif. The nif will simply need the .dds file to be in the same directory for it to use it.

Read teh exporting to civIV problems thread at the niftools forum for more details, as you can see, I had a very frustrating day today trying to get this to work.. :p
http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213

*Blender cannot apply .dds files, but will still accept them as a texture, so they can be exported.
 
I got it to work! :D

My model was just a little bit simpler, and I overestimated how small it would be. Also you never mentioned you had to join the Yahoo Group and download that file.

 
You won't have to, they are going to release an official build soon they said, but they can only release official builds on sourceforge, or something like that.

There is a few things I didn't mention, like I said, check the thread about "problems exporting to civ IV" in the tools section....

..what did you replace?
 
Neomega said:
You won't have to, they are going to release an official build soon they said, but they can only release official builds on sourceforge, or something like that.

There is a few things I didn't mention, like I said, check the thread about "problems exporting to civ IV" in the tools section....

..what did you replace?
I eveventually had to go through pretty much the entire thread to find the error I was getting and continued reading. After a half hour I managed to have it figured out.

I replaced the palace, as I could guarentee its apperance early on in the game.
 
vbraun said:
I eveventually had to go through pretty much the entire thread to find the error I was getting and continued reading. After a half hour I managed to have it figured out.

I replaced the palace, as I could guarentee its apperance early on in the game.


just a half hour eh... took me about 6 hours... :p Of course most of it was due to the _niflib.dll file being installed in wierd places... I am not even sure how they got in my python files.

But now, you can do it too :)

did you find where to reset the scale, without having to rescale in Blender?
 
Neomega said:
did you find where to reset the scale, without having to rescale in Blender?
Yeah, I have it set to 20. And I scaled it up in Blender, so that I would guarentee that I would see it. ;)
 
This is exciting news. Hopefully, however, the SDK will make all this "hackery" unnecessary very soon
 
Déja said:
This is exciting news. Hopefully, however, the SDK will make all this "hackery" unnecessary very soon
This isn't hackery. And this is how it will be done after the SDK.

The SDK will most likely not give anyway to import 3d models at all. The SDK is for the game, not the 3d engine.
 
yes, except (at least from what I've heard) it will allow customization of all aspects of the game except the graphics engine and network code. This would suggest that it would provide some means of editing models, either through a plugin or a utility. The hackery refers to an "unofficial" method of achieving this. It was not meant to slight the efforts being made. I guess putting it in quotes was insufficient to convey this.
 
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