[TUTORIAL] [TUT] Using NIF Viewer to edit units (long)

[nautil]

Great tutotial ! thank you.
Just say please why is it necessary to modify (unitname)FX files either ? i did all my airplanes only by modifying main nif file, and it seems all worked ok.
And one more question, i just finished modeling Chinook helicopter, the one with two rotors, and as usual was hoping to attach it to gunship animation. But something weird happens, although in NIF viewer after i change position of propellers everything looks ok , in game this proppellers appear where it originally was , as if nothing affected its position... Hace you encountered such thing before ? maybe you know how to solve this problem? Thank you very much in advance

[Rabbit, White]

Originally Posted by nautil

Great tutotial ! thank you.
Just say please why is it necessary to modify (unitname)FX files either ? i did all my airplanes only by modifying main nif file, and it seems all worked ok.

It's probably not strictly necessary but the way I see it, there must be a good reason for these FX files so if I'm modifying an existing unit then I should stick with the structure/hierarchy as well (just like I prefer to keep the same names for the files even though they can be renamed when saved).

I think the FX files have something to do with team colors. I haven't checked it but do your units have team color working? (mind you not like I could make it work even with the FX files but then again I haven't looked too deeply into that ).

[nautil]

Originally Posted by nautil

Great tutotial ! thank you.
And one more question, i just finished modeling Chinook helicopter, the one with two rotors, and as usual was hoping to attach it to gunship animation. But something weird happens, although in NIF viewer after i change position of propellers everything looks ok , in game this proppellers appear where it originally were , as if nothing affected its position... Hace you encountered such thing before ? maybe you know how to solve this problem? Thank you very much in advance

i'm sorry, but you appearenlymissed one of my question, so i'll repeat it ( see quote)

[Rabbit, White]

Oh no no, don't go all sneaky on me - you originally posted the question at 7:29 and I answered at 7:55, and then you added the second question at 7:58 (after I answered the first) so technically I didn't miss it.

Anyway, to answer the second question, no I never encountered a case where I moved something in NIF file but it didn't appear in the right position in the game. To be fair though, the only experience I have working with rotors from vanilla units is for the p-51 I did a while back, you've much more experience with that.

The only thing I can think of is that it's possible that the animation that controls the rotor tells it to "go to these coordinates and rotate there", and no matter where you put it originally it will always go there. However, you did make these work with the other helicopter didn't you? And you made it work with the planes, so I don't know why this case should be any different.

Heck, maybe it's something as simple as forgetting to copy the updated file or just calling the wrong one in the xml, that happens sometimes.

[woodelf]

Originally Posted by seZereth

Do it, baby. and to woodelf, now you have your chance to attach your moonhelmet and oxygenpack to any unit by yourself !

Give it a go! START THE REVOLUTION

I finally come across this.

This is on my to-do list of learning. There are so many possibilities of adding/subtracting meshes that this has to be learned. Thanks for the Tutorial Rabbit.

[seZereth]

i found out, that when i did the dwarf and attached the helmet (not on unit) only to the swordsman.nif file, then it wouldnt appear in game (only with the _fx.nif !)

Btw, that Rotation is more complex than these matrices... it doeas wierd things to animation,...

[Rabbit, White]

Well there you go. I guess it's just a matter of checking what works - if the unit works with only the default nif file then great, but sometimes the _fx one is also needed.

As far as rotating anything that's animated, yeah that's tricky and usually just messes up the model. First of all bones often have restrictions and dependencies, what's more often times when you rotate a bone system, each bone rotates independently on its axis, essentially breaking up the structure.

[Sleeping_Dragon]

This is great and I understand every thing but....Where are all the .nif files.

[J_Period]

Originally Posted by Sleeping_Dragon

This is great and I understand every thing but....Where are all the .nif files.

Have you unpacked your art files? They're in there

[Sleeping_Dragon]

Oh! I forgot to do that! Thanks. I feel stupid.

[Sevo]

Rabbit...Awesome work. You realize this will work on leaderheads, too, right? This combined with the fact that leaderhead anim files can be swapped...

My next mod release is going to utilize that little fact...oh yes...oh yes...mwahahahahahahaha.

sorry.

[Rabbit, White]

Originally Posted by Sevo

Rabbit...Awesome work. You realize this will work on leaderheads, too, right? This combined with the fact that leaderhead anim files can be swapped...

My next mod release is going to utilize that little fact...oh yes...oh yes...mwahahahahahahaha.

sorry.

Heh, I haven't actually thought of that. I guess that means you'll be able to add hats and beards and what not to them. Can't wait to see what you'll come up with.

[Ploeperpengel]

And you say it's a small thing scaling ninodes

think C.Rohlands spearman already looks more orcish




any idea how to make him lean more forward without destroying all proportions of his back in the viewer?

[Sevo]

Originally Posted by Ploeperpengel

And you say it's a small thing scaling ninodes

Holy smokes! Never occured to me...but such a simple thing to do...

Unfortunately, the swapping of shapes across leaderheads hasn't worked yet...keeps crashing the editor. But I've still managed to create some pretty amazing new leaderhead looks...

[Rabbit, White]

Nice

As for leaning forward - you could try turning the upper torso a bit down (it's either spine or spine1 node). The problem here is you'll have to do deal with small angles - first you'll need to figure out around which axis you need to rotate it, and then use the proper matrix for that axis and calculate the proper matrix entries using sine and cosine. It's tricky to say the least, so good luck with that.

[caramac]

Hi, great tutorial. It really was simple to understand.

However, I was wandering if there was any way you could actually 'draw' on the textures with paint or some other program. I really would like to be able to change the skirt on the swordsman to be tartan to go with my Scottish Civ mod currently under construction.

I got the idea of this maybe being possible after thinking about the 'Sims Creator' that came with Sims 1 as the skins are laid out flat and you could draw on them.

I know this probably isn't possible with the units from Civ 4 but any ideas on anything similar would be very helpful.

[Ploeperpengel]

Do you have an idea why the head is still in quite a normal position in the game after I moved it in front of the breast of the model in the viewer in both nif and fx? I get a lovely hunch for an orc in the viewer but doesnt show

[Rabbit, White]

Originally Posted by caramac

Hi, great tutorial. It really was simple to understand.

However, I was wandering if there was any way you could actually 'draw' on the textures with paint or some other program. I really would like to be able to change the skirt on the swordsman to be tartan to go with my Scottish Civ mod currently under construction.

I got the idea of this maybe being possible after thinking about the 'Sims Creator' that came with Sims 1 as the skins are laid out flat and you could draw on them.

I know this probably isn't possible with the units from Civ 4 but any ideas on anything similar would be very helpful.

Well the skins of the characters are laid out flat in the the texture files (for swordsman that would be swordsman_128.dds). The trick however is to figure out which part of the image goes on which part of the unit. It's easier with human units, for example it's immediately obvious where the sword is drawn, and the skirt, and the face of course. For any part you're not sure about just add some sort of a clear marker (i prefer an arrow) that clearly stands out from the rest of the image (this is of course working with a copy of the original texture ), and in game take a look where it appears. Once you know what goes where it's easy to reskin units.

Originally Posted by Ploeperpengel

Do you have an idea why the head is still in quite a normal position in the game after I moved it in front of the breast of the model in the viewer in both nif and fx? I get a lovely hunch for an orc in the viewer but doesnt show

I think I encountered something like this before. My best guess is that when you're trying to mess around with positions and orientations of bones, some (or most likely all) of them are getting overridden by the animations. Essentially the animation sets (in the process of playing through) the absolute position/orientation of objects, or in this case vertices of the model which are skinned to the bones. So regardless of where you positioned the bone, it will always appear in the same position in the game.

Attached objects, such as swords and shields, are controlled relatively to the dummy object or bone they are attached to, that's why we can adjust their position/orientation to better fit to the model.

The way to go around this limitation is to create your own head (or use one created by someone else). Rescale the head node to something like 0.0001, attach the new head and scale it up to 1000 to compensate for the 0.0001 scale. Position and orient it according to your needs (the orientation will be hell btw ) and that should do it. This works because you're attaching the head like a sword as oppose to skinning it to the bones (like the original head).

[Ploeperpengel]

Will this head have animation? I suppose not right?

[Sevo]

Rabbit et. al, I just did this one and had to share. This leaderhead is for a collaborative civpack a few of us will be releasing very shortly. Following the hints and tips in this thread, I took a spear from a Spearman and transferred it to Julius Caeasar's nif file. Once there, I placed it under his torso node so it would inherit all of the animation from that node, and I positioned it were you see it, on his back there. Then I reskinned him, and voila'! An Iroquois Chief. The really, really cool thing that you can't tell from this still is that the spear actually moves with his body when he moves, so it absolutely looks like it's attached to his back! I've done some cool stuff resizing inodes now on other leaderheads, too--it gives them a distinct feel.

Thanks to everyone in the thread for ideas on this one! (I hope I've tempted some of you to download the upcoming civpack as well! Keep your eyes peeled...)