Art related questions (for WolfRev)

I would like to improve WolfRev. My main focus now is to improve the lag effects in the late era and reduce the number of MAFs users experience. For high end machines they have no problems, but for low end computer users (like myself), some of the art is just too top heavy. I'm a function over form person myself, while aesthetics is important, I don't think it's a good idea to sacrifice functionability for prettiness.

Goal: Increase playability for low end machines.
Action: Remove all 2000poly+ units and replace them with less detailed art.

How can I do this? I have no experience with art related modding (and honestly have no desire to, making models does not appeal to me, though I am very greatful to those who do enjoy this part of modding). The only thing I have done so far is make my avatar like a button (using the GIMP). Other then that I have no knowledge of how nifscope and such works. So is there an easy way to identify 2000+ poly models? I can unpack and do all the basic stuffs, just once the art itself is under scrutiny, I'm lost. For anyone with experience please point me in the direction of a tutorial, or give me one on how to identify 2000+ poly models (once I find them I can remove them myself easily, it's identifying them I don't know how to do).


Other Goals:
Continue with the Wolfshanze mod type mod. Wolf has disapeared, and there are still a couple units I'd like to add in to flush out the Modern/Information era (going from WW1 infantry to Slightly Post modern Mechanized Inf is too much of a jump).
So anyone know where I can find the following art (I've looked but haven't yet found what I'm looking for):
1)Late WW2/Korean/Vietnam era APCs, multiple ethnic variants
2)Buttons:
-Seafaring Tech
-Turret Design Tech
-Gas Turbine Tech
-Fireworks (National Wonder)

My wishlist, please help out if you know how I can do the above, or where I can find the said buttons/models.

NifViewer has a polycount function somewhere.

Snafusmith made some APC units, and sniperrabbit made massive amounts of buttons, so you might want to check some of his packs out (they're in his signature).

Wolf is over at Apolyton, since he had personal issues at CFC.

If I can help out in any way, I'd like to try Phungus. Just got back into Civ4, and I really dig WolfRev.

Wolf's only posted 3 times in the last 2 months. All his posts have been short two sentence notifications that he is busy, but is still working on 2.86. Assuming Wolfshanze returns, I doubt wolf would be interested in removing the high poly units anyway. This has been brought to his attention before, and his oppinion was users of his mod should get better computers, or find another mod. Hence, I need to take this on myself. Unfortunetly I don't know jack about nifscope or any other aplication that can determine the poly count of models. That's why I'm hoping one of our modding artists will give me some time saving tips. My goal is simple, identify all 2000 poly units in the wolfshanze.fpk. But sometimes simple things can be hard to achieve.

What I'm hoping to avoid is having to spend a few hours reading up on nifscope, and then view and go through 20 or so steps for each model to find the poly count. Though this may very well be nessasary. Every other part of the process I can do myself, I just don't know how to identify the offending models, and I'd rather not have to spend a couple of days figuring out how to do that first step.

I was able to get some help over here: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope
and also to load some models from the FFH mod that shipped with BTS, but I couldn't find any such models in WolfRev's Assets strangely. Haven't found a poly count option yet.

EDIT: There is a .nif script for importing into Blender (which is freeware, yeah! http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/) and that does have a polygon count according to what I've read.

Oh, the Wolf art is packed in the Wolfshanze.fpk file, found in the main assets folder (it probably needs to be unpacked using packbuild). That's why you can't find it

Thanks for looking into this GoodGame.

Ah so that's where it is. I was able to get Blender and the .nif scripts installed, and was able to open up the naked .nifs in from the FFH Ice Age mod. Problem is then figuring out the exact polygon count.

There's a Fa window for faces, when you view the 3D object. Apparently it's quad faces. There's also a 'decimator' that lists triangle polygons. So the triangles are 1/2 the faces. Not sure what figure you actually want. The 'mammoth with carriage' I looked at had about 1500 faces.

Also loading models is probably a little more time-consuming in a full 3D modeller, but apparently some of them have scripts for reducing polygon counts. Might be worth researching that. Edit: apparently that's what the 'decimator' does. Found the docs for it here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Modifiers/Mesh/Decimate

I'll see if I can crack open the Wolf mod art then.

I can finally find the Decimator tool, but I can't get it to work. Seems it's for 'sculpting' with 'metaballs'.

Using Blender to do some 'baking' of polygons might help out to render the high poly units to lower amounts while still looking good. E.g. http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-246/render-baking/

I was actually just going to gut the art, and remove all the high polygon units. If you can "bake" the models so that they aren't so system intensive, that would work to. Mainly I just want to remove all 2000+ poly models from the mod, unless it is a model absolutely nessary for gameplay. Thanks again for looking into this, you're saving me days of work, I'm very grateful.

Any chance I could get a list of the 2000+ poly units you have found?

I haven't actually worked on getting the WolfRev unit art unpacked yet. Sorry.

If you can get blender/nifskope up and running yourself perhaps we could pool efforts and start with units on opposite ends of the alphabet? I could start from the A's, you from the Z's?

I should have some time over this weekend to progress on it.

EDIT: I guess the best way to proceed would be to mark the offending units first, then see if there is already a suitable low poly replacement on the internet, and if not then use Blender to make a low poly version.

GoodGame said:

EDIT: I guess the best way to proceed would be to mark the offending units first, then see if there is already a suitable low poly replacement on the internet, and if not then use Blender to make a low poly version.

Click to expand...

They will all be ethnic or Unique Units. So finding the replacement art will probably come from the Wolfshanze.fpk itself (expand the range of an equivalent ethnic unit, or us another ethnic unit to replace a UU).

Guess I'll be downloading blender when I get home? Is that the best program to use for finding out the # of polys? Keep in mind I am broke so free is essential.

Well if the Nifskope actually listed poly count, it'd be good and probably faster. I couldn't see it listed obviously. I suppose if you could find some docs for it that it might be faster than Blender.

To load up Blender, you need Blender (blender.org), python, the .nif scripts for Blender (from Sourceforge.net), the python add-on that the .nif script needs, and then you have to learn the Blender interface a little. It took me about an hour and half to get it set-up and skim some basic interface tutorials. Pretty fast and easy program for a modeling program though.

I take that back. The Sceneviewer: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163585

actually does work, loads models super quick, and gives a polygon count that seems to agree with Blender's 'faces' count. And no need to install as much stuff as Blender.
I was thrown off by the 3DS Max requirement, but actually the .nif editor is stand alone (and free).


Download one of these: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159481
Unzip, and copy the "boundshape" files to every unit directory that you want to check.

Then run Sceneview and it'll load. Triangle count relates to polygon count AFAIK.

Just follow the tut directions:

Preparation

Download the 3ds max plugins, if you have 3ds max 6 or 7+ then download the appropriate version and unzip directly into max’s root directory. If you don’t have 3ds max then download any version and unzip wherever.

Once unzipped find the files BoundShape.nif and BoundShape.tga. For any unit you wish to open in the NIF viewer you will need to have these two files in the same folder as that unit (for convenience you can copy these two files into all the unit folders in the civ4 installation directory).

UPDATE: If you get a missing MFC71.DLL dll error, just google it. The first link points to a site where you can download it with isntructions on where to put it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the help, I'll be looking into this tommarow, been busy today with stuff in general, and getting WolfRev 1.3.0 packaged properly (it's been built all day, just futzing with the install script lol), anyway let me know when you find any offending units, and I'll do the same so we don't do re do the same work.

Again thanks for the help, I really apreciate it.

Ok I got pakbuild running with Sceneviewer. Only problem is the way I've installed it there's texture/shader issues. Almost everytime I load a model, a shader error appears on the Windows toolbar that I have to click off before the model loads. Technical glitch that you might experience too.

I did a quick run through the units that weren't 'ethnic' or at least weren't in ethnic-sounding directories.

The > 2000 triangle models are:

Merchantman 6000 triangles
Early Bomber 5200 triangles
Early Flyer---model "mystypeh" 2300 triangles
Light Carrier---model "langley" 4100 triangles
Cog 2700 triangles

There were probably a 2000-2100 that I let slide.

The models I ok'd were:
protected cruiser,
destroyer escort,
galleass
all the iron clads
heavy tank
all the rams
liberty ship
seaplane
uav

I suspect some of the other new 'generic' units are hiding in ethnic folders.


So if you break into the ethnic folders before me, post here which side of the alphabet you attack, and I'll check before getting back to work. I'll assume I'll work from "A" side if you don't.

I'm going to delay working on this from my end, and start digging into the Python Code I want to update for Revolutions today (and possibly for the next few days, depending on how that goes). When I do start doing this, I'll start from Z side of the alphabet. Thanks again, you're saving me a ton of work, and basically doubling the speed at which WolfRev will be updated to be Low end machine supported.

Took a glance at the Cities art, and quite a few of them have high polys.
Medieval European and all the Asian and also ancient African have 3000 to 10000 polys.

Also the worked water icon for the Industrial era is 2200 polys.

In the African folder:
African chariot: 2300 triangles
African marine: adds 900 triangles with its addons. Can't tell what the sum is for that unit.

In the American folder:
B-52 @ 3300 triangles
Chariot @ 3500 triangles
J2F seaplane @ 2500 triangles

In the Arabian folder:
Axeman's doodads @ 2000 triangles. With the base model it's ~2500-3000 triangles

The T55 tank is ok. That affects other ethnics that reskin it as well.


In the Asian folder:
Asian Explorer @ 2200 triangles
galley_dragon oars add 1800. Probable that full model is >> 2000 Not sure what unit it is in game.
mounted_swordsman (knight) arms add 1200---final model may be over 2000.
trireme addons at about 1500---final model may be over.

Ok:
The cog_atakebune model is ok. Asian cog Just noted that it's ok unlike 'vanilla' cog.


In the Austrian folder:
Only thing bad is Medieval Warlord unit @ 2500 polygons.




I'm wondering if some of the addons "fx", etc.. are just alt frames of animation. But some probably are cut and paste ethnic diversity, so I think I'm right that they add to total polygon count.

In the Babylon folder:

Crossbowman doodads @ 1500. Probably that whole unit is >>2000
Swordsman doodads @ 1500. Again probable that unit is >>2000


In the Byzantine folder:

Chariot @ 2300 polygons
Crossbowman doodads @ 1700. Probable that unit is >> 2000
Heavy swordsman (maceman) doodads @ 1700. Again probable that unit >> 2000
Pikeman doodads @ 1800. " " " "
light sword (sword unit) doodads @ 1700 "" " " " "

I just realized, this is to improve performance on low end machines. But problems with slow down and the dreaded MAFs don't occur until the Industrial era. So there is no need to purge (or examine) units before the Industrial era. The exception being galleon variants (like that 6000! poly merchantman), as Civs will build them if lacking coal or oil in the industrial era.