Blender set-up for Civ 3

[Neomega]

There are two files here, One is the readme, with some extra graphics to keep it from being boring:

Blenderciv3readme.zip

Download it and read it.

The other is BlenderCiv3.zip

In there is the .blend file you can double click on or open in Blender.

It has the correct angles and light settings to be compatible with Civ.
It is suggested you unzip BlenderCiv3.zip straight to your hard drive. Blender likes to use paths, and pathing straight to C:\ is a lot easier then trying to path to anything else. In BlenderCiv3.zip is also a set of folders that you can make copies of, to help streamline the process between animating, and converting via Steph's SBB.


Why am I posting this? Because it took me about 2 weeks of trial and error before I felt I had the right set up, and the right look to mix with Civ 3's units. Hopefully, if you use Blender, this will save you that headache.

 

[flamescreen]

Thanks! Hope i'll find this handy, as I have blender.

 

[warmwaffles]

Thanks Neo blender has been givin me problems like I couldn't get the right angles......THANK YOU

 

[vbraun]

Could you post a preview of a cube with this set up?

Edit:

You have 8 diffrant cameras and 8 diffrant lights for each of the 8 directions. What I do is I have one light camera etc and just have the entire unit parented to an Empty, which I call main. Then when I want to change direction I just rotate the empty 45 degrees on the z axis. All the animations look exactly as if it were doing the same thing just looking at it at a diffrant angle. The only promblem with my way is that by doing that weird stuff happens when playing with particle effect forces. But I found a way around that.

Your way works, infact its what I used to do. I just like my way better

Edit2:

I made my own cube preview. Your setup on left, mine on right.

I see I need to fix the height of my cube, and the shadow placement.

 

[Neomega]

I would say the cube on the left is in SW view... not because it is in defaul, but because the one side is so black... due to the side lighting being too far away, as it was set up for ships. The side lights should be scooted in.

Regarding rotating and particles.. the only way I know of for your set-up is reloading. When reloaded, particle effects ajust to the new transformations to the particle emitters... soemthing I eventually learned with the MOANE project.

 

[vbraun]

Regarding rotating and particles.. the only way I know of for your set-up is reloading. When reloaded, particle effects ajust to the new transformations to the particle emitters... soemthing I eventually learned with the MOANE project.

No, what I try to do is give the particles some kind of force in one direction, for example Y=1. If I leave it as is with no rotating it should go in one direction, lets say away from the ship. When I rotate the particle emmiter the particles want to go in the same direction, which is not away from the ship, more like a 45 degree angle from the ship vs 90. I got around this by moving the object center away in the opposite direction that I want the particles to go. Then I just make the Norm=0 to some number that I find that works. Not the best way to do it, and I don't have all that much control over where the particles go, but it works.