Elf Unit Pack

[Nomad or What]

IIRC you said somewhere that you weren't doing armor for these guys. Hopefully someone might be interested in doing a very elegant elf armor for us, using these elves as starting point...

How about this for Elven armor:

Spoiler :

This is from Skyrim. As a matter of fact, I have the entire Skyrim database to choose from (it is where I got the Uruk-hai armor for the Orc Champion; thumbnails can be viewed here). I also have a great deal of the Atlantica Online database as well (you can find thumbnails for many of those models here and here). If you see anything from either of these that you like, let me know and I will send you the files.

 

[Civitar]

@Nomad or What: That armor looks spectacular, I would love to use it.

@Pazyryk: I can make armored versions once Nomad sends the armor, and if you want good reskins talk to Nutty - he's the textures expert, Nomad does the animations and awe-inspiring heroes, and I do the run-of-the-mill fantasy units.

 

[Pazyryk]

Yeah, that one would be super for my Heavy Infantry, with maybe a silver reskin for Immortals. We also need something a little lighter for Medium Infantry, something intermediate between that and Civtar's swordsman. I'll look through the links for possibilities.

You two are really making Éa come to life.

 

[Nomad or What]

@Nomad or What: That armor looks spectacular, I would love to use it.

@Pazyryk: I can make armored versions once Nomad sends the armor, and if you want good reskins talk to Nutty - he's the textures expert, Nomad does the animations and awe-inspiring heroes, and I do the run-of-the-mill fantasy units.

@Civitar: Half of the problem with Civ V fantasy units is that most of them come from Civ IV so are low-poly and, in general, fairly crappy. I hope to raise the bar a bit by bringing better source material as a resource for unit conversion. Don't underestimate yourself! There is no need for you to do "run-of-the-mill" fantasy units if you have access to better source material - I have over 30Gb of meshes from various Unreal, BioWare, Gamebryo, Valve, and other games at my disposal. If you find something out there that you like, I may just have it and am more than happy to send it to you if you want to convert it. There is so much cool stuff on the backburner that I can't wait to get to - but I am focusing on what is needed first. Because, doggone it, I want to play Éa already!!!

Elven armor attached (Blender and .dds files).

EDIT: Since this armor is extremely complex, I streamlined the poly count of the meshes to reduce the number of vertices per object (Remove doubles & Convert tris to quads). New polycount is as follows:

Cuirass: 3,701 --> 3,206
Cuirass_Light: 2,765 --> 2,274
Boots: 784 --> 626
Gauntlets: 1,142 --> 996
Helmet: 760 --> 520
Shield: 910 --> 745

So, the number of vertices for the full set dropped from 7,297 to 6,093 (6,361 to 5,161 for light cuirass) or by almost 20%. You could also kill a lot of additional vertices by deleting the fingers from the gauntlets (there's a crazy amount of vertices there!) and the non-armored sleeves from the cuirass. That might peel off another 1,000 or so.

It may still be too complex for Civ V, but it is worth a go. My intent is to use this armor only on the end-game units so that they are relatively uncommon. Otherwise, they will be sucking up a lot of RAM for the game . New .zip file attached with both versions. :END EDIT

 

[bane_]

How about a dwarven/elf that is also a red demon with one horn ending in a snake-head whose eyes have a miniature of the demon-guy itself?
Is it too specific?

Also, awesome units. Congrats.

 

[yenyang]

@Civitar No problem. Thanks for the unit model, and thanks for welcoming me on the other thread.
@Nomad or What Could you use Battle for Middle Earth 2 for source material? The game is somewhat old, but it's slightly less old than Civ 4 at least.

 

[bane_]

@Nomad or What Could you use Battle for Middle Earth 2 for source material? The game is somewhat old, but it's slightly less old than Civ 4 at least.

Indeed, BfMEII-RotWK was one of the games I was working with. I got close in some aspects, so I firmly believe Nomad or What may be able to extract content.

 

[Nomad or What]

@Nomad or What Could you use Battle for Middle Earth 2 for source material? The game is somewhat old, but it's slightly less old than Civ 4 at least.

Short answer? Sort-of....

I believe that BFME2 uses .W3D files. Unpacking them from the game is no problem. The process to import the data into 3ds Max may be simpler, but I only use Blender (because it is free) and importing them into Blender is a lengthy and largely imperfect process. You need a copy of Gmax 1.2 and two separate addons (which I already have): one to import .W3D into Gmax and another to export from Gmax to an .obj file (which Blender can recognize). OBJ files are basically just big text files full of script that Blender (or any other 3D software) uses to build the mesh on import. The problem is that the .obj export tools aren't perfect, so often the mesh is somewhat corrupted. Depending on the type of file, it may come in perfectly or it may have missing or stray vertices (usually just missing). Another problem is that the script ports the data to a "listener" window which then has to be pasted into Notepad. Extremely large files will result in several cut and paste operations to finally build the .obj file.

I don't own BFME2 so I do not have any source material. So, if you own it you can unpack the source content (Utility and instructions here) and then send me the .W3D and art files (.dds I believe, but may be .tga or .bmp) you wish to have imported (pick ONE - not ALL of them!) and I will have a go at it. No guarantees!

Please PM me so that we do not unduly hijack Civitar's thread .

 

[Nutty]

Another problem is that the script ports the data to a "listener" window which then has to be pasted into Notepad. Extremely large files will result in several cut and paste operations to finally build the .obj file.

Sorry to continue the hijack, but FWIW, you should use another text editor that doesn't have a 54K limit (e.g., Notepad++, free and open-source).

 

[Civitar]

OK, the problem with the Elven Heavy Swordsman is solved! Or rather, there never was a problem - a friend of mine tested it ingame and it works fine with no performance issues. Still can't view it in Nexus, but that's something. I'll upload it tomorrow or Saturday with ingame screenshots.
@bane_: Yeah, I'm afraid that is a bit specific...these elves are just generic elven soldiers, mostly conforming to the basic civ5 unit system, with the Heavy Swordsman and a couple others I'm thinking of for Éa. Just out of curiosity, where the heck did you get that idea?
@Nutty: I'll second the Notepad++ suggestion - it works great for all Civ5 code.

 

[Nomad or What]

Sorry to continue the hijack, but FWIW, you should use another text editor that doesn't have a 54K limit (e.g., Notepad++, free and open-source).

Agree with Notepad++, I use it myself. Unfortunately, it is the Gmax MAXScript Listener that has the limitation when selecting data; using Ctr+A will only grab about 1Kb of data at a time, resulting in continual cut+paste operations into the Notepad file.

 

[Nomad or What]

OK, the problem with the Elven Heavy Swordsman is solved! Or rather, there never was a problem - a friend of mine tested it ingame and it works fine with no performance issues. Still can't view it in Nexus, but that's something. I'll upload it tomorrow or Saturday with ingame screenshots.

That's awesome! I am sure they will look great. Probably doesn't hurt to still cleanup those meshes, tho - I will remember to do this before I post any more of them.

 

[Civitar]

That's awesome! I am sure they will look great. Probably doesn't hurt to still cleanup those meshes, tho - I will remember to do this before I post any more of them.

Definitely do that - besides breaking the Viewer (not permanently ), they slowed down Blender noticeably. I'll give him an alternate silver suit before uploading.
Also, when I said I do "run-of-the-mill fantasy units", I didn't mean I do mediocre units - I meant that I do the rank-and-file units, the ones that everybody needs, while you seem to do more spectacular, jaw-dropping, less-universally-usable units. Just my impression of things at the moment.

 

[Nomad or What]

Definitely do that - besides breaking the Viewer (not permanently ), they slowed down Blender noticeably. I'll give him an alternate silver suit before uploading.
Also, when I said I do "run-of-the-mill fantasy units", I didn't mean I do mediocre units - I meant that I do the rank-and-file units, the ones that everybody needs, while you seem to do more spectacular, jaw-dropping, less-universally-usable units. Just my impression of things at the moment.

Ah, by that definition I think we both do run-of-the-mill units then - these goblins and orcs never seem to be done! I would agree that your units aren't mediocre at all - just that Civ IV graphics aren't notably spectacular. And you've got a few jaw-dropping units under your belt as well - like a Kraken and Acheron, which has been lying in wait for years now...

Speaking of which, how is the dragon coming along?

 

[PawelS]

Thank you for making a wide selection of Elven units available. Now I really need some Dwarves...

 

[Civitar]

@Nomad: I haven't messed with the dragon at all for a while... when I attempt to fix it the way Deliverator describes in the thread, I always overdo it and then the dragon is in the air or shifted backwards... maybe you'd like to try fixing the animations? You could get a piece of the dragon too, and you've said you once tried to convert it but gave up...
@PawelS: Dwarves being my personal favorite fantasy race, I certainly hope I will do a Dwarf Pack at some point. But the only Dwarfs I'll be doing soon are WHFB ones, which again are not quite the same as the Dwarves I'd like to make a pack out of. It depends on which dwarf units I find in Civ4 (slightly too cartoonish for my taste). Also, whenever I finish the units for a WHFB civ I'll upload them, but not before in order to stay organized. So, sorry for the wait, but Dwarves will be a while.

 

[bane_]

@bane_: Yeah, I'm afraid that is a bit specific...these elves are just generic elven soldiers, mostly conforming to the basic civ5 unit system, with the Heavy Swordsman and a couple others I'm thinking of for Éa. Just out of curiosity, where the heck did you get that idea?

I was just kidding. I made my best to be sure that was perceived as such (the snake's eyes with a copy of the whole unit? ), but I failed miserably. Thank you, Internet.

 

[PawelS]

Any kind of Dwarves are good for me

 

[Civitar]

@bane_:.

 

[Pazyryk]

Notice I didn't ask for elf arquebusier (even though Nomad or What made a goblin one for me). I'm treading lightly so as not to jeopardize my chances.