[UNIT] Mighty Ships Et Al

[MightyToad]

I will post new units here if and when I make them.
Starting with this one:


This model was 12mb off of one of the free 3d model sites. The guy did an amazing job. I removed as much as possible and remapped the textures. It still weighs in at a hefty 500k or so.

I almost forgot to mention. It uses the privateer KFM. Which is the role I imagine it would be used for. Piracy/anti-piracy. A cheaper and faster alternative to a frigate.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/sailing-ship-pack.28134/

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

That is a nice ship. Thankyou for making this. What era of ship would this be? It looks maybe early 1700s perhaps?

 

[MightyToad]

The schooner rig became very popular on the american side of the pond in the early 1700s. This model is based on a racing yacht. So, the americans used what they had. The fine lines of a schooner made them very fast, but unstable gun platforms. For this reason the British preferred brigs instead.

So, in the game I suppose this would be a late Renaissance to industrial unit.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Interesting, thankyou for the information. Might make a good transport type ship flavor....

 

[MightyToad]

This uses the Galley KFM. I really like the hull shape the Pacific Northwest Tribes used for the Canoes. I figured it wouldn't be too hard to take a generic boat hull and modify it into this. I think the textures need more work really.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/sailing-ship-pack.28134/

 

[MightyToad]

The Naval Cutter was the smallest ship in the navy. Used to scout for the fleet, carry dispatches, and enforce customs.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/sailing-ship-pack.28134/

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I love the canoe, that is a really great ship and ironic considering I've recently released some Pacific Northwest civ leaders. The Cutter is very well done as well Toad.

 

[MightyToad]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_canoes

Yeah, your LH thread sent me down that rabbit hole. I used this image on the bow, but a lot of detail was lost. There is a lot of wasted space in the dds. It could be reorganized and re-UV mapped to make the thunderchicken pop.

 

[Matsuda123]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_canoes

Yeah, your LH thread sent me down that rabbit hole. I used this image on the bow, but a lot of detail was lost. There is a lot of wasted space in the dds. It could be reorganized and re-UV mapped to make the thunderchicken pop.

Hey man, I like what you're doing here. New ships are always appreciated. I have a ship model made, but I don't know how to apply basic textures to it or rig it. Would you be willing to put down a basic texture and rig the model, and then I can add to it when it is finished? If not that is totally ok too, and I understand.

Here are some pictures of it. Basically a "what if" unit. A Haida/Pacific Northwest Galley unit, which I'm hoping to use to fill the huge gap on Native American type units.

Oh, and I can assist on texturing the Haida canoe you have made if you want. I'm decent at drawing/painting so I can make pre-existing textures look nice, I just don't know how to apply textures to models that have never been textured before.

 

[MightyToad]

Sure, that sounds fun. I use gimp and blender though. I'm not a student or independently wealthy. I'll upload the gimp and blender files. Upload your model.

My process so far is to take a screenshot of the model from the side and top. Arrange that in gimp and use that as a template to arrange the UV in blender. But there is always a better way iIsuppose.

 

[Matsuda123]

Sure, that sounds fun. I use gimp and blender though. I'm not a student or independently wealthy. I'll upload the gimp and blender files. Upload your model.

My process so far is to take a screenshot of the model from the side and top. Arrange that in gimp and use that as a template to arrange the UV in blender. But there is always a better way iIsuppose.

Awesome, sounds great. Whichever tools work, it doesn't matter. Unfortunately I know so little about UV mapping. It always turns into a bunch of strange wires tangled up everywhere... I'll work on your canoe texture as soon as possible.

Here is the Galley, as well as some basic reference images.

And here is the Canoe texture. It should make for a good War Canoe or Workboat.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

The Haida actually did build Galleys. After seeing a European sailing ship in the distance they managed to figure out how to make sailing ships of their own,

 

[MightyToad]

As far as I know only a couple of native american tribes independently developed sailing. And their sails were square woven mats. Only good for sailing downwind. But, yeah, they are intelligent people and sailing isn't rocket science. Once exposed to western style sailing technology and firearms they incorporated it into their own boats. I was reading about the Haida and someone said to them they were like the Vikings. They replied "No, the Vikings are like the Haida".

The Texture looks good. Alot more realistic and less cartoony than before.

The trireme animations does funky things to the model. It blows up the size for some reasons. Also, makes the hull sit nose down and lower in the water. I abandoned trying to assign the sails to the sail bones and just attached them to the mast bones. You will have to set the scale in the XML like the trireme. <fScale>0.14</fScale>



When you hit "U" to unwrap if you select "project from view" it will have a coherent layout and not a tangle mess of wires like you were saying. You need have your 3D view facing to faces you want to add to the UV map. Facing the top of the model to do the faces on the top for example. I included some screen shots that may be helpful.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[Matsuda123]

Thank you, I'm glad to hear the texture worked out well.

You work quite quickly, that's fantastic. Thank you. I'll try to match that as well. Hopefully I will grasp the guide provided and be able to do some myself as well. If you are interested, I have several other models ready to go, but require skinning and rigging, before I can fully texture them and get them in game. We could work together to crank out lots more units and really fill in the gaps.

If you're really interested and want to, I have a number of citysets I have produced, but I have no clue how to skin them or get them in game either. If you want to do that with me, we could get lots of new city graphics that are missing. Of course I would do the finishing textures still.

Also, I have begun work on the Haida Galley texturing. Should be done in about a day or two.

 

[MightyToad]

I'm not really interested in buildings. I never zoom in on the cities to admire the granary or whatever. For me a cities only purpose is to build an army. So, I'm only interested in units at the moment. I can help with any units you got.

I want to modify the animations. The vanilla ones are inadequate as the trireme has shown. I've been doing homework on that, but the learning curve is more like a wall.

 

[Matsuda123]

Ah I see. Well that is quite alright, I definitely have plenty of units / unit ideas. Here is another, a Japanese Spearman. We can do what we did with the Haida Galley to it, and I will finish the texture.

I definitely understand that. I hope you will be able to grasp it, I know I don't get it haha.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

The main problem Matsuda is having is texture mapping, if he can get that down he can make cities which is one of his(and mine to honest passions) as well as units. Lots of alternative universe and what-if stuff.

 

[MightyToad]

I think it was The Coyotes blender tutorial that goes over how to UV in blender. I can't keep track who wrote what. Thats where I learned. Also, judging from the screenshots it looks like blender 2.79ish. I know merijin has some luck using that, but the export always errors for me. I've used 2.79 for years untill now. I even tried 2.82 and the newest niftools release from january. I only got it to export without error if you leave the game to the defualt Oblivion and not Civ4. But that only results in the Red error ball of doom in game.
Blender 2.49 Works. Every. Time.

Anyway, I got the spearman done-ish. Didn't mess with textures at all. Although I painted the parts so it would be obvious what is what. I used the vertice weight copy script because rigging a human figure is a lot more work than a ship. So, maybe not perfect, but looks decent when I tested it in game. It uses the vanilla spearman KFM.

 

[Matsuda123]

Sounds like I need to look more into Blender 2.49 then, could be super useful. I will try read over that again as well. Of course part of the difficulty is learning to convert many of the tutorial instructions to Mac. But I will still try. In the meantime, you and I can crank out lots of great units for us all. I will probably make more new ships soon, as well as culturally flavored siege weapons, and other units that are needed to breach the gaps. For example, I will probably work creating a Japanese warrior, as well as a Sino one too. That way the Jōmon can get represented.

Thanks man. I can't tell you how long I've waited at having the chance to have this spearman in the game. Ever since I saw how cool it looked in Civ III, I have wanted a 3D version for IV. I will get it textured as soon as I can. As I say, the Haida Galley will be available within a day or two. Very exciting stuff. And of course I will help texture the units you make as well when you want me to.

 

[MightyToad]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/gunboat.28150/

A little boat with a BFG. All navies of the sailing era had gunboats. With the purpose of shore bombardment or massed attacks on larger ships. This model is based on a swedish/danish design famous from the "Gunboat War" of 1807-1814. Although, the "Turret" innovation wasn't known until the later Crimean War. But, it looks cooler if the gun turns.

The unit required screwing with the vanilla animations because the galley lacks a gun obviously. So, use the "Gunboat.kfm" in the XML. Also, the model was scaled to match the galley, but looks a bit too big in game.