CivNexus6 1.3.3

* Process All Textures in Directory now handles PNG, TGA and JPG as well as DDS. These means you can bulk convert textures from .png into .dds/.tex for use in Civ VI.

* New Texture Import feature under Further Actions tab: Can import textures to Civ 6 dds/tex format from dds, tga, png or jpg formats. The resultant .dds and .tex files will be created in a subfolder called Textures. There is a batch feature for converting all the textures in a folder.

Be aware that the outputted textures for some Texture Classes do not work correctly with the game. If you have any problems with a given Texture Class then use the Firaxis Asset Editor to import them as previously. Most common full colour Texture Classes including UserInterface, *_BaseColor and StrategicView_* seem to work fine.

* Handle multiple Tri-Groups/Materials per mesh in Create GeometrySet xml.

* Included FbxImporter.dll that was mistakenly omitted from 1.2.5 release.

* When selecting Class = "Leader", the .geo file generation will now create a dummy .wig file and reference it in the .geo.

* Change Class dropdown for .geo file generation to include WonderMovieModel rather than WonderMovieCamera.

* For completeness you can now insert an Adjustment Bone to alter Position as well as Scale and Rotation. Simply enter the X, Y, Z coordinates in the Pos X, Pos Y, Pos Z fields then click "Adjustment Bone and Save".

Stream-lined Civ V conversion process:

If using CivNexus6 1.2.3 your Asset .ast file will be created automatically as part of the "Convert all .gr2 Files in Directory to .fgx/.anm" step. This works by assigning Civ V animations into the Civ VI animation slots. The mapping is editable if you need to tweak it - see the Civ6ToCiv5AninMap.txt in the CivNexus6 application directory. Another file containing just the Behavior data is generated within the fgx_anm_output folder called m_BehaviorData.xml in case you want to copy it into an .ast file manually.

The Asset file should allow the unit to work in the Asset Previewer and Civ VI once you have hooked up the Materials and Textures. There will be no Attachment Points, Sound FX or Visual FX included initially so you will have to edit these in yourself.

As with the CivNexus6-generated .geo file, the .ast file has no indentation formatting, but this is easily fixed in Modbuddy after you import it using Edit > Advanced > Format Document (shortcut Ctrl-K followed by Ctrl-F).

For more info see the Civ V conversion tutorial thread.

* If you are importing/overwriting with Mesh Vertex Format set to "Bone Bindings, 1 UV", any mesh vertices that are unweighted will be assigned to the root bone with a warning giving the count of unweighted vertices in each mesh. If using a Mesh Vertex Format that does not have Bone Bindings (i.e. an unanimated model) there is no longer a need to rig your mesh to the skeleton.

* Fixed .br2 Import/Overwrite which was broken in 1.2.0.

An extensive update to CivNexus6 to better support Civ 6 FGX format graphics modding.

New Features in CivNexus6 1.2

* New Import/Export format .cn6 can be used instead of the old .nb2/.br2 formats. Old formats can still be used via a radio button.

The .cn6 is a development of the .br2 format with the following improvements to Blender Import/Export scripts and CivNexus6 Import/Export:
1) Support for up to 3 UV layers per mesh - used for Emissive layer (night lights) on Buildings etc.
2) Support for up to 8 Bone Indexes and Weights per vertex (up from 4 in Civ 5).
3) Support for Materials Import/Export (names only).
4) Support for multiple Triangle Groups per mesh each with their own Material assignments for each mesh common for various entities in Civ 6.
5) It turns at that until now that Blender has always been recalculating it's own Normals for each vertex rather than using the custom ones from the .nb2 file. This explains why some meshes didn't look as smooth when imported to Blender as the original .fgx does in FGX viewer. Since Blender now supports custom normal import I can now import vertex normals properly. Also the original normals, binormals and tangents are preserved for export as far as possible using a dummy vertex group called VERTEX_KEYS. If you want to force Blender to recalculate vertex normals, binormals and tangents then you can just delete the VERTEX_KEYS Vertex Group for the mesh. I can add this enhancement to the old .nb2/.br2 Addon scripts for Blender 2.7x when I have time.

* Materials are now assigned at the level of a Mesh's Triangle Groups rather than at Mesh level which is a proper representation of the internal .fgx Granny structure. Use the Edit Mesh Material Bindings tabs to switch assignments and to rename Meshs. Use the Edit Materials tab to Add or Remove Materials and rename Materials.

* Import/Overwrite Meshes can now use 3 Mesh Vertex Formats:
1) Bone Bindings, 1 UV (layer): used for Units, Leaders & anything animated.
2) No Bone Bindings, 2 UV (layers): used for Static objects such as Unit weapons and shields.
3) No Bone Bindings, 3 UV (layers) : used for Improvements, etc that have an Emissive map.

* Fixed Export for models that use Indices rather than Indices16 (e.g. LEAD_AZTE_Montezuma.fgx)

I'm sure there is more to mention! I will try and post some graphical demonstrations of what can now be done soon.

* Open FBX should now work for turning .fbx -> .fgx. You need to specify the name of the Mesh (rather than the Model/Skeleton) in the Node box before selecting your .fbx file.

* Added "Remove Bone" function for removing specific bones from the .fgx. Warning: this will save the file so use with caution.

* Set loadFromRemoteSources to true in CivNexus6.exe.config

New Features

* Can now open Civ 5 .gr2 files - will immediately be resaved as .fgx files on load. Warning you will need to overwrite meshes from .br2 before these files will work properly in Civ 6.
* Create Geometry/Animation (.geo/.anm) File will now create a .geo if the current file is a Model and a .anm file if the current file is an Animation.
* Convert all .gr2 Files in Directory to .fgx/.anm can be used to batch convert Civ 5 .gr2 animations files to the .fgx/.anm pairs needed for Civ 6.
* Create GeometrySet .xml for .ast can be used to autogenerate the <m_GeometrySet> entry in your .ast file for your .fgx model. Then all you need to do is hook up your Material name.
* The class for .geo/.anm/GeometrySet export can be selected via the "Class" dropdown e.g. Unit, LandmarkModel, etc.
* Materials can now be added, removed and reassigned. Only the name of the Material binding is really significant. Everything else is determined by the Asset .ast and Material .mtl metadata files.
* Other minor tweaks and code tidy-up.

* Fixed .nb2 export to include triangles from all Tri-Groups. This meant that some models had vertices imported into Blender without the triangle data to join them up.

* Added "Save Geometry (.geo) File" which will create a .geo file for the currently loaded .fgx. Class is hard-coded to "Unit" at the moment so just edit the file afterwards if working with a different geometry type.

BR2 Import and Overwrite Functionality is now working!

To use it first export your a rigged model from Blender via the .br2 script. I would recommend exporting from Blender 2.7x even if you are working in Blender 2.49 as Blender 2.7x exports binormals and tangents for vertices which should make for smoother looking meshes.

Then you have two options:
1) Use "Open BR2" to load both skeleton and mesh data from the .br2 file.
2) Make a copy of the vanilla .fgx model that you have used for your base and use "Open" to open it. Now you can use "Ovwr. BR2" to just overwrite the meshes with the mesh data from your .br2 file leaving skeleton untouched.

After you do either of these you should immediately use "Save" to save the .fgx for stability reasons.

At the moment Material support is minimal. Materials can be renamed but not added deleted. Since the default Materials are take from the Hoplite Armor the tool may only work for Units right now. Hopefully through a combination of renaming Materials here and working with the .ast and .mtl files it will be possible to cook units with both custom meshes and textures that use the vanilla Civ 6 animations.