Thanks. Really, my graphics knowledge is making flags and button, but I can reskin leaderheads, which is better than nothing. Iv'e not really modded Colonization before, so i'm just having a quick go before I do anything proper. I'd be happy to help out with anything. I could reskin some leaders, and am currently investigating whether I could make the buttons look like the ones from BTS Final Frontier, for a more sci-fi feel.
Ok sounds good
I'll upload what I have so far for potential leaderhead bases so you can take a look.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwrARpL9eZDGV3UxUDdUem5BSUE/edit?usp=sharing
I've worked on a few simpler reskins myself (eg the ones in my sig) but some more ambitious ones to try would be getting some more good non-human leaders out there (ie reskin of _Alien/birdman in this set to look more natural/convincing; and maybe somehow reskin _Alien/bearman or another base to look like a good Wookiee or Sasquatch leader)
There are actually already enough LH models to use in the game so making new leaderheads isn't a high priority, but a few more or improved skinning for existing ones would be icing on the cake
As far as buttons, I recently cranked out a huge set of scifi buttons & uploaded them to the link in my sig. Since there are over 2000 buttons with a lot of diversity I'm hoping this will provide quite a big resource for SF modders to work with.
Since lots of graphical content has already been gathered, a lot of the critical work needed to start getting these into the game is going to be stuff that an XML modder could handle (especially if you have even beginning graphical experience), like:
1) Browsing through the collected graphics to identify what you think is the most appropriate graphic to fit each unit/building etc
2) Adjusting folder names for those graphics to match what the Artdef XML looks for
3) Test them out in game to verify that new graphics are loading appropriately without crashes/glitches
4) Use some minor graphical and XML troubleshooting to work out any kinks in how the graphics are loading/appearing in-game.
If you are able to help out with graphical and XML stuff like that it would be awesome, and hopefully should make fairly quick progress in getting good scifi graphics into the game, which can then be easily used in any scifi themed mod. Usually when I've importing nif graphics (either leaderheads or units/buildings/etc) into Civ4Col it's usually gone relatively smoothly. Some things to keep aware of are:
* With
Deliverator's tutorial you can often use nifskope to easily resolve any glitches in imported units
* I've been told that in many cases if there are issues loading graphics in game, sometimes importing into Blender and exporting can help, though I've as yet had a hard time getting it to do this correctly on my pc
* Lastly, when importing graphics from other mods or Civ4Bts, remember they're often looking to load DDS textures from that mod's /Art/Shared directory; so the number one easy solution for many problems can be to make sure shared art isn't missing.
I have been rather busy in real life, I don't believe any progress has been made on 2071 either. I hope when winter break comes, I might have some more free time to make something happen.
