Art Assets in Civilization 6: A Modding Guide

[Reliquary]

Aw man, I got so excited for like two minutes lol. Sadly, that didn't work. I'll keep playing with it, see what happens. Thanks though!

 

[FurionHuang]

Aw man, I got so excited for like two minutes lol. Sadly, that didn't work. I'll keep playing with it, see what happens. Thanks though!

Sorry it didn't work. So what happens in the game? It crashes at loading, jumps back to main menu or just doesn't show your model?

 

[Reliquary]

The model just doesn't show up. Everything else: the improvement, the icons, the text, the yields all work fine. I'm just not getting the visual in for some reason. And I know it's probably something small and dumb lol.

 

[FurionHuang]

The model just doesn't show up. Everything else: the improvement, the icons, the text, the yields all work fine. I'm just not getting the visual in for some reason. And I know it's probably something small and dumb lol.

Just found another line in Mod.Art that might be the issue:

I helped a friend with your exact same problem but on my home computer. I'm still at work so couldn't check that project. Give this a try and see what you get.

Cheers,

 

[Reliquary]

No dice. I think I'm gonna take a break from this lol. I've been running around it for hours.

 

[FurionHuang]

Hey @sukritact, I've created a UD with a custom model attached to attachment point. If you go to page 6 you can see my posted screenshot of what it looks like. Problem is, randomly my custom attached model doesn't show in the game. Like it shows in one city but not in other. So that should not be era issue. And it happened once that the custom model stayed there for several turns then disappeared... I have no idea what's going on...
I've uploaded the working files (artDefs, Assets and XLPs), please help taking a look if you have time.

Thanks.

 

[Deliverator]

Hey, man! Sorry for adding to the seemingly endless question pile lol. I've made a ton of progress on a test improvement tile mod I'm using as a springboard into more complex things. I'm pretty sure it's almost ready to go but there's something missing somewhere that I can't seem to wrap my head around and have been at it for days. Everything is in place: the xmls, the icons, the assets, geometries and animations and all that jazz. I think the problem is in the modart file unless I'm misunderstanding something about the artdefs.

If ya don't mind could you take a look? It's driving me nuts!

Try the attached updated Modbuddy project. I've updated a few things but can't test in game right now.

1) Importantly .artdef files must have the *exact* same name as the files they are appending to - so I renamed your two .artdef files to Improvements.artdef and Landmarks.artdef.

2) Renamed your .xlp file to tilebases.xlp to match the package name and updated Landmarks.artdef to point to it:
<Element class="AssetObjects:BLPEntryValue">
<m_EntryName text="TAR_Turbine"/>
<m_XLPClass text="TileBase"/>
<m_XLPPath text="tilebases.xlp"/>
<m_BLPPackage text="landmarks/tilebases"/>
<m_LibraryName text="TileBase"/>
<m_ParamName text="Asset"/>
</Element>

3) Tidied up Mod.Art.xml to refer to the cooked .blp library location:
<Element>
<libraryName text="TileBase"/>
<relativePackagePaths>
<Element text="landmarks/tilebases.blp"/>
</relativePackagePaths>
</Element>

Hope this helps!

 

[Reliquary]

Alas, still no 3D model in-game. Hmm, if all the code is right, I can't really think of what else could be wrong... the 3D stuff works in the asset editor just fine, so in theory it should work in the game, right?
I'm wondering if maybe there's a naming convention or a hierarchy I should revise in the model? Or would that even matter as long as I have a "Root" joint?

 

[Deliverator]

Alas, still no 3D model in-game. Hmm, if all the code is right, I can't really think of what else could be wrong... the 3D stuff works in the asset editor just fine, so in theory it should work in the game, right?
I'm wondering if maybe there's a naming convention or a hierarchy I should revise in the model? Or would that even matter as long as I have a "Root" joint?

Found a couple of other things that didn't look right - see attached.

If that doesn't work: Can you add your Improvement Asset to the map using the Asset Preview tab in FireTuner? If not then there is a problem with your cooked asset (Asset files -> .blp). If you can see your asset in game that way then the problem is with your .artdef files.

Perhaps the code is not quite right still. You could try looking at Sukritact's Ezana to see what you might be missing - that includes a custom Improvement so that might help you.

 

[FurionHuang]

Found a couple of other things that didn't look right - see attached.

If that doesn't work: Can you add your Improvement Asset to the map using the Asset Preview tab in FireTuner? If not then there is a problem with your cooked asset (Asset files -> .blp). If you can see your asset in game that way then the problem is with your .artdef files.

Perhaps the code is not quite right still. You could try looking at Sukritact's Ezana to see what you might be missing - that includes a custom Improvement so that might help you.

Is there a way to test asset/artdef functionality with fire tuner? My model in district is randomly missing, really don't know how to debug it.

 

[Reliquary]

It's woooorkiiiiing! I'll have to look at the changes you made in a bit, but as of now it actually shows up and animates and everything!
At this point it's all just gonna be clean up, I think. But for real, thanks a lot! I'll try and compile a reference of everything that went into this and hopefully it'll help some other people as well ^^

@FurionHuang Have you used Firetuner before? Or are you starting from scratch?

 

[FurionHuang]

Alas, still no 3D model in-game. Hmm, if all the code is right, I can't really think of what else could be wrong... the 3D stuff works in the asset editor just fine, so in theory it should work in the game, right?
I'm wondering if maybe there's a naming convention or a hierarchy I should revise in the model? Or would that even matter as long as I have a "Root" joint?

Deliverator's modification looks perfect to me. I'm confused why the model doesn't show up.

 

[FurionHuang]

It's woooorkiiiiing! I'll have to look at the changes you made in a bit, but as of now it actually shows up and animates and everything!
At this point it's all just gonna be clean up, I think. But for real, thanks a lot! I'll try and compile a reference of everything that went into this and hopefully it'll help some other people as well ^^

View attachment 473778

@FurionHuang Have you used Firetuner before? Or are you starting from scratch?

Rejoice! Now you need to unlock it with later tech. A turbine at pottery is... I like it.
Wait, outside territory?

 

[FurionHuang]

It's woooorkiiiiing! I'll have to look at the changes you made in a bit, but as of now it actually shows up and animates and everything!
At this point it's all just gonna be clean up, I think. But for real, thanks a lot! I'll try and compile a reference of everything that went into this and hopefully it'll help some other people as well ^^

View attachment 473778

@FurionHuang Have you used Firetuner before? Or are you starting from scratch?

No I'm starting from scratch. Was using it watching my LUA script console but no more than that. We should move to another thread for this topic probably.

 

[Reliquary]

@FurionHuang Yeah I'm gonna set all that up soon. I just wanted to get the asset into the game first since everything else is easy. I set it to pottery because I could build it almost instantly when starting a new game (because I completely forgot about Fire tuner like a total pro). But anyway, I made a thread in Mod Creation Help about setting up the live tuner to customize stuff in game.

Cheers!

 

[FurionHuang]

@FurionHuang Yeah I'm gonna set all that up soon. I just wanted to get the asset into the game first since everything else is easy. I set it to pottery because I could build it almost instantly when starting a new game (because I completely forgot about Fire tuner like a total pro). But anyway, I made a thread in Mod Creation Help about setting up the live tuner to customize stuff in game.

Cheers!

Awesome, I will check it out.

 

[FurionHuang]

Hey @sukritact, I've created a UD with a custom model attached to attachment point. If you go to page 6 you can see my posted screenshot of what it looks like. Problem is, randomly my custom attached model doesn't show in the game. Like it shows in one city but not in other. So that should not be era issue. And it happened once that the custom model stayed there for several turns then disappeared... I have no idea what's going on...
I've uploaded the working files (artDefs, Assets and XLPs), please help taking a look if you have time.

Thanks.

I actually figured it out. It was because my model is bigger than the Lavra Lg_Bld model, then some roots of the tree ran into the roads when there's a road connection. In district asset I just set the tree as "optional", which will be taken out when roads are generated. So the solution is change the attachment point type of the tree from "optional" to "permanent", which makes this asset stay whether or not there's a road.

Hope this information helps you guys if you run into similar issue.

 

[Deliverator]

It's woooorkiiiiing! I'll have to look at the changes you made in a bit, but as of now it actually shows up and animates and everything!
At this point it's all just gonna be clean up, I think. But for real, thanks a lot! I'll try and compile a reference of everything that went into this and hopefully it'll help some other people as well ^^

Awesome! Glad you got it working. It's definitely satisfying when you get something showing up in game for the first time. The remaining things I changed were just correcting entries to point to the correctly named Improvements.artdef and Landmarks.artdef and then making sure that the Mod.Art.xml entries were correct.

I knew from checking Sukritact's Ezana that in the built-out .dep file you should have Landmarks.artdef as a dependency for Improvements.artdef so I just kept tweaking things until that was the case:
<ArtDefDependencies>
<Element>
<ArtDefPath text="Improvements.artdef"/>
<ArtDefDependencyPaths>
<Element text="Improvements.artdef"/>
<Element text="Landmarks.artdef"/>
</ArtDefDependencyPaths>
</Element>
<Element>
<ArtDefPath text="Landmarks.artdef"/>
<ArtDefDependencyPaths/>
</Element>
</ArtDefDependencies>

 

[Reliquary]

Dude, it's so gratifying seeing it there haha. I went through the steps of recreating the mod again just so I know I can repeat the process. I noticed the Asset Editor actually took care of most of the issues without my meddling, so I'm not even sure how I broke it in the first place. I think I was trying to match the code I was seeing somewhere else and fudged it.

Thanks a lot for the help, man! I'm gonna move on to a unit next. Hopefully I can get away with modeling, rigging and animating a single mesh rather than have to make the body, clothes and head separately like in the game lol.

 

[pokiehl]

I'm trying to create a simple new unit using existing 3d assets. I tried to follow this guide but got confused. I started a new project, imported the .ast I wanted to edit (Spearman_ArmorB) and renamed it to "NewSpearman." I then opened it up in the asset preview and set the attachments I want...sooo..now what? I don't see anywhere in the .ast for specifying the new "attachments." I don't think I need the .mtl since I'm not changing the lighting or anything, just what models are attached to the armor (and the tint).

Sorry, I'm super new to anything with art assets..