B-25 Mitchell

Be my guest. ;) You're a coder, right?

It was my understanding that models had to be modelled with this feature in mind... one of the frustrating things about when they release cool new stuff for modders is that they rarely tell us how to actually friggin' use it! :p

And unfortunately, this is one of those things that I was really excited about and nobody else seems to want to use. As a result, none of the artists seem to have kept this in mind when they designed their units or figured just how exactly it works.
 
It was my understanding that models had to be modelled with this feature in mind... one of the frustrating things about when they release cool new stuff for modders is that they rarely tell us how to actually friggin' use it! :p
Well the thing is, I don't know how to freggin use it. :p (in the manner which you want)
And unfortunately, this is one of those things that I was really excited about and nobody else seems to want to use. As a result, none of the artists seem to have kept this in mind when they designed their units or figured just how exactly it works.
Well I'm sure if you accomplished or tried something like this, it will receive more interest from the community. I personally never heard of the concept before. (maybe I don't read enough (lol))
 
Well the thing is, I don't know how to freggin use it. :p (in the manner which you want)

Well I'm sure if you accomplished or tried something like this, it will receive more interest from the community. I personally never heard of the concept before. (maybe I don't read enough (lol))

When they released BtS, they included a new tag in the PromotionInfos called <LayerAnimationPath> and as described in Kael's Guide To Modding BtS:

7.0 Promotions can change the look of models

I am going to apologize beforehand for the lack of detail in this section. I&#8217;m not a graphics guy and I haven&#8217;t used this feature myself. But I have toyed with some of the units that use it. Basically it is possible to have a model changed based on the promotions it has.

For example, you could make a bomber model that, if it has the correct promotion, shows a bomb strapped to its bottom. Then if the promotion is removed, say by a bombing action, the model would be changed so the bomb is no longer visible. The same could be done in showing swords and axes in units hands, armor they are wearing, units surrounded in clouds of putrid gas, radiation, etc.

I will stress that this isn&#8217;t as simple as making a promotion, pointing it to model art and having everything work. The model has to be made with the &#8220;attachment&#8221; built into it. By default it isn&#8217;t displayed, but with the promotion it shows up. So it will be significant modeling work to use this function, but I have no doubt the amazing artists here at CivFanatcis will have a lot of fun with this feature.

In other words, it's the modellers, not the coders that have to develop this ;)

But anyway, I was thinking you could have a Promotion that would cause the Bombers to appear on the flight deck. Or add bombs to the B-25 that could be removed when they bombs are "dropped" as described above.
 
That carrier might be one of those opportunities though when one might want to make use that cool feature in BtS where promotions add new stuff to the model... I could see something like this for being able to put bombers on the carriers.

Yeah, it's a shame the artists have 'forgotten' about this possibility. ;)
In the case of planes, imagine base bombers (without promotions) are those flimsy twin-winged wwi bombers, and upgrade ie to 4-engined wwii bombers with the combatIII -and range promotions, and to twin engined wwii bombers with CombatI -and II promotions.
Pinch -and Ambush promotions could be used to switch to groundstrike (jet)fighter graphics (like the A10) for the fighter craft.

But it could get complicated. Like a spitfire fighter switching to a mosquito graphic (twin engined) if still in the industrial era, but to a ground strike craft if in the modern era. :crazyeye:
 
But anyway, I was thinking you could have a Promotion that would cause the Bombers to appear on the flight deck. Or add bombs to the B-25 that could be removed when they bombs are "dropped" as described above.
So basically I make one model with just the bare carrier, then another one with the bombers on it, etc. and you can code it to switch promotion to promotion. :p

I could do that with XML I presume.
 
So basically I make one model with just the bare carrier, then another one with the bombers on it, etc. and you can code it to switch promotion to promotion. :p

I could do that with XML I presume.

See, this is why it's so tricky.. I'm fairly certain that you're not actually using two versions of a unit.

So, for example, let's just say you're sick of having two infantry types for the ancient era and you decide you just want one unit called Heavy Infantry that can swap out Axes for Swords (and maybe other kinds of weapons). Each new weapon would be represented by a promotion.

This is actually what I want to do (though not with ancient melee units), to make more customizable units.

Now, if I've understood it correctly, the tag in the CIV4PromotionInfos.xml doesn't swap out one model for another. In other words, you can just use the existing models for Swordsmen and Axemen and point the Promotion Axes towards the Axemen folder and the Promotion Swords towards the Swordsmen folder.

The way I understood it is that the unit has to be modelled with the attached part hidden but present on the original model. Then giving the unit this promotion reveals that hidden part of the model.

This feature is actually used in the Afterworld Mod.

From the Afterworld CIV4PromotionInfos.xml

Code:
        <PromotionInfo>
            <Type>PROMOTION_SPAWN1</Type>
            <Description>TXT_KEY_REALBTNSENT1</Description>
            <Sound>AS2D_IF_LEVELUP</Sound>
            <LayerAnimationPath>ANIMATIONPATH_AFTERWORLD_BACKPACK_ON</LayerAnimationPath>
..

Don't ask me what that means...

Hrmm... if I had to speculate though, I would guess it would mean that this would point towards new kfm files. If you look at the art folder, you'll see kf files that seem to correspond to these animation paths.

I know artists have problems creating new kfm files, so there might be a Plan B... I believe it would be possible to modify the SDK code so that the unit art type of a unit can be changed based on promotions.

For example, I want Fighters to be able to equip Torpedoes or Bombs. Bombs would give them a bomb rate boost, torps would give them additional strength vs. ships (obviously). So I would create two different unit art types... maybe something like UNITART_FIGHTER_TORPEDO and UNITART_FIGHTER_BOMB. Then choosing one promotion would replace the fighter with one model and the other replace it with another.

The advantages are this: 1) You'll be able to make the promotion change anything about the unit because it's pulling from a totally different model. So... model shape, texture, animations, corresponding effects, it's all basically changeable in this way. 2) Unit artists who can't create their own kfm files (and that's most of them) will not be left out.

The disadvantages though are as big as the advantages: 1) This will mean a lot more unit art style types. 2) It could cause problems if you have an ethnic unit art style type for that particular unit.
 
A bit to digest.

Well its beyond me how to implement the same code as in Afterworld, I'm not sure how you would take XML or the SDK and use it to mess with the Netimmerse file format.

It sounds like you know what you're doing, so if you try to experiment at all, by all means ask if you've got questions about 3D graphics stuff, chances are I'll be able to answer you.
 
Which I'm not too keen on.

Considering I do not have 3Ds Max. I know someone who does though.

*nudge* :p
 
A bit to digest.

Well its beyond me how to implement the same code as in Afterworld, I'm not sure how you would take XML or the SDK and use it to mess with the Netimmerse file format.

It sounds like you know what you're doing, so if you try to experiment at all, by all means ask if you've got questions about 3D graphics stuff, chances are I'll be able to answer you.

But you don't have to implement the same code as Afterworld. The code is already there. It's in the base game because it required EXE and SDK changes. It's just a question of making the changes in the PromotionInfos and the AnimationInfos and a couple other files.
 
Which I'm not too keen on.

Considering I do not have 3Ds Max. I know someone who does though.

*nudge* :p

Nonono, I've looked into it and it's too time consuming. I only stick with very basic animating, for now, and only when necessary.
 
I think the best way to see exactly how it works is to look into the models used for the Afterworld mod.

I assume you can load kf files into your modeling program of choice.. so you can see how it changes it. What essentially is going on, from what I've seen, is that the game is essentially changing where it pulls the animations from. That's why the Afterwold units have several sets of kf files for each of the different pieces of equipment.

If you can load it in another program, you can probably see how exactly the kf files hide and expose different parts of the model to create the effect of adding and removing new pieces of equipment.
 
I've redone this unit as well, its now named "Special Delivery". :p
SpecialDelieveryNoseart.png

^Noseart^
CoolSS.png

(more screenies in first post)
Changes:
300+ vertices removed, new texture.
The old one is still available for download from:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zmbdgq1jj3i
I decided to keep it up because it was such a doll. :P

If you don't like the new texture as much you can just take the old texture from the old one called "B-252.dds" and rename it "B-25.dds", then download the new one and replace the "B-25.dds" that's already in there with this other one.
 
Back
Top Bottom