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Demo mod for the devs (custom graphics)

Joined
Apr 26, 2014
Messages
584

So today is the day :D

No, i must tune down the expectations a bit, because not everything is working, unfortunately.
But sharing what i have so far is the best option i guess. Also i think to solve the issues we need the devs.

The link to my demo mod is attached to this post. Credits to the OW devs for creating such a amazing game, and for the original game models, in fact i was able to get away with using mainly the original models, just incorporated a few custom meshes here and there and retextured everything, at least for the units. The buildings are all models that were created from scratch.

This demo mod has 3 custom units and 5 custom buildings implemented for Greece, and 5 units and 5 buildings for Rome. But 2 roman units of the 5 are not fully working yet, let me explain later in this endless text.

This mod is not meant for playing, however, it is fully playable. It's created so that the devs have some 'material' to make nation specific graphics possible.

In this demo mod the following new custom stuff is added:

UNITS:
Greek Warrior (uses the Axeman animations and is wielding a axe instead of a sword)
Roman Warrior (uses the Axeman animations and is wielding a axe instead of a sword)
Greek Short Swordsman (new custom unit, which is planned to be the unit between Warrior and Swordsman)
Roman Short Swordsman (new custom unit, which is planned to be the unit between Warrior and Swordsman)
Greek Swordsman
Roman Swordsman

Roman Male Worker (not fully working yet)
Roman Trireme (not fully working yet)

BUILDINGS:
Greek Barracks
Roman Barracks
Greek Cold Baths
Roman Cold Baths
Greek Warm Baths
Roman Warm Baths
Greek Range
Roman Range
Greek Stronghold
Roman Stronghold

The Roman Worker is not fully working yet, because for some reason the model doesn't animate whenever the Worker build a improvement on a tile. The model then just stands still, as if the game doesn't know which animation to play then. All other animations are working, but somehow they look different than the Original Worker animations ingame. Remember, i only implemented a new male worker, the female worker is the same as before, so using the ingame editor, it can be that the female worker instead of the male worker is chosen by the game. Then trying again and again until the male worker is there is the way to go. Because the roman worker is not working, i skipped creating a greek worker.

The Roman Trireme is not fully working too. The model refuses to animate at all, and the position ingame is also not correct, but you will see ingame. I was not able to find out why it is that way, maybe ModUnit is designed for land units only? Because of the issues, i skipped to create a Greek Trireme for now.

I think the next test should be a custom disciple, to testModUnit's SpreadReligion animation.

Here i have a wishlist for possible future modding capabilities, but it is only a wishlist, those wishes are not expectations.

MAJOR:
- Support for both nation-specific units and urban buildings
- Support for nation-specific graphics for custom units and custom urban buildings.
- Support for nation-specific units and urban buildings for custom nations.
- Support for nation-specific city walls (all 3 tiers)
- Devs please have a look into the available animations in ModUnit. Because of the issues with the Worker and the Trireme.
- Support for modifying terrain and clutter using heightmaps and alphamasks, as required to add custom 3d buildings properly.

MINOR:
- Support for animated improvements (mines and quarries for instance)
- Support for modded water effects (waves for coast tiles, and floating water for custom buildings, as in that one shrine model, which is surrounded by floating water)

In Civ6, the nation-specific graphics were achieved by having different 'culture groups' for different civs. But you could also create your own custom culture groups, even with only one civ assigned to a group. So Rome could be the only entry in the culture group 'Rome', and Carthage the only entry in the culture group 'Carthage'. The system should ideally support custom nations. In OW we have a similar feature already, but only for city center styles.

For the animated mines and quarries, it would be necessary even for simple retextures. Let's say we want to add a new resource 'Jade', it could be a retexture of the iron mine,but the mine needs to be animated.

For the water effects, it would be really nice.

The heightmaps and alphamasks for clutter and height... if the devs would like to help us out here, the Roman Stronghold is currently the only building that has cluttermask and heightsplat planes attached, i managed to have the planes invisible ingame, but to the height and clutter it has no effect at all, unfortunately. If it would be possible in the future, modders could create really nice buildings with trees around them and other stuff and water effects would come in handy too.

Important Note: For the custom buildings in the demo mod, all textures are only placeholders, so i did not put much effort into them, because if nation-specific graphics would be possible, i then would create new trim sheet textures instead, to save computer memory.

Two questions:
the worker model has all the different worker tools in the model, what tells the game that the worker has to use this or that tool in this situation? And does the worker actually uses different tools or just always the hammer, or the shovel etc.?

The original Trireme prefab has additional stuff like BoatWake, BoatProjectiles etc.
I don't know if these are bones? I don't know too how to add this to a prefab, but it would be necessary to add custom ships properly.

Haven't tested it yet, but custom animations should already work well ingame.

Okay, thanks for reading.

Please remember, the wishlist is a wishlist, not a collection of expectations.
 
@Solver You said that i should let you know if a demo mod is available.

Oh and i'm sorry but the mod pack was too large to attach it directly to the post. I was forced to share a link.
 
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