DJSHenninger's Converted CIV4 Improvement Graphics

[DJSHenninger]

Could I also please get this converted (or something like it - just generally a village-ish looking model)?

thx fam

Sure, I've been using those for an upcoming mod of mine; they're actually separate buildings, so I can 'compose' the village myself. Do you want something like this?

Spoiler :

That is, with the associated circular form and space between the buildings; or more cohesive and squared, like those from the screenshots at the download page? I personally recommend the latter, or another city set; otherwise my graphics and yours may look alike. Of course, not exactly, but still

 

[AW Arcaeca]

That looks good, yeah. I think it would look even more cool with the texture for wheat placed underneath, but I suspect that's a lot more effort than it's worth...

As long as you're at it, do you know of any good graphics for a Georgian monastery? Something kind of like these? If nothing else, I could always do a lighter reskin of this Armenian temple.
(Although I'm still on the fence whether I'll end up using this or not)

 

[Craig_Sutter]

I've been looking but haven't found it, but I'm looking for some sort of sacred glade type thing, with a big tree in the middle... I think I saw some sort of elven glade in civ 4 downloads, but it looked kind of crude. Do you know of any such improvement?

Thank-you.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Those are some nice churches . Hope they get made... I wonder if one of them might be added to the top of the Motte and Bailey improvement from the Denmark DLC? That would get the effect you are looking for, I think.

 

[DJSHenninger]

That looks good, yeah. I think it would look even more cool with the texture for wheat placed underneath, but I suspect that's a lot more effort than it's worth...

As long as you're at it, do you know of any good graphics for a Georgian monastery? Something kind of like these? If nothing else, I could always do a lighter reskin of this Armenian temple.
(Although I'm still on the fence whether I'll end up using this or not)

That pack has the only Eastern Orthdoxy temples/churches (ex. Russian ones). But yes, I'd be willing to convert that as well, if you're actually going to use that. Also, I've been trying to add a 'ground decal' for two days when converting that Greek Fortress for you, but complications arose. There's still one method I haven't quite tried, so it might just work, but probably not lol. The main issue with custom ground decals is that you need a heightmap and I've no idea how to exactly make one It appears to be an edited version of the ground decal itself.

I've been looking but haven't found it, but I'm looking for some sort of sacred glade type thing, with a big tree in the middle... I think I saw some sort of elven glade in civ 4 downloads, but it looked kind of crude. Do you know of any such improvement?

Thank-you.

I have no idea, you're just gonna have to browse through the Civ 4 City Improvements, Wonders and Other Graphics.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

That pack has the only Eastern Orthdoxy temples/churches (ex. Russian ones). But yes, I'd be willing to convert that as well, if you're actually going to use that. Also, I've been trying to add a 'ground decal' for two days when converting that Greek Fortress for you, but complications arose. There's still one method I haven't quite tried, so it might just work, but probably not lol. The main issue with custom ground decals is that you need a heightmap and I've no idea how to exactly make one It appears to be an edited version of the ground decal itself.

I think the Greek Fortress is stunning as it is. I was suggesting a ground decal for the village, and even that was just a suggestion.

...although - this makes me feel kind of stupid, but - I had actually forgotten that the Civ4 Wonders download section exists... Had I known I might have otherwise asked for a conversion of the Erechteion , but I don't really want the Greek Fortress to go to waste...

Anyway, I've decided I will use the Armenian temple (or, alternatively, the Cathedral of Zvartnots*) if you'll convert it, although I do find it a little annoying how... round Armenian cathedrals are compared to Georgian cathedrals. #circlescanintoarmenianpresident


* TIL I learned that this cathedral actually the BG for my Urartian leaderscreen... this should prove that I actually have very little idea where I put my leaders is; also, my Magyar leaderscreen's backdrop is apparently Spis castle... in Slovakia! The background was honestly chosen purely for aesthetics.

 

[DJSHenninger]

I think the Greek Fortress is stunning as it is. I was suggesting a ground decal for the village, and even that was just a suggestion.

...although - this makes me feel kind of stupid, but - I had actually forgotten that the Civ4 Wonders download section exists... Had I known I might have otherwise asked for a conversion of the Erechteion , but I don't really want the Greek Fortress to go to waste...

Anyway, I've decided I will use the Armenian temple (or, alternatively, the Cathedral of Zvartnots*) if you'll convert it, although I do find it a little annoying how... round Armenian cathedrals are compared to Georgian cathedrals. #circlescanintoarmenianpresident


* TIL I learned that this cathedral actually the BG for my Urartian leaderscreen... this should prove that I actually have very little idea where I put my leaders is; also, my Magyar leaderscreen's backdrop is apparently Spis castle... in Slovakia! The background was honestly chosen purely for aesthetics.

Yeah, I was mainly referring to the process of adding a ground decal in general, which should be similar regardless of the model. Nevertheless, I don't think I canadd one.

I'll convert that church for you, then.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Hey, not to sound pushy, but... any progress with the church? I'm waiting to add it to my mod so I can get testing.

Are you following this tutorial? I got as far as step 12 before I stopped dead in my tracks... what the heck is a vertex group?

 

[DJSHenninger]

Hey, not to sound pushy, but... any progress with the church? I'm waiting to add it to my mod so I can get testing.

Are you following this tutorial? I got as far as step 12 before I stopped dead in my tracks... what the heck is a vertex group?

I'll convert it today or tomorrow. I follow that method as well as this one. The latter one is arguably easier, while the former, as a tutorial, might lack in clarity. Though, it was supposed to be backed up with screenshots, but this never happened. Danrell's method is problematic concerning ground decals as far as I can tell, but otherwise more accessible. A vertex group is - here it comes - a group of vertices I suppose that's as straightforward as it gets, the vertices of the model you're importing is supposed to be joined with the vertex group of the holy site, while the vertices of the holy site should be removed (from that group).

 

[AW Arcaeca]

A vertex group is - here it comes - a group of vertices

Well, yeah, I guessed as much...

I suppose that's as straightforward as it gets, the vertices of the model you're importing is supposed to be joined with the vertex group of the holy site, while the vertices of the holy site should be removed (from that group).

...my problem is that I join the meshes, and then - if I remember correctly, since it's been a while - nothing showed up in the vertex groups menu at the bottom, and so I pressed delete and ended up deleting the entire merged mesh or something. At this point I believe I told myself "screw this, let's get someone who knows something about anything to do it". And then you converted the Berd model.

 

[bouncymischa]

...my problem is that I join the meshes, and then - if I remember correctly, since it's been a while - nothing showed up in the vertex groups menu at the bottom, and so I pressed delete and ended up deleting the entire merged mesh or something. At this point I believe I told myself "screw this, let's get someone who knows something about anything to do it". And then you converted the Berd model.

The only time I've worked with vertex groups is when doing unit conversions, and they only appear for me after I do a bone weight conversion, although I don't think there's anything stopping you from creating new vertex groups and assigning vertices to them.

My guess is that after you join the meshes you've got them all selected in Edit Mode, and thus when you delete you delete all of them, although Ekmek's tutorial does say to deselect them... hmm.

Personally, I've always used Danrell's tutorial, although as DJSHenninger points out it doesn't help you do ground textures at all. I'm starting to wonder if there's a way to import a ground texture from another file, though, which may allow me to solve that problem.

 

[DJSHenninger]

AW, here's the church.

The only time I've worked with vertex groups is when doing unit conversions, and they only appear for me after I do a bone weight conversion, although I don't think there's anything stopping you from creating new vertex groups and assigning vertices to them.

My guess is that after you join the meshes you've got them all selected in Edit Mode, and thus when you delete you delete all of them, although Ekmek's tutorial does say to deselect them... hmm.

Personally, I've always used Danrell's tutorial, although as DJSHenninger points out it doesn't help you do ground textures at all. I'm starting to wonder if there's a way to import a ground texture from another file, though, which may allow me to solve that problem.

It's actually quite easy; I'd make a video tutorial, but I can't find a good, permanently free screen recorder. Anyway, another time perhaps.

As for the ground decals, I'm getting issues as described by Leugihere. Also, my custom decal appeared to be very.. blurry. I theorized it was because I didn't add a custom 'heightmap', which appears to be an edited version of the original ground texture file. I don't suppose you know how to make those? In Ekmek's tutorial, that would be the 'wonder_grnd_h' file, I think. I also figured that you could, at least with Ekmek's method, add any ground texture from other existing improvements such as the trading post, but I still need to give it a shot.

 

[bouncymischa]

As for the ground decals, I'm getting issues as described by Leugihere. Also, my custom decal appeared to be very.. blurry. I theorized it was because I didn't add a custom 'heightmap', which appears to be an edited version of the original ground texture file. I don't suppose you know how to make those? In Ekmek's tutorial, that would be the 'wonder_grnd_h' file, I think. I also figured that you could, at least with Ekmek's method, add any ground texture from other existing improvements such as the trading post, but I still need to give it a shot.

My only experiments with ground decals so far was reskinning existing ones... but working with them, it looked like they were defined as plane objects in Blender, so I'm wondering if I can append or import them from an existing .blend file to a custom file and then define them similarly to the original object in Nexus Buddy. It's probably a long shot.

The weird thing I've run into is that Danrell's method provides a bone to link effects (such as pillaged smoke to), whereas Ekmek's doesn't seem to have that. So you get either effects or a ground texture... would be nice to be able to merge the two together.

 

[Nutty]

I theorized it was because I didn't add a custom 'heightmap', which appears to be an edited version of the original ground texture file. I don't suppose you know how to make those?

In theory, heightmaps are simple (though that isn't too say that they're easy in practice, as making your idea into reality takes some imagination). The gradient between dark and light provides the high and low topography. Typically, where the heightmap is white will result in the highest possible peak and black the lowest possible valley.

That being said, I imagine that most of these models are fine on flat terrain and shouldn't actually need custom heightmaps.

 

[DJSHenninger]

Ah, good. Except the heightmaps from the game, when viewed in gimp, aren't black and white or greyscale, but mucky green and purple and.. sometimes blue.. .

So, I experimented a bit with ground textures using Ekmek's method. Adding an ugly four pointed star resulted in this:

Spoiler :

It looks pretty good as far as the ground texture goes, but if you look closely, the wonder_grnd_h heightmap still leaves its mark. This will likely be a problem for more elaborate custom ground textures. Not assigning any heightmap at all results in the infamous square:

Spoiler :

I suppose there must be some kind of default image one can use? Like, a transparent image, perhaps? Also, trees are removed in a circular way regardless of the decal, as the Point object is circular/hexagonal-ish. I'm not sure if this object can simply be stretched to roughly match the custom ground decal's size/shape. I remember resizing the plane thing, but it resulted in a crash in Civ V, I believe.

 

[King William I]

If possible, I'd like to request something akin to a walled Greco-Roman city, preferably with circular walls, for an acropolis improvement. I couldn't find a comparable Civ IV graphic. but I think just the ancient city style could work. Thanks in advance!

 

[AW Arcaeca]

The church is literally life. I'll get a screenshot of it in my next playtest - looks awesome in game. (Although it's a bit big so I scaled it down to 0.65 or something. Also reskinned it to look more... Georgia-ish.)
Any progress on the village? Not to be cracking the whip or anything...
Alternatively, the civ4 Greco-Roman cityset or this might also work, but I'll let you choose.

If possible, I'd like to request something akin to a walled Greco-Roman city, preferably with circular walls, for an acropolis improvement. I couldn't find a comparable Civ IV graphic. but I think just the ancient city style could work. Thanks in advance!

Well, honestly, the closest you're probably going to get is... the Greek Fortress that DJSH converted for me. But there's also a non-circular "Kastell" roman-fortress / castrum looking thing here, or this Spartan City set. The latter doesn't come with a functional picture, though, so I can't promise anything cool.

 

[DJSHenninger]

I think there are some issues with retrieving cityset models from civ 5, so it'll probably be one of AW's suggestions.

Not started with the village yet, but I'll choose whatever's the easiest I always convert to large sizes, because scaling it down is preferred over scaling it up, possibly leading to blurriness.

 

[King William I]

I meant Civ IV city-style. but really anything you come up with will be perfect, walls don't even have to be circular.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Hmm. Just looked at the Spartan city set in NifSkope, and... I don't recommend using it. For some reason by "Spartan", the author meant "futuristic concrete apocalypse fallout bunker-style". I'd stick with the civ4 Greco-Roman city set.

That said, the church looks incredible. (I think this is scale = 0.65)