This probably belongs in the Tutorials section, but I'll leave it here for now.
Edit:There is a quick and dirty method that can be used for planes/aircraft, as described by the Coyote:
a quick and dirty method would be (only works for planes or similar easy rigged objects):
1: import EE nif in Blender
2: export the nif as Civ4 nif (do nothing else in blender)
3: copy the exported NiTriShape to the master nif (the nif from the unit you want to use the animation), if you have an NiSkinInstance remove this before you copy
4: make your copied model child of the dummy node and scale it to match the size of the master model
5: do the rest (remove master model, change position of weapon effect and other dummy node, adjust material properties)
Disclaimer: I'm not saying this is the only way to do this or even the best way to do this, it is just a way I know works - that's worth something in modding I always think.
1.Open two instances of Blender. In the first, import the jetfighter NIF and in the other the EE2 Missile Chopper. In each instance, press A one or two times until the entire model is selected. Check the polycount (or number of faces labelled 'Fa:' - the jetfighter has 1760, the chopper 4136. We need to get the chopper down under 2000.
2.Right click the main chopper object and press TAB to enter mesh edit mode. Then find the Rem Double button. This will remove 'doubles' where you have duplicated vertices at a single point. Press the button and straight away we have done away with over 2000 faces. The chopper face count is now 1901. You can see that the pattern of shading has changed. Checking the texture view the model still looks OK - we'll have to see what it looks like when we get it in game.
Steps 1/2:
3. In the chopper the wheels are a separate object. To make our lives easier we'll join them with the body object before copy and pasting the mesh into our jetfighter. In object mode, RMB click on the front wheel then shift-rmb on the chopper body. Ctrl-J will then join the meshes into one. Do the same with the other set of wheels.
3. Now we need to save both blender files partly so we can revert back if anything goes wrong, and partly because it is necessary for the next step where we copy and paste the chopper. Having saved both files, press Z one or two times until both blenders are in wireframe view.
4. To copy and paste meshes between blender instances you will need this script by Mariano Hidalgo - it does not come included with Blender. Rather than upload a file I'll just post the code since it's short. Save it in a file called copyPaste.py and then you should be able to add it to your scripts set in blender. Using this script we can copy the chopper mesh to buffer and then in the jet blender instance we use Paste Object from Buffer.
Code:
#!BPY
"""
Name: 'Copy and Paste Objects'
Blender: 237
Group: 'Object'
Tooltip: 'Copies objects beetween blend files.'
"""
__author__ = "Mariano Hidalgo a.k.a. uselessdreamer"
__url__ = ("blender", "elysiun")
__version__ = "1.0"
__bpydoc__ = """\
This script copies objects between running Blender instances.
Usage:
While working in a project, open in another instance of Blender the file
wich contains the objects you want to copy, select them and run the script.
Choose [Copy object(s) to Buffer] and close this new blender instance if you want.
Go back to the other Blender instance and run the script again, this time choosing
[Paste object(s) from Buffer]. Please note they will be pasted in the same layers
the occupied in the original file, so you may no notice anything till you turn that
layers on.
It can also be used in a single instance (ie: first open the file with object, copy,
open the destination blend, paste)
Save the .blend containing the objects you want to copy first, even if it already has
a filename, only saved objects can be copied (if you had altered something, then save).
"""
import Blender
from Blender import Draw, Text, Library, Object
choice = Draw.PupMenu("Copy object(s) to buffer|Paste object(s) from buffer")
if choice == 1:
objs = Object.GetSelected()
if len(objs) == 0:
Draw.PupMenu("Please select at least 1 object!")
else:
txt = open(Blender.Get("datadir") + "/buffer","w")
txt.write(Blender.Get("filename") +"\n")
for item in objs:
txt.write(item.getName() + "\n")
txt.close()
elif choice == 2:
txt = Text.Load(Blender.Get("datadir") + "/buffer")
buffer = txt.asLines()
Library.Open(buffer[0])
buffer.pop(0)
for item in buffer:
Library.Load(item, "Object", 0)
Library.Update()
Library.Close()
Text.unlink(txt)
Blender.Redraw()
5. Cool. Now we have a very small chopper in the middle of a much bigger jet fighter. We want to match the scale and position of the fighter with our imported mesh as much as we can. When we press S to start scaling we find the rotation of the chopper flips. (Not sure why this happens.) Immediately click left MB to stop scaling. To fix the rotation 1: press R, then Z, then type 90, then enter, 2: press R, then Y, then type 90, then enter. We have just rotated our chopper mesh 90 degrees around the Z axis and 90 degrees around the Y to get it facing in the correct direction.
6. Now we can get back to matching the scale and position - use Numpad 1,3 and 7 to constantly check the position from all directions. Use S key and drag the mouse to increase the scale - click to confirm. Then use G key - followed by X, Y or Z - then drag to move the position of the mesh along the X,Y or Z axis - click to confirm. Matching the position is slightly trial and error. I just tried to roughly match the proportion and position of the missiles. (With this unit I can be much more flexible as there are no moving parts - with something with limbs like a human unit you need to be very precise, particularly if it is holding weapons.)
7. Right click on the jet mesh. (There are two, a normal one and a 'death' version. You can tell the difference by looking at the Vertex Groups at the bottom the one with the single Vertex Group called Dummy_JetFighterBody is the one you want) Press TAB to go into mesh edit. Press A once or twice until all vertices are deselected. Ctrl drag to lasso select a couple of vertices on the fighter mesh that are no where near the chopper. Press Ctrl-I to invert the selection and then X to delete all the rest of the vertices leaving you with a single line. If the there are any remaining fighter meshes use X key to delete them being careful to leave the fighter bones in place. Tab out of edit mode back to object mode. Now using the same method we used for the wheels, join the chopper mesh to the small line. So RMB on the chopper object, then second shift-RMB on the small line. The order is important. Ctrl-J to join selected. Tab into edit mode on the joined mesh, press A to deselected all, lasso select the little line, X to delete vertices. (This whole step is a workaround to get the new mesh to the correct position in the NIF file structure).
8. Now we have our mesh and our fighter bones, but the two are not related. If we try and export our NIF at this point the script will complain that there are 'unweighted vertices' in our mesh meaning that not all vertices have been assigned to bones. TAB into edit mode, press A until all vertices are selected, make sure the Vertex Group Dummy_JetFighterBody is selected and click Assign. This will assign the whole chopper to the this bone. Nice. (If you screwed up like me and kept the 'death' version of the jet in step 7, then simply create a new Vertex Group called Dummy_JetFighterBody and assign everything to that. Now export your NIF.
9. Next the NifSkope assembly stage. Open two instances of NifSkope, one with the exported chopper NIF and one with the original jetfighter NIF - I used jetfighter_fx.nif. In the chopper NIF find the TriShape/TriStrips for the main chopper mesh - just clicking on it in the viewport should do the trick. RMB click on it in the Block List then -> Block -> Copy Branch (Ctrl-C will do the same in latest NifSkope). Switch to the jet NIF. Under Damage_Plane_Texture find the JetFighter_Body node. RMB click on it then Block -> Paste Branch. Our chopper is pasted in, but rotated 90 degrees (see above) - nevermind - we can fix that.
The final steps to a working NIF:
a) Rename the chopper's mesh to EditableMesh just like the Jet's.
b) Copy/paste the NiAlphaProperty from the Jet's EditableMesh into the chopper's. This will ensure the transparent parts are transparent in game.
c) In BlockDetails for the chopper's EditableMesh set 'Has Shader' to yes, 'Shader Name' to TCiv4SkinningNoTeamColor, and the 'Unknown Integer' beneath it to -1. (People will want to use TCiv4MechShader, gloss layers, glow layers, damage states, all that fancy stuff, but that is covered elsewhere. Let's just get it working first.)
e) (d - has been removed) Fix the rotation of the chopper mesh by setting the R rotation parameter to 90. (You can tell I didn't do these steps in this order)
f) RMB click on the Jet EditableMesh -> Block -> Remove Branch to delete it.
g)Finally, save the NIF and you're ready to try it in game. For a test I simply copied the jetfighter unit folder to my Mod tree. Overwrote jetfighter_fx.nif with my NifSkope merge one and also copied in the DDS file for the chopper. Hey presto, it works!
Some notes:
1) If I was doing this again I would make the chopper mesh much bigger than the jet and match the missile positions more precisely. You can see the sidewinders are sticking out the back a bit.
2) Also, if I was doing this for real I'd want the animations of the jet with the behavior of a gunship. Achieving this is part XML, but I'd also use
KonverterFM to replace gunship animation events with jet animations.
3) I haven't covered adding damage states, gloss and glow since I think that is already well covered.
4) Another omission is replacing the death fall jet - the principle is exactly the same - you can assign the same chopper mesh to the death jet bones and then replace the death jet mesh in NifSkope.
Hopefully, this is enough to get people going on conversions.
I have used this same process on human units too. The copy paste script lets you do stuff like use bits of leaderheads for units or merge the top half of one unit with the bottom of another. But that's another tutorial...
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) save a samll amount of time
