Ethnically Diverse Units (4/16/06)

[Mesix]

Very nice Rabit. I especially like how the settlers look more like a family now.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

These are in fact not shrunken adults, but the vanilla child settler model, so any complaints about head size should be directed to Firaxis. I have however, modified them to be a bit different 'cause I didn't like them being completely identical. Here is an updated preview shot of asian settler, warrior and scout.

Their still shrank them what 50% or more, thus why they look so odd. If they were the original Firaxis size then their heads would not be the size of apples. Am I realy the only person who thinks they look totaly weird?

 

[Rabbit, White]

Their still shrank them what 50% or more, thus why they look so odd. If they were the original Firaxis size then their heads would not be the size of apples. Am I realy the only person who thinks they look totaly weird?

Not 50%, 25% - they went from having scale of 0.47 to 0.35, and I think you are the only one whom it really bothers but it's an easy fix, just open the ArtDefines_Units.xml file, find all the "_CHILD" entries with 0.35 scale and change it.

 

[Amra]

Hey Rabbit!

I don't think I have chimed in yet to say how great of a mod this is and to say thank you. I think everything looks terrific.

Out of curiosity, do any future plans for this mod include redoing the Worker units? Thanks again for your efforts.

 

[Rabbit, White]

Hey Rabbit!

I don't think I have chimed in yet to say how great of a mod this is and to say thank you. I think everything looks terrific.

Out of curiosity, do any future plans for this mod include redoing the Worker units? Thanks again for your efforts.

Thank you.

As for workers, maybe. I certainly would like to but it all depends on whether there are interesting, diverse looks that I can come up with and implement.

I already encountered this difficulty with the Arabian warrior. In my mind the earliest Arabian warriors I can think of are Alladin style, and they have Scimitars, which the warrior unit shouldn't have cause it's not suppose to know metal. So then how do more ancient arabian warriors look like and are they actually sufficiently different from ancient warriors of other civs to justify a whole different look?

The generic caucasian worker from early periods would be just a regular peasant looking guy to my mind, which is how the settlers (and the scout, in this mod) look, so then making a worker that looks the same might be more historically accurate but also somewhat boring.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

I have had a look at the code and think the graphical over-riding thing should be simple, I just need to add an array of UnitArt pointers to each Civ, then load it with the normal unit data and step on thouse with any special over-rides that the Civ is using. The CvArtInfoUnit* CvUnitInfo::getArtInfo(int i, bool bLate) function just get the Units Civ and from the new array gets the Art Pointer. It should alow you to attach you new art assets to a specific Civ using a few lines of XML in the Civilization.xml rather then creating whole new UU for each civ you want to give the new art too. This is now official on my TODO list.

 

[Shqype]

Rabbit, White: I really like the Arabian style female, she is very representative of a 'generic' Islamic Arabic female. The man isn't bad either! As for the children, I don't know what you could do with them ... have you considered googleing pictures of Arabic people in an attempt to get a possible idea of how they can represented?

 

[Rabbit, White]

Rabbit, White: I really like the Arabian style female, she is very representative of a 'generic' Islamic Arabic female. The man isn't bad either! As for the children, I don't know what you could do with them ... have you considered googleing pictures of Arabic people in an attempt to get a possible idea of how they can represented?

Yeah I sort of tried it already but considering their size it's hard to find something that will be distinct and interesting. No worries though, this is always an on-going project, if I figure out a better way to implement the kids I'll do it, the units are never really final.

Oh and I'm glad you liked the Arabic female, wanna know the ironic thing? She is based on the Jewish missionary.

 

[The Great Apple]

The CvArtInfoUnit* CvUnitInfo::getArtInfo(int i, bool bLate) function just get the Units Civ and from the new array gets the Art Pointer. It should alow you to attach you new art assets to a specific Civ using a few lines of XML in the Civilization.xml rather then creating whole new UU for each civ you want to give the new art too. This is now official on my TODO list.

Hmmm. As far as I am aware CvUnitInfo gives absolutely no information unique to the unit it is being called for. There is no way you can backtrack from CvUnitInfo to the unit you want to do the graphics for, or any of the runtime propeties, such as the unit's owner, without more information then is provided by this class.

If you were to change something in CvUnitInfo during runtime, for example, you would have to change it back again after it had been used, otherwise the next unit of the same type to use it would get the same changes applied to it as well.

Post #2000

 

[Rabbit, White]

Hmmm. As far as I am aware CvUnitInfo gives absolutely no information unique to the unit it is being called for. There is no way you can backtrack from CvUnitInfo to the unit you want to do the graphics for, or any of the runtime propeties, such as the unit's owner, without more information then is provided by this class.

If you were to change something in CvUnitInfo during runtime, for example, you would have to change it back again after it had been used, otherwise the next unit of the same type to use it would get the same changes applied to it as well.

Post #2000

Grats on the 2k post

As for the code, it wouldn't hurt to try it again right if Impaler can figure it out, it'll be awesome.

 

[krunvald]

Just wanted to add my voice to the cheerleaders for this project (sadly I don't have any graphic or programming skills to contribute). This is a huge undertaking (which, I'm sure, is why Firaxis didn't do it) but it'll really enhance the look and feel of the game. Thanks!

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

Darn, it seems in my haste I didnt realize the difference between CvUnitInfo and CvUnit, TGA is right all that Info class just gets you the raw XML data not anything related to a unit instance. The best that could be done is to chang the return value based on the Active player but this would cause all units to apear as the special overriding graphics and it would change each turn! Clarly though the GraphicEngine must have some means of calling the Art set for each unit instance. Its likly doing it by something like this

CvUnitInfo.getUnitArt(CvUnit.getID())

ware it SHOULD have been

CvUnit.getArt()

which would call

ArtObject* CvUnit.getArt()
{
return CvUnitInfo.getUnitArt(m_ID);
}

which I would have moded to

return m_Owner->getCivilization()->getUnitArt(m_ID);

Damn you Firaxis dont you undertand simple Encaplusation! Well this exponentialy incresses the complexity of what I wanted to do and may make it impossible. Hopefully a combo Python/SDK based solution can change the behavior to what I want. I'm not very good at the Python layer though so this will be a pain, if anyone can look into Python for its calls to CvUnitInfo.getUnitArt() that would be realy nice.

 

[Sevo]

Heya Rabbit: Just wanted to tell you again how great these look. I just plugged the Arabian and Far East units into my mod and they're top. I like the rugs!

Fantastic work.

 

[ZombiVoziKombi]

Hi Rabbit, this is great work!

One question/suggestion, if you're shooting for accuracy (ethnic, historical, whatever), lose the horse in the native American units! I know that the popular culture images them Injuns taming wild mustangs in the praerie, but there were no horses in the Americas in historic times prior to European arrival -- the mustangs were descended from runaway Spanish studs and mares.

 

[Rabbit, White]

Hi Rabbit, this is great work!

One question/suggestion, if you're shooting for accuracy (ethnic, historical, whatever), lose the horse in the native American units! I know that the popular culture images them Injuns taming wild mustangs in the praerie, but there were no horses in the Americas in historic times prior to European arrival -- the mustangs were descended from runaway Spanish studs and mares.

Well, that's the thing. I am shooting for accuracy but only within the limits of fun and interesting looking units. With seven figures for settlers I just felt that adding another kid or adult will not be as interesting. However, if you have a suggestion about what I can place instead of the horse, and keep it varied and fun at the same time, I'll be glad to consider it.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

In Civ4 were playing an ALTETERNATE history of the word, in Civ4 its just as likly that the Spanish will have access to the Horse bonus as any other Civ. Just because a Civ didn't have access to it in the "real" history of the world dos'nt mean they wont in Civ and thus its silly to say that Native Americans with Horse are "historicaly Inacurate" when the whole game from top to bottom is a what if of History.

 

[ZombiVoziKombi]

If you have a suggestion about what I can place instead of the horse, and keep it varied and fun at the same time, I'll be glad to consider it.

Well, if the Incans will look like the Sioux, the Sioux could use a -- llama! Just looked it up on Wikipedia: the animals domesticated in the Americas are llama, alpaca, guinea pig and turkey.

I vote llama or turkey

 

[Imagicnation]

I desperatley need help!!! Does anyone know a good website or something that tells you how to load scenarios and units for both Civ3 and Civ4, cos I always get a message saying somthing about not being able to find anime text when i load them. I know there is somthing about loading your own units and all but nothin about loading downloading other ppls. that or im just a little bit silly

By the way great idea for the ethnically diverse unit, it adds spice to the slightly dud range of units.

 

[tlucky4life]

Hi Rabbit, this is great work!

One question/suggestion, if you're shooting for accuracy (ethnic, historical, whatever), lose the horse in the native American units! I know that the popular culture images them Injuns taming wild mustangs in the praerie, but there were no horses in the Americas in historic times prior to European arrival -- the mustangs were descended from runaway Spanish studs and mares.

Saying that one civ should or should not have horses is inaccurate. Who had horses had everything to do with geography. It is inaccurate is to say that horses were somehow the creation of a certian civ. All earopean breeds of horses were taken from horse breeds in the mid east and asia. "Injuns" watch your mouth, that is highly offensive.

 

[ZombiVoziKombi]

Saying that one civ should or should not have horses is inaccurate. Who had horses had everything to do with geography. It is inaccurate is to say that horses were somehow the creation of a certian civ. All earopean breeds of horses were taken from horse breeds in the mid east and asia.

Well, this is what I'm saying -- there were no horses in the Americas *at all* for tens of thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Europeans... So portraying prehistoric Native Americans (settlers and scouts) with horses is, well, Eurocentric.

"Injuns" watch your mouth, that is highly offensive.

Sorry -- this was meant tongue-in-cheek w/ respect to that same Eurocentric image of the Native Americans. I'll take it out of my posts if it reads as an offense.