Extract GR2 to Blender with mesh AND skeleton and re-export to GR2

[TPangolin]

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Sanquenyaaaaaa thankayousomuchaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

[Civitar]

Can someone please help me exporting from Blender to .br2? I'm trying to turn Wolfdog's Fyrdwell into an elf archer and I've muddled along up to the point where I have to export it. The model has been lined up with the archer's skeleton and I have done Ekmek's bone weight copying thing from the vanilla archer to the elf. The bow and elf are one mesh positioned almost exactly the same way as the archer and his bow (also one mesh). But when I export to .br2, I get an error:
Python script error: check console. After that error, the .br2 file appears where I exported to, but it appears to be empty (takes up 0 KB of space). I have also tried exporting to .fbx which gives a horribly corrupted mesh. Can someone help please?

IMPORTANT: I am not asking for someone to convert the archer for me...I'm trying to learn how to do this for myself.

 

[Ekmek]

Post your blend file.

 

[Civitar]

In the file I have joined the bow and elf head to the elf body and bone weight copied from the archer to the elf. The elf is the Keshik_Rider mesh with its arms lower than the archer's. Also, when I try your trick of joining then separating the meshes, I get an error about vertex parenting or something and can't separate.

 

[Ekmek]

what happened is that you joined the original keshik to your elf mesh so you had the elf armature (parent) not the keshik one you want.

select the new one then the old one IIRC. if that doesn't work ctrl+z and do the reverse order

alternatively, select your elf mesh and select all then create a new vertex group - just group is fine- assign it th that group. then go to object mode join the objects then go to edit mode make sure they are all UNselected then select only 'group' and then inverse select and delete the old keshik so that is all thats left. I exported to br2 and it successfully did it.

you may also want to split windows: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Interface/Window_system/Arranging_frames

and choose outline to see the armature/skeleton structure.

I'd post pictures but I'm at work and cant upload right now.

 

[Civitar]

So...I joined the keshik body to the head and bow and not the other way around?

 

[Ekmek]

whatever works. I cant check right now

 

[Civitar]

MAN, I'm stupid! I wasn't separating them at all! I was doing CTRL-P that did something completely unrelated (I think), so I tried SHIFT-P, that didn't work, then P and I was able to successfully export.. I'm sure I'll have other issues trying to get this working, but the Blender stuff is behind me thanks completely to Ekmek!

 

[Wodhann]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to export from 3dsmax into Blender so that I can then export into br2 (yes, the model has more than 1 mesh). What is the best format to do this?

 

[Deliverator]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to export from 3dsmax into Blender so that I can then export into br2 (yes, the model has more than 1 mesh). What is the best format to do this?

The only format I've ever used for this was going via the NIF/KF format used in Civ 4 using 3DS Max 7. I'm not sure what else you could use that will preserve mesh, skeleton and animation data if that is what you're are looking for. It would be trial and error. Going via the latest version of Blender may give you more options - Blender 2.6+ save files can still be opened in Blender 2.49.

 

[hugojackson18]

Quick question, in what circumstances would you have more than 1 mesh? I see a lot of you talk about that but I don't why we would need more than 1 mesh.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[Deliverator]

Quick question, in what circumstances would you have more than 1 mesh? I see a lot of you talk about that but I don't why we would need more than 1 mesh.

A lot of custom Civ 4 units uses multiple meshes with multiple texture files. If you want to convert these models to Civ 5 without the added complexity of combining texture files then you need a process where you can keep those multiple meshes and assign the original textures to each part in turn.

Also the Civ 5 3D Leaders use multiple meshes with multiple shaders types for each mesh so if you are creating new 3D Leaders as Ekmek is then support for multiple meshes is important.

If you are creating a brand new model with a brand new texture then there is no particularly good reason for having multiple meshes, but for 3D Leaders you'd probably still want multiple meshes and textures for efficiency.

There is also a reason for using BR2 overwrite rather than FBX import to make units because the FBX import code provided by Firaxis that is used in Nexus Buddy 2 is very unstable and often corrupts mesh data.

 

[hugojackson18]

That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying this for me!

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[Wodhann]

Ok, so I'm getting the probably very common "load up granny viewer and model seems fine without animations, but with animations applied it becomes a horrific monstosity that will forever haunt me in my dreams".

Is there anything I'm missing/did wrong here?

(Note: I'm following the .BR method of using existing animation)

 

[Ekmek]

how are you applying animations? in granny viewer?

It might be worth testing in game to see if the game is handling them differently.

 

[Wodhann]

Do unit models with errors get ignored by the game? I added the model to a test mod and it doesn't seem to replace the model it's supposed to. And yes I did check "reload unit system". I tried both just putting the .gr2 in there with the same name of the model it's supposed to replace, and renaming the model and editing proper xml/fxsxml files. Neither works.

 

[Nutty]

Sounds like you forgot VFS=true, but it's a guess unless you upload the mod.

 

[Wodhann]

Sounds like you forgot VFS=true, but it's a guess unless you upload the mod.

That was it. What is VFS? And why no tutorial seem to even touch that bit?


@Ekmek: Model looks exactly the same in game as it does on granny viewer, the same freakish fiend from hell. What's the common cause for this sort of thing?

 

[Ekmek]

you gotta post the blend and other files. It could be a lot of things

 

[Wodhann]

you gotta post the blend and other files. It could be a lot of things

I want to try figuring it out myself as much as possible, can you post a list of things for me to look into?