F4u1d

[Nwolf]

G'day all,

First post, first unit F4U1D - Updated Full damage states and teamcolour, buttons included




Created my first unit, got it working in game using the avenger Kfm, would like to add damage textures. (would like to upload for all when properly finished) I use wings3d and their dosen't seem to be any tutorials working with w3d. I import wavefront .obj's directly into the nif using Nifscope but can't work out how to add damage textures. (All fixed now )


Updated F4U1d (new and improved)

FU1D uses either fighter.kfm for standard strafing or attached SEFBCLB.kfm for single bomb action or SEFBWgB for wing mounted bombs.
(Single Engine Fighter Bomber Centre Line Bomb)
(Single Engine Fighter Bomber Wing Bombs)

Place SEFBCLB folder in your Units directory and in the CIV4ArtDefines_Unit.xml, the <UnitArtInfo> you need to have the KFM point to <KFM>Art/Units/SEFBCLB/SEFBCLB.kfm</KFM>
Or place SEFBWgB folder in your Units directory and in the CIV4ArtDefines_Unit.xml, the <UnitArtInfo> you need to have the KFM point to <KFM>Art/Units/SEFBWgB/SEFBWgB.kfm</KFM> for twice the fun.

F4U1D has full damage states, gloss and either normal strafing, single or dual (wing mounted) bomb attack. Teamcolour version F4U1D_TC included
See included readme for changing tail colour options

Button included - F6F.dds

All work done with Wings3d, Blender, Photoshop and Nifskope - (unit 503 polycount, 256k texture)

More units to follow many thanks to The_Coyote and Happy Modding

Updated

F6F (new and improved)


F6F uses either fighter.kfm for standard strafing or attached SEFBCLB.kfm for single bomb action or SEFBWgB for wing mounted bombs.

Place SEFBCLB folder in your Units directory and in the CIV4ArtDefines_Unit.xml, the <UnitArtInfo> you need to have the KFM point to <KFM>Art/Units/SEFBCLB/SEFBCLB.kfm</KFM>
Or place SEFBWgB folder in your Units directory and in the CIV4ArtDefines_Unit.xml, the <UnitArtInfo> you need to have the KFM point to <KFM>Art/Units/SEFBWgB/SEFBWgB.kfm</KFM>

F6F has full damage states, gloss and either normal strafing, single or dual (wing mounted) bomb attack. Teamcolour version F6F_TC

Button included - F6F.dds

All work done with Wings3d, Blender, Photoshop and Nifskope - (unit 660 polycount, 256k texture)

More units to follow many thanks to The_Coyote and Happy Modding

 

[The_J]

Welcome to CFC .

First post, first unit: Good start .

I can't judge anything about your technic, but the pictures look nice . Keep on the work .

 

[The_Coyote]

welcome here and great model

funny thing that it worked in game (you have 7 properties attached to the NiTriShape and 3 different 'NiTexturingProperty'). But more to your problem:

first, to solve this, you must use Blender, but not to model, to habe a working damage texture you need three things:

1. an aniamtion which supports damage textures (i´m not sure, but iirc the avenger did not have this - there should be some kfs with damage in her names) [ok it´s possible to play around with the kfm and add such kfs from another animation to the animation and change the names in the kfs to fit the model, but thats a bit more than basic civ4 file playing], to stay easy, use the damage texture of this units for yours

2. the model must be rigged (for this you need Blender), because you must apply a shader to the model, only with shader the texture slot for the damage textures is supported (because of non working SkinPartition for non shader models you can only add actual a damage texture to a real shader model)

3. Nifscope for the final steps


after you imported the model in Blender (can also import .obj) and rigged it there to the dummy node, export the model again and (from here the steps are done in nifscope) copy the exported NiTriShape back to the clean nif (now outside the dummy node, because of the rigging it´s already affected from the movement of the node), to get rif of some not wanted export effects.

Add a shader (best use the same like the original model (OM) - for more details use Refars tutorial as reference). Afterwards to make the things a bit more easy, open the nif with the OM of the used animation in a second nifscope instance.

Now rename your NiTriShape to the exact name of the OM NiTriShape, after this copy the OM NiMaterialProperty and NiTexturingProperty in the nif of your model and exchange the ones with the ones of the OM (properties of the NiTriShape)

change the name of the texture in the NiTexturingProperty to the ones of your model

delete the now no longer need old properties of your model

now it should work

[the important things are the NiAlphaController of the NiMaterialProperty and the NiTextureTransformController of the NiTexturingProperty, which are affected by the animations controlling the damage texture (by the name of the NiTriShape), also the settings of the 'Decal 0 Texture' {the slot for the damage texture} are important]

and only the said it before you ask why, if you upload your file to the database, the file isn´t available until it´s autorized [iirc after 30 posts this step is no longer needed]

happy modeling

 

[Nwolf]

Hi Coyote,

Many thanks for your reply and assistance. I'm sure it will all make perfect sense eventually.

I tried to learn blender a while back, before I found wings3d. Always said that I would get back to blender one day. So it seems now is probably a good time to fire it up (the old blender software) and have another go.

I've now got your advice, a couple more tutorials and the nif import/export script to have a go with.

Just in case it takes awhile here is the wavefront.obj,.mtl and textures for the F4U1D if anyone wants to set it up properly.

BTW I don't know how the other one works in game, but I used the same method to make other "fighter" units do the bomb dropping animation the avenger uses. (just imported the .obj and paste over the avenger data) The fighter then does fighter/bomber.

Again thanks for your help.

 

[Nwolf]

I made a nif

and a _fx.nif

- without extra bits.

Still uses the avenger kfm so as to give the bombing affect.

Next is to add the damage textures.

Many thanks Coyote for pointing me in the right direction

 

[Nwolf]

Still getting my head around Blender

But here's an SB2C to go with the F4U1D.




Uses iirc avenger Kfm, (I like to drop Bombs)

(506 poly count, 256k texture)

 

[Dumanios]

Nice units.

 

[Nwolf]

G'day Dumanios,

Many thanks

 

[Nwolf]

F6F to add to the collection:



(662 polycount 256K texture)

Aslo touched up the TBF



(same model {Full credit to the original modeller} new texture required a lot of UV re mapping)

I'm still trying to get damage and animation working using blender - Many of the tutorials don't step through the process - Having to learn blender as well is not helping Jan.

Does anyone have a straight forward "do this - end up with that" type of tutorial?

Now working on F9F and F2H - hopefully when I get to F14 I plan to be able to make the wings sweep when its doing ground attack and wings forward on sentry.

 

[The_J]

You could ask Xenomorph, if he could do it (his thread).

And again nice textures .

 

[GeoModder]

Oh boy, it's going to be difficult which plane to choose...

 

[Nwolf]

Many thanks

"J" Ive posted on Xeno's pages, hope he can help - his stuff looks great.

GeoModder, many thanks,

 

[The_Coyote]

considering your post in Xeno´s thread, the steps you must do:

Spoiler :

1. import your wing3D model in Blender (.obj)

2. import the nif of the model which animation you want to use in Blender

(you can also import your .obj model with nifskope in the nif and import the nif in Blender)

now you should have something similar to point 5 of post 2 here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=322227

3. if the animation you want to use supports damage stats you must imo rig the model twice - one time completly to the dummy and one time to the different damage part (check the 'vanilla' model in nifskope to see what i mean - the NiSkinInstances of the model shows the skeleton bones of the model)

4. Export the models - nifswap them in the like shown in point 9

But beside the NiAlphaProperty also 'copy' the NiMaterialProperty and NiTexturingProperty (here you must change the texture names to fit your model) to your shader version model (if you export with SkinPartition it´s a shader version model already, you must add the shader information to the NiTriShape) - because of lacking the abilitiy to create non shader SkinPartition atm you can´t create non shader models with damage stats.

if the aniamtion don´t support damage stats, you must first add the .kfs to the animation of the unit you want to use (add them to the kfm). I could be necessary to change the name there (if the NiTriShape is also affected by name in the normal unit .kfs).

 

[Nwolf]

Thanks Coyote,

I was a little embarrassed that I didn't understand the help you gave to me before.

I managed to make clean nifs from what you pointed out , but was still unable to add the damage.

I will have another go tonight or tomorrow night with the new info and hopefully have a "properly" finished unit to post up.

Again - many thanks for your help

 

[Nwolf]

I have a few aircraft to make

 

[Dumanios]

I see.

 

[Nwolf]

I'm getting there.

Many thanks to The Coyote, I now have a damage state F6F.

Coyote you were right the Avenger doesn't have damage states. This is why I could'nt figue out how to get the damage states working on my first batch of models.

I've changed to the Fighter Kfm and now the F6 crashes and burns

Am now having a go at adding the bomb dropping animation using Esemjays "Konverter" "I like to bomb"

I think the standard fixed wing jets shouldn't be a problem now. Many many thanks.

I am also trying to work on the swing wing animation for the F14 and maybe some kind of VSTOL animation for "Harrier/Av8b and Yak

I've taken away Carrier Ops for all the land based aircraft except the early bi planes, and when I get to ASF/F35 they will be able to use the bigger boats

Happy little modder Jan

I'll post up more aircraft later. Many thanks for the help

 

[Nwolf]

Please see first post

 

[GeoModder]

I'm sorry, but I really find the damage textures unrealistic. There's no way a "zero" could have inflicted that amount of damage to the Hellcat...

Spoiler :

Just pulling your leg.

 

[Nwolf]

CMOH, NC and SS for the pilot who brings it back