Fantasy Unit Conversions from Kohan II

[Valkrionn]

.......Must steal for Mazatl.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Hehe be my guest valk

Yeah it looks pretty nice as it is, but if people want 3 levels of spellcaster for the Kuriotates Arcane line then they could use 3 reskins for the variants like in C.Roland's original:

Attached are also a few quick skins of the Lamia:

 

[Valkrionn]

Those will certainly work until we have the correct skins, so I'll use them.

 

[Valkrionn]

Ive reskinned the Storm Drake as a Coatl, a mythological Aztec dragon with rainbow featherd wings.

<<<<<<<<<< DOWNLOAD COATL ATTACHMENT >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Actually, one question: Can you add a few more feathers? Mainly on the sides, thickest at the wings and shrinking as you go. As it is now, the feathers and scales seem rather pasted together, I think an intermediate zone would help a lot.

 

[The_J]

All just great, nothing more to say .

 

[Manifold]

Hey guys, you were just crasy excellent! Firaxis will call you - for sure!

 

[Valkrionn]

To hook up effects and sounds to a unit you need to look in the NiTextKeyExtraData node of the KF animation file in question, in this case storm_drake_strike1.kf:

Spoiler :

You have a start and end entry that mark either end of the animation. In between you have entries beginning EFFECT or SOUND.

The EFFECT entries tell the engine, for example, to trigger the Drake Poison Breath effect 0.2 seconds into the strike animation. Effect_Mouth is the node in the NIF that you want the effect to be emitted from and EFFECT_DRAKE_POISON_BREATH is the entry in CIV4EffectInfos.xml.

The SOUND entries tell the engine, for example, to play the Drake Fire sound effect 0.3 seconds into the strike animation. The string AS3D_DRAKE_FIRE corresponds to an entry in Audio3DScripts.xml.

These can be easily amended in NifSkope. If you ever need more entries you can just increase the Num Text Keys value and click the green refresh icon. It is not necessary to enter the text keys in chronological order.

You'll want to start with the storm_drake_strike1.kf file corresponding to the breath that you've recoloured. So, if your purple breath is a reskin of the poison breath, then use the storm_drake_strike1.kf from the black_drake folder as your start point. This is because the pattern of triggering is different for each effect type. For example, the lightning breath only triggers twice during the animation, whereas the fire breath triggers about nine separate 0.033 second bursts to ensure that the fire always comes out of the drakes mouth rather than somewhere behind its head.

Edit: By the way, if your creating different colours of breath it is definitely worth tuning the colours and alpha of the NiMaterialProperty for the NiParticleSystem. I've found this has a more profound effect on the final outcome than the texture file used. For example, the texture for the frost breath is just a grey cloud, but the NiMaterialProperty turns it into a nice misty white. If you have 3DS Max and SceneViewer installed you can just drag and drop effects NIFs into SceneViewer which greatly improves the tweak and re-test times. Otherwise, going back to Main Menu and starting a new game seems to reload effects so you can tweak and re-test that way.

Not the best place to ask, but related to the post at least.

How do you copy an effect from one unit to another? For example, the flame effect on the fireball. I'm assuming that as it's on the unit itself, I don't need to touch the kfm? Can I just copy the EFFECTS node (NiStringExtraData) from one unit to another? I ask because I'm trying to create a version of the Floating Eye which is on fire....

 

[seZereth]

Hey P_L, I think you should remove the arms and legs to make it a feathered serpent ,)
cheers guys,
nice work on porting the Dragons!

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Hey P_L, I think you should remove the arms and legs to make it a feathered serpent ,)

id love to, but im not sure how to remove the legs lol there are no arms though so thats ok at least

 

[cfkane]

Those reskins could really be helpful. I've been looking for a mermaid model...

 

[Deliverator]

id love to, but im not sure how to remove the legs lol there are no arms though so thats ok at least

Seeing as you can model in 3DS Max OK, surely it's just a question of importing the model using the NifTools scripts, hacking the legs and sealing over the holes, then exporting the NIF again. I could do it in Blender pretty quickly, but I'm not as familiar with Max.

nice work on porting the Dragons!

Thanks, it was worth the effort in the end...

I've been looking for a mermaid model...

I guess they could be made into a mermaid, they should have a more fishy tail though...

How do you copy an effect from one unit to another? For example, the flame effect on the fireball. I'm assuming that as it's on the unit itself, I don't need to touch the kfm? Can I just copy the EFFECTS node (NiStringExtraData) from one unit to another? I ask because I'm trying to create a version of the Floating Eye which is on fire....

I'm away from my modding machine at the moment, but I think it is likely that the Fireball uses an Attachable rather than an Effect. Attachables are basically like permanently playing Effects, specified in CIV4AttachableInfos.xml rather than CIV4EffectInfos.xml and link to the unit using a special ATTACHABLES node in the Nif file. This can be cut and pasted from one instance of NifSkope to another if you want. You just need to ensure that the target node for the Attachable exists in the NIF you copy it to. You may need to create a simple NiNode to fix the attachable to.

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm away from my modding machine at the moment, but I think it is likely that the Fireball uses an Attachable rather than an Effect. Attachables are basically like permanently playing Effects, specified in CIV4AttachableInfos.xml rather than CIV4EffectInfos.xml and link to the unit using a special ATTACHABLES node in the Nif file. This can be cut and pasted from one instance of NifSkope to another if you want. You just need to ensure that the target node for the Attachable exists in the NIF you copy it to. You may need to create a simple NiNode to fix the attachable to.

That was spot on, thanks! The EFFECTS node I had cloned was unrelated (apparently... Don't know what it does. ), found another, more nested node which contained childnodes titled "flame ity-Emitter" (with the space. ). Copied that one over, and the flame shows up; Was a bit small, so I've scaled it up, and am now slowly shifting it in order to try to get it in the right spot.

 

[Valkrionn]

Done.

Spoiler :

Front View:

Side View:

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

surely it's just a question of importing the model using the NifTools scripts

oh really?
ill have to find a tutorial for that now...

To hook up effects and sounds to a unit you need to look in the NiTextKeyExtraData node of the KF animation file in question, in this case storm_drake_strike1.kf:

Spoiler :

You have a start and end entry that mark either end of the animation. In between you have entries beginning EFFECT or SOUND.

The EFFECT entries tell the engine, for example, to trigger the Drake Poison Breath effect 0.2 seconds into the strike animation. Effect_Mouth is the node in the NIF that you want the effect to be emitted from and EFFECT_DRAKE_POISON_BREATH is the entry in CIV4EffectInfos.xml.

The SOUND entries tell the engine, for example, to play the Drake Fire sound effect 0.3 seconds into the strike animation. The string AS3D_DRAKE_FIRE corresponds to an entry in Audio3DScripts.xml.

These can be easily amended in NifSkope. If you ever need more entries you can just increase the Num Text Keys value and click the green refresh icon. It is not necessary to enter the text keys in chronological order.

You'll want to start with the storm_drake_strike1.kf file corresponding to the breath that you've recoloured. So, if your purple breath is a reskin of the poison breath, then use the storm_drake_strike1.kf from the black_drake folder as your start point. This is because the pattern of triggering is different for each effect type. For example, the lightning breath only triggers twice during the animation, whereas the fire breath triggers about nine separate 0.033 second bursts to ensure that the fire always comes out of the drakes mouth rather than somewhere behind its head.

Edit: By the way, if your creating different colours of breath it is definitely worth tuning the colours and alpha of the NiMaterialProperty for the NiParticleSystem. I've found this has a more profound effect on the final outcome than the texture file used. For example, the texture for the frost breath is just a grey cloud, but the NiMaterialProperty turns it into a nice misty white. If you have 3DS Max and SceneViewer installed you can just drag and drop effects NIFs into SceneViewer which greatly improves the tweak and re-test times. Otherwise, going back to Main Menu and starting a new game seems to reload effects so you can tweak and re-test that way.

This was a huge help thanks a lot. here are my results:

now i just need to get rid of the coatl's legs and add arms to the other drakes and im all set!

 

[Valkrionn]

oh really?
ill have to find a tutorial for that now...



This was a huge help thanks a lot. here are my results:

now i just need to get rid of the coatl's legs and add arms to the other drakes and im all set!

Before adding arms, you should post your units so I can steal them.

Also: Reskinned the burning eye (just a greyscale, then colored the white; Nothing fancy), think it looks better in the flame effect.

 

[Grey Fox]

That rainbow one could almost pass as a Bird's of Paradise if anyone is making a Magic mod (I guess noone have?)

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Before adding arms, you should post your units so I can steal them.

Hahaha ok then see attached.

ive only been able to find tutorials for porting nifs into blender, and my nifSkope dosnt seem to be able to export .obj files correctly, it comes up with heaps of errors :/ anyone able to explain how?

 

[Deliverator]

ive only been able to find tutorials for porting nifs into blender, and my nifSkope dosnt seem to be able to export .obj files correctly, it comes up with heaps of errors :/ anyone able to explain how?

It's pretty straightforward. There's no need to go via OBJ format.

1) Install the Max Nif scripts from this link. More info and Importer/Exporter guides here.

2) In Max select Import from the left most menu. Choose NetImmerse/Gamebryo for the file format and locate the NIF file to load.

3) I've generally found that it's better to select what NIF version you want from the drop down rather than use Auto Detect which can do strange things. Pick Civilization 4 for the Drake as that has already been converted to NIF version 20.0.0.4. There is a handy list of which games use which NIF version here. For importing the raw Kohan II models and animations I use Freedom Force vs the Third Reich as both games use NIF version 10.1.0.0.

For Export, the process is very similar. Pick Export then NetImmerse/Gamebryo, select Civilization 4 from the version drop down and choose NIF w/o Animation if you are just altering the mesh. (Even if you have the Civilization 4 Export plugin as well, as then I would still say use the NifTools ones - they're more recently updated and reliable I've found)

Which version of Max do you have? I have 7 so if there are major differences in other versions I won't know about them.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

fantastic thanks

i have 3DS Max 2010 though so those nif plugins aren't compatible. ive managed to find some 2010 nif plugin pre-release beta thingos so im downloading that now. hopefully it will be similar to how you explain it thanks

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

ok... well ive successfully gotten rid of the legs on the coatl:

Spoiler :

unfortunately after exporting it as a Civ4 Nif (without animations) it only has 'chicken drumstick wings' and no animations at all ive obviously done something wrong here...