Fantasy Unit Conversions from Kohan II

[Valkrionn]

Even if it's a messup, save the nif. With a recolor, it could make a decent ghoul.

 

[Deliverator]

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...

Does this NIF still have a skeleton, Bip01 or whatever? Post it up as Valk says - it may be fixable with a bit of NifSkope work...

 

[Grey Fox]

I don't know about pen tablet support, and it doesn't really have support for paths like Photoshop as far as I know. It is a simpler tool than Photoshop ultimately, but it is free and it does support a lot of really handy things like layers, clone stamp, etc.

Yeah it does seem like a handy tool for a lot of things. And also seem to require less resources (especially compared to PS CS4 Extended on windows 7 64-bit, or at least on MY computer, it is really buggy, at least unpatched).

I want to own Photoshop, but I am nowhere near affording it. So I want a free replacement, but it seems no free product can come near to what I require. So I'll continue treating it as a gray area of the law, cause my "personal growth" depends on it.
And I am not currently hurting anyone or making any profits from using the program, so I can't see anyone else having any issues with it either.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

well this is just the Coatl Export as well as its dds texture (and the rainbow fire effect). it uses the FireDrake animations.

im unsure why the wings arent there or why there are no animations as the bone structure seems to be there still...

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

[Hijack]
(on a partially unrelated note, i downloaded the demo for the game 'loki' and found it to have HEAPS of AWESOME art we could use. see the spoiler for a tiny sample. once i learn to export/import nifs correctly and learn to convert animations im going to try converting this lot to Civ )

Spoiler :

[/Hijack]

 

[Grey Fox]

Sweet!

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Very nice.

I';d focus on the Phoenix first. I often include a Phoenix unit (availible at Divine Essence) in my modmod, but haven't lately mostly because I didn't want it too look exactly like an Aquilan.


At first I was thinking the unit below it would make a good replacement for the Lich, but just got to thinking it may make a better Banshee.

 

[Valkrionn]

Could definitely use those mummies for a 'traditional' Malakim emergent leader....

 

[Deliverator]

(on a partially unrelated note, i downloaded the demo for the game 'loki' and found it to have HEAPS of AWESOME art we could use. see the spoiler for a tiny sample. once i learn to export/import nifs correctly and learn to convert animations im going to try converting this lot to Civ )

Looks cool, although they do look to have a higher polycount than the Kohan II which are similar in complexity to the vanilla Civ 4 ones. The tutorial is the next thing I'm going to do...

 

[Deliverator]

@PL: I tried to edit your legless Coatl NIF to make it work, but there is a problem. Basically, it looks like your exporting has got rid of the NiSkinInstance on two of the meshes. The NiSkinInstance is significant because it holds the information on which part of the mesh is animated by which bone. Without it the mesh will not respond to the animation. I don't know if you can play with the export options... if not I could try and re-rig it... although to be honest it may be easier for me to hack the legs off in Blender.

Spoiler :

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Basically, it looks like your exporting has got rid of the NiSkinInstance on two of the meshes. The NiSkinInstance is significant because it holds the information on which part of the mesh is animated by which bone.

ok... that makes sense.

what settings should i be using then? this is what i used for the coatl export:

Spoiler :

im excited for the tutorial

 

[Valkrionn]

ok... that makes sense.

what settings should i be using then? this is what i used for the coatl export:

Spoiler :

im excited for the tutorial

I love the feathers around the tail... And I actually have a request, if you have time.

Any chance you could make a demonic version? Bat wings, spines (more like the original drake, I suppose, but also legless and more... undead... looking). Would make an awesome Sheaim Gate unit.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

And I actually have a request, if you have time.

sure, ill play around with the texture now but youll have to wait till i get the export to work properly

EDIT: ok, so i did a little more than just play with the texture haha, i ended up having to restructure the wings and fiddle a lot with the UVW mapping of the whole unit, but i think it looks pretty good. I call it, the Zombie Drake :

Spoiler :

There are still a lot of issues with my exporting so ill wait till Deliverator finishes his tutorial before i attempt to export it.

EDIT 2: ahh its good to be back into art again

 

[Deliverator]

@PL: OK, I fixed your Coatl animation issue by removing the legs myself in Blender and then rigging the tail feathers in Blender as well.

Spoiler :

You are using the same NIF importer/exporter that I use which is good, but I'm not sure that tweaking the export options would help in this case. I generally keep "Generate Strips" off, and "Partition Strips" off as well.

The problem is that each vertex in a mesh needs to be associated with at least one bone. This is basically what is meant by rigging. In the example of your tail feathers, you have created the mesh by hand but you have not rigged it (i.e. told each vertex which bone it should be associated with). I don't know how to do this in 3DS Max as I generally use Blender for modelling, rigging and animation, but perhaps you can find some tutorials. I'm not sure how the rigging info for the Drakes body was lost - when I imported the drake into Blender and removed the legs the rigging info was kept OK.

For your Zombie Drake, you can use the fixed Coatl as a base (just switch the textures over in NifSkope), but if the tail is a new hand-made mesh it'll need to be rigged.

One things is that the strike animation where the Drake uses its legs doesn't really make sense anymore. Perhaps I can make a new one - some kind of biting or tail whipping animation. As temporary fix we could edit the KFM so that only the breath animation is used.

I should be able to at least start the tutorial at the weekend.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

fantastic thanks Del (mind if i call you Del? im an aussie, we shorten everything)

i suppose you will cover how you did what you did in the tutorial? i really would love to learn how to do that propperly.

------------------------

Heres my zombie Drake in game (using the fixed legless coatl above as a base.)

Spoiler :

does that look ok Valk? initially id have liked to have 3 tail fins (as in post 133), but because the coatl has 7 it looked a bit silly, so i opted for some spikes instead. i also have a version with legs and no tail spikes if youd like. ill upload the files if you think its ok

 

[Manifold]

of topic: it seems like you guys dont use blender. do you use some professional software or freeware? i ask because beside the flying camera, i am totaly incompetent to do anything useful with blender. maybe another program is more easy to operate than blender.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i use 3DS Max. its certainly not freeware but if you know how and where to look you can download the latest version for free (though its very difficult to find lol). there are a lot of good basic tutorials out there for 3DS, but there isnt much in the way of advanced tutorials. if you can get your hands on a copy its well worth it in my opinion. ive tried blender a couple of times and found it too different to 3ds and gave up lol.

that said it is definitely a lot easier to stick with blender if you have it and find tutorials to walk you through the basics. the initial learning curve in blender is apparently quite a bit easier than with 3DS (so ive been told), i just prefer 3DS because that's what i first learned to use.

 

[Valkrionn]

@PL: OK, I fixed your Coatl animation issue by removing the legs myself in Blender and then rigging the tail feathers in Blender as well.

Spoiler :

You are using the same NIF importer/exporter that I use which is good, but I'm not sure that tweaking the export options would help in this case. I generally keep "Generate Strips" off, and "Partition Strips" off as well.

The problem is that each vertex in a mesh needs to be associated with at least one bone. This is basically what is meant by rigging. In the example of your tail feathers, you have created the mesh by hand but you have not rigged it (i.e. told each vertex which bone it should be associated with). I don't know how to do this in 3DS Max as I generally use Blender for modelling, rigging and animation, but perhaps you can find some tutorials. I'm not sure how the rigging info for the Drakes body was lost - when I imported the drake into Blender and removed the legs the rigging info was kept OK.

For your Zombie Drake, you can use the fixed Coatl as a base (just switch the textures over in NifSkope), but if the tail is a new hand-made mesh it'll need to be rigged.

One things is that the strike animation where the Drake uses its legs doesn't really make sense anymore. Perhaps I can make a new one - some kind of biting or tail whipping animation. As temporary fix we could edit the KFM so that only the breath animation is used.

I should be able to at least start the tutorial at the weekend.

That... Looks awesome. Are there any special programs required to edit the kfm?

Edit: On animations, I'd go with a tail whip; Mouth is already used for the breath attack.

fantastic thanks Del (mind if i call you Del? im an aussie, we shorten everything)

i suppose you will cover how you did what you did in the tutorial? i really would love to learn how to do that propperly.

------------------------

Heres my zombie Drake in game (using the fixed legless coatl above as a base.)

Spoiler :

does that look ok Valk? initially id have liked to have 3 tail fins (as in post 133), but because the coatl has 7 it looked a bit silly, so i opted for some spikes instead. i also have a version with legs and no tail spikes if youd like. ill upload the files if you think its ok

.......

I love you. That looks perfect!

 

[SaibotLieh]

That... Looks awesome. Are there any special programs required to edit the kfm?

There is a little program called 'KonverterFM' that can be used for this. But if you just want to get rid of one of several attack animations you can also try to copy one of the .kf files that should be still used an rename it to the .kf file that should be removed from the animation set. For example, if you have StrikeA.kf and StrikeB.kf and StrikeA.kf should be removed, delete StrikeA.kf, make a copy of StrikeB.kf and rename that copy to StrikeA.kf.

 

[Deliverator]

KonverterFM

Link:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=263215

It basically decodes KFMs into XML so that you can edit it easily and then encodes it back when you are done editing.

And "Del" is fine, PL. It makes me think of Only Fools and Horses which will probably mean nothing to anyone outside of the UK...