[FfH II Art Team Blog]

Yes! After you have done with the animation and magical effect, Deliverator, you can be sure that I will steal them

Thanks, they look great (although too human-looking for my taste). I'll borrow the wand, then. I don't know why but I can't attach any mesh (weapons/staffs/etc) and particle effects to my Lamias. But the problem is over now

 

Hey, masterminds, I need some help.

I've attached custom meshes to a unit but they are black in the game. That's strange because they all use the same texture and material.

 

okay, so you have a Blue Lamia, a Greene Lamia, and a Purple Lamia.

now, clothing wise it seems to go Blue-> Green -> Purple

however, chromatically it would probably flow nicer if Green -> Blue -> Purple.

Is there a way to switch the Tails of the Red Head and the Brunette? I feel this would lead to less confusion as to who is the Adept and who is the Mage.

Alternatively, you could add some clothing, like some Cloth Sleeves, or a silk dress, for the Brunette, and make her the Mage.

Then it would go from simple clothes -> see through Silk -> Golden Armor

 

To "switch tails" just replace part of the texture.

Aaahhh this thing is killing me. I mean black attachables....

P.S> I tried to do it in 3ds max following this tutorial:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=214207

Nifskope shows the result fine but the game:


OMG an abomination . I would really like some experienced help here.

P.S. Tested it, and my 3dsmax7 doesn't have "422 converted script" mentioned in the tutorial. Maybe because of it, maybe something else, but right arm is mirrored every time I try to simply import-export.

 

OK I will try to find my 3ds max 6 and check it, however I was able to copy a helmet branch from the "broken" model on working and it works and helmet shows texture.

What I cannot get is why. Both branches seem to be totally identical. One was directly imported from OBJ, another one was imported in 3ds max and exported as NIF, but nothing else was changed. And final result seems to be the same. I am really confused, help meh .

 

Hey Deon. If you post up your unit files, I will try and see if I can find what the problem is.

I quite like this idea. I'll see if I can do it for a final release.

 

I guess you normally cut and paste stuff in using NifSkope. This should still work, it's just that the Kohan II conversions are generally 15-20 times smaller than standard Civ 4 units. There is probably a way to scale up the units themselves so there is less of a discrepancy. To attach the wand I just positioned it using Blender and then rigged it to the hand bone - this can be less effort than positioning in NifSkope and the end result is the same.

 

Well I think I solved the problem, it looks like exports from Wings3d do not contain a proper material information (although nothing says the opposite).

Now it's working, yay. My first unit with animations .

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357541

Spoiler :

 

I think I prefer it too, honestly; Fairly sure Opera will also.

 

@ Deliverator:
Yes, I always copy-and-paste in nifscope from various nifs. I found easier to do that rather than studying Blender.

On Lamia animations, I wonder if you could make the fidget animation and idle animation more extravagant. Something like the Lamia rise her hand and conjure flame, or she moves her tail back-and-forth or slithers or something else. The current one (only idle, no fidget) is rather too simple IMHO.

Thanks!

 

Hey, I have a question. I'm starting to get into 3D modeling, and I was wondering what programs are commonly used to work on Civ IV models? Any that have polygon/vertex manipulation?

 

Blender or 3ds MAX, both will do.

 

In addition, you can use Nifskope to view .nif files and GIMP 2 for .dds

Both programs are free to download.

 

Or Paint.NET for .dds and other image editing. I dislike Gimp but Paint.NET seems pretty good to me.
Good thing with Gimp is it's available for Linux.

 

I tried both GIMP and Paint.NET, and I really don't like either of them, though I'm using GIMP for now. I'm waiting for Adobe CS5 to come out so I can buy the student edition and get Photoshop and Flash.

Anyway, I started messing around with Blender, but it's horribly confusing. I don't even know where to start. I checked the modding subform, but I didn't see any tutorials. You guys know of any good ones?

Also, how do you make FX? Like for spells and stuff?

 

I think what makes the learning curve so steep for Blender is also what makes it quick to use once you know what you are doing. The best resource for getting started in my opinion are the Super3boy blender tutorials on Youtube.

Existing effects can be modified quite dramatically using NifSkope. If you look at the Lightning Breath I made for the Storm Drake I converted from Kohan II, that was done by hacking away in NifSkope, but also using Scene Viewer to view the resulting effect. Scene Viewer is basically a CivIV specific tool for viewing NIFs, but you have to have 3DS Max unfortunately as it is built on the back of it.

 

Am I the only one thinking, the Bannor could use a new musketman?

I thought about a lighter armored version of the bannor champion (i really love that style)

Is there someone who thinks the same and has the ability to create this unit?

 

Could you not just take one of the Spanish Conquistador themed unit sets? Maybe swap out the helmets.

 

Will the Lamia units be added into the last patch for FFH?

 

I hope so. Art that was made recently that I hope makes it into the final patch (assuming they didn't already sneak in while I wasn't looking):

1) Lamia (pg. 136 of this thread)
2) Sidar Mages (pg. 134)
3) "I think this rejected proposal for the Vampire model could work much better as a vampiric Phalanx. The Calabim don't have unique art for that unit yet." (pg. 133)
4) Seasonal skins for the druid (ex: winter for Doviello, pg. 133)