Getting Civ 4 Units into Civ 5 - Full Conversion

[KingErikII]

@KingErikII Try either deleting the offending texture nodes in the NIF file or disabling the options to import materials. You really only need the UV map data imported rather than Materials and Textures.

Thanks for the reply. I'll try to do that.

Edit: Not sure how to disable the import of materials.

 

[KingErikII]

Is the material import options in Blender? I am not sure how to do this. I also tried to deselect everything here, but that did not work either so the options are probably not here.

Edit: I also tried deleting the references to "Environment_FX_BlueMetal.dds" in the original NIF file, but trying to import the unit still gives the same error. According to a friend of mine, the error means that the maximum values were reached. Which values are referenced? I do see values when I view the unit in NifSkope, but I am not sure if the error has something to do with them.

 

[Deliverator]

Is the material import options in Blender? I am not sure how to do this. I also tried to deselect everything here, but that did not work either so the options are probably not here.

Edit: I also tried deleting the references to "Environment_FX_BlueMetal.dds" in the original NIF file, but trying to import the unit still gives the same error. According to a friend of mine, the error means that the maximum values were reached. Which values are referenced? I do see values when I view the unit in NifSkope, but I am not sure if the error has something to do with them.

Managed to get the Maceman to import by removing all the Texturing and Material blocks. See files in attached ZIP.

 

[KingErikII]

Ah, excellent! Thank you for your work.

I could probably do the rest on my own, now. Though, I am very busy so I might not be able to do it right away.

 

[KingErikII]

Hmmmm, I tried following the tutorial with the files provided, but it appears I am running into some issues. The unit is not visible in NifSkope, only the skeleton is, and trying to export to FBX makes Blender throw an error saying "AttributeError: mesh must be linked to an object first". This is probably related to the removal of the Texturing and Material blocks, though I am not sure how to fix this.

 

[LPlate2]

Hi,
What would the steps be to try and convert a Civ V model back for Civ IV?

 

[MightyToad]

I'm using Nexus Buddy 2.5.3 to convert a Civ 5 unit into Civ 4. When Nexus Buddy saves an animation into NA2 it records every bone position and rotation for every single frame. Even ones that don't move at all. So, a GR2 that is, say, 14kb as a GR2 is now a NA2 that is 382kb.
Although everything works fine; this dramatically bloats the file size for no reason. I have manually deleted the redundant keys one at a time. But, there has got to be a better way. I haven't found a way to avoid this in Nexus Buddy.
If it can't be avoided perhaps you know a blender script that will remove redundant keyframes after the fact.

Teach me the ways of the dark side.

 

[Deliverator]

I'm using Nexus Buddy 2.5.3 to convert a Civ 5 unit into Civ 4. When Nexus Buddy saves an animation into NA2 it records every bone position and rotation for every single frame. Even ones that don't move at all. So, a GR2 that is, say, 14kb as a GR2 is now a NA2 that is 382kb.
Although everything works fine; this dramatically bloats the file size for no reason. I have manually deleted the redundant keys one at a time. But, there has got to be a better way. I haven't found a way to avoid this in Nexus Buddy.
If it can't be avoided perhaps you know a blender script that will remove redundant keyframes after the fact.

Teach me the ways of the dark side.

The size of the NA2 is not really important as that is not the final format that would be used by Civ 4. If you are going from Civ 5 to Civ 4 you would need to use old Blender 2.49b with the Nifscripts to convert the animations to KF files to work with a NIF model file. I am not certain but the Nifscript might optimize keyframes anyway. I doubt the size of the final KF files is likely to be too much of a problem these days.

 

[Schmiddie]

@Deliverator

I have some questions regarding the set up. I have done the following steps and I have set up the right path in the registry:

1) Installed the latest Steam SDK.

2) Renamed the folder under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common from Sid Meier's Civilization V SDK to Sid Meier's Civilization V SDK_steam_latest.

3) Downloaded the old version of the SDK with the working viewer.

4) Unzip the contents to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V SDK.

5) Start Nexus from the old sdk folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\sid meier's civilization v sdk\Nexus\x86\Nexus.exe

6) Set the Asset Path to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V.

Note - not the Assets subfolder.


However I struggle with the last one:

7) Select the Viewer.exe from the same old SDK folder as the Viewer.

Every time I try to open the viewer I got this message:

Wold be great if someone has an idea what could have went wrong here.

Furthermore packbuild does not work with Civ 5 files. I tested the program with other mods from Civ 4 and it works perfekt. But nothing happens when I try to unpack Civ5 files. Any ideas?

I would highly appreciate a feedback, thank you!

 

[Deliverator]

Furthermore packbuild does not work with Civ 5 files. I tested the program with other mods from Civ 4 and it works perfekt. But nothing happens when I try to unpack Civ5 files. Any ideas?

You can use Dragon Unpacker to unpack the Civ 5 files.

From what I remember you cannot open the Viewer as an independent application. You need to open the .fxsxml file in the Asset Viewer in Nexus and then open the 3D Viewer from there. Point number 13 in the opening post describes these steps with screenshots.

 

[Schmiddie]

Thank you! However, whenever I try to open the fxsxml file the viewer also crashes. This shows up. As soon as I click ok the viewer crashes.

 

[Usernamehere]

Are there any alternate links or updated tutorials for this? I want to transfer a Civ 4 .nif unit model to work in Civ V but this tutorial is so old that half the links and all the images just 404.

 

[Deliverator]

Are there any alternate links or updated tutorials for this? I want to transfer a Civ 4 .nif unit model to work in Civ V but this tutorial is so old that half the links and all the images just 404.

I've fixed the image links since I still had them in Google Drive.

 

[Usernamehere]

I've fixed the image links since I still had them in Google Drive.

Thank you so much, trying to figure this out as someone with no prior experience using Blender at all is already pretty hard.

Speaking of being someone with no Blender experience trying to figure this out, what would one have to do differently if the model they want to convert is comprised of multiple meshes instead of one? I'm trying to apply this tutorial to the Modern Armor, which is split into two different meshes (its main body and its treads) and I'm getting the following errors when trying to export it to .fbx and .br2 despite following the steps.

FBX Error:

BR2 Error:

I can see that the mesh quote "must be linked to an object first" and quote "has unweighted vertices!" but again, I have never used Blender before this, so I don't have the knowledge on how to actually link the mesh to objects or add weight to its vertices.

 

[Deliverator]

Thank you so much, trying to figure this out as someone with no prior experience using Blender at all is already pretty hard.

Speaking of being someone with no Blender experience trying to figure this out, what would one have to do differently if the model they want to convert is comprised of multiple meshes instead of one? I'm trying to apply this tutorial to the Modern Armor, which is split into two different meshes (its main body and its treads) and I'm getting the following errors when trying to export it to .fbx and .br2 despite following the steps.

FBX Error:
View attachment 705873

BR2 Error:
View attachment 705874

I can see that the mesh quote "must be linked to an object first" and quote "has unweighted vertices!" but again, I have never used Blender before this, so I don't have the knowledge on how to actually link the mesh to objects or add weight to its vertices.

For a model like Modern Armor it would be simpler (although still not trivially easy) to rig the mesh to a Civ 5 model skeleton rather than migrate the whole thing including animations.
Wolfdog has put together a tutorial for this option here for Blender 2.49 and here for Blender 2.7x.

The errors above relate to a mesh not being "rigged" to a skeleton. This process involves assigned bone weights via vertex groups to determine how the mesh moves when the skeleton moves. "Mesh has unweighted vertices" means that there a vertices (points) in the mesh geometry that have not been assigned any weight to be controlled by a particular bone. In Blender this usually means you have vertices that are not part of any vertex groups.

Generally Blender is quite technical and the best way to learn is via YouTube tutorials. You will find tutorials even for the older versions such as 2.49 on there. There is really no way around learning the basics first before you can attempt to migrate units from one game to another.

 

[Usernamehere]

For a model like Modern Armor it would be simpler (although still not trivially easy) to rig the mesh to a Civ 5 model skeleton rather than migrate the whole thing including animations.
Wolfdog has put together a tutorial for this option here for Blender 2.49 and here for Blender 2.7x.

The errors above relate to a mesh not being "rigged" to a skeleton. This process involves assigned bone weights via vertex groups to determine how the mesh moves when the skeleton moves. "Mesh has unweighted vertices" means that there a vertices (points) in the mesh geometry that have not been assigned any weight to be controlled by a particular bone. In Blender this usually means you have vertices that are not part of any vertex groups.

Generally Blender is quite technical and the best way to learn is via YouTube tutorials. You will find tutorials even for the older versions such as 2.49 on there. There is really no way around learning the basics first before you can attempt to migrate units from one game to another.

I figured it was something along those lines. Haven't been able to find much support for Blender 2.49B, as truthfully a lot of people I ask for help for it tend to question why I'm using such a quote "prehistoric" version of it anyway. I'll definitely switch gears to Wolfdog's tutorial, and try to get the model in that way as I don't need the animations. Although at some point I'm probably going to want the animation expertise.