Getting Civ 4 Units into Civ 5

[Jaythekiller]

I may have poorly explained my case so i go for a second try
The name of the skeleton IS scene root and a apply the modifier ,then my unit take the good shape,but it'is not in good position (the mesh is on the ground while the skeleton is standing up)
Then if i try to put the mesh in the good position and run an animation,the skeleton moves but not the mesh!

 

[Deliverator]

I may have poorly explained my case so i go for a second try
The name of the skeleton IS scene root and a apply the modifier ,then my unit take the good shape,but it'is not in good position (the mesh is on the ground while the skeleton is standing up)
Then if i try to put the mesh in the good position and run an animation,the skeleton moves but not the mesh!

You could try selecting the mesh using Numeric Keypad 3 (Side View) then R-key for rotate and then type 90 to rotate the mesh forward 90 degrees, then apply the modifier after that.

 

[Jaythekiller]

I think i found a part of the matter : the modifier was yet applied at start (!) so i canceled it and my unit took the good shape
Now it is on the ground and if i rotate it it's not in the good place because it's "rigged" by the pelvis to the origin (0,0,0)
Am i clear enough? (I doubt)

 

[Deliverator]

I've had some breakthroughs towards rigging units to Civ 5 animations.

I first renamed all the bones of this Civ 4 Cyborg to match the Civ 5 bones names used in the Civ 5 Minuteman unit.

I had to make a few changes to the Blender FBX export script to get this far:
1) All spaces in bone names were being replaced with underscores - no good if your bone names need to be "Base HumanRFoot" etc.
2) The root bone was named "blend_root" by default - had to change this to WORLD_center to match the Minuteman unit.
3) Fixes to rotation.

Having scaled up the Cyborg and skeleton by 8.7 I get something that actually responds to the vanilla Civ 5 animations in Nexus 3D Viewer. OK, my Cyborg is pretty mangled but I didn't put much effort in to matching the Minuteman skeleton in blender or rigging things properly.

Anyway, with this Cyborg unit I now only needed to change the mesh line from the vanilla Minuteman fxsxml to:

<Mesh file="cyborg_mess.gr2" source="Tool"/>

The model works in game - a custom unit using Civ 5 animations (I know it's ugly):

You can just about see it is eminating effects as well:

I think with some more trial and error, making a template NIF with a skeleton that can be used to make units that use Civ 5 animations is feasible.

Test mod is attached if you want to inspect.

 

[Deliverator]

I think i found a part of the matter : the modifier was yet applied at start (!) so i canceled it and my unit took the good shape
Now it is on the ground and if i rotate it it's not in the good place because it's "rigged" by the pelvis to the origin (0,0,0)
Am i clear enough? (I doubt)

You could save your stuff in blender and then post the .blend file as an attachment. I'm pretty busy with real life the next few days, but maybe someone else could take a look, or I can look at it when I'm back.

Perhaps you should try starting again from the beginning or try with a different unit?

On the rigging to Civ 5 animations stuff, it would be much easier if we could get the skeletons out of the Civ 5 units using one of these Max plugins. Does anyone out there have Max 2008 to try these out? Or is anyone able to compile the source for Max 7?

 

[blazekid87]

how were you able to find the bone names for civ 5 units? Im gonna try for you since I also desperatley need them. = ] ill report back and let you know

 

[Deliverator]

how were you able to find the bone names for civ 5 units? Im gonna try for you since I also desperatley need them. = ] ill report back and let you know

Two options:

1) Use the Asset Viewer in Nexus to open one of the vanilla Civ 5 unit fxsxml files. Open the 3D View (the small green box with the arrow). In the 3D View, there is a small arrow dropdown just to the right of Bone Display at the top that let's you add bone labels and bone connections to the view. The screenshots above are from Nexus 3D View.

2) Use Granny Viewer load up a GR2 that has been opened and saved in Nexus Buddy (if use the vanilla GR2s "raw" they'll crash Granny Viewer). Go back to the main menu. Go to Skeleton and select joints and joint labels (from memory). You can also change the mesh to wireframe in the Mesh menu if you want. Pan and rotate works in a similar way to Blender.

In Granny Viewer it is much easier to rotate the camera, etc. In Nexus 3D View you are pretty much stuck using T for top view and F for front view.

 

[Jaythekiller]

SOLVED!
I 've tried many things before finding this :
when you import your unit into blender with animation,it's better to use "Import Extra Nodes" setting
At least, it works for me

Thanks anyway because without you i still would be asking me why i cant import weapons with my unit

 

[LoneGamer]

Just a tip for anyone having probs with blackrays or stuff not showing up properly in game.

Exit all programs or websites that have videos when extracting the .fbx and converting to .gr2. I was leaving civ5 open for quick access to see how it acts in game and most of the time things were a bit buggy. When i closed it and did the process over all worked perfectly. Then I was watching some videos online when I was doing this and the problem happened again. Closed firefox and worked perfectly again.

 

[Jaythekiller]

I found a tiny trick to complete the UV layer jigsaw :

Better than Lasso select you can use the "UV island select mode"
It allows you to select the different parts of the jigsaw easily (you just have to click on a bit and it's selected)

 

[Deliverator]

when you import your unit into blender with animation,it's better to use "Import Extra Nodes" setting

I agree - I've changed the tutorial to say this.

I found a tiny trick to complete the UV layer jigsaw :

Better than Lasso select you can use the "UV island select mode"
It allows you to select the different parts of the jigsaw easily (you just have to click on a bit and it's selected)

Good tip - added to the tutorial as well.

 

[Ekmek]

You really delivered on an excellent tutorial Deliverator.

Nice that you found out how to rig to Civ5 animations.

As for the efects question I recall hearing from firaxis that you can assign efects through thestategraph. I know we've pretty much sworn off nexus because lemmy has made a workable tool but I think the stategraph may have some value. In it you can assign effects AND sent points where animations blend (making the few animations that we have in civ4 into several different animations my blending multiple ones).

EDIT: I forgot to add that since civ5 handles higher poly units than civ4 does you can use the subdivide function on the civ4 units then use the smooth function to make the civ4 units look beter and more like civ5 ones

 

[Galacticat42]

On the rigging to Civ 5 animations stuff, it would be much easier if we could get the skeletons out of the Civ 5 units using one of these Max plugins. Does anyone out there have Max 2008 to try these out? Or is anyone able to compile the source for Max 7?

Only if there was a version for 3dsMax 2009 without the requirements that the 'All max versions' download has... Which I have version 9 without those other things. There is a minute possibility that they're compatible, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

EDIT: tried in both Open file and import, neither support GR2 so no, it's not compatible.

EDIT2: I'm gunna see if I can get 3dsMax 2008 either through a trial or my special educational subscription.

EDIT3: It looks like only the 3dsMax 2011 version is the only version available for both trial and student subscription.

 

[Deliverator]

@Civ Fuehrer: If you do get the plugins working at all then bear in mind you'll need to open and save the .gr2 in NexusBuddy to take off the special compression Firaxis have added before importing.

 

[Erik_3E]

Wold be cool if someone did a library for converted units already, so that peapel dont have to spend unneccesary time on making the same unit conversions if someone ells already converted that unit. Wold sure save alot of time for everyone.

 

[Jaythekiller]

I totally agree

 

[lemmy101]

new version of Nexus Buddy with, amongst other things, 'add external anim' functionality for particular use in doing Civ 4 conversions.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9834967#post9834967

 

[Galacticat42]

Good news! I found a GR2 importer/exporter after one last shot at google for 3dsMax 2009 at NWN2 and it works, all I have to do now is do what you said about taking off the special compression via NexusBuddy and we should be in business. I guess I'll start with the archer.

I'm gunna need a few explanations on what to do with NexusBuddy, I'm trying to re-export the archer but it wants animations but the main gr2 for any unit doesn't have animations. I guess I'll try to open one of the others with an animation in it.
Nevermind, just saved as instead of exporting it.
And now 3dsMax wants the granny2.dll, is there one that I need for Civ models? If not I'll just go back to the site and DL the source and get the dll that way.

 

[lemmy101]

Nice find!

granny2.dll is the dll for the Granny SDK. I doubt you'll find the source for it since it costs a fortune. ;D

 

[Galacticat42]

Nice find!

granny2.dll is the dll for the Granny SDK. I doubt you'll find the source for it since it costs a fortune. ;D

I meant the NWN2 source, but it's not there. Anyway I got the granny2.dll from the site that Deliverator linked and have no idea where to put it. The README.txt for the 2008 plugin from the site said to put it in the 3dsMax main folder - doesn't read it. I tried to put it in the system32 folder which an Age of Empires 3 modding forum said to put it - still no dice.

EDIT: I have a wild suspicion that the necessary folders to make the plugin work are in the Neverwinter Nights 2 game folder... If that's the case perhaps you lemmy101 or captainBinky can take a look at the plugin's source and make it work without the game - similar to what GR2 Decode did to the obsolete 2008 plugin.