[H]Airship Graphic Tweak

[aokces]

I've been wanting to make the Airship into a 'domain_Land' unit (as an explorer upgrade with different stats) like helicopters. However, their unit graphic causes it to appear submerged on the ground instead of flying (likewise, gunships fly extra high if turned into an air unit).

Is there an easy way to mod the graphic file so the default airship is placed higher up, or is there already such a custom graphic? Thanks!

 

[Refar]

Open the file (Airship Nif) in nifscope, select the airship body, choose edit->move from the right click-menu and move the thing up. You will heve to do some trial and error to get the right height. And you need to do that for any extra parts if it has any.

Best make it a copy of the original Airship in a new folder, and reference the copy.

Edit: The "Wrong Forum" rant removed... It apprently got in the wrong thread... Sorry.

 

[Maniac]

I don't see any Edit->Move option??

What are those freeze and FX nifs for btw?

 

[The_Coyote]

the z-value of the Model (NiTriShape or NiTriStrips) must be change, The values can be found under translation in the block infos, will work as long the position is not changed in the animation.

The fx nif is the shader version (Civ IV has non shader and shader version for most models, the shader version don´t work with old grafic cards), the freeeze files correspond with an animation and are used for the option frozen animation (therefore when a model uses an not unique animation and the game is played with frozen animation the model from the animation appears instead of the new - iirc you had this problem with the medic)

so to work the z-value should be changed in the nif and the fx nif, if he likes to play with frozen animation also the freeze files are necessary.

 

[Refar]

You need to right click on the object (or on the node in the list) to bring up a context menu. I wasn't accurate on the menu designations tho.

While i was at making the screenshots also moved up the Airship. Didn't test the height in the game, might still be too low.
Also the prop animations might glitch. But i hope they won't.

Note, its more than one object - the "Effect" Dummies are particulary easy to miss. You need to make NifScope "DrawNodes" and "ShowHidden" to spot everything when doing this kind of changes.

---

On _FX files.
Each Unit Art-define has 2 tags - Nif and ShaderNif - the ShaderNif is the FX one. By default Shadernif will be displayed.
The Fx nif should look better (Lightning, Gloss, ...) and perform faster on adapters capable of showing it (All but the crapiest old on-board chips should be), so it's preferable and will be used, unless the game find out that your card can not draw it.

Custom units usually only come with one Nif, which you then use for both Shader and NonShader.
Unfortunately its the the No_FX one most of the time.

Not exactly sure abouth these freeze thingies - the numbers corresond to some key anim sequences - Idle, Run - so i think they are supposed to be used for Frozen Animations on even weaker computers.

 

[Maniac]

Thanks for your posts, but... NiTriStrips? Prop animations, effect dummies, drawnodes, showhidden?? I can't find any of these.
I guess I'll just ask woodelf if he wants to change all five nifs.

 

[The_Coyote]

looking at your pic, do you see the line between name and value, move this tab to the rigth and you will see the objects, sometimes when a tree goes to deep you can´t see the node names correct. Eg your editable poly will be for sure a NiTriShape or NiTriStrips (this are the models)

The propeller animation (it is in the kf files) controls the rotation of the prop, while working with fighters they are moveable - the postion is not reseted there - but the rotation is set again in the animation, so moving them up will also work

the effect dummies - like Death_Explosion - controls the position of playes effects, at the position of the node the corresponding effect is played (they are also activated in the kf files - so only adding such a node will not result in palying the effect), eg if you raise the Airship but not the effect dummies the model will be in the air but the explosion will be played on the ground, same with weapon effects

the other two options, draw nodes and draw hidden can be chossen in the menu - they are options in "Render"

@Refar

had forget that it is also possible to access the node positons this way thanks for the reminder

 

[aokces]

Hooray! - Refar's airship graphic actually flies now. Well actually, it just kind of hovers, but as a land unit the animations make more sense when its being attacked this way. I think I can always play around with NifSkope if I need to. Thanks a lot everyone!