Hay you guys

[neener]

Hey everyone. Glad to be part of the team.

Okay, so since I'm so eager to get to work, does anybody have any preference for what I should try and model first? I had a quick go at the playtest mod (which I have some questions about, but I'll save those for later) and noticed that the poor Dwarfs have almost no units! I love the look of the Warhammer Dwarfs, so of the races you've currently got, they'd probably be my favourite to model. But you guys tell me what needs doing.

Also, I'll write up a couple of quick Max tutorials and run them by you all, and if they seem okay I'll paste them over in the Tutorial section for everyone. So if you have any requests for guides, let me know. Woodelf wants an unwrap guide, I know that much!

 

[Ploeperpengel]

About the dwarves I think we can do many units for them with the nif viewer but just didn't have the time yet.
Woodelf made an Organ gun and is going to model a Firecannon. I'm sure he would appreciate help on animation for them.
I requested a Gyrocopter from Snafusmith but don't know if he will ever finish that.
However what we also need for dwarfmodels would be fluffy beards we can attach in the viewer
If you also want to do a real model for the dwarves I wouldn't hold you back of course.

Now the stuff we really can't do by simply nifedits:
-All Skavenunits(one or two animated Skaven could be enough though for adding more diversity by nifedits afterwards)
-Demons(Bloodthirsters there's hope to steal it from Dawn of War everything else is still totally vacant)
-Lizardmen(we wait alittle longer for the next approach by the FFH team)
-Orc War Boars with rider!
-Orc Boar chariot!
-Squigs and Squighoppers
-Nightgoblin Fanatics!
-Any kind of freaky warmachines
-Cold One Riders and Chariot for the Darkelves!
-a female Fighter model as a base for Witchelves and Shieldmaidens

Pretty long list I know but no one expects to finish this mod in a week so just start whatever you feel comfortable to work on

A general hint for Bipedmodels. Try to make the basemodel not too detailed instead make details attach- and detachable(like beards, helmets, weapons, shoulderpads etc.). This way we can use a model you do several times for other units as well by simple nifedits(that's how most of our units are done currently). Important also is keep the bonestructure similar to civunits if possible- this way we can use vanilla animations for them. That doesn't mean I don't want to see new animations (- in fact a cool combatanimation for units dualwielding weapons would be on top of my wishlist.) Just makes things easier for you if we can simply switch animations from vanilla to your models you get some spare time for more.

 

[woodelf]

Animation help and everything Ploep said. If you can do some heavy lifting the rest of us can hopefully help out with some minor graphics. And seZ loves the nifviewer so I'm sure he'll chime in with requests as well.

 

[woodelf]

Oooh, ooh, oooh. I know something that would help me down the road neener....

The next low poly humanoid model you make could you take lots of screenies of it while in process? Like I said in my PM that's seriously lacking online in tutorials.

 

[neener]

Now, I have absolutely no familiarity with the NIFviewer whatsoever. I don't think I know where to get it, let alone how to use it. So I'm not sure how I'd go about handing stuff over to you to modify in NIFviewer. Would I just upload the .max files and let you export them?

I'll work on animating the Skaven I did just to see if I can export it properly.

I think I'll do the Night Goblin Fanatic as my next unit, cos they're just cool.

Also, if I do the Skaven, which units should I make? This was one of the questions I had about the mod, in fact. Do we have a list of all the planned units? I don't want to go and make a Grey Seer or something if there's no plan to have one as a unit.

edit- Will do, woody!

 

[woodelf]

For the nifviewer all seZ and Ploep need are pieces. He can combine stuff like a master magician.

THanks for any upcoming assistance neener (my new best friend ).

edit - As for different units of say, the Skaven, that's where the nifviewer comes in. One base model can turn into 5-10 units because seZ and Ploep can add new weapons, armor, ect to the original model. Or so I think.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Skaven haven't got a design yet cause we didn't expect a Skavenunit so fast. What is planned you can see mostly in the unitdesignthread spoilers but that certainly isn't complete and I assure if you do a Grey Seer that will certainly be in the mod same with any other WHunit that isn't in yet and not part of current design. This mod is meant to have as much WH-stuff in as possible and we can get. Also if you get ever tired of making ordinary units we also want heros. In other words there aren't any restrictions to artistic freedom else than it has to be WH style and what fits to that will find it's way into the mod sooner or later.

About the Nif viewer you don't need to worry much that's SeZ and me mainly but you find it provided in the max tools for civ if you want to have a look at it. Can come in handy sometimes even for maxusers. We can basically attach meshes to models in it like weapons i.e., change scales and proportions of bones to a limited effect with it. We can move bones of models with it to fit animations of other models etc.
Example of what can be done with the viewer are plenty in the mod: the Dryads, the Troll the Clansmen are just three that can give you an idea.

Whatever you can successfully export to civformat nif can be edited in the way I mentioned. But this would indeed be necessary first that you figure out how to export a model with animations to the game(animations can't be done with the viewer, we can just switch existing stuff)

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Btw if you have any question how to make models fit for civ check out Rabbits tutorials on max and don't hesitate to ask him about that. I'm pretty sure he can give you good hints

 

[neener]

Oh, I beg your pardon, I do have the NIFViewer then. I swear I looked for it earlier and it wasn't there!

Okay, quick (and dumb) question about it. How do I actually export the max file as a NIF? I looked at Rabbit's tutorial and he shows a screenshot of a custom (i.e. non-Max) export screen, but I'm not getting that. He just says "this is the export screen", basically. I can obviously go to File > Export and there's the option to export it as a .nif file, but I'm not getting all those options to convert cameras and lights and so on. I also ran the Civilization IV Max Plugin v6.0.0a from within Max, but it doesn't have an export option. So I'm just a little confused about where exactly the option to export is?

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Heh, I can tell you I had strange things happening with that nif viewer as well but that maybe cause of lag of sleep

However about exporting files to civ I can't help you much unfortunatly. Since I took the lead of the mod I didn't have any more time to increase my skills with that.
You should write a pm to Rabbit or just post in his tutorial thread(also your critics of his tut if you like-he's open to constructive criticism). He's currently the best source for info about this subject besides Chalid maybe-there are other maxers as well but only for planes and tanks and as far as I know this is a different subject. I can just give a good guess about a couple of things.
I think even our 3D max noob level 3 Woodelf can tell you roughly how to export to nif but it's the animations that are tricky so stick to Rabbit and Chalid about that.

Edit: no offense Woodelf-I really admire the speed of your progress

 

[woodelf]

No offense taken.

neener - did you download the max plugins from the main C&C page? After installing those you should get an option when you select export to do so for Civ4. What version do you have? Did you download v6 and have v7 or visa versa? (I have no idea if that would make a difference.)

 

[woodelf]

One other thing neener, make sure you look at Duke's tutorial on putting the dds onto the model in the Civ4 manner.

 

[neener]

Yeah, I downloaded them from the 'official' threads. I actually have both Max 6 and Max 8, so I downloaded them both but I'm pretty sure I put them in the right versions.

I tested it in Max 6, and I get the correct export window, as shown in Rabbit's tutorial. I also exported a random 3D model as a .nif and it worked in NIFviewer.

In Max 8, however, I get this window:

I exported it anyway just in case it worked, and it caused errors in NIFviewer ("Unable to open the specified NIF File: Unknown NIF version")

Is it just incompatible with Max 8?

 

[woodelf]

Honestly, I'm not sure there is a Civ4 plugin for max 8.

 

[neener]

Hmm. How annoying. I assumed because the official thread said "for version 7+" that it included Max 8.

I guess I can just do all my modelling in version 6.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Hm seems you exported a nif but a wrong version of that. Possible to set the nifversion for the script differently? It must be nif version 4.2.2.0. I know how to fix this for Blender but not for max but I believe it works cause some poeple use version 8 and successfully exported models(well I think so). Just ask around if there's nothing in a tut there is still the possibilty posting questions in the main creation forum.
I have been told the tools 7+ are supposed to work with max 8 too.

 

[neener]

Yeah, I'm thoroughly confused by it. By just fiddling around aimlessly I've managed to get both export windows in both version of Max now. I can't work out what exactly is causing me to get the different windows, but I have at least managed to export a working .nif of the Skaven. Now to try it in the game!

 

[Gerikes]

Now to try it in the game!

:uts on goggles and stands behind barricade::

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Great! about that part don't hesitate to ask me again if you encounter difficulties.

 

[neener]

Well, I'm getting there, but I definitely need a little help!

I've got him exported, but for some reason the game is rendering the bones as well as the mesh itself:

Even though you can't see it in that shot, the real model does occasionally flicker into view. How do you stop the bones from rendering? I thought I'd followed the tutorials...

Also, how are you saving files in the .dds format? I read Duke's tutorial, where he uses texporter to save the file as a .dds and that works. But then how do you edit that template? In every other game (Quake, Half-Life 2, etc) you'd open the texported file in Photoshop and add details there. Sadly, Photoshop won't save pictures as .dds files. So my question is, how do you actually add details to the texporter template?