How to add new assets, step by step

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I don‘t know if it makes much sense to post it here, but nonetheless…

Followed Deliverator’s Guide to add custom portraits and leader select background images, no success at all. But it‘s nothing new actually, cause in Deliverator’s Dune Mod Example AND Revan‘s Maurya Mod the portraits and background images doesn‘t appear at all too. In my test mod, as well as in the two mentioned mods, the portraits are all blank, flat white color. And the background images doesn‘t show up at all.

I noticed some things while trying and testing:

- In his guide, Deliverator mentions that we can copy existing sprite atlases, but in my Asset Library project with all the extracted original game assets, there are no sprite atlases at all, there are only sprites.

- The creator of this thread, as well as other mods, seems to create a text mesh pro sprite, rather than a sprite atlas. I tried this as well, but even then the background image doesn‘t appear ingame.

My last idea for today: Try to create a text mesh pro sprite for the leader portrait, instead of the background image… and then i am out of ideas, at least for now.

At least, for the background image, there is no question mark icon anymore, so the path seems to be correct, just the image is not showing up.

Have a nice evening all! If i make any progress, i will let you know.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Ok, now my custom character portrait is appearing ingame, but not in the game setup screen… there it‘s still all flat white. I guess that is a first success.

What i did is not using the sprite atlas, and for the character portrait just create a text mesh pro sprite.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

First 3D Improvement (a test model) is integrated. it's the one at the bottom.

 

[Filo90]

that's great, are you going to try with units now?

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

that's great, are you going to try with units now?

I would like to, but i think it‘s too early for that. Deliverator mentioned in his WIP guide, that we need to „patch“ the Animation Controllers… i think this is related to 3D unit modding, and i have no idea what he meant to say.
Unit modding is a bit harder than static models.
But i keep the 3d unit modding in mind.

 

[Dale]

I would like to, but i think it‘s too early for that. Deliverator mentioned in his WIP guide, that we need to „patch“ the Animation Controllers… i think this is related to 3D unit modding, and i have no idea what he meant to say.
Unit modding is a bit harder than static models.
But i keep the 3d unit modding in mind.

@Solver added some animation controllers in the Graphics folder of the references. Are these what you're looking for? \Steam\steamapps\common\Old World\Reference\Graphics\

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

@Solver added some animation controllers in the Graphics folder of the references. Are these what you're looking for? \Steam\steamapps\common\Old World\Reference\Graphics\

Hopefully
If those are animation controllers for units, then it would be a missing part of the puzzle. I will take a look tomorrow and hopefully then can start to figure the integration process for 3D units out. Thanks for the info!

 

[Dale]

I'll tag @Solver again, I know @Deliverator was talking to him in the past about these controllers.

 

[Solver]

Yeah, I put some unit (and improvement) animation controllers into Reference because Deliverator told me those were required and couldn't for some reason be extracted from the asset bundles. I'm graphically clueless myself so I don't know how to use those files, but let me know if there's some other information that seems to be missing.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Yeah, I put some unit (and improvement) animation controllers into Reference because Deliverator told me those were required and couldn't for some reason be extracted from the asset bundles. I'm graphically clueless myself so I don't know how to use those files, but let me know if there's some other information that seems to be missing.

That's nice, thanks to you and Dale! If there's some other information missing, it will turn out during the process then. Luckily i can start today, hoping i will get 3d unit models to work, then i would directly starting to write a guide, but of course i have to figure the process out first.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Big, but not complete success today! Here you can see my "TestWarrior", a Warrior with some kind of horns on the head. Simple change to the model in Blender. But the test warrior does not:

1: Animate correctly, only the idle animation is played correctly, for all other purposes (Attack, Run, etc.) the model "hover" over the map (Run) or stand around (Attack).
2: Show the faction colors at all. The warrior is white like the texture instead of the blue greek color.

Cool success, but i have to fix some problems.

 

[Filo90]

Also I've confirmed that you can modify the meshes of units and still have them animate correctly.

View attachment 634502

actually, Deliverator managed to change units meshes while presevering at least movement animation....

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I guess i‘m in a dead-end right now. Tried so many things but still the animations other than the idle animation are not playing at all. At least i know what i don‘t need to try anymore.

A few observations:

1. Changing the idle a animation to attack a and the game plays only the attack animation, but when the warrior is doing nothing (standing around). So the animations are all ok, but the game doesn‘t know what to do when the test warrior does a action other than standing.
2. The exported animations have all the same file id, but different guid‘s. Changing the file id‘s in Notepad++ to the id‘s in the original animator controller from Old World (the one that Solver added to References), so that the id‘s in the animation files match the id‘s in the animator controller does not solve the problems ingame.
3. In the animator controller (the original one from Old World), if i add it to my custom unity project, then no animations are assigned, but the animations are there in the project, this is due to the file id‘s. After i assign the animations manually, in Notepad++ something is changing in the animator controller file, Unity automatically change the type: 3 (as in the original animator controller), to type: 2. But, as the idle a animation is playing correctly, i don‘t think this is causing the problems.
4. The Warrior prefab from the extracted library does have 4 mono scripts assigned… they are called like so: Unit Animation, Effect Animator, Unit Animation Tester and a fourth one, but i forgot the name. As they have something to do with animations, it could be the reason for the problems, but as soon as i add those scripts and everything what is referenced in the scripts, i can‘t save the test warrior prefab anymore and getting error messages with no end… so i don‘t know what to do here.

Long story short: Something prevents the game from knowing which animation to play when the unit is doing something different than standing around (idle a). Although i used the original animator controller. I have no idea what i could try next at the moment…

If i only would know what Deliverator did to get the unit movement to work. He mentioned in his guide, that we need to patch the animator controller…

I will keep on trying, but this is more difficult than what i thought it would be…

 

[Filo90]

Deliverator should be still active in the forum...

 

[Solver]

Yes, there are four scripts, and an Animator as well. Disabling the Animator makes them just T-pose so your Animator is probably working. My entirely clueless guess would be that somehow the various animator states aren't pointing to the right animations, but I have no idea what magic Deliverator had to do here, or even if that was here.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

@Solver Your image is showing the animator override controller in unity.
My override controller looks exactly the same in unity. All the animations, exactly the same. So i think this is not the reason for the problem, plus in Notepad++ the override controller does look fairly simple. I have really no idea what one would have to do, so i guess it‘s time to ask Deliverator, assuming this: „Asking doesn‘t cost a thing“. Thanks for your input though!

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Hopefully i will be able soon to write a short guide about the implementation of 3D improvements. Maybe this would be helpful if someone else is also interested in this.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Regarding the 3D Units, i got a idea, but it does not necessarily have to be the reason for the animation-problems.

Here is a screenshot from the original Old World Warrior Animator V2 Controller:

While my Warrior Animator V2 Controller, after i reassigned all the animations in unity looks like this:

Again from the original controller: (m_Type: 3 for Movement)

I wonder if it could be, that every animation has to be "type: 3" instead of "type: 2".
If yes, then i wonder also how we can set it to type: 3 without losing the animation information in Unity. Cause whenever i assign animations in unity to the Warrior Animator V2 Controller, Unity automatically change the type again from 3 to 2. When i set the 2 to 3 in Notepad++, then in Unity the animation is automatically no longer assigned...

Anyways, actually wanted to let you know, that i am still working on this now and then.

 

[Filo90]

Deliverator isn't available to help?

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Deliverator isn't available to help?

We will see, in the meantime all i can do is trying to figure it out myself.