How to add new assets, step by step

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I got a question regarding custom character select background images and character portraits in the game setup screen.

The custom portraits in that screen are all blank white for me (can see that in the custom 10th nation leader portrait and the custom 6th leader portrait for Greece), while the character select background images look like the one for Alexander the Great for me (just the standard black/brown background):

In the output.txt log file there is a line, which is trying to tell what the problem with the character select background images are:
'01:39 - SpriteAtlasManager.atlasRequested wasn't listened to while CHARACTER_SELECT_CUSTOMCHAR requested.'

It's not only my own mod, but also mods by other authors, and even in Dale's Asset Template... in the game setup screen it will look like on my screenshot.

Does it look the same for other players actually, if you have modded nations and/or modded leaders?
Or is it a problem with my pc or something?

If you would like to help me a bit here, then you can try for instance Revan's Maurya Empire Mod, it is on Steam, and take a look if the images will appear in the game setup screen for you, or if they look the same as for me...

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

EDIT: Ok, i have to admit that this is also no real solution. I‘ll give up for now.
Maybe it has something to do with the missing scripts or whatever… now all hopes regarding OW 3D Unit Modding are on Deliverator.

I found something interesting out about the 3D Unit Animations. The problems comes definitely from the Animator Controller. I removed a condition in the transition between 'Entry' (in Locomotion), and the animation "Warrior_Walk_Backwards_A". This Warrior Walk Animation is replaced by the Run Animation in the Animator Override Controller, but, now to the effect ingame: The Warrior stands at the beginning in Idle_A, when i move him one tile away THEN the Run_A Animation is actually, or should i say 'finally', playing fine. Only Downside of this is that the Warrior will not stop running

But now it's clear that one need to play around with the conditions in the transitions in the Animator Controller. Now it makes sense what Deliverator meant to say, as he said 'patching the animator controllers' =)

Oh and i figured out, that my problems with the portraits and character select background images where actually caused by Mod Interferences All the images do work now in the game setup screen, as well as ingame =)

Ok, i guess i will play around with the transitions and conditions from now on. Now i know where my focus has to be on... it's no longer a guessing game, ok, at least not entirely

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

As my latest attempt regarding 3D Units Modding was obviously not successful, and i‘m out of ideas, i wonder if there is really no way to make 3D Units Modding possible, without having to wait for a certain reply, a reply that may never come… i can make 3D Models and everything for cultural diversity, greek looking units for Greece, egyptian looking units for Egypt and so on, but all that would be redundant if we will never be able to implement the models and everything. I mean, it‘s only that the custom test model, which shows up ingame, is not animating correctly, so it seems like there is not that much missing… any ideas?

 

[Filo90]

I can't believe we can't find a proper solution with devs about a fundamental modding thing as full 3d assets replacement (together with animations etc...)

@Solver @Dale

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I can't believe we can't find a proper solution with devs about a fundamental modding thing as full 3d assets replacement....

I also think the devs would be our last hope… Some kind of 3D Units Asset Template (Unity project/environment with just one simple model rigged to an armature/skeleton of a unit, which after export would then work ingame) would be expectations which are way too high. I understand that and all possible points on why this can‘t happen. But still, they are definitely our last hope… let‘s hope the devs have an idea how they can help us out here…

There is so much potential in this game, if only we could add 3D unit models. And i‘m willing to do a lot of work for this game and behind closed doors, i already do a lot of work…

 

[Solver]

Hang in there, we'll try to put something together that helps on our side.

 

[Filo90]

Waiting for updates from devs regarding the working solution for full units model replacement, I'd like to start working on a graphical building ethnic pack...

I'd like to create models on the base of ethnic groups, as replacing buildings for every nation would be difficult (similar styles) and time wasting.

Ethnic groups I have in mind:

1) Greece, Rome, Cartage (present game buildings)

2)Egypt, Kush

3)Hittites

4) Assyria, Babylonian,.Persian

I'd start with egypt as it's easier to find reference for style.

I would be modelling with a different program than blender, I hope the files will be convertible in whatever unity request.

I'd like also like to hear from devs if it will be actually feasible to have different building style for different nations.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

@Filo90 I‘m not a dev obviously, but you can already have ethnic capitals, cities, and urban tiles for all the nations… not sure about the improvements and shrines, but i agree this would be amazing too! In fact i plan to do that myself. Collaboration time maybe?

 

[Filo90]

With buildings I mean all (or almost all) urban improvments + some shrines (as some nations share the same 3d models for some of those), I want to exclude religious building like temples-monasteries as they are linked to religion spread.

I never created 3d assets for games until now, but part of my job is creating 3d assets for mechanical parts so I'm used to work with my cad program.

I can't guarantee Im going to spend lot of time doing this, but I'll try to work on it every week.

It will be great to do this with other people with more modding experience, so I welcome any collaboration.

To start I want to grab a screenshot of every building I want to change, as I'd like to mantain the structure of the buildings with different ethnic architecture.

The most difficult thing will be thinking about new architecture for certain buildings (how could be made an egyptian Odeon/Theatre/Amphiteatre?)

I also want to ask @Shirotora Kenshin, what do you think about my proposed ethnic groups 3) and 4)? Are they ok for a good ethnical difference?

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

@Filo90 Sounds like you know how to do 3d Modeling. I‘m open for collaboration, as we have similar plans, at least for the buildings. But, really, i plan to give every nation it‘s own building group, and of course only if this will be possible. So no ethnic groups, i don‘t like this idea at all. Roman architecture is not exactly the same as greek architecture, for instance. So what i want to do is to have unique building styles for every single nation. The same for units.

Then, something to think about before collaboration, is if we have roughly the same vision on how the models should look like. I‘m always more for style and „cool“ looking stuff, then for historical accuracy. This does not mean that historical accuracy is not important at all for me. But what i call „style“ is more important. And it wouldn‘t be good if we will not both are happy with the artwork, the final result, right? So we would have a lot of communication then… necessarily. If you are ok, then i‘m open for collaboration.

 

[Filo90]

If the effort would be minimal,.I also would.like to have different buildings for every nation, bat these are the considerations I made:

1) the amount of work would be quite large (lot of buildings to model for every empire)

2)buildings difference won't be really noticeable between similar (not equal) empires like Rome and Greece, Egypt or Khufu...

3) this will be even more valid when you play fairly zoomed out (as most of the people do for logical reasons)

4) this would be different for units as complete difference among every nations would be me appreciated (so the effort would be more understandable)

Anyway, I'm open to any choice considering that I will work more as a modeller assistant (as I don't have modding experienced).

My cad software is a parametric software, so I will be slower in modelling than with non-parametric ones, but for building modeling I should be fine.

I don't know how to digitally produce 2D sketches, so I will just 3d model. I also.dont know how to texture 3d models unfortunately.

My idea for the buildings are these:

1) keep the planimetry of the existing game buildings to hel.players recognize those even with different architecture

2) buildings with few details as those won't be noticed in game by players (zoomed out playing)


As a final note, do you think we should create a new topic for the building ethnic pack so to check of there any other modders that could help?

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

1)Yeah, but this is the fun part!
2)Yes, but still noticable for people like me (they take a closer look)
3)Like 2)


1)Perhaps, depends from building to building.
2)As a Perfectionist, i would like to have reasonable amount of details. Not too high, not too low. But i think this will be no problem.

About the new thread, i would not start one. For two reasons:

1)I made that mistake in the past, then everything came different than i thought, and i had to say „This project is postponed…“ So i learned: Only make a thread announcing something if you have already something to show.

2)I don‘t think Old World has lots of modders focused on creating new 3D art. So i think there will not be any modder interested. If yes, they can contact you or me via PM, right?

Let‘s talk in Private from now on.

 

[Deliverator]

Sorry about the delay sharing info on Old World graphics. I've been lacking in both time and motivation!

One of the remaining key steps is to patch the Animation Controllers. This takes the released controllers from the reference game code and creates patched versions that can be copied into the local asset library extracted via Asset Ripper. Following this step you should be able to test working animations in Unity.

Old-World-Mod-Tools/patchAnimationControllers at main · deliverator23/Old-World-Mod-Tools

Modding tools for Old World. Contribute to deliverator23/Old-World-Mod-Tools development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Will flesh out the details when I can.

 

[Groo the One]

Omg, you "modders" are really hard working community members. I'm curious, if you will succeed with your modding ideas in case of 3D models. I'm sad Deliverator lacks in both time and motivition. Perhaps time and motivation will return one day?

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I'm curious, if you will succeed with your modding ideas in case of 3D models.

I think we are about to do that, but from now there is a long way to go
Btw, are you the author of the German language fix mod?

 

[Solver]

For @Shirotora Kenshin and others who wanted this, our most awesome graphics engineer added ModUnit as a convenient way to add different models for units. Here's a short document on how to use it:

(This will be available in the next Test build, next week)

ModdedUnit Usage Guide

ßModUnits To add a new mod unit, you must provide the following files: asset-add.xml - to provide paths to the Prefab and AnimationClips for the unit modUnit-add.xml - To provide a model and associated animations formation-add.xml - For additional assets and details on how and when a model...

docs.google.com

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

For @Shirotora Kenshin and others who wanted this, our most awesome graphics engineer added ModUnit as a convenient way to add different models for units. Here's a short document on how to use it:

(This will be available in the next Test build, next week)

ModdedUnit Usage Guide

ßModUnits To add a new mod unit, you must provide the following files: asset-add.xml - to provide paths to the Prefab and AnimationClips for the unit modUnit-add.xml - To provide a model and associated animations formation-add.xml - For additional assets and details on how and when a model...

docs.google.com

Thank you all from the dev team so much! Seems like the work / fun can begin soon. Can't praise you enough for this. A special thanks to your 'most awesome graphics engineer'

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I'm really sorry but the test warrior still don't want to animate ingame, regardless what i try. The best thing i can achieve is an animating red hand, but the rest of the model still stands without any movement.

What the game is telling me is some error messages:

But i have to assign that 'Warrior Rig 03 Avatar' because if i use the one Unity creates when importing the model, then ingame the model doesn't animate at all.
The prefab itself does indeed look very different than the exported original warrior prefab... but still, in Unity the model from the .blend file animate perfectly fine, inside Unity.

Here is the Warrior ingame:

And here some screenshots from Unity and from my xml files.

the modunit-add.xml:

the asset-add.xml:

I wonder why this still doesn't work...

 

[tantanmen]

I'm really sorry but the test warrior still don't want to animate ingame, regardless what i try.

I'm rooting for you, Shiro. This game has so much untapped potential for cultural flavoring. And I can't think of a better showcase for your talents. Old World or bust!

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

In the meantime i changed the root bone of the warrior‘s armature / skeleton in blender as well as in the unity prefab, to „TSM3 World Joint“, because this is the root bone in the Warrior Rig 03 Avatar. Ingame there are no errors anymore but the test warrior still only moves the right hand, although i checked the skin weights in blender and they are all fine…

I'm rooting for you, Shiro.

Thank you! There is still hope that we will get this to work