How to add new assets, step by step

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Unfortunately i‘m still running into a wall all the time. The warrior don‘t want to animate ingame. I have to give it up for now. But hope never dies…

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

And finally my Test Warrior animates perfectly ingame

Hope you all can see it on my little screenshot.

 

[tantanmen]

Congratulations Shiro! Way to persevere~!!

Spoiler woooohooo!!! :

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Hope this video proofs it better than the screenshot

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mskg...ey=ozi5bwa7ev8erz3io8yg1g06x&st=026ifv9d&dl=0

 

[Solver]

Congratulations, and so glad your hard work paid off! So what was the missing piece of the puzzle to get it working?

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Congratulations, and so glad your hard work paid off! So what was the missing piece of the puzzle to get it working?

Thanks! Now the fun can begin

It may were my changes to the skeleton, i removed the TSM3 World Joint bone (the actual root bone) from it, so that the actual children of that root bone is the new root bone.

By doing this way, the hierarchy of the skeleton matches with the hierarchy in the Warrior Avatar (Warrior Rig 03 Avatar). Or may it was that i decided to create a new blank Prefab in Unity and make the changes by hand instead of drag and drop the .blend file onto the Prefab. Or… the combination of both was the missing piece of the puzzle.

I want to say thank you to the devs, for providing the ModUnit framework, without it would still not be possible. You guys are amazing! And also thanks to Deliverator, for his guide and for showing that it‘s possible.

Anyways, here is a short guide of what i did, if people woud like to see a step by step guide, then please let me know.

Blender:

1. Import and necessary Changes in Blender (look into Deliverator‘s Guide what to do)

Unity:

1. Unity import the .blend file (drag&drop)
2. Create a new blank Prefab
3. In the Prefab add a SkinnedMeshRenderer component
4. Also add a Animator component to the Prefab
5. In the SkinnedMeshRenderer component only set the „Mesh“ to the _geo mesh which is inside the .blend file (click on the blend file to view all of the content inside)
6. Add the material with the textures. (Warrior_Base)
7. In the Animator component only set the „Avatar“ to the Avatar from the Game, so for the Warrior it‘s the „Warrior Rig 03 Avatar“
8. Assign everything to a bundle (testwarrior for instance)
9. Asset Bundle Browser export everything to your mod‘s Assets folder.

XML:

1. Just make the .xml editings (modunit.xml, formation-add.xml, asset-add.xml, unit change or add xml) (look into the modunit guide by the devs)

Test the model of your edited unit ingame.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I decided to write a detailed step by step guide. So this is how you can implement new 3D Models of units to Old World. Happy modding

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Now that 3D Unit modding is finally possible, i would like to cautiously ask the devs two little things:

1. Cultural / Ethnic Diversity for Units is not possible as of today. A Swordsman from Greece looks the same as a Swordsman from Assyria, same with all other units. Maybe the devs can implement the necessary functionality for Unit Diversity at some point in the future?

2. The same, but for Urban Improvements. Building Diversity. Maybe the necessary functionality can be added at some point in the future?

I just wanted to ask that, but before i start to spend my evenings with creating the assets for units and urban improvements.

Maybe i get a response on what the devs think about that

 

[tantanmen]

Now that 3D Unit modding is finally possible, i would like to cautiously ask the devs two little things:

We have every reason to be hopeful. Iirc, something was said along the lines of... (*scrolls through the thread during a throw-in important zoom meeting) ... Whew, almost two years to the day!

If graphics modding gets under way, I'd be happy to add support for nation-specific unit graphics into the game.

Hells to the YES!

Omg omg Old World Super Fans assemble!! This could literally be the

Spoiler Best. Summer. Ever~!!! :

 

[Dale]

I'm glad @Solver said it and not me.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

So i think it‘s clear that the silence about the implementation for adding support for nation-specific graphics to Old World means „no“. Of course i will respect that.

But still i have to say thank you
Because this actually was the last piece needed for a revolutionary good decision of mine. Without it, i would not be ready to try something new, but now i am.
I will stop completely with modding, and instead, soon i will dive into Game development. This will be an exciting journey, a long path. But even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Anyways, i just wanted to tell you this and make sure i say thank you.

I just hope my guide is useful for a few modders out there. Happy gaming and modding all!

 

[tantanmen]

I really appreciate all the hard work you put into learning how to mod OW. Happy travels Shiro!

 

[Dale]

So i think it‘s clear that the silence about the implementation for adding support for nation-specific graphics to Old World means „no“. Of course i will respect that.

But still i have to say thank you
Because this actually was the last piece needed for a revolutionary good decision of mine. Without it, i would not be ready to try something new, but now i am.
I will stop completely with modding, and instead, soon i will dive into Game development. This will be an exciting journey, a long path. But even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Anyways, i just wanted to tell you this and make sure i say thank you.

I just hope my guide is useful for a few modders out there. Happy gaming and modding all!

Good luck, hope you reach your goals.

And sorry we can't give you a better answer about nation-specific graphics other than, it could technically be done in a round-about way using unique units which refer their own separate assets which are the different nation specific assets, but we can't provide deeper support than that.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Thinking about trying to achieve nation specific graphics for units and buildings via the nation uniques method (unique units and unique improvements). This is not the ideal method, but maybe worth a try. And it would be good practice for a future game dev like myself. Just hoping the Mohawk devs will keep the modUnit functionality, not removing it in a future update

Also, my 3D-unit-models guide is maybe a bit hard to find Should i make a new thread here just for the guide or make one last comment here with the guide attached to it?

 

[Solver]

We're not going to remove modUnit, it was added specifically as a result of this thread.

If 3D models for different units show up, we can absolutely look into easier XML support for changing appearance per nation, instead of requiring national overrides. If you have a couple units modded into the game, let me know when a mod is available so I can look into that.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

We're not going to remove modUnit, it was added specifically as a result of this thread.

If 3D models for different units show up, we can absolutely look into easier XML support for changing appearance per nation, instead of requiring national overrides. If you have a couple units modded into the game, let me know when a mod is available so I can look into that.

This is really nice, thank you! I‘ll definitely let you know when a couple of units are implemented in some sort of a „showcase mod“. I guess 5-10 Units for two nations should be enough as a start. Then i can start working. Cool thing is that.

 

[KrumStrashni]

This is really nice, thank you! I‘ll definitely let you know when a couple of units are implemented in some sort of a „showcase mod“. I guess 5-10 Units for two nations should be enough as a start. Then i can start working. Cool thing is that.

Hi. I've been thinking for a long time about an effort to reskin units or even create nation specific duplicate units. I remember talking to Deliverator a few years back when Old World was released.
I have spent years working now on a unit culture diversity mod for Civ 6 (Warfatre Expanded). I have amassed many external antiquity assets that can be brought into Old World.
I should take the time to look at your guides. But my first thought is that it would likely be easier to bring in helmets or shields rather than rigging full external models.
I could help you, you could DM me if you are interested to discuss further (or we can do t in Discord).

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Hi. I've been thinking for a long time about an effort to reskin units or even create nation specific duplicate units. I remember talking to Deliverator a few years back when Old World was released.
I have spent years working now on a unit culture diversity mod for Civ 6 (Warfatre Expanded). I have amassed many external antiquity assets that can be brought into Old World.
I should take the time to look at your guides. But my first thought is that it would likely be easier to bring in helmets or shields rather than rigging full external models.
I could help you, you could DM me if you are interested to discuss further (or we can do t in Discord).

You got a DM. We can discuss that private

Btw, i need to update my guide, as i believe that i forgot something important.

And also btw, a few unit models are done and implemented, but i guess it will take me until February 2025 when i will be able to upload a demo mod with at least 5 implemented 3D units, for two nations. Simultaneously i‘m working to do the same for custom 3D urban improvements / buildings, just in case the devs would be so nice to hear us about the buildings too.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

EDIT: Alright, Deliverator already mentioned in his guide that we cannot modify terrain using heightmaps etc. because of the missing mono scripts. So please see this post here as obsolete.

While implementing a custom building, something is not correct. Here it would be helpful to have some info from the devs, if it's not too much i'm asking for.

On the screenshot my building is the one with the orange roof. The original barracks model looks just fine, on plains and also on hills terrain. But for my building there are three planes, first problem is that the planes are visible, second problem is that the building doesn't react to the height when i set the terrain to hills. I have everything set up as it should i believe.

I have copy pasted the following three Mohawk Shaders:

TerrainClutterSplat
TerrainHeightSplat
TerrainTextureSplatPVT

i copy pasted the materials that needs those shaders

SplatClutterDefault
SplatHeightDefault
SplatTextureDefaultPVT

In the SplatHeightDefault material i set the default_white texture into the heightmap slot. In SplatClutterDefault i leave everything as is, and in SplatTextureDefaultPVT i set the Mask Alphamap to KarnakPVT_Alpha... everything as it should be, i thought.

But the problem stays there. I tried changing Alphamap Channel to all values from 0 to 4 (In RGBA it should be R = 0, G = 1, B = 2, A = 3, 4 doesn't exist), i only get a differrent result when i set Alphamap Channel to 4, then the planes are invisible, but still the height doesn't react to plains or hills terrain...

My question: Is there anything i need to do in order to get the same result as the original model but with my custom building instead?

 

[Solver]

For some building I grabbed, in the HeightSplat, the SplatHeightDefault material has its height map set to Hills_Height_01_HDR.