ambrox62
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2005
- Messages
- 1,294
On request, I wrote a mini-tutorial about nif management
Editing nif node properties with nifskope, althought was a tedious and time-consuming activity, I gave Montezuma and Capac animations to Augustus, Mehmed and Hannibal to Brennus, Washington to Cyrus, Ghenghis to Hannibal and so on (see TAM LHs).
Civ4 animation engine works in a very different manner from nifskope, so making changes in nifskope and testing them in Civ4pedia leader animation, you may realize ugly nifskope LHs that move fine in Civ4 instead.
Example:
HOW TO: SVIATOSLAV (with hannibal animations) BECOMES ARMINIUS (with genghis khan animations)
Part 1 - Preparing file environment
I extracted original Sviatoslav in a folder, then I switched the original background with a german forest for Arminius.
Starting file setup:
I prepared a subfolder with every LH animation:
To avoid manual file copy-rename, I wrote useful batch ms-dos files:
After executing batch, genghis khan animation replaces the hannibal one
To play LH in Civ4 you need to modify CIV4ArtDefines_Leaderhead.xml file:
File environment is ready!
Part 2 - Civ4 / Nifskope management
It's time to start Civ4, go to Pedia and choose leader Arminius for a quick display:
Arminius moves as Genghis Khan now, but he doesn't have eyes!
Note:
Dinamically you may switch other animation set to see Arminius act as another leader. After copying the .kf files you must select another leader, then re-select Arminuis to see the changes. Using ms-dos batches, you may try all civ4-existing animations on hannibal in a easy and quick way.
Well, go back to give eyes to Arminius.
Execute nifskope and open hannibal.nif under Arminius folder. You see a normal inanimated Sviatoslav:
Expand the NiNode tree on the left till NiNode #132 and edit the translation values giving them the following values:
Then choose NiNode #169 and edit the translation values giving them the following values:
SAVE your hannibal.nif
As result you have a sleeping Sviatoslav in nifskope render (on the right in picture above), but if you switch to Civ4 Pedia you'll see an Eyed-Arminius acting as Genghis Khan
Example of other ugly nifskope LHs that work fine in TAM instead:
Julius Caesar with Augustus animation
Augustus (Decbalus) with Huayna Capac animation
Conclusion
As said before, it is an empiric, unorthodox, tedious and time-wasting method.
You must find the right NiNode to modify and test property values (rotation, translation, ecc...), switching beetwen nifskope and Civ4 pedia viewer, in order to reach a working combination.
I hope this will help someone to do better job!
Ambrox
Editing nif node properties with nifskope, althought was a tedious and time-consuming activity, I gave Montezuma and Capac animations to Augustus, Mehmed and Hannibal to Brennus, Washington to Cyrus, Ghenghis to Hannibal and so on (see TAM LHs).
Civ4 animation engine works in a very different manner from nifskope, so making changes in nifskope and testing them in Civ4pedia leader animation, you may realize ugly nifskope LHs that move fine in Civ4 instead.
Example:
HOW TO: SVIATOSLAV (with hannibal animations) BECOMES ARMINIUS (with genghis khan animations)
Part 1 - Preparing file environment
I extracted original Sviatoslav in a folder, then I switched the original background with a german forest for Arminius.
Starting file setup:
I prepared a subfolder with every LH animation:
To avoid manual file copy-rename, I wrote useful batch ms-dos files:
After executing batch, genghis khan animation replaces the hannibal one
To play LH in Civ4 you need to modify CIV4ArtDefines_Leaderhead.xml file:
File environment is ready!
Part 2 - Civ4 / Nifskope management
It's time to start Civ4, go to Pedia and choose leader Arminius for a quick display:
Arminius moves as Genghis Khan now, but he doesn't have eyes!
Note:
Dinamically you may switch other animation set to see Arminius act as another leader. After copying the .kf files you must select another leader, then re-select Arminuis to see the changes. Using ms-dos batches, you may try all civ4-existing animations on hannibal in a easy and quick way.
Well, go back to give eyes to Arminius.
Execute nifskope and open hannibal.nif under Arminius folder. You see a normal inanimated Sviatoslav:
Expand the NiNode tree on the left till NiNode #132 and edit the translation values giving them the following values:
Then choose NiNode #169 and edit the translation values giving them the following values:
SAVE your hannibal.nif
As result you have a sleeping Sviatoslav in nifskope render (on the right in picture above), but if you switch to Civ4 Pedia you'll see an Eyed-Arminius acting as Genghis Khan
Example of other ugly nifskope LHs that work fine in TAM instead:
Julius Caesar with Augustus animation
Augustus (Decbalus) with Huayna Capac animation
Conclusion
As said before, it is an empiric, unorthodox, tedious and time-wasting method.
You must find the right NiNode to modify and test property values (rotation, translation, ecc...), switching beetwen nifskope and Civ4 pedia viewer, in order to reach a working combination.
I hope this will help someone to do better job!
Ambrox
