HOWTO: New Unit Creation

[Deliverator]

Yeah, sometimes you have to repeat the FBX -> GR2 several times before you get a clean mesh.

 

[Ekmek]

It's a bit weird that this should be necessary, but it's a bug in Nexus' granny support and not something we can fix.

Its in the granny? I thought it was the FBX script

 

[Blumonster]

Thanks, Cap. I'll give that a go.

 

[Deliverator]

Its in the granny? I thought it was the FBX script

I may have contributed to that confusion. No, the FBX export from Blender is robust - it is the Nexus conversion from FBX to GR2 that gives unpredictable results.

 

[Blumonster]

That worked, thanks!

I have another question (of course).

To add more animations, the instructions say:

"So at the moment my Run anim is using all 20 of the frames.

Supposing I've reimported a new FBX with two 10 frame animations. So I want to click on my run anim and set the end frame to be 10." ...etc.

I don't quite understand. If the original animation has 20 frames, why is it being cut in half? In my case, I had two animations--one was 40 frames, one was 20--so I tried setting the first anim 1 to 40 and the second 41 to 60, but that didn't work. I looked in the granny viewer and both animations are there, but I can't really figure out the directions. Obviously I'm doing something wrong...what should I be doing instead?

EDIT: I wound up just adding the granny files individually to the fxsxml after using nexus buddy...easier than the "hard way." But I'd still like to know what I did wrong. Also, if I try to use "add external" with a gr2 I get ??? under the start and end frames and no option to change them. I'm really curious what it is I'm not understanding, if anyone has the time to explain further. Thanks.

 

[Blumonster]

Btw, this is actually more pressing (since I figured out how to add the unit)...

Before venturing into creating a skin I concentrated on creating animations and putting them into the game. Now that I've done that, I can't figure out how to create my own skins! I probably missed something along the way, but I've looked at tons of tutorials and nothing seems to give clear instructions how to do this. In other words, creating the dds file from the unwrapped mesh so that it covers the unit in the game correctly.

I started a thread about this also: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=401048

I'm so stuck! Lol.

EDIT:
(I put this on the other thread too...)
The closest thing I could find was Deliverator's guide about how to get Civ 4 units into Civ 5 (which is a great guide and easy to follow). In trying to apply those instructions to a new mesh, I wound up creating textures in Blender itself and then baking it into a UV map. I guess that's part of the answer. I tried saving that as a dds file and using it with Nexus Buddy, but the textures were all in weird places (in the game). I'd also like to use an external paint program. My UV map seems overly complicated...there are layers under layers (as a side note, I don't know what button I pushed but my mesh has way too many vertices now...is there a way to get it back to its original form?) Sorry for all the questions. Short of a tutorial, I think I just need to be pointed in the right direction, and I can probably figure it out from there. (Of course, if anybody wants to write a tutorial for this, it'd be pretty useful...um...Deliverator? jk) Thanks again.

 

[Oberon James]

Actually, a tutorial on how to use blender or 3ds max to specifically model civ 5 units would be incredibly useful to us total noobs that have never used 3d software before and have no other plans for it but building civ 5 units. I wanna make my own units, but I have no idea where to even start and I can just tell it would take for ever to familiarize myself with the program and how everything works using other tutorials before I can even begin to work on any units. I've tried taking some pre-made models and turning them into units, but even that's too complicated for me right now.

 

[Blumonster]

Actually, a tutorial on how to use blender or 3ds max to specifically model civ 5 units would be incredibly useful to us total noobs that have never used 3d software before and have no other plans for it but building civ 5 units. I wanna make my own units, but I have no idea where to even start and I can just tell it would take for ever to familiarize myself with the program and how everything works using other tutorials before I can even begin to work on any units. I've tried taking some pre-made models and turning them into units, but even that's too complicated for me right now.

For a great place to start in learning Blender and creating simple models and animations that aren't too overwhelming, check out this link: Gingerbread Man

Maybe by the time you finish this tutorial we'll find out how to add the skin, lol.

 

[Blumonster]

Sorry if I'm cluttering up this thread. Further posts will be at this topic's thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=401048

I figured everything out except how to make the diff file display correctly on the unit in the game.

 

[Oberon James]

Blumonster, yeah, I saw that tutorial already, I just haven't had time to complete it, as I've been super busy all week. I plan to complete that as soon as I get the time, and hopefully, that'll help.

 

[Nitram15]

Is it possible in Blender to import two or more animations at the same time?

 

[Blumonster]

Is it possible in Blender to import two or more animations at the same time?

Do you mean importing animations into Blender from another file? or creating more than one animation from a single mesh?

 

[Blumonster]

If there was a tutorial specifically to get from 3d max to Civ V useability without using cross 3d softwae that'd be amazing. Cus models I've been using within 3d max, everything deforms correctly and the rigging is way easier than blender. When I export the file there, the bones completely tear the mesh in certain areas where in 3dmax is far more precise of where I put different faces and vertices so it would distort at the joints instead of taking my whole mesh appart. I've had success in physique mode but that doesn't translate well into an fbx export and with skin modifier is just distors parts of the mesh I don't want distorted.

I was having this problem too after exporting an FBX in Blender. My animation looked fine in Blender but after exporting it, it was distorted. I found that if I went back into Weight Paint and (looking at the file with Granny Viewer) re-painted the distorted areas to their corresponding bones, it solved the problem. Sometimes I had to use Alt B to cut the image in half so I could actually paint inside the mesh--in my case, the distortions were coming from areas that I couldn't see in Blender (and therefore didn't weight paint). Of course, you seem happy with 3dMax, but I thought I'd post this anyway in case it helps or if there are others using Blender with this problem.

 

[Nitram15]

i mean that ex. import run, idle, and attack anims to one nif

 

[Oberon James]

So I got as far in the tutorial as the part where I load up modbuddy and make a mod. It asked me to upgrade my .net framework and XP service pack first, which I did, but now it won't start. It keeps telling me that "MSVCR100.dll" is missing and that it can't run without it. I tried uninstalling the SDK and then reinstalling it, but that didn't work.

Any idea what I can do? I defragmented the files and checked the integrity of them as well and I'm still getting the same error. This had not happened before and I had run the sdk before (I had to reinstall windows recently) without any problems, so I don't know what's going on. Can I get that dll from somewhere and just add it to the appropriate folder? Can I create the necessary mod files without using mod buddy? I just wanna complete the tutorial once, to make sure everything works, before I start dedicating myself to building units.

 

[Oberon James]

Well I got that fixed, but now nexus buddy is telling me the "obect reference does not point to an instance of an object". I'm just gonna call it quits for now, and learn to convert civ 4 units instead. I'll try this again some other time.

 

[Blumonster]

I'm having trouble with the game crashing with multiple animations when I try to build the unit (either adding them manually to the fxsxml or with Nexus Buddy). Two or three animations seem seem to work though. I'm going through each animation to see if it's a particular anim that's doing this or if too many anims are causing this. Any ideas or suggestions?

Also, I was wondering if there is a frame limit for anims in Civ 5.

*I was wondering if I'm having problems because the added animations need start and end frames defined in the mod. When I start looking for answers to problems, it winds up getting so involved--I tried to use Lemmy's section about using the Asset Importer, etc., but Nexus crashes when I try to use it [the asset importer] (I don't know if it deals with that issue, but I did install the bug fix btw).*

EDIT: The game doesn't crash if I set the member count to one (I tried the same configuration using four, six and one member counts). Does anyone have any idea why?

 

[Blumonster]

Hey, Deliverator...

7. Add the animation files to your mod and manually edit the fxsxml file to point to them. See my housecarl unit if you want to see how I set the fxsxml.

I noticed that when I viewed your animation files in granny viewer, the model/mesh doesn't show up (unless I view the mesh itself...or load it into the animation). I'm using Blender, btw.

Do I need to export one FBX as the fxsxml's "Mesh file" without animations, and then export all my other animations as only animations (somehow) without the mesh?

My process is: I've been creating different animations in different blender files, but using the same mesh. Then I export each one as an FBX, saving it as a .gr2 file using Nexus Buddy, then add the granny files to the mod and define in fxsxml. Is this process correct?

 

[Blumonster]

You're probably tired of seeing me here so I'm going to stop posting in this thread. I just wanted to mention one final thing about Nexus Buddy and the new patch 1.0.1.1.35. It appears that Nexus Buddy isn't working with it. I tried changing the fscale for my unit after the patch but I wound up getting spearmen for some reason. I loaded the previous version, untouched by the updated modbuddy, and it worked fine. I even opened that file with modbuddy and built the solution without changing anything and still got the spearmen. I tried creating a new unit in Nexus Buddy also, and that gave me the same result.

 

[Nitram15]

C'mon does anybody heard my question?
Somebody can tell me how to import multiple animations for a single unit in Blender? Or how to import animation to NexusBuddy, or in other case the fbx?