Importing Civ IV Graphics?

[Quetz]

Legal questions aside, is this feasible? There is plenty of user-created art in Civ 4 mods that could be reused, even if base Civ4 graphics are out of the question for whatever reason.

 

[renegadechicken]

I was thinking the same thing, Quetz; even if Firaxis got angry if we used their Civ IV stuff, we could still draw from the vast amount of modder-created content!

 

[Deliverator]

Now that lemmy101 has released his (and CaptainBinky's) Nexus patch and material hacker (see here) it is theoretically possible to do this. It's not going to be very easy or fun though.

Roughly speaking the conversion process would be something like this:

1. Import Civ4 NIF and animation KF files one by one into Blender and export them as FBX files. This will have to be done individual for each animation so if the unit has 25 you have to do it 25 times.
2. Use Nexus Asset Import to convert the all FBX files to GR2 files. There should be one gr2 for the main mesh and then several animation files.
3. Use the material hacker to add the textures to the mesh GR2.
4. Make an fxsxml file that lists everything mesh, animation, textures, bones for the converted unit.
5. Make a mod includes all the files and points to your fxsxml.
6. Try in Nexus and then in game and see if it works.

Even then you are faced with many complications:

1. NIF -> FBX does not seem to be perfect in blender at least. I tried with and archer and the bow was completed mangled by the time I got to the GR2.

2. Another big problem is that the animation sets between Civ4 and Civ5 are not one-to-one. Civ5 has a lot more. Some of the animations in Civ5 that do not exist in Civ4 are:
IdleA_Trans_IdleB
Shuffle
Turn_Left
Turn_Right
Stop_Run
Stop_Run
Charge_Run
Charge_Attack
AttackCity
Victory
Bombard_Defense
Bombard_Defense_Idle
Bombard_Defense_Trans_IdleA
These would have to be created by hand (which is pretty unfeasible) or substituted with a Civ4 one (which will probably look weird).

3. Attaching effects and projectiles could be difficult - you'd have to use the vanilla Civ5 ones I guess which could be difficult.

In short, it is not going to be straight-forward, and I'm beginning to think it is pushing the boundaries of feasibility.

It would be much better if we can rig Civ4 meshes to Civ5 skeletons and animations. It may be possible to get the Civ5 skeletons out with the work lemmy101 and CaptainBinky have done. It is probably worth exploring this solution first, since this is how the majority of Civ4 units were made.

 

[poncratias]

but for still graphics like buildings, landmarks etc. this would be a go

edit: @deliverator:

mind posting this as tutorial in the mod tutorial subforum?

 

[blazekid87]

Well we may be able to figure out the bone structure if we can somehow import the units into grannyviewer. It has an option which will label every bone in the model.

 

[Deliverator]

mind posting this as tutorial in the mod tutorial subforum?

That's not really worth doing until I or someone else proves it can be done. At the moment it's only a process that might work.

 

[Deliverator]

So I've proved it can be done... see here.

 

[Justicex]

So if I want to import a leader, it's probably best to wait for Nexus to be patched?

 

[poncratias]

back @ legal question:

I started a request here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95728

What I am curious about:

I want to import Cottages&towns back to civ v, but I'm not quite clear if it'S ok to do so.

What would you say?

 

[Jaythekiller]

For me if you don't make a commercial use of their stuff,there is no problem with Firaxis

 

[jaldaen]

Well, I sent 2K Greg a PM over at the 2K forums... hopefully he'll get back with me and when he does I'll let you know what his response about this was.

 

[CyberChrist]

I want to import Cottages&towns back to civ v, but I'm not quite clear if it'S ok to do so.

What would you say?

While they might not outright give you/us an official go-ahead to use resources from Civ4 (in order to maximize their legal options in case of unforseen eventualities), then I can't imagine they would even raise an eyebrow if/when someone makes use of any Civ4 resource for a non-profit mod for Civ5. Even less so if it is made available via the modbrowser.

If you are still worried then you can cover yourself further by including a disclaimer for the mods making use of converted Civ4 resources. Ie. like the following:

NB! This mod makes use of converted resources from "Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword" and only owners of "Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword" should download, install and run this mod.


Btw, Civ modders have been making use of converted resources from lots of other games (including some of Firaxis own) since Civ2 - and I can't recall a single legal copyright incident so far as a result of this. However, this might actually be an issue in the future (for Firaxis/2K) seeing the current EULA claims of "we own it all" for anything included in Civ5 mods (which is actually a very clear example of the main reason such EULA's are largely unenforceable).

 

[Zen Blade]

back @ legal question:

I started a request here: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95728

what i am curious about:

I want to import cottages&towns back to civ v, but i'm not quite clear if it's ok to do so.

What would you say?

no one cares.

 

[Soduka]

The whole thing in my eyes is that yes, current Copyright standards and laws could be used to prohibit this kind of usage of materials. In practice;

1) Nobody cares

2) I've never seen a company (Maybe with the exception of Lucas Arts, they just sue everybody) that has made more than a passing attempt at telling you they don't like it. I worked on a mod for the first person shooter Battlefield 2142 wherein we wholesale ripped almost all of the content possible from its big brother, Battlefield 2. They ran on exactly the same engine with a few small differences so it was very easy.

We told EA we were doing it. We advertised the mod on major websites. It was used in a gaming tournament website. They knew. They didn't care. That's a lot more content than a 3 pixel wide cottage.

3) Copyright/Intellectual property Laws have not kept pace with the digital age.

Do you HONESTLY believe the people at Firaxis care if you use a model from Civ 4? I've been pretty clear about myself anyhow, I really, really don't care. I'll do it myself perhaps and if Civfanatics' cozy relationship with Firaxis/2K causes them in the future to crack down on mods containing this content, I'll move them to torrents.

Just keep money out of it and there's no reason anybody should be upset.

Also, GSC Game World, the company that made the STALKER series, expressly ALLOWS their game content in any other game as a mod so long as no money is involved. I don't know how you could incorporate anything from there, but who knows. Just throwing that out there.

 

[renegadechicken]

no one cares.

That is as rude as its not true. There is no reason to say such a thing.

I'm interested in the legal implications, since as others have pointed out, people have been using resources from previous Civ games and beyond for quite some time now. Elder Scrolls games, as I mentioned, have a very strict policy of absolutely NO resources from a previous game because you are giving away their content for free. People have pointed out that they aren't making money off mods-- this is true, but Firaxis COULD be making money off the resources you're giving away for free.

I for one hope that they don't mind, and even if they do, they haven't done anything about it yet!

------------

As for bringing back cottages, I'm all for it! I definitely miss them! Trade posts are nice, but it was such a great feeling to grow a small cottage from the very beginning of the game all the way up to the end!

 

[Deliverator]

My view is summarised at this post.

 

[Deliverator]

no one cares.

Fair summary. It might be more correct to say "Some people posting in this thread care more than those that own the copyright."

 

[Deliverator]

Here's a detailed tutorial on how to convert Civ 4 units to Civ 5.