Initial look at Nexus, 3D Unit Art and reskinning

[Louis XXIV]

I'm sure they won't want to waste their resources in legal actions that would be better spent elsewhere. So a technical solution that would protect their DLC, but allow modder flexibility would be great.

It seems Firaxis has a lot of separate things they need to address, but limited resources to address them. I'm honestly not sure what has priority (as much as I love the modding community, I would guess core game, then multiplayer, then modding). Thankfully, they have separate people, so the guy who was in charge of the modding tools might only be in charge of modding patches. I guess we'll have to wait and see how long this will take (it would be nice if they could post and address that they are aware of our concerns, however).

 

[SamBC]

Trying to keep it short (since it's deviating from our main objective here) this kind of action didn't exist before DLCs.

It's a natural downside to the DLC phenomenon. There's a real claim of substantive infringement if people undermine the DLC marketing of the IP by making the same models, data, and behaviour available free, so it's far more actionable. What happened before was that people took the models and used them to do something else, something that isn't a strong work-alike for something that's sold for money; I'm sure that, in principle, 2K and Firaxis would be happy for things to be used in that manner, as they've made statements (as you observed) that modding is very important for this new version of Civ.

Yes there were expansion packs before but I think that's for another discussion. But from what you said I think you are not much fan of mods, neither you followed mod communities in depth, much less Firaxis statements about modability on Civ5 - put as one of the main features of the game.

I'm actually a great fan of mods, and have played several plenty for CivIV (although that's the limit of my playing them for Civ games, until CivV, where I'm trying to actually get in on the action doing the Modding - I was a latecomer to CivIV generally, having skipped CivIII). I've not been too involved in any communities for modding, that's true, and the deepest I've been are for open-source games, particularly not involving shiny graphics . I'm also not opposed to DLC, as you might've guessed.

I do feel that there are some mismatches between the statements made by the developers and publishers about the potential for, and importance of, modding, and the support for it. Examples include the handling of 3D, to reuse meshes and skeletons with new skins, for example, not being straightforward, or as far as anyone can tell even possible. We can hope that this will get better. Nearer to my own work is the problem that you have to individually hack the starting positions LUA to add a new resource, meaning that the modularity of mods breaks down, which is slightly annoying.

My ethical view is that we should be able to re-use the skins (and derivatives thereof), skeletons and meshes from the core game, by reference; I am unsure of whether we ought to be allowed to redistribute them. My understanding of the law is that we certainly can't redistribute them without permission; the possibility of civil action as a result, however, is dependent on the arguable loss caused to the rightsholders, which is minimal if they are being used to do something that Firaxis/2K haven't done.

I also don't like the implied insult there.

 

[Deliverator]

Re-using it to give a different result (using reskinned version of the same graphics) is a completely different kettle-of-fish from the business perspective.

I'm not sure there is such a big difference. You wouldn't really say that changing the colour of a soldiers uniform (which a lot of reskins do) really changes the unit graphic much. The mesh, skeletons and animations would be distributed unchanged.

With regards to the legalities I think there is a big gap between the letter of law and what plays out in practice.

For example, Fall from Heaven II uses the Bloodthirster graphic from Relic's Dawn of War for their Hyborem unit. This is technically illegal I'm sure. Looking at ModDB, the latest version of Fall from Heaven II has been downloaded over 100,000 times which I presume is a "substantive infringement" of copyright since they are distributing content from another game for free.

However, it is not really worth companies' time and money going after infringements like this, particularly since that modding is not-for-profit. Imagine Relic went after Kael and the Fall from Heaven team for distributing their graphical content illegally - it would be very bad PR for them in the gaming community at the very least.

However, I do see that DLC changes that landscape. I think trying to have both amazing community created mods while making money out of DLC is like trying to have your cake and eat it. I was indifferent to DLC before, but now I'm beginning to see why it's such a bad move.

 

[Dict4t0rCiv]

Couldn't modders just make their reskins available for download here at Civfanatics and just bypass the darn mod browser? People would have to overwrite their files in resource/DX9 but they could be given instuctions to make backups first. That way we could at least reskin the units in the game for the time being. I don't know; would that work?

 

[Deliverator]

Couldn't modders just make their reskins available for download here at Civfanatics and just bypass the darn mod browser? People would have to overwrite their files in resource/DX9 but they could be given instuctions to make backups first. That way we could at least reskin the units in the game for the time being. I don't know; would that work?

That works, but it is not especially nice and doesn't allow you to make multiple unit graphics by having different reskins of an existing model which is what we'd like.

I've thought about this issue some more and if it will not be possible to use the vanilla 3D meshes and animations as a basis for new units, it will be important to find a way to port Civ 4 units into Civ 5.

Here's my reasoning. Only a handful of people had the skills to animate units completely from scratch for Civ 4 - I can think of only a handful of humanoid units that were animated completely from scratch. A much large number of unit makers were able to learn to rig their own custom meshes to the existing unit skeletons and animations. Provided a process can be developed to convert Civ4 units to Civ5, then those modders will still be able to contribute new unit graphics. Otherwise Civ5 unit creation could be restricted to the small minority capable to animating a humanoid unit from scratch, or those who only want to make tanks and planes etc which are easier to animate. Civ 4 provides a library of animations that could potentially be useful for Civ5 and in any case there are so many quality units for Civ4 that a conversion process would be highly desirable anyway.

We'll have to wait until Firaxis fix the apparent issues with the FBX Nexus import and (hopefully) provide us with some documentation before progress can be made on a conversion process though.

 

[Ekmek]

That works, but it is not especially nice and doesn't allow you to make multiple unit graphics by having different reskins of an existing model which is what we'd like.

I've thought about this issue some more and if it will not be possible to use the vanilla 3D meshes and animations as a basis for new units, it will be important to find a way to port Civ 4 units into Civ 5.

Here's my reasoning. Only a handful of people had the skills to animate units completely from scratch for Civ 4 - I can think of only a handful of humanoid units that were animated completely from scratch. A much large number of unit makers were able to learn to rig their own custom meshes to the existing unit skeletons and animations. Provided a process can be developed to convert Civ4 units to Civ5, then those modders will still be able to contribute new unit graphics. Otherwise Civ5 unit creation could be restricted to the small minority capable to animating a humanoid unit from scratch, or those who only want to make tanks and planes etc which are easier to animate. Civ 4 provides a library of animations that could potentially be useful for Civ5 and in any case there are so many quality units for Civ4 that a conversion process would be highly desirable anyway.

We'll have to wait until Firaxis fix the apparent issues with the FBX Nexus import and (hopefully) provide us with some documentation before progress can be made on a conversion process though.

Well animations from Civ4 can come with unit so once Nexus is working we'll have that. There;s gotto be a way to reskin units though. I made the case that art modding usually falls in three categories - reskin, conversion, creation. My impression was that they were all for it. Maybe we can get the material editor to apply to vanilla units/models.

 

[asioasioasio]

In this interview, Shirk said that people would definitly have oportunity to retexture units.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/civilization-v-interview?page=4

Eurogamer: Is it just maps, or will people have access to other aspects of the game? Like the leaders?

Jon Shafer: [Blank look.]

Eurogamer: I guess what I'm asking is, will I be able to make a sitcom where Gandhi lives with Washington?

Jon Shafer: We're still finalising the plans about what we'll be releasing. But the art stuff is a little tricky, because of the complexity of what goes on there.

Dennis Shirk: People will be able to retexture the leaders, because that kind of thing is a lot easier, but when it comes to creating new animations, that's a little trickier.

Eurogamer: I'll take that as a no.

What's the purpose of reskinning stuff already made by Firaxis right now if it can't be used as a different unit or LH? It's so HQ that people don't need mods like "Blue Marble" now.

I've just put my hands on the game yesterday and I didn't have time to put hands on modding - you know.... one more turn..... But it must be way to duplicate units somehow - maybe some hacks in binary code, I don't know... Probably I'll start modding this week so it'll be one of the first thing to check (since i love making new graphics)

BTW do we have in this nexus some export plugins to this gr2 format? Putting non-animated black box (this from Odyssey 2001) would be also breakthrough - non animated dragon is still way better than imagibnation that this jet fighter on the screen is flying dragon.

 

[Wirapuru]

SamBC, I agree with what you've said there - things are changing and so should be our thoughts about modding. I didn't mod civ 4 (very little mod on civ 3) but has been modding other games, and this freedom feeling about modding other people/company works must be seen with attention really.

I also don't like the implied insult there.

Sorry, I was kinda energic after your post, my mistake if you felt this way, I overreacted - I don't like insulting people and I would never do that intentionally.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Everytime I try to open an animated model in the assetviewer nexus crashes on me stating an overflow error but I can view buildings just fine. Anyone else having that or just me?

 

[baal_isidro]

Look in the resource\common folder.

There is a jetfighter.psd file in it with all layers they used for the texture.

This is the only .psd file I've seen so far. A gift for us skinners or did they simply forget to remove it ?

Pretty funny

 

[asioasioasio]

@baal_isidro - probably they didn't have time to remove it The game was done in great rush

I'm having trouble using nexus - probably I set it wrong somwhere - I can't unpack the .fpk - I run the script and nothing happens. Is it possible to uninstall it and reinstall it again? I didn't saw such option in Steam.

 

[Deliverator]

I'm having trouble using nexus - probably I set it wrong somwhere - I can't unpack the .fpk - I run the script and nothing happens. Is it possible to uninstall it and reinstall it again? I didn't saw such option in Steam.

Have you done point 2 from the opening post:

2. Using Regedit set HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/FIRAXIS/Tools/ToolAssetPath to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v.

 

[asioasioasio]

No.... thx for pointing this
I use XP - so this path should be this?
C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v.

I'll check at home if this fixes the problem.

I can't wait to put my hand on adding World Wonders
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=388765

 

[baal_isidro]

how do I tell modbuilder to simply change a single .dds file which is located in the resource/DX9 directory.



For example : A simple change to make those Modern Euro City Sets more vibrant and colorful.

Simply done by reskinning "euro_mod_city_diff.dds" from "resource/DX9".

Now how do I make a mod out of this ?

Simply attaching the texture to the mod in modbuilder doesn't work. Adding a path to it in "Content" or "Actions" doesn't work too since I don't know which "type" I actually have to name it.

Simply replacing the file in the root folder works fine, but this can't be the way to publish it since the .fpk's need to be extracted.

 

[Deliverator]

Now how do I make a mod out of this ?

You can't as far as I've been able to tell. I think that the problem is that the texture (DDS) file names are referenced within the GR2 mesh files. The GR2 files cannot be accessed or edited because Firaxis has made their own version GR2 using some compression or encryption unique to Civ5. Editing the FXSXML doesn't appear to have any effect, and simply including the DDS in a mod doesn't seem to have any effect either.

This frustration is why we had the big discussion about DLC, etc earlier in this thread.

 

[asioasioasio]

The weird thing is that - some graphics links are in .xml - like this world wonders .dds or link to button atlasses, and other not.

<Row>
<Type>BUILDING_HAGIA_SOPHIA</Type>
<BuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_HAGIA_SOPHIA</BuildingClass>
.
.
.
<ArtDefineTag>HAGIA SOPHIA</ArtDefineTag> - where is this Art Define?
.
.
.
<IconAtlas>BW_ATLAS_2</IconAtlas> - if I understan well - it points to icon atlas
<PortraitIndex>8</PortraitIndex> - and this is number of icon
<WonderSplashImage>WonderConceptHagiaSophia.dds</WonderSplashImage> - links to new wonder movie
<WonderSplashAudio>AS2D_WONDER_SPEECH_THE_HAGIA_SOPHIA</WonderSplashAudio> - links to quote
</Row>

I didn't saw anywhere else in .xml other art defines as we knew from civ4 - where were tags with links to .nif and .kfm.

Anyone saw something similliar to .gr2 or knows where are the art defines?

 

[Deliverator]

I didn't saw anywhere else in .xml other art defines as we knew from civ4 - where were tags with links to .nif and .kfm.

The Art Defines XML are all inside the FPK. See this post. For units only the fxsxml file is linked. This is also an XML file that links to the GR2 mesh and animation files and the DDS files. Changing the DDS files in the fxsxml doesn't work for reskinning though, which is why I think the GR2 would need to be changed.

Anyone saw something similliar to .gr2?

GR2 is Granny format. The trouble is Granny is not one single format in that developers can wrap it in their own compression to protect their assets. If you use GrannyViewer from the Granny website it crashes when you try to open the Civ5 GR2 files. Only Nexus can open them and Nexus provides no facility (yet) to switch the textures or meshes, or really do anything to the existing 3D content. There is the facility to import 3D graphics from FBX format, but this doesn't not seem to be working fully yet. Generally, it seems we may only be able to add new content rather than editing existing content i.e. do reskins and conversions.

 

[asioasioasio]

Thx Deliverator

 

[Jaythekiller]

Could someone tell me what are the necessary steps to import some unit graphics (from Civ IV)
Thanks
Edit: I get blender with nif script

 

[SamBC]

Thing that gets me, is that DDS files seems to be referred to mostly without paths (except in ggxml files, which seem to lead to compiled results and are thus pretty useless). I have a suspicion that there ought to be a mod action (for OnLoadMod) to replace a DDS, as they are loaded during run, as evidenced by the fact you can reskin in the core files, but not in a mod. What would be really nice is a full documentation of all possible mod action parameters.

In fact, that last sentence applies to any modding context for the game...