[LH] Sviatoslav I of Kiev

[ambrox62]

how do you reanimate the leaderheads? what method do you use

A brutal and empiric method: switching animation files!
When animations are near to be suitable by default, I work on nif file to fix LH

In nifscope Arminius looks like a monster, but Civ4 nif engine does it suitable

 

[GarretSidzaka]

can you send me some screenshots or maybe even bless this community with a walkthru??

i have always wondered how to do this, as the 're-bone' method wouldn't really work for leaders (too freaking many bones!)

 

[ambrox62]

I cannot write a walkthru because there isn't a general rule. Each LH has its own peculiarities.
I work on nif files editing node's property values. I am not skilled to make any graphic or art change at all.
Working with nifskope is a tedious and time-consuming activity. I suggest to use it only when animations are near to be compatible. I gave Montezuma and Capac animations to Augustus, Mehmed and Hannibal animations to Brennus, Washington to Cyrus, Ghenghis to Hannibal and so on.
Civ4 animation engine works different from nifskope one, so I made changes in nifskope and tested it in Civ4pedia leader animation, switching with ALT+TAB between applications. Very tedious. As final result you can see nifskope LH monsters that move suitable in Civ4. Very funny, indeed.

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

I still think that must be known and explained with examples. Right now, I only think people may have to reinvent what you found. This list of L2L correction succes and a general list of operation to do in order to get a leader to behave correctly would do. You need to advertise this finding and not keep it in a close area.

 

[GarretSidzaka]

yeah bro. i havent heard of a single other person who can do this
we really need to know your method, of course once you have got it nailed down. it would be very VERY useful to the community. I have attempted it before in nifviewer, but that isn't a very applicable method to use unit re-animation for the leader

i am sooo curious to see how you managed to figure it you !!!!

 

[ambrox62]

Ok, I'll reserve some post to explain the procedure.
I still doesn't believe it will be useful, but someone else could understand what I don't

 

[ambrox62]

HOW 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.
The starting file setup:


I prepared a subfolder with every LH animation, like this:


To avoid manual file copy-rename, I preparad batch ms-dos files like this:



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!

 

[ambrox62]

Part 2 - Civ4 / Nifskope management

Now we start Civ4, go to Pedia and choose the leader Arminius for a quickly 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 manner.

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


End of mini-tutorial!

 

[ambrox62]

Conclusion

As I said before, it is an empiric, unorthodox, tedious and time-wasting method.
You must find the right NiNode to modify, manually test the property values (rotation, translation, ecc...) in order to reach the working combination.
I hope this will help someone to do better!

Ambrox

 

[GarretSidzaka]

thanks bro. can you possibly repost this in a unique thread in the Tutorials section, so we can discuss this method there

thanks again bro. this tut warrants careful study

 

[GarretSidzaka]

download fixed