List of Avaliable Fantasy Units

[Murphy613]

I don't understand this discussion, but I get a feeling that perhaps it's easier to create a new skeleton model than to convert it from Civ4...

I just realized that you meant a Skeleton unit specifically. I thought you meant unit model Skeletons. If the FFH skeleton doesn't work even with SabotLieh and Deliverator's techniques (which I have not yet have time to test) then of course, the only option would be to make a new Skeleton. I however, would definitely not be the right guy for that job.

 

[bane_]

Just a quick question as I'm in a very early stage in creating units, but can you import from other games as well? Games outside of Fireaxis reach, or anything NEW you must build from scratch?
There is a veeery nice Skeleton in Warlords Battlecry III (best RTS EVAH!!1!) I would love to bring to Civ5 if it's possible (and not ridiculously difficult, of course).

 

[Murphy613]

Just a quick question as I'm in a very early stage in creating units, but can you import from other games as well? Games outside of Fireaxis reach, or anything NEW you must build from scratch?
There is a veeery nice Skeleton in Warlords Battlecry III (best RTS EVAH!!1!) I would love to bring to Civ5 if it's possible (and not ridiculously difficult, of course).

I know that it's possible, but I do not know if you can use units from all games, or how to do it.

 

[S3rgeus]

I just realized that you meant a Skeleton unit specifically. I thought you meant unit model Skeletons. If the FFH skeleton doesn't work even with SabotLieh and Deliverator's techniques (which I have not yet have time to test) then of course, the only option would be to make a new Skeleton. I however, would definitely not be the right guy for that job.

Lol, I only realized this reading your post! Skeletons' skeletons.

 

[SaibotLieh]

Just a quick question as I'm in a very early stage in creating units, but can you import from other games as well? Games outside of Fireaxis reach, or anything NEW you must build from scratch?
There is a veeery nice Skeleton in Warlords Battlecry III (best RTS EVAH!!1!) I would love to bring to Civ5 if it's possible (and not ridiculously difficult, of course).

As long as you get the units model into Blender, you can rig it to a Civ5 skeleton (animation set) and put it into the game. If the animation files are kf files, you might even be able to use the units own animation set. This tutorial should help for this.

That said, you can always run into loads of problems and often each game needs its own solution. One common problem is to unpack the graphic package into accessable files, this program can help for many games.

Once the graphic files are accessable, you need a program to view them and save them into a file format you can import into Blender. This or this program can be useful here. And if they are nif files, NifSkope can be used at times.

Otherwise it might be worthwhile finding out if modding communities exist for these games. They will often create or modify their own units and might use Blender for this as well.

 

[Murphy613]

Is there hope for skeleton then, given discussion above? (which goes over my head too...)

Will an Diseased Corpse (one of the Ashen Veil FFH units) work for you? I'm working on him now, but he's missing a chunk of stomach. Anyone know why?

Also, once I'm asking the experts, how do I convert archers, considering that the archers I want to convert don't necessarily hold their bows in the same hand as the Civ5 ones?

 

[Nutty]

As for the archers, if you're going to be using the Civ5 animations, you just rig the bow up with the bow your template uses, and it'll use whatever hand the Civ5 unit does. As for the diseased corpse, I imagine it has to do with some funny business they did with NifSkope. Same answer. Just move his torso and line it up with the template.

 

[SaibotLieh]

I'm working on him now, but he's missing a chunk of stomach. Anyone know why?

Should be still intact, that is just how Blender displays areas of the texture were the alpha channel is not white (the darker, the more transparent). This channel is used for teamcolour in Civ4, I guess it is the same for Civ5.

 

[Nutty]

Oh, it's a teamcolor belt? How you describe it is the way Civ5 teamcolor works, but I thought you could actually use alpha for transparency in Civ4 (e.g., the scruff on the wolf), which you can't in Civ5...

 

[Murphy613]

As for the archers, if you're going to be using the Civ5 animations, you just rig the bow up with the bow your template uses, and it'll use whatever hand the Civ5 unit does. As for the diseased corpse, I imagine it has to do with some funny business they did with NifSkope. Same answer. Just move his torso and line it up with the template.

Blender considers the top and bottom halves of the Diseased Corpse connected, and it won't let me move them independently.

 

[Nutty]

You would have to take it apart, but if it's a teamcolor belt as SaibotLieh suggests, then it should be fine as is.

 

[Murphy613]

You would have to take it apart, but if it's a teamcolor belt as SaibotLieh suggests, then it should be fine as is.

Oh, thanks - I hadn't noticed his comment.

 

[Pazyryk]

Will an Diseased Corpse (one of the Ashen Veil FFH units) work for you? I'm working on him now, but he's missing a chunk of stomach. Anyone know why?

Sure! He makes a great undead unit.

 

[PawelS]

I'm fine with the Diseased Corpse as well, it will be good as the basic Undead unit in my mod (but I think I'll just call it a Zombie).

 

[SaibotLieh]

Oh, it's a teamcolor belt? How you describe it is the way Civ5 teamcolor works, but I thought you could actually use alpha for transparency in Civ4 (e.g., the scruff on the wolf), which you can't in Civ5...

In fact the alpha is also used for transparency. The teamcolour is just set as a kind of grounding for some meshes. This way, instead of seeing through the mesh, one sees the teamcolour instead.

 

[Deliverator]

I've rigged one of seZereth's Zombies to the Civ 5 Aztec Jaguar animations. I don't have time to make it up into a full mod at the moment, but here are my .gr2, textures and fxsxml files as well as the Blender file. I've tested in Nexus Viewer so it should work OK in game.

 

[Murphy613]

I've rigged one of seZereth's Zombies to the Civ 5 Aztec Jaguar animations. I don't have time to make it up into a full mod at the moment, but here are my .gr2, textures and fxsxml files as well as the Blender file. I've tested in Nexus Viewer so it should work OK in game.

Looks great. Do you other fantasy modders still want me to work on the diseased corpse, or is this good? (I haven't made any progress since my previous comment - I unplugged my mouse form my laptop and I haven't gotten around to putting it back yet.) I was thinking to try my hand at a Hill Giant - they weren't working before but using the obj method I can now get them into Blender.

Edit - Forget that. The Hill Giant has no vertex bones, and I am NOT assigning those. By the way, experts, all the other questions I asked you involved unusual issues/glitches. Now I have a basic question - how do I apply a mesh to a template? I have the necessary templates (thanks Deliverator for your Ancient Era templates, and Wolfdog for the Swordsman one) but I can never get the mesh to fit exactly. How do adjust a single part of the mesh, like a leg or arm?

 

[Pazyryk]

I like both. I'll probably recolor the bluejeans to brown at some point, but it's not a big deal.

 

[Deliverator]

Now I have a basic question - how do I apply a mesh to a template? I have the necessary templates (thanks Deliverator for your Ancient Era templates, and Wolfdog for the Swordsman one) but I can never get the mesh to fit exactly. How do adjust a single part of the mesh, like a leg or arm?

There is some information under Stage 2 - Apply Mesh to Civ 5 template here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=511396

In summary the technique I use is to position the 3D Cursor at a natural pivot point e.g. the units shoulder, hip or ankle. Change the rotation option to rotate about 3D cursor then in Edit mode select just the part of the mesh that I want to rotate about that point. Then use R to rotate the body part so that it lines up. You can also use G to move hands and weapons so that they line up.

Once you have everything lined up, using Bone Weight Copy is the quickest way to create the rigging from the mesh to the skeleton (the vertex groups). See Ekmek's brief guide:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13057590

 

[SaibotLieh]

Now I have a basic question - how do I apply a mesh to a template? I have the necessary templates (thanks Deliverator for your Ancient Era templates, and Wolfdog for the Swordsman one) but I can never get the mesh to fit exactly. How do adjust a single part of the mesh, like a leg or arm?

If the mesh comes with a skeleton on it's own, you could use that to change the pose of the mesh to fit to the template before changing its vertex groups to the template one.

Again it needs a bit of time to get used to, but can save you some time later and give better results. To enter Pose mode, you have to select the skeleton first (right-click, like you would do with the meshes). Then change from "Object mode" to "Pose mode". Now you can select single bones and rotate/move them to the right position.

Once you have put the mesh in the new pose, you have to make this pose permanent, otherwise it will go back to the original pose once you change the vertex groups. To do so, change to "Object mode" again and select the mesh. Then choose Object -> Convert Object Type (You can keep the original or delete it). The new mesh shouldn't response to changes in the skeleton anymore and can be be applied to the template.

The second part worked most of the time for me, but I also stumbled upon one or two meshes which did not cooperated. There might be better ways to do this.