making an apocalyptic mod. "Project Aftermath"

[Tekamthi]

I suppose I could make some scorched trees.
I never thought about that.

I'll make them one day and send them over to you

i'll def make use of 'em when you do! should have the basic mod put together by weekend. I'd implement it as an improvement, if that matters

this photo illustrates a possible "burnt forest" terrain's look really well:

Spoiler :

 

[ghost toast]

i'll def make use of 'em when you do! should have the basic mod put together by weekend. I'd implement it as an improvement, if that matters

this photo illustrates a possible "burnt forest" terrain's look really well:

Spoiler :

View attachment 668121

It would have to be an improvement.
That game will only place certain terrain and terrain features with out a reload of the game.
Marsh being one that can be placed and removed during the game along with fallout.
The rest won't appear when placed unless the game is reloaded.
I believe that could be fixed in the dll if you know c language but I do not.

 

[Tekamthi]

It would have to be an improvement.
That game will only place certain terrain and terrain features with out a reload of the game.
Marsh being one that can be placed and removed during the game along with fallout.
The rest won't appear when placed unless the game is reloaded.
I believe that could be fixed in the dll if you know c language but I do not.

yeah this is my understanding as well -- i think it's in the engine beyond the .dll even, not something anyone outside of firaxis can do anything about.

anyway using improvements as stand-ins in otherwise unimproved plots works well enough for my purposes

 

[ghost toast]

yeah this is my understanding as well -- i think it's in the engine beyond the .dll even, not something anyone outside of firaxis can do anything about.

using improvements as stand-ins in otherwise unimproved plots works well enough for my purposes, though

Ya probably true. All I know is it's way above my abilities.
I would love to add more temp features

 

[ghost toast]

Spoiler :

so i started testing rigging things to a civ 5 skeleton in blender.

This is only proof of concept stage but
this is the first time i have managed to get a unit into the game.

i now have a much better understanding of the process.
i still lack a complete understanding of it but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.
now that i can do this the sky is the limit for units. i will not have to rely on unit reskins i will bring in my own if possible and its starting to look that way now.

when i get to the bulk of the unit work ill be trying to make new units for the game.
for now I'm still doing the ruins, resources, natural wonders, tree models, and basically everything you see on the map when the game starts.

im still a ways off from getting to units but this is great.
i have so many things i want to bring into the game.

but for now i have a random cube unit lol.

 

[ghost toast]

coming soon star wars units.

all new laser and sound effects.
contains 2 versions of every model with standard civ 5 effects and another version that works with my more effects mod.
of coarse ill be updating my more effects mod when i post these units to my unit page.
the same way i do the units i can also make brand new effects models instead of relying only on reskins of effects.
the best reskin model was civ 5 wave effect you can make it onto anything like lightning lol. which is in my more effects mod.
but now i can bring into the game even better 3d objects.

like this new red laser beam.

Spoiler :

i do not plan on using these for project aftermath but they good to practice rigging units.
i might make and use a scrap and rust version of the battle droids but i do not plan on using them as they look.

but i will post all the star wars units on my unit page eventually

you will get the choice of laser or regular gun effects.
the ones that use gun effects i renamed to B0 haha. they just use the bazooka or marine fx triggers

so far i made
B1 battle droids - 3 variant color that are slightly different, and then 1 gray color. total variants 4.
B1 battle droids commander - has a variant for every battle droid.
B1 security droids
B1 rocket droids. has a variant foe every B1 model. each model contains the standard droid and the commander.
droid fighter
droid gunship
droid bombers

the droids have a new blaster sound effect. i re-added some of the mech sound effects and scaled down the sound a bit. mechlft and mechflash sounds.
i added a roger roger sound effect.
it only goes off on fortify and is hard to hear. its a little lower then the grunt noise the warriors make then you hit fortify.
it would get annoying hearing it all game. so now you can only hear it with the volume up a decent bit and when your listening for it.
as much as i liked the roger roger idea is annoyed me hearing it so often.
hit fortify and here roger roger 30 times a minutes gets old.
so i made it barely hearable cause i still like the idea of having it

still to do

i still need to do the effects for NR_N99 it doesn't have any yet.

the air craft and the rocket droids have standard jet fighter and bazooka effects but i need to also make a cool laser effect variant for those units.

i still need to bring in droid machine gunners and droid grenadiers and the AAT tank.
and rig up variants for standard effects and a new effects.

once i finish these i can move onto the other factions from star wars.
with get easier and faster as i make FX_trigger templates for the effects and type of units.

Spoiler :

 

[ghost toast]

ill be doing all the star wars unit for practice.

more the likely if any make it into this mod they will be reskinned to something else.
i might keep the NR-N99 as is and use it for my mod idk. maybe a scrap and rust reskinned version.
i might use the air crafts idk yet.

ill be making survivor unit apacolyptic raider units power armor unit going from fallout style apacolyptic to more standard looking sci-fi stuff.
that will be how the game look should progress along with the option to try to build earth and replant trees if all goes to plan.
ill make the re-planting of trees and revitalizing of earth a ideology choice most likely.

ill figure that graphic and unit stuff out as i flush out every civ and make the new tech tree.

every civilization in this mod will have its own units and unique style of combat and military structure.
my hive and mutant faction will excel and prioritize war and have a vary diverse roster of units having many units to choose from for many situations.
where some factions will feel more generic like the regular civ unit scheme. like having 1 swordsman type at a time 1 spear type and exedra.

 

[ghost toast]

Im noticing for air combat units do not have a 2100 track line in the fx triggers.
i wonder why that is.
was it to simplify air combat?
i wonder if i can re-add it and expand on it and make air combat and interception more visually interesting to watch.

that would more then likely require a rework of all air units fx triggers. doing it for just 1 unit will probably cause a loop during combat.

for now i wont touch it.

i might look back into it when i design the unit for this mod.
since i have to redo everything anyway i might as well try that out and see what happens see it i can get melee air combat more like melee land combat.
where it usually 2 phases doing each attack. attack A and attack B.

I'm just interested in seeing if the same can be done for dog fights in the sky.

 

[ghost toast]

i now have the aircrafts effects worked out.
standard civ 5 aircraft use muzzle effects when in dog fights similar to most gun units.
these are now set up to shoot projectiles during dog fights not just during air strikes.

looks pretty cool now that they actually shoot things during dog fights instead of just using muzzle flashes.

the droid fighter shoots lasers for its airstrike and dog fights.

the gunship shoots rockets and lasers during airstrikes and dog fights.

this is all just purely graphical and doesn't change any game play just makes them cooler to look at.
makes them stand out and look more sci-fi.

still a tad bit more testing but almost done

there are just so many ways to set units up in the fx triggers, but soon ill have sufficient templates to start with for a whole manor of configurations.
then ill really speed this process up.

takes me days of testing my new effects and writing fx triggers.
i can get a brand new unit into the game in just a few minutes. its actually that easy and fast to rig up a mesh to a 5 skeleton. cant believe it took me so long to learn.
blender can doing it for you with a great deal of accuracy

i might write up a tutorial on how to do it one day.
if your using standard civ 5 effects its even faster. all the work is just about done when it leaves blender.

 

[ghost toast]

I'm just about done with all the battle droid models from the 4 civ unit mod packs.
they are fully converted. sadly i cant convert the animations or at least I have been unsuccessful so far.
So things like the droidika/destroyer droid i must still do i will have to suck it up and only have it walk. No rolling

sadly there will be no way for me to get super battle droids into he game. not unless i make it so its arm is always up ready to fire even while walking and idle. that would just look ridiculous.

ill also have to make missing models like IG-227 hailfire class droid tank, crab droids. buzz droids (maybe), and spider droids, and droid STAPS (single trooper aerial platform).
ill do the missing models at a later date. they will definitely require my more effects mod cause they will need custom location, rotation, and scale edits to make the normal civ 5 effect to work on them. I have ideas on how to do a few of them it shouldn't be to hard.

No pictures yet but i did do the imperial At-At to practice getting 4 legging things in and walking properly.
i used a very creative animation type a long with a stray bone that doesn't move during animations.
i used the animations from the converted bear unit from civ 4.
everything is partial weighted to that stray bone to provide additional stability and to restrict the idle movement so it looks less like the bears idle animation. it no longer moves up and down like its breathing during its idle animation.
the only downside is that it also restricts all other animation movements. not a problem except the death animation it only tips over about 70% of the way now. but it is hardly noticeable. it doesn't need to flip completely on its side 70% tip still looks great, in my opinion even better due to it being a machine.
the normal attack animations work but of coarse the AT-AT cant claw its enemies. so ill have to use an idle animation for its attack and then add laser effects to the guns.
so it shoots.

a couple more weeks i should a good bit of the star wars units done and ready to post to my units page.
will contain the models with a copy of each one set up for regular gun effects from civ 5 and a version that uses my more effects mod. the laser shooting versions of the units will require my more effects mod or else they wont shoot anything the laser attacks are all new.
i will also update the more effects mod when i post these units. effects specifically for these units will be added a long with a few more miscellaneous effects yet to be utilized for anything.

I'm not sure what will and wont end up being used in project aftermath but as of now i will probably only use the vehicles and maybe a few clone troopers.
the rest will only be posted and go unused here. well see how i feel when I'm designing the factions/civilizations and there units.

that's still a long ways off.
I'm still sadly stuck on designing the new map graphics/features/resources/and ect...

its hard coming up with ideas right now im stuck on not having any lol.
if any one has resource/feature ideas throw them my way ill make them. ideas are hard to come up with.
i only need the graphic idea of what it is or looks like.
we can flush out what the in game purpose is later.

 

[ghost toast]

here is the first in game look of droideka
it uses Siamese elephant animations
its not perfect but it is decent.
all 3 legs do move. all to do now is to make its laser then writet up its fx triggers.
ill just double up the droid laser i already have and get that into he game. so it looks like it shoots 2 lasers at a time for each left and right attack.

i also provided a video in the zip file attached below.
it only show the movement.

right now it is using the Siamese elephant effects so there is a weird dust cloud. it will be gone soon.
the only thing i did for now is get the model animated and into the game.

Spoiler :

 

[ghost toast]

first look at the aat tank.

they had to be a little forward. on order to line up with the tank animations and so the turret swivel will work.
the only thing needed is a tiny z offset in the art defines so it hovers slightly off the ground and a small attack radius so melee units don't stand on the very front of the tank. so far every animation seems to be working.

that finishes up the imports of civ 4 star wars droid models.

there is still more i can do ill work on making missing models.

Spoiler :

 

[ghost toast]

im wondering if i can change out the x-com hanger animations to.
i haven't ever looked into them but i might.
im not sure what triggers it. maybe i can duplicate it and change it out to be different things. like a droid transport ship and more.

 

[ghost toast]

here in the hailfire droid I had to make this one myself i didn't have a model to convert so it took me a few days to make.
turned out pretty good I think.

Since I made this model myself Maybe a reskin of this one might make it into project aftermath.

Now I have to do the droid speeders.

Droids had 3 different types.
Not sure of I'll do all 3.
2 types I can use as units.

And 1 more type I can use for great general sice it's purpose was the fast transport of leadership. I'll change the general out to a droid and he can sit on that speeder rather then a horse.

Spoiler :

The more I look at the model the more cartoonish it looks.

To me it's starting to look more it is from the clone wars cartoon.

But that is the best I can do for a texture on the hellfire droid.

 

[ghost toast]

droid single trooper aerial platform

it took me a few days to get it into the game right.
couldn't for the life of me figure out why the texture was breaking making it invisible.
it had to do with the bones I bound things to. i fixed all that and its now visible

i just need to do the effects for it now.

Spoiler :

I think I'm going to stop after this.
I'm getting to carried away.

I should get back to the task at hand and work on project after math.

I'll post the droids in a few days. Then I'll be done with it for now.
I'll go back to it at a later date and do the missing droid army models and then clone army.

 

[ghost toast]

i haven't had much time lately to mod but i do have a small amount of progress to post

here is a sneak peak and 2 all new units and 3 alien unit from civ BE.

ill be converting and reskinning the BE aliens to make them look more marro looking i haven't reskinned them yet.
i have converted 3 aliens so far
barbalien
flyers
pod hunters

the 2 new units were created by me they originally come from a board game called heroscape i remade them as best i can
marro nargrubs
marro stingers

these units are for project aftermath, they will be for the hive faction there will be many more to come.
the hive faction will be mainly animal reskins and mutations and tyrranids with the late game option to become more human like by incorporating human dna.
this faction will seem like it is evolving throughout the game by gaining dna buildings from tech and resources and making choices. some dna options will block others.
hopefully the faction will be unique and cool in the mod.

Spoiler :

 

[ghost toast]

sorry to say i dont have any progress to report i havent had the time this month.

but i still have some new pictures to show of stuff i have and some concept designs.
i have taken pictures of some things in blender. i still need to make the graphics game ready and get them animated but here are some raider concept designs.

i have a concept idea for a faction I'm gonna call the bad land raider. and another faction i haven't named that will be street punk fallout style raider.

i have some other things in blender i can take pictures of and post so next month i might do that unless i get some new in game pictures to show.

Spoiler raider street punk style :

Spoiler generic raider design :

 

[ghost toast]

Spoiler bad land raiders and more generic raiders :

 

[ghost toast]

i also have some fallout wildlife units.

i wanted to wait until i had more wildlife unit made before i posted the pictures but i don't have anything else in game to show right now, so here they are.
mirelurks and radraoches

Spoiler :

 

[ghost toast]

If any one has any notes or ideas of things to add let me know.

I'm always open to more apocalyptic monster, raider, and mutant ideas.

Along with resource ideas and more.

Post in the forum and tell me what you would like to see in the apocalypse or any idea for the apocalypse.

Art Pictures for ideas
vague ideas or concepts for the game.
I'm open to any idea at all.

Ideas and art are hard for me to come up with on my own.

If we can think it up then I can try like hell to make it happen.