MatteM's unit modeling and retexturing workshop 2018-11-05

Unfortunately for the Jap and Swedish nifs the models are linked to the infantry.kfm animation, however the same basic model but with submachinegun exists, only problem
is that i uses a WW2 italian helmet, but maybe not a disaster:

 

The same procedure for transferring guns works for transferring soldiers most of the time. I just tested it with infantry.nif and marines.nif from the base game and the copy worked fine. Although you'll want to rename the Infantry node you copied over to Marine to make sure all animations work 100%.

But as said, I'd be happy to do the model swapping for you. You just make the skins and I'll add the accessories to them and rig them to the right animation set.

 

Sound like a good co-op! I went yesterday and got an old version of 3ds max, figured it would work best since all the plugins for making nifs seem to be very old. Well it turns out that 3ds Max 7 is so old it doesn't
like my graphics card or any directx beyond 9 or something, and same goes for "sceneviewer". I really like NifSkope and quite comfortable working in that program though.

The nif-switching would also work for things like tanks and airplanes i assume, since rigging in those should be even less complicated than humans? I have fooled around with modelswitching before but the problem was I didn't really know what I was doing, and also time is somewhat limited for me as I am already working on a Civ4 Mod 3-4 hours a day in the last 3 years.

 

Romania and Mongolia released:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/warsaw-pact-cold-war-infantry-pack-pt-2.27130/

Romania:



Mongolia:





Might do a different one later on with cap rather than helmet based on:

 

Yea, 7 was from the pre-shader days of OPENGL. It's absolutely ancient. 9 should work fine though if you can get it.

All my tank work uses the default tank animation. So I wouldn't know. But there probably should not be any issues.
This said, as far as infantry goes not all, just almost all use the same skeleton. Like grenadiers use a different set for example. But you can work that out easily if you get an error message when making the copy.

Anyway, if you want a collaboration just post up a zip of a unit you made and a quick post of what weapon you want attached to it and I'll do that and post up the finished version.

 

The helmet you're showing for Mongolia has a big symbol dead center (one can tell because the straps are at the sides); while your unit uses a smaller one and on a side. Is it intentional?

 

Yes due to the fact that trying to center that thing when the helmet-sides are mirrored is almost impossible and still having it looking good

 

Thanks, do you think you can put the Italian Beretta AR70 in the hands of the guy included in the zip? The AR70 is its own .nif in the zip.

Then I can make an Italian cold war inf!

 

Here it is. I had to do some pretty hefty modification to the weapon model to make it to work including but not limited to assembling it all into one piece and than separating the magazine. But it really wasn't a problem. Here is the file. Uses marine animations.

PS. I have both a FAL and RPD done if you are interested in those.

Also, you might want to modify the XML for infantry like you did for that motorized back on the last page to have several different units. That way you can have say 2 guys with an AK and one with a RPD and stuff.

 

Awesome! I'm thinking it will look really nice when the textures on the dude are done, yeah the FAL and RPD would be great, if you want you could connect at least the FAL with the
same dude, the RPD might be more of a machine gunner though?

Just came to my mind that there was a clip-reloading animation with the marine.kfm, yeah that makes it more complex than the infantry.kfm I would think.

 

Sure thing. Here they are. I included two FAL soldiers and a RPD guy. The former because my reference image had both a wood stock and a plastic stock version and I couldn't chose.

Just make sure to heed Credits.txt when releasing these for the public.

 

Great, thanks! Yep I'll make sure to leave the credit.txt in the zip

The Italian:



No camo? - "......Yet, following a NATO tradition of the Cold War era, the majority of the Italian Armed Forces did not wear camouflage clothing during the postwar period, instead utilizing dark olive green or other solid colored service uniforms."

I might change the face somewhat cause he looks like he's been fighting in North Africa with poor supply for some time, rather than taking it easy in the barracks in post war Europe.

 

Italian is posted:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/italian-cold-war-infantry.27132/

 

Next up Austrian infantry with FN FAL:

 

So why not just detach the helmet from the model and texture it separately? You could even do a huge full sized helmet texture than to make it look really good.

 

Yes it is definitely my ambition to learn how to do more unit modeling in 3ds Max, it's just that there is unfortunately to few hours in a day . Btw did you have any luck with the french submachinegun?

 

I'll get to it once I get a few more hours of the day free. Sunday tends to be that day when I catch up on all I didn't get to do during the week.

 

Ok no problems, I got caught up getting this ocean liner into the game:

 

Converted two mech inf-models from Sketchup, the SKOT 64 APC in Indian camo, and the FV432 Bulldog British APC. The model-tweaking I have done in Sketchup and used Blender
for some altering and conversion to .obj.

They work in game and I have copied them to Walter Hawkwoods M113 Nif, the problem I have is the large size of the .nif, over 3mb. I have tried the things
in Blender such as "decimate" to lower polys, but still they have a lot, anyone has some good tips for lowering polys that doesn't require an insane amount
of manual labour?

 

I found no reliable automated way of significantly reducing polycounts. I do have a method that allows a ~2.5x reduction for humanoid units, which allowed me to convert EU4 biped units despite the difference in model quality. In general, my rule of a thumb is that if the resulting nif is larger than 100kB, one should avoid using it, and something over 150kB only gets used in a very desperate situation (chariots are an exception, as they have too many models). Other than a few chariots, no unit nifs in RI weigh over 200kB.