Need Help with a Sea Unit I want on Land

[tchristensen]

I have a unit I am making for my next update that is normally a sea unit. When I allow it to go on land, it is sunk down into the ground. I want it to sit on top of the land.

I copied the art values from a normal land unit so I am unsure where it is getting this information to have it submerged in the ground. Reviewing the .nif file I can see the entire unit and it looks perfectly fine.

So there must be some sort of control, somewhere that says put this thing half in the ground as it would appear half in the water.

Anyone know of a control either in the nifscope or in Civilization that could fix this?

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Nif. I asked a similar question a few weeks ago. I'm afraid it won't work.

 

[tchristensen]

Really odd because I can't figure out what is the difference between a tank and a boat. Civ IV art XML really doesn't lock out or block anything between the two, but yet one stands on the water while the other is slightly submerged.

I agree with you that the NIF has to have some value somewhere which states the presence of the model in the game. But where is the question.

Its a complete mystery!

 

[kiwitt]

Try experimenting with this parameter

			<bRenderBelowWater>1</bRenderBelowWater>

in the UnitInfos file. I note destroyers have this set as well as submarines.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Try experimenting with this parameter

			<bRenderBelowWater>1</bRenderBelowWater>

in the UnitInfos file. I note destroyers have this set as well as submarines.

This parameter is - literally - for rendering parts under water. It's not moving the model, but rather setting whether the submerged bits are visible through the water surface (hence subs have it - otherwise there wouldn't be a lot to see).

It would also be very helpful to tell us what unit you want to modify... the ships are partially submerged through the position in the nif-file itself. Every nif file has a origin (0, 0, 0), ships are usually slightly submerged below the x-y plane. If you're using NifSkope, go into the Render menu and select "Draw Axes" - then the origin is visible.

If you want to raise the model, the quick-&-easy (and slightly hackish) way of doing it is moving the node called "MD" in NifSkope. To do so, select the node (in the tree view), go through the details of the block and set the Z-value of the node to something >0.

Also, see attachment. Of course, don't forget saving the nif-file afterwards. Also, if it's not a stock CivIV-file, the nif structure might be a little bit different... experiment with it in that case.

EDIT: ...unless you want an unit that's partially below the waterline while on water and fully visible on land - doing that is harder (and above my pay grade), though possible (a couple of mods do similar things).

Cheers, LT.

 

[tchristensen]

Thanks both of you for opening some doors of exploration. I am stuck at work, but as soon as I get home I will need to poor over some of the XML and .NIF nodes you suggested.

I have need of this for two new units I am adding to the game. The first unit was a giant robot where he is both on land and in the water; my hopes were that I could get him to be rendered on land and then submerged in the water.

My second unit I was adding is a dinosaur (ala Jurassic Park Technology) but the units I found were all aquatic -- I just want the unit to be above the ground and not swimming through it. I think I have found a model someone had done in the past the does this, so perhaps I will be spared any additional work there.

This whole topic however opens up a pandora's box of interesting ideas that will no doubt come back around in the weeks ahead. I am counting the minutes before I can try some of these things out.

Thanks again!!