Please help with NifSkope & bad Wonder skins...

[draco963]

I've tried to include a pair of previously created Wonders in my mod, but they haven't been built correctly, and so the NIF's don't display in-game. Neither in the City Screen, 'Pedia, or main map. I downloaded NifSkope, and tried editing the two offending Wonders, and when I opened them up, I could see the shape of the structure, but it had no skin. Just plain white.

So, I fiddled around a bit, found the Auto-Detect Game Paths (which got all the other NIF's working), tried re-saving the DDS files through a couple of different programs (trying to make sure the Alpha-layer was included properly, with no MIPs), and finally just renamed the DDS files. Which worked. I have no idea why, but it worked.

Kinda.

It took some more fiddling and futzing to get the DDS to load for one of the Wonders (didn't like the first rename, renamed again, loaded). But, the other one (Sphinx) still doesn't show in-game. The 'Pedia shows a mostly blank page, displaying only the blue box with the Build Icon in the top-left corner, but nothing else. Loading up a savegame from before the Sphinx had been built, still nothing in the City Screen. Trying to load up after that Wonder had been built caused an insta-crash. So, though whatever I did made the skins visible in NifSkope, CivIV really didn't like it... But, oddly enough, though I did the same thing to both, Scool of Confucius now shows properly. I can't check if it displays correctly in the City Screen or map though, cause right now, as I said, the Sphinx is causing a CTD.

Attached, please find the art files for both Wonders. The #2 NIFs are my attempts...

Thanks.

 

[GeoModder]

Nifskope (in my experience) never shows textures (.dds files). To see pretty colors you need the SceneViewer which Firaxis provided to us.
Also, SceneViewer is in my book the better tool to put .nifs together. A shadow is basically also a .nif object.

 

[Refar]

I think the "BinaryExtraData" block on Sphinx2.nif might be a problem. You should remove it.

@Geo - NifScope will usually displlay textures, if they are in the same folder as the Nif.
If it doesn't, make sure the "Textures" checkbox is on - in the Render->Settings menu. Should sort it out in most cases.

Some textures are within the FPK files [or] in the shared folder (i.e. City Set ones). If you unpack the FPK, and add the path to the unpacked shared folder to the "Texture Foldes" list under "Render->Settings" you will have these textures displayed as well.

Something like (path might vary of course.):
.\ <-- Local
E:\Civ4_Halde\Unpacked_Art\shared <-- Unpacked Shared art
E:\Games\CivIV\Assets\Art\shared <-- Vanilla Shared Art folder
E:\Games\CivIV\Beyond the Sword\Assets\Art\Shared <-- BTS shared art folder.

You want to keep .\ on top, so local textures come first.

 

[GeoModder]

@Geo - NifScope will usually displlay textures, if they are in the same folder as the Nif.
If it doesn't, make sure the "Textures" checkbox is on - in the Render->Settings menu. Should sort it out in most cases.

Thanks.
Is there also somewhere an option where you can add a new .nif file in an open Nifskope window, like you can in sceneviewer?
Or to allow have more then one NifSkope window open at the same time?

The above two options are the only reason I haven't ditched the sceneviewer yet.

 

[Refar]

You can get a second window from File->New Window menu. (And a third, and... however it will get really slow when you open too many).

If you only need to move a single object you can also do with one window - open source file, select and "copy branch" what you want to take, then you can just open the target Nif in the same window and "paste branch" where you want the stuff to go.

In C.Rolands tutorial are some more detail and a few pictures. It's on LH's but the basic stuff work just the same. Copy/Paste, moving and re-referencing nodes - pretty much everything else works the same or very similar.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=183742

You can skip the Blender Part in the Beginning and start somewehere after the 3-rd picture.

 

[draco963]

To see pretty colors you need the SceneViewer which Firaxis provided to us.

Eh? Provided to us? Where?

And I got it sorted. Deleted that extra Binary block, didn't work. On a whim, I tried changing the DDS to the remane for all the Sphinx files, and now it works... Duh, I was editing the worng one the whole time... Got to learn to stop assuming... yeesh.

Thanks guys!

 

[Voltron81]

Is there also somewhere an option where you can add a new .nif file in an open Nifskope window, like you can in sceneviewer?

nisourcetexture blocks are what you want to look for. Then in the value column there is a puple flowerish thing that is your texture path. It would be prefered to have it in the same file folder as your nif. If you do not, the file path probably wont be the same on every computer so it will turn out white default. I noticed i had to edit units that i downloaded so they follow this pattern.

Another little trick that i learned if you right click in the render view goto texture then edit uv. You can remap the texture. Highly useful if using existing skins in new ways. Just move the points around. you can drag a box around multiple points as well.

Almost forgot, paint.net is good for editing .dds files without changing them back and forth.