Predreadnought/Cruiser/battleship

[GeneralMatt]

Well after much experimenting I finally got a creation of mine to work in Civ 4!

Anyways, I know it probably needs a lot of work graphicaly, and there is no attack or death animations, but for me it is a huge step forward.

And besides maybe someone here can help me with those bits.

Anyways..

A few months back my cousin lent me this amazing ship encyclopedia, and as I was looking through it, I realized that there was many ships between the ironclads and destroyers.
The deck and recoloured/redecaled side pieces come from Chamaedrys' WW1 destroyer, and other pieces from the default battleship.

So as I am a big fan of naval stuff, I though I would try to recreate one.
This is basically a frigate with armour on it, and a engine.

It is supposed to be kind of like http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/spain/spsh-ag/aragon.htm"]http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/spain/spsh-ag/aragon.htm"]http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/spain/spsh-ag/aragon.htm
this but simplified.

I used different pieces for the skin from other things I have picked up over the last while.

So here is a couple pics and the file.. Tell me what you think please, even if you think that this is the worst piece of scrap metal since the Titanic, I would like to now.

GM

Edit: Btw It uses the destroyers animations (Well it is supposed to).

The class that I linked to actually fought in the Spanish/American war..

Edit 2: New version uploaded. Works with animations thanks to instructions by Chamaedrys! So now you see the death and attack sequences. Also new shading and the skin is changed a little bit.

Another Edit:

Added another version of the cruiser with a turret. Reworked the mesh some Uses Destroyers animations. Picture of the turreted battleship is in post 19.

 

[Bakuel]

It looks great!
(Is this the great woodelf position? Feels rather nice actually )

 

[GeoModder]

Ah, one of the real ironclads of its age!
Altho this type of units is still better off with frigate animations combined with chimney smoke. They did have broadside cannons...

 

[GeneralMatt]

Thanks both of you.

There is some broadside cannon there, but maybe it is hard to see.. That is those dark grey boxes on the side in the first pic. That is they way they looked in the book, so I am kind of proud of myself. But it all gets extremely dark ingame, I will have to try something about that. It is supposed to actually look tin, like in the first pic.

I originally wanted to put it on the frigates animation, with the frigate's rigging then I could actually have them animated. But I didn't know what the base node for the frigate was and I figured that was important.

But I only found out today I was attaching armatures the backwards and hard way, and that was why I shied away from starting with a human figure (Well, other than that any human I made would look like Frankenstein).

But I am still learning this blender bit, and now that I actually know how to get them into Civ 4 I will have a little more persistence .

 

[makrisgialos]

WOW!

ALL I CAN SAY IS WOW!
amazing unit-something that we miss-the gap in the sea uinits is HUGE!After the trully exceptional units by charmadeys,now this ambitious friend seems to help us all.this unit can be used mostly as a early battleship,but and as an ironclad as well."battleships"of that kind were in service from the 1860-till early 1900.after that year they gradually replaced by the predreadnoughts.my dear friend,congratulations on your excellent work.might not be perfect regarding graphics although i havent tested it,but i believe we can expect marvelous units,sea units from you.
for those which seek naval history,this ship reminds me very much"THE HUASCAR",better known as the "terror of the pacific".

 

[GeoModder]

for those which seek naval history,this ship reminds me very much"THE HUASCAR",better known as the "terror of the pacific".

Actually, it looks more like the Shah, the English iron frigate which fought the Huascar.

This appears to be the Huascar:

 

[Chamaedrys]

Thanks both of you.

There is some broadside cannon there, but maybe it is hard to see.. That is those dark grey boxes on the side in the first pic. That is they way they looked in the book, so I am kind of proud of myself. But it all gets extremely dark ingame, I will have to try something about that. It is supposed to actually look tin, like in the first pic.

I originally wanted to put it on the frigates animation, with the frigate's rigging then I could actually have them animated. But I didn't know what the base node for the frigate was and I figured that was important.

But I only found out today I was attaching armatures the backwards and hard way, and that was why I shied away from starting with a human figure (Well, other than that any human I made would look like Frankenstein).

But I am still learning this blender bit, and now that I actually know how to get them into Civ 4 I will have a little more persistence .

Hi!

Great model. It's good to see new ship models and new modders
I can help you with the animations and the darkness.

about the darkness:

1. Open your ship in the nif viewer
2. click "Geometry"
3. click "NiProperties"
4. open the "NiMaterial property"
5. set the all the values for Ambient, Specular and Diffuse color to 1.0
6. save it

about the death animations:

1. Open your ship in the nif viewer
2. add the destroyer
3. look at the scene graph of the destroyer
4. put your model into NiNode "DUMMY_Destroyer_Hull"
5. change position and size of your model so that it fit with the destroyer (more or less)
6. open NiNode "Damage_Boat_Texture"
7. delete the Nitrishape inside.
8. save the destroyer.nif under a new name. This is your model with destroyer animations.

Greetings

Chamaedrys

 

[GeneralMatt]

Thanks Chamaedrys.

Will those instructions work with Nifskope? I will try anyways. I am using blender/nifskope as though I know you can get Nif viewer with the Plugin of 3ds Max I think it was, I was not sure if you could use it if you do not have 3ds max..

And with Dial-up I didn't want to risk getting the wrong plugin..

GM

Edit: Sweet! Downloaded the plugin, and the viewer is nice..

Will have to do your instructions.

Ty,

GM

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Yes, it can work as a stand alone !

By the way, I wasn't aware of that until recently.

 

[GeneralMatt]

Thanks. Fortunately the DL wasn't huge.. But now I need to get off this and burn it on a disc (Haven't got one of those newfangled USB thingamajigs yet) and take it to my PC were I have all my stuff..

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, looks like you should be called AdmiralMatt. Good work!

 

[GeneralMatt]

Thanks Dom Pedro II . I have toyed around with asking for a name change ('specially on the Sid Meier's Pirates forum where I use a similar username).
But then I'd be liable to forget the username...

A little update:

Had a little trouble with the Nif Viewer as there seemed to be a DDL missing on me PC. But a quick copy/paste from this one (Were it works) fixed that. I hope that wasn't illegal though. I have already got in trouble once for accidentally asking for something illegal..


Chamaedrys, or anyone for that matter, if I want to attach the model to the frigate skeleton instead, is the equivalent of "DUMMY_destroyer_hull", "DUMMY_Frigate_hull"?

 

[Chamaedrys]

Chamaedrys, or anyone for that matter, if I want to attach the model to the frigate skeleton instead, is the equivalent of "DUMMY_destroyer_hull", "DUMMY_Frigate_hull"?

Yes it is. The nif viewer is a free and powerful tool. Happy that you like it.

 

[GeneralMatt]

Thanks.
New version uploaded, works with the destroyers animations (Death/attack).
The new skin is on the right. I will have to do something about the extremely white longboats though..

Still working on it though, the skin that is. Trying to get it to look right.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I think that a good addition to this might also be a turret. It could definitely use some guns.

 

[GeneralMatt]

I may just do that! It is supposed to have about 12 broadside gunports but I haven't got them distinguishable yet..

But a turret or two may help a lot! And as I am using the destroyer armatures it would work nicely..

 

[Chamaedrys]

I may just do that! It is supposed to have about 12 broadside gunports but I haven't got them distinguishable yet..

But a turret or two may help a lot! And as I am using the destroyer armatures it would work nicely..

Yes, make single nifs for the turrets and put them in the NiNodes for the turrets.

 

[GeneralMatt]

I will try that in a bit. Right now I wanted to try out the new units I added in my game, but it is not too important.

Though I would think turrets would make it a little less of a cruiser, as it would hurt the aerodynamics, and make it more of a battleship..

 

[GeneralMatt]

I think that a good addition to this might also be a turret. It could definitely use some guns.

Here you go. A turret! I just made a new unit (used the old model) instead of sticking it on the cruiser.

I also added the right skin with the cruiser, gave the wrong one last time. Now you can see those broadside gunports.

 

[makrisgialos]

ADMIRAL MATT,

THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!1