[RESOLVED] Need Help exporting unit from 3ds max 9 to civ4

Hi, I'm pretty new to modding for Civ4.. I recently made a tank from scratch in 3ds max and when I tested it in Civ4 both the model & textures worked fine. I then tried to modify the NavySeal Unit and when I tried to test it, it didn't work, I tried the texture alone and it was fine, I then tried the model alone and it was still not working (the unit seems invisible). So I then tried to just open the original NavySeal and export it back to the nif format, without making any changes and it still didn't work..

Anyways to make it short : I believe the problem is that I'm not exporting the unit right, something to do with the fact that it has a bone structure and 3 elements (unit, weapon & walkie-talkie) and that the game only shows the weapon & walkie-talkie while the unit is invisible.

Here's a little pic explaining my problem :

 

There is another plugin for 3ds max that exports nifs. With the niftools plugin I couldn't export shaders properly. Unfortunately the other plugin works only till ver. 8. That's actually all I can tell you as I never used the niftools plugin for mentioned reasons...

 

Well the thing is that I was able to export a tank. I don't know what to check in the Export General Options window..
And every tutorial seems to be for older versions of 3ds max or Blender... If I don't find a solution I guess I'll have to install Blender and just use it when my model is done and I need to export it or something

I'm a bit lost here, there's so many different tutorials and plugins available. I have a lot of plugins laying around on my desktop "niftools-max-plugins-3.4.2.4632.7z" "Import Plug-ins for 3ds max.zip" "CivilizationIV-MaxTools-v7+.zip"

 

I think that's the plugin I use for exporting, but it is not compatible with max 9.

Also, did you do a nifswap? As mentioned I didn't work with the niftools plugin as exporter (only importer), but when exporting with the other plugin, you need to nifswap. That means you need to copy each mesh from the exported nif to the original, unchanged nif and replace the meshs there. AFAIK even with Blender this step is necessary. I could even imagine that your problem is actually the importer. It might screw up something that you later export again. That would explain why a unit made from scratch works fine.

 

oh yay you were right, I didn't know about the nif swapping, thanks a lot !! Everything works fine now, so I guess 3ds max 9 works with Civ 4 after all

Thanks again for your help !

 

I think it works partially. As long as you are only working on units, it might wok 100%. Problems start when working on leaderheads. If you want to have it shadered, you need to set it to TLeaderheadShader or TLeaderheadShaderNoSkin. It is included in the exporter plugin I mentioned before, but I had no luck exporting it properly with niftools plugin...

 

allright, thanks for the info.