Tom's Unit Factory

[tom2050]

If I put up a tuturial on the basics of doing these, along with all the files I use and have setup, would anyone be interested in doing these Atlantica Online units also?

3ds Max has a free trial for 2010 version... and I believe it is 30 days. The AO game took a long time to download from the Ndoors site (servers didn't seem the fastest), but if I place explanations of how to do everything with pic's, there is nothing overly complicated involved.

If anyone wishes, I can put one together next time I do an AO unit.

For the special effects, those can be done as well; but may be a bit more complicated to do than the basic setup of the unit. And to add Civ Color to the units, you must modify the DDS texture files (recolor w/e portion to blue you want civ colored). Nvidia has created a DDS plug-in for Photoshop and PSP (and I believe a GIMP v is available).

Instructions to convert the Atlantica Online DDS header files via DOS prompt can be given so they can be read via the Nvidia plug-in and 3ds Max.

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In essence, when everything is setup... you import the NIF model into 3ds, then import the KF animations into 3ds. I create 2 Magenta colored 'Floors', 1 for shadow and 1 under for background. Setup a few fill lights, 1 light for shadow, and 1 for unit illumination. All values will be given for these, so they are the mostly the same for every unit.

Position the camera correctly to center the unit and to make sure render size of unit is what you want it to be in game. The script I put together will render all 8 directions automatically; must be done for each animation though. Batch file will auto copy these to a folder for use with Steph's SBB. And that is pretty much it. I do some Photoshop work after, but it's nothing excessive (making sure the Magenta background is a single ff00ff hex color).

Adding weapons is pretty simple also.

 

[utahjazz7]

Tom, your animations are really fantastic—very expressive and powerful. I enjoy seeing the units you create. Good job.

 

[tom2050]

Tom, your animations are really fantastic—very expressive and powerful. I enjoy seeing the units you create. Good job.

Thanks, but I don't actually create any of it... only things I really do are modifications to textures and I do create the particle effects. Animations and models are all from the game. I try to make it clear that it is not my original work

 

[Grandraem]

Not too traditional looking of a sphinx, but a very cool looking unit anyways. As always, you did an awesome job of converting it.

I feel like this thread is a goodie hut, and it never has barbarians in it.

 

[tom2050]

Here are the latest upcoming:

Hydra
This is the original model but with a recolored texture (originally was brownish).

Chaos Hydra
Recolored, and I added 2 additional Hydra Heads to the original model (figured out how to do so after a LONG TIME)

Will be used for CoMM3

 

[Vuldacon]

Another Cool Unit Tom... Glad you have found the ways to make additions and changes easier. Great to see all of the New Units you convert for the CIV Game

 

[nick0515]

If I put up a tuturial on the basics of doing these, along with all the files I use and have setup, would anyone be interested in doing these Atlantica Online units also?

3ds Max has a free trial for 2010 version... and I believe it is 30 days. The AO game took a long time to download from the Ndoors site (servers didn't seem the fastest), but if I place explanations of how to do everything with pic's, there is nothing overly complicated involved.

If anyone wishes, I can put one together next time I do an AO unit.

For the special effects, those can be done as well; but may be a bit more complicated to do than the basic setup of the unit. And to add Civ Color to the units, you must modify the DDS texture files (recolor w/e portion to blue you want civ colored). Nvidia has created a DDS plug-in for Photoshop and PSP (and I believe a GIMP v is available).

Instructions to convert the Atlantica Online DDS header files via DOS prompt can be given so they can be read via the Nvidia plug-in and 3ds Max.

---------------

In essence, when everything is setup... you import the NIF model into 3ds, then import the KF animations into 3ds. I create 2 Magenta colored 'Floors', 1 for shadow and 1 under for background. Setup a few fill lights, 1 light for shadow, and 1 for unit illumination. All values will be given for these, so they are the mostly the same for every unit.

Position the camera correctly to center the unit and to make sure render size of unit is what you want it to be in game. The script I put together will render all 8 directions automatically; must be done for each animation though. Batch file will auto copy these to a folder for use with Steph's SBB. And that is pretty much it. I do some Photoshop work after, but it's nothing excessive (making sure the Magenta background is a single ff00ff hex color).

Adding weapons is pretty simple also.

Yes I would certainly be interested and very grateful. For my fantasy scenario I can use just abount anything you convert but it would be great if I could pick specific units I need for heroes and convert them myself. Plus I'd love to help you convert them generally. And lastly I'd really like to have a go at converting the units from Dawn of War and doing a tutorial from you would tech me a lot about 3ds max. I'm sure the process would be a little different for that game but a lot of what you put in your tutorial would be applicable I'm guessing.

Cheers,

Nick

PS: More awesome units, Tom! Thankyou! You are the King!

 

[Grandraem]

Hydras look great, especially the Chaos Hydra. You added 2 heads? Great job with that. I guess it's not strictly a unit conversion then. Great work.

 

[utahjazz7]

Thanks, but I don't actually create any of it... only things I really do are modifications to textures and I do create the particle effects. Animations and models are all from the game. I try to make it clear that it is not my original work

Oh, okay. I knew that the models came from other sources, but I didn't know that the animations did as well. Oh well, I still enjoy seeing them.

 

[Ozymandias]

... Hmm ... Any chance of a very similar three-headed puppy named, "Cerberus"?

Best,

Oz

 

[tom2050]

Yes I would certainly be interested and very greatful. For my fantasy scenario I can use just abount anything you convert but it would be great if I could pick specific units I need for heroes and convert them myself. Plus I'd love to help you convert them generally. And lastly I'd really like to have a go at converting the units from Dawn of War and doing a tutorial from you would tech me a lot about 3ds max. I'm sure the process would be a little different for that game but a lot of what you put in your tutorial would be applicable I'm guessing.

Which? Dawn of War 1 or 2? Before you download the 3ds trial, let me check to see if Dawn of War models can be imported into 3ds. Some use strange proprietary formats. The demo is available to download from their site, so I can check depending on which game you are referring to. Also, if you plan on doing Atlantica Online Units, start downloading that game from their site because it takes a while.

In the meanwhile, I will start a tut up.

@Grandraem: Well, I didn't create the other heads from scratch, but they are more appropriately 'clones' of the other heads... had to modify the unit's biped bone structure to get them to work, etc.

@Oz: I have a Cerebrus conversion I haven't put up yet, but it is from HoMM4 Sprite. That one looks alright. But I would like to give a 3d model a shot... conjoin a couple more heads on a scroungy mutt. Maybe add some flames.

 

[tom2050]

Hydra (unit conversion)

Civ Colours have been added. Texture recolored from original colors.

Download here... HydraB1.rar

Unit32, Large/Small pcx, and Sound Files included. Is an Atlantica Online unit.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Chaos Hydra (unit conversion)

Civ Colours have been added. Texture recolored from original colors.
I have added 2 additional Hydra Heads to the original 3 headed model.

Download here... ChaosHydra.rar

Unit32, Large/Small pcx, and Sound Files included. Is an Atlantica Online unit.

 

[nick0515]

I'm talking about Dawn of War 1 (and it's expansions, which I have). I haven't played DoW 2 yet. I did some preliminary reading and it looks like modders of DoW 1 have created programs to import the models and textures into 3ds max. Not sure if the same goes for DoW 2. Feel free to confirm this though. Also take your time with the tut as it may be a wee while before I can give it a go anyway. But I definitely will try it. Is there anything stopping you from downloading trial versions of programs over and over again when they expire?

Cheers,

Nick

 

[Grandraem]

Hydra looks great. Already downloaded!

Well, the extra two heads on the Chaos Hydra may just be clones, but you did a great job of adding them on, and it was still extra work.

 

[Blue Monkey]

If I put up a tuturial on the basics of doing these, along with all the files I use and have setup, would anyone be interested in doing these Atlantica Online units also?

I'd greatly appreciate a tutorial. I'd probably use it as a basis for learning to do conversions using Blender/GIMP. If I can work out those techniques I'll post them as a supplement to your tutorial.

 

[tom2050]

I just installed a new HDD, because mine was down to low amount of free space; each unit takes up about 500MB-1GB of space, and although I delete the majority of the files after the unit is done, space is slowly eaten up.

So I am copying all my Civ 3 files over to the new drive to make things in a more easily accessible spot. I will do the unit bigdog5994 asked for a few pages back; and make the tuturial based on that.

It will be good because I can cover almost every aspect, including adding a weapon, altering the unit model itself (I will increase the Horn Size of the unit, etc), making changes to the texture file to add civ colors, recolouring the texture file itself to get the look you want, setting up lighting, magenta background and cameras, (possibly adding particle effects, although I won't go into it at all in depth, but will give some links that are easy to follow to do yourself; google is your friend here), give the directory folders/files for download that I use that are ready to go for doing Atlantica Online conversions (with everything you need), 3ds Maxscript I built which auto-rotates the model and renders it, and Niftools info, DDS Converter instructions for getting AO DDS texture files to be readable by 3ds and graphics programs, links to Nvidia DDS Tools and all the other small little tidbits involved.

@Blue Monkey: I've never used Blender; I'm not even sure what it does If it can import NIF/KF files (with a plug-in) then it should be able to do 3d model conversions as well. EDIT: Looked it up; seems it can do everything: http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender. So anyone should be able to get this free opensource program to do these. Excellent BM! . From the looks of it, Blender is built exactly to handle everything that needs to be done!

@nick0515: I'm not sure about how to do that... my guess would be that trial programs put an entry into the registry somewhere so it knows if the trial is still valid or not. How to change this registry entry or delete it is probably a tricky bit. Messing with registry entries is tricky anyways, make sure you back it up first before attempting anything. But perhaps if BM can append a tuturial on using Blender, it may be the way to go since it is free and opensource after the 30 day 3ds trial ends.

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Although it may seem like a lot, once you do a couple and get it down; the Atlantica Online units are actually quite easy to do. It's getting past setting everything up and being overwhelmed by 3ds hordes of options that look like an alien language. But once you get used to the interface, it's not so bad . I'm not sure what Blender looks like, but it may be even better since freeware that can do everything is just as good!

 

[bigdog5994]

Yay!!!

 

[nick0515]

Well perhaps what I'll do is go through your tutorial with the 3ds Max trial version then see if I can apply what I've learned to Blender. I'm very much in favour of open source programs and can't really afford to buy 3ds Max anyway. Don't want to mess around with registry files either.

So with atlantica online do I just download the game from their website? Is it like WOW where you can just download the game but you have to pay inorder to play it online?

Exciting!

Nick

 

[tom2050]

You can download here on their website, don't need to sign up or anything. Then just wait for the 678 MB download to complete and install (takes a while, prepare to leave your computer on for a bit), and that's it. All the files are installed that you need to w/e directory you choose, don't ever need to actually play the game or sign up unless you want to. No info is asked of you by the website.

I downloaded the full client (not the lite client), because I wanted all the files, not just a few to try the game out. Full client is the little yellow 'Click Here' underneath the Client Download Big Blue Box.

 

[nick0515]

Downloading Atlantica Online.

You need to change the link on the first page to the Infinitum units. I have been clicking on it for a week and getting a site maintanence message but your link in your unit tutorial which I just happened to try works fine.

I still wanna try and get the infinitum unit I started done. Going to try again from scratch though.

Cheers

Nick