Tutorial: Converting 3D Art from Civ 5/Civ BE to Civ 6

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Saka_HorseArcher_ArmorA.fgx is what i used.

sent you a pm with my mod Buddy Project.

 

[Wolfdog]

Something seems to Be wrong with the Saka Horse Archer in the Civ vi Assets modding Directory.

I made a Horse Archer, available for all Civs and my japanese Horse Archer ( i First Do Japan,Then versions for Other Civs, as i want to make more cultural diversity ) and something Is wrong when Its Time to Play the Saka attack Animation, Cause ingame, there isnt a Visible attack Animation. The Unit move a bit, and Then Thats it....the Enemy get their damage But without Visible been Attacked by the Horse Archer. I checked AND made everything Double , But no success...so i Wonder if they delivered Us a Saka Horse Archer, with wrong entries in the behaviour file when it comes to attack ?

Does the attack animation work in Asset Viewer?
Is there no typo where you reference the behavior file in your asset file?
Is it only the attack animation or do none of the animations work?
Have you checked the attack animation name in the behavior file against the attack animation file in the animation folder?

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Does the attack animation work in Asset Viewer?
Is there no typo where you reference the behavior file in your asset file?
Is it only the attack animation or do none of the animations work?
Have you checked the attack animation name in the behavior file against the attack animation file in the animation folder?

Unfortunately i Dont Know how to Play animations in asset Viewer
Yes there Is a typo to reference the behaviour file in the asset file, its correct just as in the Vanilla file.
It Is only the attack animations, there Are two attack animations in the behaviour file, both Do not work. All Other animations work Fine.
Indeed, i Do not checked the attack Animation Name in the Animation folder...will Do this later Today.

 

[Deliverator]

@lasttry I've got your Horse Archer playing the ranged animation in the Asset Previewer.

I had to add AO, Metalness, Gloss and TintMask textures to all your materials just to be able to load it up. Even then there was an issue with one of the Materials so I just replaced them all with Japan_Crossbowman_Armor.mtl. As far as I know every single material needs AO, Metalness and Gloss set for it to work - I *think* TintMask is the only one that can be left unset.

I removed the weird m_animationBindings entries that are setting many animations to "" - I know they are in Saka_HorseArcher_ArmorA.ast as well but they are redundant and confusing, but I'm not sure this makes any difference actually. At this point, I was able to view the model in the Asset Previewer and play the ranged attack animation (ATTACK_P). The model seems to behave the same as the Saka_HorseArcher_ArmorA in Asset Previewer so provided all the .artdef stuff is the same you should be OK.

I would advise you to use a different UnitMember name from "HorseArcher" in your Units.artdef because the clash with the existing entry could cause an issue and since you are making a new unit that doesn't exist in the base game (a generic Horse Archer) it would be better to give it a distinct name from HorseArcher which is used for the current Barbarian one.

I wasn't able to build out and test the unit in game as too much has been removed, but hopefully this is helpful.

 

[Deliverator]

I've done a quick Asset Previewer tutorial - if anyone has any other tips please post to that thread.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

ok. in my asset previewer i just Need the base Color, normal, and gloss texture to get it to work. so i never made any metalness or ao texture by now...unsure how important this is.
i changed the unitmember Name to NewHorseArcher but this Change aboslutely nothing from my Point at view...the attack Animation is not playing ingame....and i got no idea why.

 

[Deliverator]

I think there'll be something not quite right somewhere. To narrow it down maybe point your Unit_Bins entry to the original Shaka Archer Armor instead to see if the problem is on the artdef side or the assets side. It's not impossible that the assets files themselves are bugged and the Saka in game comes from a .blp that has a later fixed version.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I think the Problem Is definitely from the Assets side. The original Saka Archer armor Works Perfect in Game...hm...so my Horse Archer will only work correctly if they Update the Civ vi Asset Collection...ok. Good News Here though Cause today i finished my japanese swordsman. Looks Pretty nice 5 Units and 3 Ships Are left on my List for Japan.

I Hope you will not Be Angry deliverator, But i will Do my Own Sohei

 

[Deliverator]

I think the Problem Is definitely from the Assets side. The original Saka Archer armor Works Perfect in Game...hm...so my Horse Archer will only work correctly if they Update the Civ vi Asset Collection...ok.

I'm pretty that SakaHorseArcher.bhv isn't the Behaviour file that was used to make the unit in game because it only has Sound not visual effects such as the arrows. There is also a Saka_HorseArcher.bhv but that doesn't have any ranged attacks. I can probably fix up working Horse Archer assets when I have a chance to dig into it. We have all the raw Animation files so we can put together a new .bhv that actually works. Most Units use potential_any_graph.dsg but the Horse Archer and Maryannu Chariot appear to use Standard_Broadside.dsg. I'm little bit suspicious about that because other ranged units such as the Archer use potential_any_graph.dsg, but I guess the Horse Archers/Chariot fire sideways and are mounted so they are different.

I Hope you will not Be Angry deliverator, But i will Do my Own Sohei

No problem at all! The Sohei in Moar Units was made before we had any of the mod tools so is quite a crude effort. It's somewhere on my list to revisit anyway.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I'm pretty that SakaHorseArcher.bhv isn't the Behaviour file that was used to make the unit in game because it only has Sound not visual effects such as the arrows. There is also a Saka_HorseArcher.bhv but that doesn't have any ranged attacks. I can probably fix up working Horse Archer assets when I have a chance to dig into it. We have all the raw Animation files so we can put together a new .bhv that actually works.

Thats very interesting for me of Course let me Know if i could help you with put together a new .bhv file that actually Works for the Horse Archer. I will wait patiently and Hope you will find the Time to work on this new .bhv file for the Horse Archer

 

[Lion King]

Hey Guys,
Could you please advise what am I doing wrong here?
1. I got 5 files from dreadnought mod (animation is saved in a strange format ".ftsxml":

2. Then I move all this files into Nexus2 working folders and use "Resave all GR2 Files in Directory" - done, only one file got resaved.
3. Exported to "NB2" - the file size increased from 39kb to 354kb
4. Start Blender2.7+ and open Nb2 file (surprisingly no textures):

5. Convert nb.2 into br.2 - file becomes even bigger (453 kb).
6. Copy original cruiser.gr2 file from Nexus2 working folder to CivNexus6 working folder
7. Open CivNexus6 and open gr2 file - it automatically creates another .fgx file in Civ6 Nexus working directory
8. In CivNexus6 in the menu additional actions switch import filetype from cn6 to br2
9. In CivNexus6 hit the button "Overwrite" and select br2 file exported from the Blender - when doing so I am getting an error saying that there is something wrong with meshes. Should I do "overwrite" in the Nexus2?

 

[Wolfdog]

1. I got 5 files from dreadnought mod (animation is saved in a strange format ".ftsxml":

.ftsxml and .fxsxml are Civ 5 formats and not needed for Civ 6 units but they can be used for reference to find what animation files are used.

2. Then I move all this files into Nexus2 working folders and use "Resave all GR2 Files in Directory" - done, only one file got resaved.

Should not be needed for community made units, only firaxis made units. What you will need to do though is work out what animations the unit uses and resave all those.

4. Start Blender2.7+ and open Nb2 file (surprisingly no textures):

No they not there by default. You can add them manually but you should not need to.

9. In CivNexus6 hit the button "Overwrite" and select br2 file exported from the Blender - when doing so I am getting an error saying that there is something wrong with meshes. Should I do "overwrite" in the Nexus2?

Did you get an error message when you exported to .br2 from blender? No you should use CivNexus6.
EDIT: It looks like overwrite from .br2 does not work anymore. Export to .c6n and do a overwrite from c6n and see if that works.

 

[Deliverator]

EDIT: It looks like overwrite from .br2 does not work anymore. Export to .c6n and do a overwrite from c6n and see if that works.

There is now a radio button to switch between .cn6 import/export format and the old .nb2/.br2 method. The old .br2 import should still work in the same way if you switch the toggle.

 

[Wolfdog]

There is now a radio button to switch between .cn6 import/export format and the old .nb2/.br2 method. The old .br2 import should still work in the same way if you switch the toggle.

Thanks Deliverator, the only reason I said this was I got a dot net error when I tried that.

 

[Deliverator]

Thanks Deliverator, the only reason I said this was I got a dot net error when I tried that.

No sorry, you were correct - the .br2 import/overwrite was broken in CivNexus6 1.2.0. I have uploaded version 1.2.1 which includes a fix for this.

 

[Wolfdog]

No sorry, you were correct - the .br2 import/overwrite was broken in CivNexus6 1.2.0. I have uploaded version 1.2.1 which includes a fix for this.

Thank you. Once again you have saved the day.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Hey Deliverator,

I have seen your longswordsman in your MOAR units mod...and it looks like this unit do not use the Longswordsman animations from civ 5...but I also have seen that you guys tried to convert those animations for Civ 6.
If i want to make a Longswordsman for Civ 6 using the animations from Civ V, is that possible ? And if not, then let me ask why not ? Thanks

 

[Deliverator]

Hey Deliverator,

I have seen your longswordsman in your MOAR units mod...and it looks like this unit do not use the Longswordsman animations from civ 5...but I also have seen that you guys tried to convert those animations for Civ 6.
If i want to make a Longswordsman for Civ 6 using the animations from Civ V, is that possible ? And if not, then let me ask why not ? Thanks

Yeah, the Longswordsman I have in Moar Units/Steel & Thunder use a mixture of different Civ 6 animations from the pantry. I actually have an updated version where I have a new edited Idle animation adapted from one of the Berserker Idle anims.

Converting the Civ 5 Longswordsman via the above process is entirely possible and pretty straight-forward. The reason I didn't go down that route is because generally units that are pieced together from vanilla Civ 6 elements and animations tends to look a lot better. Civ 5 doesn't have a proper corresponding animation for all the Civ 6 animation actions so the behaviour when using Civ 5 anims can be quite clunky.

There's nothing to stop you from rigging Civ 6 models or models from other sources to Civ 5 skeletons and animations that have been converted to Civ 6. The only time I've done this so far is for the Ballista operators in the Even Moar Units: Persia & Macedon pack.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Thanks for the reply
I would like to add a Longswordsman with Longswordsman-Animations and the sword wielding with the grip in both hands.
In your MOAR mod the LSman have the blade in one of his hands...but I will Check what it Looks like when he is in combat.

 

[Deliverator]

In your MOAR mod the LSman have the blade in one of his hands...but I will Check what it Looks like when he is in combat.

My Longswordsman uses two hands to swing the sword in combat.