Unit creation

[Gaias]

Well the good news is if they give an exporter for 3ds/Maya and proper documentaton on the whole unit/leader/building creating process, they we can make all that stuff in no time. The bad news is those programs cost thousands of dollars, so those that could have made units won't. Though I am sure their are work arounds.

 

[WildWeazel]

What about texturing? Can we still swap skins without those programs?

 

[Ekmek]

thats what i was wondering:

... but could you post the text or better yet as an experiment put the legion/praetorian texture on the navyseal body and seewhat the unit looks like?

 

[vingrjoe]

Weasel Op, you should be able to change skins w/o a 3D program. Providing you just tweak the default one, since it is already mapped to the model ingame. I believe you can use PSP or Photoshop.

 

[WildWeazel]

I have a really stupid question. Where are the unit models? The only ones I can find are the ones in the American Revolution scenario.

 

[vingrjoe]

That's not a stupid question Weasel'. I looked everywhere and couldn't find them. I found the same ones you mentioned in the scenario folders. I wonder if the game pulls them from the CD ? Or if all the game models are packed into a file only the game can read.

 

[WildWeazel]

So much for reskinning the units.....

 

[Zurai]

They're in the Art0.fpk file in the assets/art directory. You can use the un-pak utility firaxis provided for the ATI fix to extract them and re-pak them.

 

[vingrjoe]

Have no fear Weasel Op. You can reskin the units. I did a quick paint job on the stealth bomber in Adobe Photoshop.

Just get that unpak utility here:
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/support_ati.htm

Scroll down past half way to get to the unpak directions.

BTW, you will need a DDS plugin for PSP or PhotoShop. Just do a google search. Nvidia makes a good DDS utility.

 

[Gaias]

BTW, you will need a DDS plugin for PSP or PhotoShop. Just do a google search. Nvidia makes a good DDS utility.

Or you could just use the DDS Converter and convert it to a .bmp and edit in MS Paint.

 

[Ekmek]

vingjoe any chance you can try that switching skins with the legion and the navy seal, like seeing a mosern legion unit?

or has any one tried mixing the RoN skins?

 

[vingrjoe]

Ekmek, from my understanding, you have to be careful of 'swapping skins'. Each model's skins or textures, are mapped to that model. Now if the seal and mosern legion have the same model, then you should be able to swap skins.

 

[Corn Shucker]

...Now if the seal and mosern legion have the same model, then you should be able to swap skins.

... which is very doubtful To get skins to work correctly, you wont be able to swap, You'll have to edit the unit's own dds file.

 

[WildWeazel]

edit: nevermind, I didn't look far enough

I think I owe you a hug.

 

[vingrjoe]

Here's another screenshot. I gave the gunship the ol' shark face .

 

[Zurai]

Awesome job vingr. I'm glad to see you're doing what you can while we wait for info on the .nif files and how to make our own new units. I'm pretty confident Firaxis wouldn't have gone through all this trouble to expose everything in the game to the XML and python and then prevent us from adding new models. I think if we have a little patience and give them time to get over their crunchtime hangovers, we'll get our answers

 

[vingrjoe]

I do hope you are right Zurai. For now, I may play with skins, but for the most part, I will stick with making models for Civ3 if and until the time comes when we can add new 3D models to Civ4.

 

[The Great Apple]

Here's another screenshot. I gave the gunship the ol' shark face .

LOL - that's awsome.

Now what we need is some sort of code which randomly switches between several skins available. That way you could have every unit looking subtly different - it'd be so cool!

 

[WildWeazel]

That would be cool. It could also be used for flavor units. Each civ could have a slightly altered texture.

 

[vingrjoe]

That would be cool. It could also be used for flavor units. Each civ could have a slightly altered texture.

For now, that is how we will have to do it, when adding a new unit. Custom skins, I assume, will have to act as placeholders until we are given the ability to add our models to the game.