[GRAPHICS] What If Unit Thread: Matsuda123, Kine100, and Mattem's Latest Additions

[PPQ_Purple]

Speaking of damage textures I have pretty much given up on getting those to work for me. Like I tried and tried but I always get the same bug where the texture shows up and works during combat but won't stay after combat is done.

 

[MightyToad]

Speaking of damage textures I have pretty much given up on getting those to work for me. Like I tried and tried but I always get the same bug where the texture shows up and works during combat but won't stay after combat is done.

Can you post an example? That is weird. Assuming you use vanilla animations that shouldn't be possible.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I don't have any functioning examples any more as I pretty much gave up trying 2 years ago. But I remember it being a serious problem.

 

[MightyToad]

Well, two things come to mind. Maybe damagestates isn't set to "4" in the XML. Or maybe the mesh has a different name than the vanilla one. The damage KFs refer to the mesh by name. And only work on one. If two have the same name they only work on the first one.

That said, I would expect them to not work at all if either was the case.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It even happened to me on models that are literally just reskins of CIV4 units with no changes other than to the main texture.

 

[MightyToad]

I checked your previous thread about this PPQ. I don't think its the nif at all.
You should check your folders, and see if you unpacked the frigate into the game somewhere. You might have tinkered with the animations, and the game has been running off those ever since rather than the vanilla ones in the FPK.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I definitively have touched the animations but not the damage ones. Plus I checked and I had similar issues with some old tank units that I just loaded into the base game completely unrelated.

 

[MightyToad]

Hmmm. Well, I would still make sure the animations are 100% vanilla. And make sure there isn't a folder named "units/frigate".

When troubleshooting I guess its time to widen our net. We've eliminated the nif and the animations. Then the next things to rule out would be XML, or enter the python zone.

 

[MightyToad]

I definitively have touched the animations but not the damage ones. Plus I checked and I had similar issues with some old tank units that I just loaded into the base game completely unrelated.

I checked your xml in your module and it lacks the damagestates entry.
<iDamageStates>4</iDamageStates>
It goes after the ShadowDef entry.

I tried running the game with it removed and it cycled through the damage states randomly like the T1000 at the end of Terminator 2.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Cool. I guess I'll add that to the next release come new year.
Also remind me to add you into the credits for that one.

 

[Matsuda123]

You are correct MightyToad. I will correct the Haida Galley, and all my other unit, instructions as soon as possible. I didn't include a damagetexture because... I don't know how that works yet, and I didn't make one actually... Baby steps lol. I'll get to work on that Pot de Fer either tonight or this weekend. Shouldn't take long good sirs. What do you think? Should I put it on wheels like a siege unit, or make a smaller one, and have it be for the Chinese Hand Cannon unit animations from the Genghis Khan scenario?

 

[MightyToad]

You don't need to make a damage texture. I never do. The haida galley just uses the tireme damage 128 dds one. Should be in one of the zip files somewhere. It just needs to be in the same folder with the nif.

I think the fire pot vase cannon thing should have wheels. Or maybe a sledge type thing. It would look dumb for a static object to slide across the ground. Unless it is a hand held thing. I don't know anything about them.

 

[Matsuda123]

Ah I see. I will fix that soon, and upload the Fire Cannon officially.

I will put it on wheels lol. I agree, static units look dumb.

 

[MightyToad]

This took 100x longer to do because I wrote a tutorial along the way for you Matsuda123 (and anyone else). There is a problem with the gun. The vanilla transport has two guns on either side while this ship only has one tiny one in the middle. So, it doesn't move right at all.
I'll let you decide what to do about it. Maybe if you can take over yourself if the tutorial works.

 

[Matsuda123]

Alright, thanks man. I'll have a look at that. I appreciate any tutorials honestly. I'll see about other guns, or some solution and get back to you soon.

I also wanted to ask you, do you think you could do custom animations on a gunpowder unit? I loved the old musketman from Civ III with the stand, and I was wondering if you think would be able to modify some unit to operate somewhat like that. Something similar to this picture. If so, I would like to make a whole range of musketmen units for different culture groups. Theoretical Mesoamerican muskets, African ones too. That kind of thing. If you can't though that is totally ok and I understand. Custom animations are really hard from what I've heard.

 

[Matsuda123]

 

[MightyToad]

I don't know. Maybe. Human models are much, much harder to animate. Animating a simple mechanical object is pretty straight forward. Human models have a dozen bones that all move subtlety that is surprisingly difficult to recreate.
Unless you want your unit to move like robocop.

This looks like it would still fire basically like the vanilla musketman, but with a stand. The question is what does it do when it's not firing? Does it fold up or something?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Honestly what I'd do with it is simply make it vanish when not in use. As in, during the idle and run animation it would vanish and than reappear out of thin air during the fortify and strike animations.

 

[<Nexus>]

Honestly what I'd do with it is simply make it vanish when not in use. As in, during the idle and run animation it would vanish and than reappear out of thin air during the fortify and strike animations.

As a player and modder I would be happy with such animation. Civ4 is old and I wouldn't expect more than this.

 

[Matsuda123]

Yeah you're all probably right, the stand probably wouldn't work out too much. I think I'll stick to muskets, handcannons, stuff like that without stands. Humans are pretty hard to animate, lord knows I don't know how yet.

Also this tutorial is awesome MightyToad. I'm very excited to figure it all out. If this allows me to texture and rig, this whole process can go much faster, and I will finally be able to look into doing buildings too. Thank you.

Here is the Pot de Fer, along with a viable cannonier to go along with it.