Greek city model (WIP)

[Molleby]

After having colourcoded over 500 individual provinces on my map, I thought I'd just let it be for a day and work on something else. So, I thought, why not work on the map graphics, starting with the city. Not that I have done anything grand, but this is the general idea I'm working with:


(done in Milkshape - 272 vertices)

It's not yet finished, and not textured.

I'll do the first model as a full city with everything, being something like Athens. From there on I'll break it down into smaller cities. It brings me to another issue. Does anyone know if there are any limitations on vert count, texture format and size and so on. Does anybody know the numbers for the city models used in EUIII? (edit: loaded the model for largest latin city, vertice count 1688)

[Sir Kaptia]

Awesome. If your doing that, why not also change the way the units look and the way the cities look on the map?

[Capibara]

It looks good

[gigau]

I guess you could ask Modestus about his experience. He made a City Graphic Pack.

[Molleby]

That's right. Didn't see that until now. I'll ask him. Though I have been looking at the buildings that come with vanilla EUIII. Some of the buildings are about 2500 vertices, which to me seems a little much, since not many people tend to zoom so close in on the map as to see for example the statues that are standing in front of one of the buldings, I think it was the arts academy.

Originally Posted by Sir Kaptia

Awesome. If your doing that, why not also change the way the units look and the way the cities look on the map?

Well, the units might be a problem, since as far as I know nobody has figured out how to mod them. I have never seen their format before, while the map graphics are in the common .x-format. Which my wonderfully cheap Milkshape can actually import and export. Though I could be mistaken about the unit format. Has someone figured out how to edit the 3d-models of the military units, not just their textures?

[Modestus]

You can ask me anything you want except for my phone number.

I used Blender to design my Cities. I only know the basics but it did what I wanted and I learned something new on the way.

You asked if there are any limitations on vert count, texture format and size, Well I realised that I could use the buildings that you see in the city view which are very detailed too detailed really for the map. So my city files are huge about 1.34 MB for latingfx 3.3 compared to 154 KB for the vanilla file.

Any x file thats in the game can be used as part of your design once it scaled to fit your city. For example I could import the courthouse .x file change it to a blender file scale it down and then append it to my design. You may be able to do the same with Milkshape?

I think your right that a high level of detail is unnecessary for this map but I found when you try to simplify your design too much it ends up looking wrong in the game.

I tried to open the unit files but no luck. You can rename the pdxa file to an.x file and see some of the information.

I really don't understand why Paradox cant help us with this. Perhaps where just idiots.

[Fijj]

cool, I hope to use the in the future.

[Molleby]

Originally Posted by Modestus

You can ask me anything you want except for my phone number.

I used Blender to design my Cities. I only know the basics but it did what I wanted and I learned something new on the way.

You asked if there are any limitations on vert count, texture format and size, Well I realised that I could use the buildings that you see in the city view which are very detailed too detailed really for the map. So my city files are huge about 1.34 MB for latingfx 3.3 compared to 154 KB for the vanilla file.

Any x file thats in the game can be used as part of your design once it scaled to fit your city. For example I could import the courthouse .x file change it to a blender file scale it down and then append it to my design. You may be able to do the same with Milkshape?

I think your right that a high level of detail is unnecessary for this map but I found when you try to simplify your design too much it ends up looking wrong in the game.

I tried to open the unit files but no luck. You can rename the pdxa file to an.x file and see some of the information.

I really don't understand why Paradox cant help us with this. Perhaps where just idiots.

Hehe, was just about to write you.

Yes, the rescaling works with Milkshape, thank God. I am going to use the statues from one of the vanilla building as a large statue on top of the Acropolis and probably also in the Agora. As for vertice count, I think it would be allright if the largest cities keep the same vertice count as the largest city sets in vanilla. Though I am wondering if it would improve performance if I kept it significantly under the vanilla level. My computer is slow and I can only run EUIII on low settings and the speed is far from impressive.

As for the units editing (or lack there of), then I can't understand it either. Paradox, it makes no sense whatsoever, like the lack of moddable AI files. I had forgotten about the units issue, so now EUII has at least two advantages over EUIII. I'll take a sprite over a 3d-model anytime!

[Modestus]

Something that I tried but could not do was replace the 3D unit with a 3D rectangular box. My plan was that you could then texture this with a Soldier. In effect you would have a 3D unit card on the map. Unfortunately the game crashed so I went looking for any file that told the game to use the Pdxa files no luck. If it had worked you could have created an amazing amount of unit types very easily.

[Amob_m_s]

Glad to see your Greek project progressing. I would suggest adding one or two more small buildings at the base, as there are two somewhat large blank spaces in your current model.