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riknap

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Lux Invicta Ancillary Aperture
[portal page for submods and misc documentations]



Lux Invicta - Better Looking Characters
[portal for integrated LI-BLC redevelopment]
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Better Looking Characters was made by Shaytana and previously integrated by default in Lux Invicta.
It is now reintegrated by default in Lux Invicta, with DLC-requiring files made a separate optional download (this file). You'll need all the DLC's to run this optional file.
Primary maintenance work is currently handled by DarkReborn and futuregary, so contact them for information and suggestions regarding this sub-mod.
If you're getting Runtime Errors, either disable this DLC-requisite LI-BLC submod OR follow the instructions in the first post of main Lux Invicta thread.

DOWNLOAD: v8d12+09 [optional DLC-requisite files]
CHANGELOGS:

v8d12+09
- Central Asian and Chinese portraits back to use non-DLC portraits
- Integrated the latest facepacks (Greek and Iberian/Italian) into BLC. Greeks used by the Hellens, Indohellens, Armenians and Ancient Levantine (Phoenicians, Nabateans, Hebrews). Iberian/Italian used by Romans, Italians, Catalans, Andalusians and Occitans,
- Catalans now use the Iberian facepack
- Occitan now Western faces + Iberian hair
- GFXCultures that can use early portraits and units do use them now if available

Older Logs:
v8d12+08
- new headgear for Mithraic priests (again)n clothes
- turkish portrait fix
- updated BLC-DLC for indiangfx and turkishgfx (BLC-DLC now also requires Rajas of India and the Turkish Faces pack)
- Added indiangfxcultures to graphicalculturetype.
- Updated ancient semitic headgear (it should look more Canaanite right now... maybe it needs a bit more of Tyrian purple)
- Integrated mongols face pack into BLC-DLC
- Cutted down a lot of useless portrait slots down to size, from 20 headgears and 18 clothing to 15 of both (Christian priest clothings removed, emperor clothings have been merged with the first clothing slot and noble clothings 4 has been eliminated). This may result in a (honestly unnoticeable) more limited wardrobe but it's a huge performance improvement, both speed and RAM usage wise.
- Filtered and dropped shadows on some pieces (they should look much better now)
- New Hellengfx culture (basically, a ton of white exomis + linothoraxes for the military. Oh, and Megas Alexandros' Herakles lion scalp helmet for Emperors)
- New Eastasiangfx culture, using a lighter variation of the most Asian looking parts of Crackdtoothgrin's steppe faces, with lighter skin tone, and a mix of my own work and rain005's on clothing and headgear, I'd say it looks pretty cool!! (Only sinohellenic+sinitic group cultures use it for now)
- complete set of latin clothes, better quality latin headgear (New military headgear for Latingfx and better looking laurel wreaths for them)
- Adapted the Turkish and Indian portrait packs in the BLC-DLC addon
- Central Asian gfx culture; for Huns, Uyghurs and Bodpa.
- Misc minor updates, mainly related to religious localizations and a fix to the northmangfx behind frames.
- made a makeshift frontend_title and modified load_0 (the pre-load screen) until we get an artist to do an actual nice looking one. or we keep this if somehow people like it.
- fixed northmangfx portraits' positioning. the damn 2.1.2 patch messing with my setup!
- changes to chinese portraits
- eliminated useless beards
- all the southern (levantine, andalusian, oldbyzantine) gfx cultures now use modified versions of the muslim eyes for each of them to further differentiate them from northern (frankish, german, celtic, etc...) gfx cultures.
- returned latin/mediterranean eyes to their former selves
- Made the eastasiangfx eyes more Asian to further differentiate from Altaic and Turkish gfx cultures.
- andalusiangfx (and persian, ancient semitic, etc...) females should look less spray-on tan and more natural tan.

v8d12+07
- Added secondary graphical culture to some cultures so that they use the unit pack DLCs in case the player owns them.
- Added stepperomangfx for non-DLC Sarmatae (not as awesome as the BLC-DLC culture, but looks cool enough)
- Andalusiangfx females and others derived from it (that is, indohellen, ancient levantine, occitan, etc...) should now look as tanned as their male counterparts
- Some adjustments to the Turkish beards.
- Removed the Persian beards until I can rework them (honestly, they looked kinda strange)
- Fixed some problems with the steppe, cuman and indohellen portraits
- Afropgfx seems to have a problem I cannot identify; it causes portrait disappearing bugs. Changed Afrophoenicians to ancient semitig gfx ATM
- fixed the indohellen portraits crash


v8d12+06
- New military headgear for king tier latingfx (Bling of war - Late Roman edition!!!)
- New religious clothing for Mithras religions (Phrygian cap!!!).
- Made unisex the religious headgear. I was tired of editing essentially the same file twice.
- New headgear for Pagan priests ( I was tired of the Halloween skull hood costume, this one looks at least realistic, may not accurate)
- Thorough update of religious clothing. Including new priestly togas for the Graeco-Romans and new modest monk robes for the Buddhists.

v8d12+05
- integrated the base non-DLC-requiring files in the main LI installation. This file is now an optional file that enables DLC-requiring assets
- New headgear for Roman/Rhomaion/Hellen rulers; laurel wreaths!! Solar group emperor tier wear the Corona Radiata (Radiant Crown) as seen in depictions of Sol Invictus and some emperors in roman coins. Non solar emperor tier wear a golden laurel wreath instead. King tier wear normal wreaths. Dukes don't get any headgear (romans weren't actually that big on headgear).
- Made the "medieval galeas" darker.
- New martial headgear and clothes for latingfx. The clothes are from a late Roman general reenactor uniform replica and same for the helmet. The helmet had a very ornate mask but I removed it, might re-add it for the imperial helmet though.
- New martial headgear for latingfx... it looks kinda strange I know (the base was a costume-quality helmet image...), but I tried to make it look like a blend between late roman-ish and medieval helmet styles. If people think it looks goofy I might remove it.
- tweaked the Persian beard (the one the Sassanid emperor has)

v8d12+04
- New graphical culture for the Afro-phoenicians
- New headgear for the Indohellen portraits (Alan nomad style crowns)
- "BLC-fied" Northman gfx culture from the AGOT mod (used with permission and given credit properly) for the Visigoths (they should look slightly less barbaric)
- Updated to lastest SCARRED version
- New headgear for the ancient Levantine cultures; Jewish, Nabateans and Syro-Arameans (Extracted/adapted from some Phoenician/Hebrew history illustration book sources I found)

v8d12+03
- DLC portrait cultures (Byzantine, Celtic, Norse and Russian) have their clothes and headgear updated to BLC standards.
- Most Altaic cultures (except Huns, Uyghurs and Mongols) use Crackdthoothgrin's Steppe Faces' hair, beards and headgear. Turks have a separate gfx culture.
- A lot of new gfx cultures made from combined DLC and BLC cultures material, such as the celtic-mediterranean galloromangfx or the norse-german teutonicgfx.
- Brand new Persiangfx graphic culture, with beards and headgear put together by me with whatever skills I could muster.
- Latingfx (Romans & company) and Byzantinegfx (Hellens & company, except Indohellens) use Velorian's Modified Mediterranean faces. Other cultures (where appropiate) use Shaytana's original BLC mediterranean faces
- Most Semitic cultures except Berber, Andalusian, Jewish/Levantine and Saqaliba use Velorian's Modified Arab faces. The later 4 use the faces Shaytana made for them originally.

v8d12+02
Integrated the Modified Mediterranean GFX for LI Greek-sphere cultures and the Modified Arab GFX for certain arab cultures.

v8d12+01
- Integrated cybrxkhan's Saxongfx for Central Germanic (germangfx) culture
- Integrated SCARRED by siroland portrait graphics for some of the health/physical/illnesses traits)
- Integrated clothes from Crackthoothgrin's Steppe Faces
- New religious clothings (made from combined material from vanilla, BLC and Steppe Faces). There's plenty to use now but I plan to expand on this.
- Fixed some minor alignment issues here and there.
- No more rulers here and there wearing bishop cloth. I'm done with that stupid fashion trend.
--DarkReborn
CREDITS:
- Shaytana for the original BLC
- Crackdthoothgrin for his Steppe Faces Pack
- Knuckey and the AGOT team for giving me permission to use parts of their work
- Cybrxkhan for letting me use part of his Cultures and Portraits Revamp
- Velorian for is Arab and Mediterranean improved GFX
- euroland for the Scarred micromod
REQUIREMENT NOTES: YOU NEED ALL THE PORTRAIT DLCs (UPDATED TO THEIR LATEST VERSIONS) (INCLUDING THE RAJAS OF INDIA DLC) FOR THIS DLC-REQUISITE ADD-ON, ELSE THE GAME WILL CRASH OR YOU EXPERIENCE PORTRAIT MISPLACEMENT ERRORS (IF NOT BLACK BOXES ).
ADDENDUM NOTES: IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING RUNTIME ERRORS OR CRASHES WITH LI-BLC ENABLED, EITHER a) DISABLE LI-BLC OR b) DISABLE NON-ESSENTIAL DLC'S OR c) REFER TO THE FIRST POST OF THE FAQS [CLAIRVOYANCE CORNER]. THIS IS CAUSED BY A MEMORY ISSUE DUE TO THE SCALE OF LI-BLC.



Lux Invicta - Auxiliary Links
[Lux Invicta documentations and mod-specific/ recommended-external sub-mods]
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Lux Invicta Documentations:

Lux Invicta Historical Timeline, created by Shaytana, the author and mastermind of this mod.
Lux Invicta SELIN Religion Guide, information about Numahr's SELIN religions researched and compiled by futuregary.
Spirituality Enhanced for Lux Invicta by Numahr, a comprehensive post of information on the SELIN-module integrated in Lux Invicta.


Recommended Lux Invicta Submods:

Mongol Invasion module, by futuregary. It currently ports vanilla mongols to the mod with date and religious conversion modifications.
[currently unsupported]

LIBERT3 Borders DLC v1
Adds optional internal-realm borders for choice.
Installed by manually copying the relevant border files to the map/terrain folder.

LIBERT3 Mercenary DLC
Adds all previously experimented generic retinues. Made optional due to balance reasons, as the AI tends to only hire skirmish retinues.
Install by simply copy-pasting the files.
Further details:
The following are the added retinues:
  • Veteran Infantry Company
  • Veteran Skirmisher Company
  • Hedge Knight Cohort
  • Arrant Knight Cohort
  • Veteran Horseman Company
  • Steppe Mercenary Band
  • Veteran Mercenary Regiment
  • Rhodoki Crossbowmen Contingent
  • Elite Spearwall Company
Like the other Lux Invicta retinues added via libert3, they have bonuses to make them stronger versus other units. But they are cheaper than cultural units (hard-coded) and are also slightly weaker in terms of combat strength bonuses in comparison to them.
Outdated, and will need to updated to accomodate v6I rebalance.
Kyrie Eleison
In a nutshell, Kyrie Eleison basically attempts to simulate the inherently unstable realms characteristic of both Shaytana's timeline and medieval history by making realms stable only up to a certain size, beyond which instability and desire for independence becomes paramount.
[ Currently under (re)development after v6H (will probably be reintegrated as well) ]

Recommended External Submods:

Dorimi's Alternative Music Experience (relevant "thread") - highly recommended BGM overhaul (though licensing rights are questionable, but the quality and immersion is not)
Decorus Visum, a mod by ancestral that enhances atmosphere (a font previously integrated, but now separately downloadable).
Vyllis Sound Module, by Vyllis (his own standalone mod). It has a suppressed old-school feel to it that blends well with Lux Invicta's atmosphere. This has been directly integrated, because I can.
 
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New BLC update looks excellent from the changelog. It shall be integrated at once (well when I can be bothered :laugh: ).
the funny thing is that the only real difference between DLC-BLC v8d12+05 and +06 is the portraits.gfx :p
(the majority of the changes are directly integrated in the main LI installation)
that said, it's 5mb anyway (~40+MB uncompressed), so you might as well download it and win-merge to see what changed next time anytime :3
 
Wait, so is Lux Invicta a requirement for this? Or can I run independently perhaps with HIP.
only LI-BLC requires LI itself (BLG [Better Looking Garbs] is the vanilla counterpart-descendant of the original Shaytanic-BLC). the others work well enough for other mods.
(in fact, Dorimi's music compilation in a way works better for vanilla since many triggers reference vanilla culture/religion groups)
 
Thanks for the help! Sorry for the late reply also.
I have another question, BLC seems to be a much more extensive mod then BLG and while BLG is great and I love it to bits! I was wondering if there are any thoughts of making some of the submods for LI independent of LI itself.
 
Thanks for the help! Sorry for the late reply also.
I have another question, BLC seems to be a much more extensive mod then BLG and while BLG is great and I love it to bits! I was wondering if there are any thoughts of making some of the submods for LI independent of LI itself.

previously, this was indeed the case, but it was kinda tricky maintaining multiple versions (ie. editing common files) so DR decided to remerge LI-BLC back into LI, with only the DLC-requisite assets separated.

I think we can make a submod that removes the BLC material, but that's maintenance heavy and thus entirely up to DR's discretion

edit: ahahaha, it looks like I misread the point of the post. I guess I'm just tired -_-
 
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It would be possible (to separate BLC from LI and release it as a separate mod for vanilla, If that's what you mean), but a lot of the content I have made post-Shaytana is specifically for LI; a Republican-era Roman clothing set, a Diadochi-era Hellenic clothing and an Ancient Semitic one, and so on. I based the Persian one on late Sassanid styles so I guess it fits in Vanilla's timeline. I can try to adapt some of the more early/late medieval content to vanilla though. If that comes to something, I'll post it in the main modding forum.
 
By the way, if you want some more Pagan or Middle-East themed event pics, check out the movie 10.000 BC. It's a disaster of a movie, but it has stunning visuals of bizarre-looking Egyptian-like monuments and priesthood. It can be useful.
 
Is there any way to make Better Looking Characters work with Vanilla or CK2+? If I check it with Vanilla, I get rid of the god-awful Mediterranean portraits and get wonderful Greeks and Byzantines, but all of my Catalans, Basques, Castillians, Portuguese, Italians, and Andalusian Arabs become invisible (except for the pupils, hair, and bears/mustaches). Been trying to finagle with the files, but I'm not a modder and don't know what to do.
 
You'd have to edit the common/cultures/00_cultures.txt file to match vanilla cultures to BLC graphical_cultures.
 
Yes, but you should make a copy of that in whatever folder you put the BLC files you will be using in vanilla (or a separate folder, with its own .mod file, so you can use the BLC portraits in both vanilla and LI without duplicating all the image files) and make the changes there.
 
Yes, but you should make a copy of that in whatever folder you put the BLC files you will be using in vanilla (or a separate folder, with its own .mod file, so you can use the BLC portraits in both vanilla and LI without duplicating all the image files) and make the changes there.

Hmmm. Maybe I didn't do this right. I copied Vanilla "00_cultures", and went into the file. Wherever I saw one of the missing faces, I copied the text from BLC "00_cultures" from the name of the culture, to the graphical culture data, to the colors in { }. I didn't move any folders or files around.

Edit: And now that I go to check it in-game, I found I haven't fixed it.
 
Did you put the copy in common/cultures/ in your new mod? Did you check the new mod you made in the launcher?
 
Did you put the copy in common/cultures/ in your new mod? Did you check the new mod you made in the launcher?

I did not make a new mod. I do not know how. You mentioned it as an option, but I just made copies of all the folders (I've got a terabyte). I just copied BLC's files into CK2 (after making copies). Interface to Interface. gfx/characters to characters. Then, in the 00_cultures and 00_graphicalcultures, I copied the relevant lines of text from the BLC versions into the vanilla files.
 
Are you launching your modded copy of CK2 from its CK2game.exe? You won't be able to launch a different copy of CK2 from the Steam launcher.
 
Are you launching your modded copy of CK2 from its CK2game.exe? You won't be able to launch a different copy of CK2 from the Steam launcher.

Perhaps I am not following. My modded copy of CK2? I have BLC and the music mod (above) enabled.

I have also been launching with CK2+. When I launch without CK2+ enabled, the Basque portraits disappear and Castilians/Portuguese become "noculture" but their portraits show up.
 
Never make changes to the vanilla files in the vanilla folders. They'll just be overwritten the next time Paradox issues a patch. Always make a mod to make your changes. You just need to make a mod file and a folder to place your modded files in... in the appropriate place in the directory tree, of course, so CK2 can find them.

You'll need different 00_cultures.txt files for vanilla+BLC, and CK2Plus+BLC. Vanilla's cultures aren't CK2Plus's cultures aren't Lux Invicta's cultures aren't HIP's cultures. Have you considered BLG as a more accessible alternative?