[C4:AC][Art and Graphics Main]

[The Revolution]

Alright, lowered the poly count for those who don't have a Morgan Electronics Sixth Year Graphical Polysentience, and instead are trying to play Civ4 on a Voodoo 2.

Original: 0 Polygons

Low Poly: 612 Polygons

Old High Poly: 1362 Polygons


And a larger picture of the lower poly one, in case anyone wants to insult it in detail:


Sorry to spam the images, but I like to be thorough.
Well, I lowered the poly count by more than half, and I made it taller, having been under the impression that it was too stubby before. Of course, now I think I made it too tall. Ahh, thus is life.

Keep in mind, it's still that high because I'm assuming there'll be no buildings but it. It probably has the same poly count as eight huts and a granary, possibly with a wall, which is like, a basic size 2 town in Civ 4. But hey, I could be wrong. If there's your standard Civ 4 urban sprawl, it's likely too high poly to act as a 'Palace' portion, like gkclarkson's might.

[GeoModder]

Looks nice as well, but indeed the "stubby" look of the highpoly one has gone. It looked better to me when the main thing was a bit shorter.

[The Revolution]

Yeah, I'm going to shorten it a little. But I'm almost done making a home for the poor Spartan survivalists. I'll fix the Hive when I'm done with that, and put both up.

[GeoModder]

Take your time. It's not like the programming team is close to completion.

[The Revolution]

Well, this is pretty much it until after New Years. Don't expect I'll have access to 3D Studio on the beach in Mexico.

So, before I go, I suppose I'll give the Spartans a place to stay for the holidays. Even diehard survivalists need to come in from the cold, and hang up their stockings.






And here's the slightly tweaked Hive.



The Spartan city is clocking in at 414 polys, which is likely to be low enough for anyone not trying to run Civ4 off an old Super FX chip salvaged from the original Star Fox for the Super Nintendo.

[Senethro]

I never twigged that those were Spartan banners on the side of their bases! Well spotted!

[Illuminatus]

Excellent work The Revolution.

Originally posted by Senethro
I never twigged that those were Spartan banners on the side of their bases! Well spotted!

[PJayTycy]

I found this in the general Civ4-creation forum:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4289394#post4289394

Let's get some in-game footage of the nice graphics mods!

[Senethro]

I thought this was a good thread to bump, especially with the final version of the modelling tools out.

[Rubin]

I have no 3D skills, but I managed to load a .nif leaderhead file into the Blender 3D tool:

Edit: Image deleted.

From what I think I see (sic!)--I am seeing a detailed 3D model composed of different 3D elements. My first question is:

1) Can we modify these specific 3D elements (just a little perhaps) and make it show in the game?

The next thing I believe I see is keyframes. Those are a kind of snapshots of the 3D model in different positions. When animating the model it cycles through these snapshots, but in one smooth animation. My second question is:

2) Can we add or reduce the number of keyframes and still have an animation shown in the game?

If it is possible to modify the 3D model and adjust the keyframes, we just need a way to add texture and we could have some good looking 3D leaderheads of the SMAC/X faction leaders. Well, at least I have an idea on how we could approach it...

[MMC]

Concerning Civ4's city sprawl... SMAC(X) sort of had a sprawl, and there are several ways you could recreate it.

They would all have a Unity Lander Module at the centre of their capital with their respective palaces next to them... then for standard cities, you'd just have a smaller form of the palace as the starting point (so the ULM would be the actual palace as far as game mechanics is concerned).
For each faction you'd have slight architecural differences, the biggest being that the Hive buildings would all look alike and be very small and seperated (because their bulk would be below ground).