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#1
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For a long time now, I've been itching to start a thread like this and talk with you, dear comrades, about what it is we do.

I really, truly hope for your response. Even if we are currently more of a ghost town than a living and functioning community. I have accumulated many thoughts and emotions, and it would be a great pity if everything I write below were spoken "into the void".

In short, this is how mods are made
for mount and blade warband

https://www.moddb.com/mods/grim-age-skirmish/images/elite-chaos-warriors-shields#imagebox


https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade/mods/2779?tab=images


https://rusmnb.ru/index.php?topic=12480.0

for jedi academy



https://www.moddb.com/mods/neo-dark-ages/images/horses#imagebox


https://jkhub.org/files/file/1004-toshis-anakindarth-vader/


https://jkhub.org/files/file/2127-savage-opress-robotic-arm-hoods/

These aren't some "special" games, just games I am well acquainted with. More examples like these can be found. I won't even mention the TES series.
The point is that everything listed above consists of models completely made from scratch by the mod authors themselves. (except perhaps occasionally taking hand brushes from the original games)

Why is this good? Because these guys gain real skills, actually develop, and theoretically have a decent prospect of working in the industry (half of those I mentioned are already working in some way, as far as I know).

But wait, you might say, what do money and earnings have to do with this? Mods are just a hobby to kill time for fun.
On one hand, I don't disagree, but on the other
this is how we make mods for heroes 5

it is either work assembled from others' essentially stolen pieces

/topic/at/1174099/

https://www.moddb.com/mods/homm-5-chaos-theory/images/ncf-neutral-creatures#imagebox

or stolen entirely

/topic/14804/

/topic/14910/

or...





although even there, I suspect, there are pieces from others

And the issue isn't that "stealing is bad," but that people who do this are, in the overwhelming majority of cases, unable to create something of their own. They simply lack the skills because they don't work on developing them.
It could be put this way: by engaging in theft and processing othersの商品 resources, we steal time from ourselves, as we could have spent it more usefully. I certainly feel that way often. And time sometimes slips away quite rapidly.

Let me say again, I don't want to insult or offend anyone. I am writing this because I am convinced that for development, you sometimes need to call things by their real names, without worrying about the delicate feelings of those around you. Perhaps I overdo it in some places due to my contentious nature; I apologize for that and ask you to try to ignore the negativity and catch the constructive thought.

And now comes the negativity.
I'll be honest: it simply makes me sick when someone calls me or another modder of my level a "master" or an "expert." It makes me twice as sick when someone poses as an expert in something they barely understand. I don't like that it is customary in our community to overpraise people who do not deserve it.
Why is this bad? And what is the difference between overpraising and support?
When a person is told that they have carried out a "Revolution in modding," or that "no one else can do anything similar," you might be overdoing it. This is currently a stone thrown at one specific person's garden, but only because it happened recently and demonstrates a trend; similarly, such things were written about me too.
In fact, calling even anyone among the modders working on the visual part any kind of "master" now is already a huge exaggeration.
So why is this bad? Because now a person who theoretically made something of their own from scratch, spending a month of their life on it, will receive the same response (or less) as someone who stole an asset in a couple of hours. We are creating a space where developing oneself is neither prestigious nor profitable.

I am convinced that for this reason, one by one, people capable of taking a step toward creating their own resources "leave modding." Because it's boring to just toss others' stuff back and forth. It's boring not to develop.
I myself am constantly in the same situation of "leaving modding" and I'm not sure if I will continue to do anything after completing the current creatures mod. I don't want to make a scene out of this, but it doesn't change the essence.

In short, the morale. I urge everyone to create something of their own; let's develop and gain real skills.
So that on the forum we could discuss not how to convert tga to dds using a map editor, but for example the capabilities of Marvelous Designer or Substance Painter.
Seriously, to work in Painter you don't even need to be a modeler; it's just like Photoshop, only many times more powerful and convenient for painting textures.

I urge you to share your own works in this thread.
(not for bragging or ego, but for the sake of supporting each other's beginnings,
so that we understand that "it was possible to do it this way")

I'll start myself.

I like low-poly models







link to my ArtStation where you can rotate and examine my finished models inside the browser, as well as see what I used to make them.
In the case of the stormtrooper helmet (which I made stupidly because I was learning ZBrush), an intermediate result is shown.
https://www.artstation.com/zahar0z

next are models in progress

just studying anatomy and practicing sculpting in ZBrush

I didn't use a ZBrush base; I pulled the model from ZSpheres.
I am not satisfied with the result and am remaking it from scratch using splines in Max.
Then I'll TurboSmooth it and throw it into ZBrush to do fine details.

the model is unfinished, the texture is a rough draft made in Painter in less than a minute


and this is a very simple samurai helmet, without texture and with a hastily applied TurboSmooth




I have been involved in modding Heroes 5 for a long time (about 10 years already). This hobby has influenced me and my life. In fact, thanks to modding, I began learning skills that are now very, very useful to me in life. If you know what I mean.
I'll admit honestly: I don't want to just drop Heroes 5. Everything I am calling for is to together create a platform and an atmosphere where we will have a reason to stay, in which we can develop.
On the other hand, sometimes one needs to be a realist and find the strength to quit a "harmful" hobby. Perhaps that is the situation here, and the prospects I see in the community actually just don't exist.

I hope for some response. Help in sorting through these thoughts wouldn't hurt.

P.S. Later, if anyone is interested, I will write the names and brief functionality of the main programs currently used in the industry. It's not hard to find these names independently.

Added after 2 minutes
and if anyone just thought, "oh, we can just take models from those mods above" (by the way, some of them are now osp (open source pack))
then you haven't caught the point at all. Not at all.
Группа в вк посвящённая моим модам

Страничка моего последнего мода на ModDB

Моя страничка на Artstation,
где можно посмотреть и повертеть внутри браузера мои 3d модели.
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#2
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Unfortunately, as you know, I adhere to the principle that "only the best are truly versatile." I use models and give them worthy application in my maps, without missing the opportunity to praise the model's author and include them in a list of acknowledgments, and promote them if there's an opportunity to do so, unless their identity is shrouded in mystery, of course. But I won't create them myself for two reasons:
1) My list of mapmakers is so huge that the tasks are already alternating, one season of one task, one season of another, then back to the previous one, and so on. If I add such a time-consuming task as creating models, I'm afraid things will get even worse.
2) Unfortunately, I don't enjoy this activity, although I've even tried it in more than one game. Besides, it's still worth separating roles. Some people create models, and others create content with those models. After all, game developers clearly don't have 3D modelers writing campaigns and code.

In general, that's my position. I think it's understandable. But nevertheless, there are those who do both. But there are very few of them.

Added after 31 seconds
yes, I was talking strictly about myself
Карты для героев 5

"Плата за любовь"
"Путь некроманта"
"Темные грани"
"Рок Гримхейма"
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#3
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Well, I don't know, on the one hand, it's right to do your own thing, but on the other hand, you're directly comparing games... (in my opinion, it's the opposite; Heroes 5 is a special game, and in a technically worse sense). I won't go into detail, I'll just say briefly: the Heroes 5 Community is very weak for what it is, that's one. The game isn't particularly popular due to the short-sightedness of Ubisoft and one "modder" who has the 3.0 source code, that's two. The ability to export models with new animations and skeletons was discovered too late, and with such good restrictions that add a lot of hassle, that's three. From a graphical point of view (lighting, shadows, the same vertex maps that it's unclear how to make work), it's a dead zone. For games that came out earlier, you can either put a graphical shell on top of the standard one (also ENB for GTA and other games), or their graphics are an order of magnitude better, and you can only nitpick to separate models into cutscene and in-game models (for example, Age of Empires 3). My conclusion is this: hoping that someone will listen is very naive; there's simply no one to do it.
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#4
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AstralLein
Unfortunately, as you know, I adhere to the position that "only the best are universal." I use models and give them a worthy application in my maps, without missing the opportunity to say a good word about the model's author and include them in the list of acknowledgments and promote them somewhere if there is an opportunity to do so, unless their identity is hidden behind a veil of secrecy, of course. But I won't do it myself for two reasons:
1) My list of map modders is so huge that the activities there alternate anyway, one season of one thing, one season of another, then back to the previous season, etc. If I add such a time-consuming task as creating models, I'm afraid everything will become even worse.
2) Unfortunately, I don't enjoy this activity, although I've even tried it in more than one game. Besides, it's still worth separating roles. Some people create models, and some create content with these models. After all, game developers clearly don't have 3D modelers writing campaigns and code.

In general, that's my position. I think it's understandable. But nevertheless, there are those who do both. But there are very few of them.

Added 31 seconds ago
yes, I was talking strictly about myself.

What I wrote above is addressed to you as a map modder; consider that it doesn't apply to you as a level designer. I'll even say more: as a level designer, you can safely use your locations and maps assembled from a set of other people's assets in your portfolio.
It's a different kind of work.
But for a level designer, it's much more difficult to break into the industry. The whole problem is that their skills are not universal, but often focused on one or another genre of games, and that it is more difficult to evaluate the work of a level designer than the work of the same modeler or animator.

What I wrote above applies, as I mentioned in the text, to people who modify the "visual" side of the game.
It is them that I urge to "create their own." And here it is not a question of which position is "correct," but a question of whether we want to develop or not.

I repeat once again, you, as a level designer, do not necessarily have to create your own assets in order to develop; you create your own maps, but, for example, a modeler must definitely create something completely original at a certain stage in order to develop.
Группа в вк посвящённая моим модам

Страничка моего последнего мода на ModDB

Моя страничка на Artstation,
где можно посмотреть и повертеть внутри браузера мои 3d модели.
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#5
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As I mentioned before, I didn't go beyond creating weapons... I started with heads and helmets (and various headgear - sphere, cylinder, and then I started cutting planes, merging vertices, possibly not a very correct or efficient method), but it is possible to create from scratch - there is nothing complicated about it... but it's incredibly time-consuming!

And then there's the hassle of creating the UV map for further texturing... although there are a lot of plugins that can significantly speed up this process, but almost all of them are paid and it is very difficult to find a version with a "cure for greed"!

And now, thanks to you, the Estonian, and Footman, there is a reason to create creature models, because without animation, no one needs it... but with animations, it's a different story!
С уважением, Psatkha (Псатха)

---------------------------------------------

Неудачное планирование ведёт к неудаче ...

NCF - мод, добавляющий дополнительных существ в HeroesV 3.1
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#6
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Again, I am now talking about modelers/animators/texture artists.
This does not apply to map makers or scripters.
footman
Well, I don't know; on one hand, making something of your own is correct, but on the other, you are comparing games... (in my opinion, it's actually the opposite: Heroes 5 is a special game, and in a technical sense, a worse one)

If you want to grow, then at a certain stage, making something of your own isn't just "correct on one hand," but the only correct path overall.
Of course, you can start by editing other people's models, but sooner or later, it is necessary to move toward developing truly useful skills.
It might be easier to start with individual elements of a model—for example, making your own helmet or weapon. Separately, that will already be entirely your asset: a separate helmet or a separate weapon. Within the framework of a mod, this still isn't exactly what I'm talking about, but it is already a step in the right direction.

Regarding the "technical imperfection of Heroes" and the claim that I compared something incorrectly, I want to say two things.
First, stop whining. Just like that. Heroes is not some especially pathetic game in this sense. Normal maps aren't everything. You could make your own models even before the ability to import animations appeared. (In fact, the gargoyle face from my mod was made by me from scratch) and I made the nag creatures from pieces of models from 6 even before there was a possibility to import skeleton-bound models, and they still look decent. My point is: there have always been plenty of opportunities.
Regarding the comparison: specifically, Jedi Academy, which I compared Heroes to, is an older and "less technically" developed game than 5.
Is that not enough? People are still periodically making their own assets for Morrowind and Half-Life 1 today. And nobody whines about how pathetic their technical platform is. Do you still think Heroes 5 is some especially technically pathetic game?
I am not calling for a downgrade, nor am I suggesting giving up on everything to carve voxel graphics for Minecraft. I am urging people to stop saying that nothing can be done in Heroes 5 because the platform is technically underdeveloped. It's simply not true, and that's all. It can be done.

Second, please, I really ask you, stop pretending to be an expert. Not knowing something is normal; it can always be caught up on, but don't pretend to understand something for which you lack basic knowledge, or worse, present incorrect information with one hundred percent confidence. This is "armchair" criticism. I am not trying to attack or offend you. Just please, none of that. It's better to convert your desire for self-assertion into something more useful for yourself—for example (see the thread title).
footman
The Heroes 5 community is basically very weak for such things, that's one thing.
....
My conclusion is as follows: hoping that someone will listen is very naive; there is simply no one here to do it.

Regarding the "weak" community, I understand what you mean and can agree on one hand. But on the other hand, don't forget that the Heroes modding community currently includes both you and me. Do you consider yourself "weak"? Because I don't consider you—and certainly not myself—to be so. One way or another, I will keep moving forward toward development. The only question is whether I will continue doing it with Heroes or not.
Regarding the lack of popularity: the game is more popular than you think; at least people write to me on VK about mods quite often. The player community is even larger—many watch streams, hang out in themed groups, etc. In short, there are people. Though they are often distanced from us.

Added after 22 minutes
psatkha
As I said before, I didn't go beyond creating weapons... I started heads + helmets (and various headgear—sphere, cylinder and then start cutting planes, merging vertices; perhaps not the most correct or efficient method), but creating from scratch is possible—there's nothing complicated about it... but it's incredibly time-consuming! And then there's the hassle of creating a UV map for further texturing... although there are plenty of plugins that can significantly speed up this process, however, almost all of them are paid and it's very hard to find a version with a "greed cure"!

And currently, thanks to you, Estonian, and footman, there is now reason to create creature bodies, because without animation—nobody gives a damn... but with animations, that's a different story!

Binding a model to one of the existing skeletons (after which it becomes "animated," as you love to incorrectly say) is not otherworldly sorcery. It is a skill that I possess and that you can add to your toolkit by spending a couple of evenings on YouTube tutorials.

As for making your own animation, that's "not my department," but basically, if you're desperate, there's an option to do mocap with Kinects; I have experience with it, the results were decent, but it required some cleaning.

No offense psatkha, but let's face facts: you aren't going to do anything serious regarding mods anymore. You couldn't add my completely finished Kea Beleh model with a walking animation into NHF over a year and a half. There was nothing to do at all. Just take the contents of the archive and drop them in. Was it fundamentally important to have the fire effect? Fine. But that's half an hour to an hour of work. In short, no offense, but I don't believe you will do anything serious in modding.

This in no way cancels or diminishes the fact that I think very highly of you as a person and am grateful for your contribution to the formation and development of the community. In this, it seems to me, you can still play a useful role.

But as a modeler... you understand everything yourself. Your knowledge is superficial and outdated. Are your models just like a round shield and a cone-shaped sword with blurry textures? Not bad for a start, of course. Everyone starts somewhere. But you need to move further if you're interested. And of course you could, if you wanted to.

Added after 54 minutes
Main programs for a modeler.

3ds max (or Maya or Blender or something simpler if you're a deviant) - the main Swiss Army knife in your arsenal

A funny lesson by a clumsy modeler on modeling a chest.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=csbhGtSYcc4
On creating a UV map for a chest.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qgZHE6BLRnA

Substance painter - texture painting tool.
If you are completely unfamiliar with this program or something similar, I suggest quickly watching some tutorial on it to get a small shock from how easy it is to create textures now.

A clumsy modeler makes a texture for a chest.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=llZlQni46IA

Zbrush - did you mold with plasticine as a child? This is the same thing but in the form of 3D modeling.
This program is convenient for sculpting organics, fabric, and other non-"hard" surfaces. The program works with a giant number of polygons (several million, sometimes several tens of millions), so you can't just take the model and use it in-game. You need to do retopology, then bake high-poly to low-poly, and paint the texture. It's not as scary as it sounds.

Autodesk has an alternative to ZBrush called a box of mud, i.e., Mudbox. And basically, you can "sculpt" in Max if you're a deviant.
As for Blender, I don't know—I'm a total zero in it, opened it a couple of times, but it seems there is decent sculpting there. It has everything and it's quite decent.

3d coat - convenient for doing retopology here
Seriously. Sometimes you can do it automatically and then just tweak it slightly by hand.
Generally, 3D Coat is also a small Swiss Army knife; you can retopo, model, edit UV maps, and paint textures in it.
But preferring it for all of this instead of the big programs is not a very convenient choice.
Except for retopology—it's actually good here, imho definitely better than in Max.

Marvelous designer - simulates fabric
Works on the principle of drawing clothing patterns and dressing a 3D model.
Again, it creates high-poly with various folds, seams, etc. You can even slap on buttons. Then this thing needs to be retopoed and baked. Marvelous seems to have some built-in tricks for automatic retopology, but I don't know how poorly that works since I haven't tested that feature of Marvelous.

Again, all of this can be done in Max if you are a masochist and angry at yourself and the world.

Uv layout - UV unwrapper.
A program exclusively tailored for creating UV maps. I'm not an expert in it, but plenty of people love it.

Blender
A special program; it can do absolutely everything.
You can even draw cartoons in it (meaning literally drawing with a pencil).
There is an additional game engine that can be attached to it.
Its feature is absolute free cost and open source, plus a crazy fanatical and wildly friendly community in the style of My Little Pony. This is an officially free program that can do things at a competitive level that other big programs bought for hundreds of dead raccoons do.

I don't know how to do anything in it and constantly put it off until later. But I feel some mysterious respect for it due to their "party policy." Therefore, I cannot fail to mention it.

And there is also a feature called photogrammetry; you can use for it
Agisoft photoscan, which is actually now called Metashape


A story about photogrammetry by a clumsy modeler
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IHNBhxKGTtc

And of course, Photoshop won't hurt you to fix various errors on the source maps for Painter and so on.
Группа в вк посвящённая моим модам

Страничка моего последнего мода на ModDB

Моя страничка на Artstation,
где можно посмотреть и повертеть внутри браузера мои 3d модели.
In reply to zahar0z
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#7
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zahar0z
Regarding the "technical imperfections of the heroes" and the fact that I may have compared something incorrectly, I would like to say two things.
Firstly, enough whining. Seriously. Heroes is not, in this sense, an especially flawed game. The normal map lighting isn't the only thing that matters. Custom models could be created even before the ability to import animations appeared. (in fact, the gargoyle's face in my mod was made from scratch by me), and I made the Naga creatures from pieces of models from the 6th game even before there was the ability to import models linked to a skeleton, and they still look pretty good. My point is, there have always been plenty of opportunities.
I'll explain it simply and clearly: in Heroes 5, the game was initially designed in such a way that, besides replacing the textures of existing creatures and creating new maps with primitive Lua scripts (although I've seen how they partially changed the graphics with them, but these are terrible workarounds), you couldn't do ANYTHING else at all. For example, instead of using the Fx particle format, which was a standard in many games, they decided to use their own format, which no one needed, and how are we supposed to add new effects thanks to them? As for the models, they used Granny SDK (a very expensive software that ordinary people can't afford), which cannot be updated, and they got rid of Alias Maya 6.0 with its export plugin version 2.5.0.5. As an example, they used the same software that the developers themselves used, but instead of simply giving it to the Community, they decided to create a pseudo-editor with limited functionality. Someone, like psatkha, said that it was incredibly difficult for ordinary users to understand, seriously? Those who need it will figure it out themselves and won't ask for help; that's how I looked for an alternative to CrazyPill's outdated method, which I didn't like, as well as the way Archangel exports models to the game format.

And I'll repeat once again: Heroes 5 was initially designed in such a way that, besides replacing the textures of existing creatures and creating new maps with primitive Lua scripts (although I've seen how they partially changed the graphics with them, but these are terrible workarounds), you couldn't do ANYTHING else at all, and Heroes 6 was designed with the same principle, and they completely broke the "Modding" stick there, and besides what I described above, you can't do anything there, and why Heroes 5 didn't fail like Heroes 6 remains a very strange mystery to me.
But on the other hand, don't forget that the modding community for Heroes is still, in part, you and me. Do you consider yourself "weak"?
Firstly, now it's just you, and yes, I won't be shy, I consider myself weak.
In reply to footman
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#8
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I
Please, don't pretend to be an expert in something you don't understand.
Footman-
footman
Let me explain it simply and clearly: the 5th Heroes game was designed in such a way that, apart from replacing textures of existing creatures and creating new maps with simple Lua scripts (although I've seen how they partially changed the graphics with them, but these are terrible workarounds), you couldn't do ANYTHING else.

Well, okay. Thank you very much for explaining it again "simply and clearly".))
No one deliberately "limited" the functionality for modders; it's just that Nival suddenly made a game, not a platform for you to tinker with. In short, all this talk about "technical imperfection" and "limited functionality" is worthless. And I have the feeling that it's only needed for your "armchair" expertise.
Specifically, there are no things that limit your ability to import models and animations into the 5th game, except that you can't upload a normal map, what a tragedy, it's just awful. The moral of the story is, stop whining and pretending to be an expert.

Regarding "primitive" Lua scripts. You call them primitive because you yourself are not "primitive"? In my opinion, Lua is just a language. With intelligence and ingenuity, you can significantly change the gameplay with scripts. Regarding the visuals, you probably made a mistake, saying that they changed it with scripts somewhere. Maybe I'm wrong, but without proof, we won't figure it out.
footman
and why the 5th Heroes didn't fail like the 6th Heroes for me remains a very strange mystery.

Again, your expert opinion. The game doesn't have the ability to display a normal map; how could it not fail at all? A mystery!))
The 5th game didn't fail because it's suddenly a good game. And the presence or absence of some graphical features suddenly has little impact on this fact.

I also really like how you criticize CrazyPill's method, saying that you don't like it, and... in fact, you still use it. Or are you adding models through Blitzkrieg's plugins via the Mart editor?) Plus, what if I tell you that you are not the first modder to add animations to Heroes? This was done a long time ago; check out the English-language thread with Archangel OM, if you're interested.
footman

Firstly, now it's only you, and yes, I won't be shy, I consider myself weak,
...
(I'm not lying, I wanted to make a 3D catapult from scratch from the 4th Heroes, I really liked it, but this idea quickly faded).

I'm not trying to inspire you in vain. But you are wrong again, and you are wrong to consider yourself "weak" in this context. In fact, there is nothing in creating models that you couldn't handle. You and FrozenSoul are quite ready to move in this direction, if, of course, you are interested in it and if you are willing to put in the effort.

This will, of course, be more difficult than whining and pretending to be an expert on the forum. But at least it's objectively more useful and, in theory and in the long run, it might, I don't know, help you find a good job.
Группа в вк посвящённая моим модам

Страничка моего последнего мода на ModDB

Моя страничка на Artstation,
где можно посмотреть и повертеть внутри браузера мои 3d модели.
In reply to zahar0z
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#9
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zahar0z
Attaching a model to one of the existing skeletons (after which it becomes "animated," as you like to incorrectly say) is not some otherworldly magic. It's a skill that I possess, and you can acquire it yourself by spending a couple of evenings watching tutorials on YouTube. As for creating your own animations, that's "not my area of expertise," but in principle, if you're really keen, there's an option to create mocaps using Kinect. I have experience with that, and the results were decent, but it required some cleanup. No offense, buddy, but let's face it: you're not going to do anything serious with modding anymore. You couldn't add my fully finished Khea Belekh model with walking animation to NHF in a year and a half. There was nothing to do at all. Just take the contents of the archive and add it to your game. Is it essential to have a fire effect? Okay. But that's half an hour to an hour of work. Anyway, no offense, I don't believe you'll do anything significant with modding. This in no way diminishes the fact that I have a very good opinion of you as a person and I am grateful to you for your contribution to the formation and development of the community. I think you can still play a useful role in this. But as a modeler... you understand everything yourself. Your knowledge is superficial and outdated. Are your models like a round shield and a cone-shaped sword with blurry textures? It's not bad for a start, of course. Everyone starts somewhere. But you need to keep moving forward if you're interested in it. And of course, you could, if you wanted to.

Yeah, I'm not offended... because you can't be offended by the truth and by progress in something... however, I haven't completely given up on modding yet; it's just that at work, they're squeezing all the energy out of me with all sorts of nonsense + pressure, and as a result, I have terrible headaches + my eyes get tired... retraining for game development for professional activity is too late for me personally (although I like this kind of creativity), but as a hobby, I still want to do it on vacation... Regarding Khea... I already wrote about it above... I didn't finish what I had in mind with the effects, and I ended up abandoning it... the reasons are above... I'll put it this way... the main thing now is that there are tools, but there is no time and energy, and before it was the other way around... however, everything can change... because that's life!
С уважением, Psatkha (Псатха)

---------------------------------------------

Неудачное планирование ведёт к неудаче ...

NCF - мод, добавляющий дополнительных существ в HeroesV 3.1
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#10
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zahar0z
Me:
Please don't pretend to be an expert in something you don't understand.
Footman:

Okay, fine. Thank you very much for explaining it again in a "simple and clear" way.))
No one intentionally "limited" the functionality for modders; it just so happened that Nival was making a game, not a platform for you to tinker with. In short, all this talk about "technical imperfections" and "limited functionality" is worthless. And I have the feeling that it's only needed for your "armchair" expertise.
Specifically, there are no things that limit your ability to import models and animations into the 5th game, except that you can't upload a normal map, what a tragedy, it's just awful. The moral of the story is, stop whining and pretending to be an expert.

Regarding "primitive" Lua scripts. You call them primitive because you yourself are not "primitive"? In my opinion, Lua is just a language. With intelligence and ingenuity, you can significantly change the gameplay with scripts. Regarding the visuals, you probably made a mistake, saying that it was changed with scripts somewhere. Maybe I'm wrong, but without proof, we won't figure it out.


Again, your expert opinion. The game doesn't have the ability to display a normal map; how did it not fail completely? It's a mystery.))
The 5th game didn't fail because it's actually a good game. And the presence or absence of certain graphical features, surprisingly, has little impact on this fact.

I also really like how you criticize CrazyPill's method, saying that you don't like it, and... in fact, you still use it. Or are you adding models through Blitzkrieg's plugins via the Mart editor?) Plus, what if I tell you that you are not the first modder to add animations to Heroes? This was done a long time ago; check out the English-language thread with Archangel Om if you're interested.


I'm not trying to inspire you for no reason. But you're wrong again, and you shouldn't think of yourself as "weak" in this context. In fact, there is nothing in creating models that you couldn't handle. You and FrozenSoul are quite capable of moving in this direction if you are interested and willing to put in the effort.

This will, of course, be more difficult than whining and pretending to be an expert on the forum. But it will be objectively more useful and, in theory and in the long run, it might even help you find a good job.
By CrazyPill's method, I meant attaching pieces in the form of effects...
Regarding Lua scripts, I wrote that in some games, they are even used to partially modify the graphics, but in Heroes, what about it? Only scripts for creating conditions on the map? I haven't seen anything really significant for Heroes.

Added after 7 minutes
Regarding "expert opinion," the developers of the 6th Heroes also made a game, not a platform for me to tinker with, and they tried very hard to make a game, but the 6th Heroes somehow failed, while the 5th Heroes didn't. Regarding the functionality for modders, I tend to think that if the developers don't think about modders, then they are already limiting them.

Added after 1 minute
And by "primitive," I meant Lua scripts specifically for the 5th Heroes, not the programming language itself.
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#11
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As a bit of a mapmaker, I'll say that lua scripts are not primitive. Firstly, the language itself seems to be the same in V and other games; it's not entirely correct to criticize them—it's all about the implementation for a specific game. But you corrected yourself on that. Secondly, the possibilities for changing Gameplay are actually quite decent.
What's bad? For graphics, there really is very little (things like removing skirts from creatures, playing ready-made animations or effects, something else is spinning in my head, but I won't say). And the second problem is that, apparently, only what the devs needed was implemented, based on the principle of "a need arose — we made it." A more correct principle in this case would be "make everything that could theoretically be useful," and then build maps from there. And you can feel that. You can't take away a specific skill from a hero, there's some kind of mess with the control of town growth, attractors might work or they might not (though this is more of a bug than a lack of implementation), dialog boxes can only be in a format that was pre-programmed—and alas for you if you need more options—the pool of spells that can be scripted is strictly limited, and so on.
On one hand, it's truly what zahar0z said: the devs were making a game, not a sandbox-tinkering tool; on the other hand—well, it's strange, it shouldn't even be convenient from a development standpoint. With those same spells, why not simply make more of them? After all, whether it's 4 or 40, the time to implement the feature is exactly the same, but you yourself might need this in the future. The standard principle of software development is to make everything as flexible as possible from the start, so you don't spend time later on something that could have been working long ago.
But regardless, the existing functions are already sufficient in many cases, so oh well...
 

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#13
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Interesting...
But then I recall another example, namely Skyrim, where, despite having an absolute record for the number and quality of mods, probably among all games, there are still no decent scripts included in the base game, so modders use an external extension called SKSE. Which hasn't hindered them.
 

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#14
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Scripts in Heroes have one purpose: to write simple code specifically for maps. Therefore, it's pointless to criticize them for not being able to completely overhaul the game. And I highly doubt that in any game, you can change everything using only scripts created for writing game scenarios. As for the topic at hand... of course, if there's an opportunity (and a desire) to create something original, then it's definitely worth doing. On the other hand, considering the specifics of modifying Heroes, and the fact that working on Heroes almost always involves changing existing content rather than creating new content, I don't see any problem in using someone else's work. Moreover, creating a final product often requires a comprehensive effort (i.e., I'm good at writing scripts, but I know absolutely nothing about models, etc.). So, for me personally, even a (not so) simple transfer of models from Heroes 7 would be a "revolution in modding." By the way, I can also provide something in terms of scripts... So, let's just share our developments in any area, whether they are completely created independently or modified from external sources. Without any hidden agendas.
Нет войне.
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#15
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Actually, as I understand it, creating new models and new animations isn't that difficult in principle. It's quite possible to add new heroes and creatures to the game, and I've already managed to create a new hero. Of course, the model is old, and the animations are also old, but creating new animations and a new model isn't difficult. The problem is that it takes a lot of time. I've already created one animation, and it performs its function quite well. But I'm definitely far from being an expert – I did all this in about a week after watching a couple of tutorials and experimenting through trial and error. To be honest, I'm surprised that most of the mods for Heroes 5 are changes to models or their replacements, as well as textures, but I haven't seen any new animations yet. When I just started modding – and I still consider myself a complete newbie – I thought I would be able to find something completely new. But no, it seems a bit empty here... I don't know if I will delve deeper into all of this, but I find it quite interesting.