Posts from HoMM VII Haven Units – Haven faction units from the seventh installment of Heroes of Might and Magic.

Yeah, Chaos Theory promised to add demons, showed videos, fed us with screenshots, and then poof, nothing.

This mod is still being developed, just so you know.

Can a smooth movement effect be applied? Or, conversely, is it possible to make it so that there is no movement animation (maybe even just making the model disappear), and instead apply an effect that animates the model moving its legs?

Well, then I'm waiting for the demons. Judging by the screenshots, they took the city model from Heroes 6 and made many demon models, judging by the screenshots.

Here's a long post from me.

First of all, it's really cool that you finally managed to port models with animations into the game. Once again, huge congratulations.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check it out in the game right now.

I'm especially interested in whether there are any issues with the synchronization of the attack and damage animations. In other words, do creatures with new animations play the damage or attack animation too early or too late?
Is there a pause effect in combat between this creature and a creature from the original game? And if not, how did you adjust the animations from Heroes 7 to match the timing of Heroes 5, or did it just work out naturally?

Regarding the movement animation. I think this is a very easily solvable problem. Take the idle animation from Heroes 7, loop it, and if the original duration isn't enough.
Take the bone responsible for the model's waist (ideally, it should be the parent for the rest of the skeleton), move this bone to the desired distance, create a new keyframe,
then adjust the movement of the walk cycle up and down along the path to this frame (if this wasn't done in the original animation). And basically, you're done.
To better understand the task, it would be helpful to do a little research on the basic principles of walk cycle animation.
In principle, I've just described it in a superficial way, but it's better to get information from a more competent source. It will also be clearer.
If there is an opportunity to import the movement animation of a creature from the original Heroes 5 as a reference for timing and distance, then everything becomes ridiculously simple and can be done in three or four clicks.
(Frankly, the decision of the Nival developers to make the movement animation as a series of jumps is debatable, and on some models, the seams between the "steps" are visible.)

Regarding the models from Heroes 6. Just so you know, many of the models from Heroes 7 are recolored models from Heroes 6, with the original UV mapping preserved. For example, assassins, minotaurs, namtaru, etc.
There are also some models with minor changes.
For example, the medusa has the same geometry and body UV mapping as the coral priestesses, but a different staff.
The staff is a static part of the model, hanging on one bone, and it's very easy to change one for another.
By the way, there's a big advantage to this whole theme of recoloring Heroes 7 - when porting such a model, you immediately get twice as many creatures, because both the textures from Heroes 6 and Heroes 7 fit it.
And there are simply models taken from Heroes 6 without changes, demons, succubi, etc.
In essence, there are very few models from Heroes 6 that are not in Heroes 7 and that cannot be made using the skeleton from Heroes 5.

Regarding models from the world of Ashan, Dark Messiah is at your service. The game is made on Source, and it's quite easy to convert models and animations from it.
And of course, there's also Might and Magic X, with models from Heroes 6. But I don't know a way to get the models from there, and I haven't seen anyone do it. Although it's possible that such an opportunity exists, it's just that everyone is so indifferent to Might and Magic 10 that no one has looked for this opportunity.

Another nuance, ideally, when porting these models, you should do at least some retopology. Or at least some kind of crude, automatic LODs for the global map.
I won't go into details because I'm 99% sure that everyone will ignore this step anyway. I hope there won't be any problems with this in the future.

It's funny, but now, with the ability to easily port animations and models, and with such a large database of resource donors, you look at modding Heroes 5 a little differently.
Here's a question, has anyone wanted to create their own models or animations from scratch? Or is everyone happy with the fact that no high-quality mods with original visual content for Heroes 5 have appeared, are appearing, and, apparently, will not appear?

P.S. Kha, the walking animation on the titan's skeleton. You've been working on it for how long, a year and a half? You can literally take the file archive and copy it to the root of the game, and it will work.
I understand that no one has free time, but I don't understand why, under these conditions, you would continue to work on something that already works without any problems.

In my opinion, without the effect (I mean the fire effect around the head?), it still looks better than having no effect at all, but of course, it's your decision.

Regarding the models in their original format, etc., I honestly don't understand why you think they are particularly valuable. Now, as far as I understand, you can easily run any models in Maya 6 and back. This way, you can at least limit yourself to models from the Heroes games, rather than using a ton of mismatched models pulled from all over the place and downloaded from some random website.

It's especially interesting to see if there are any synchronization issues between the animation of the attack and the damage. In other words, do creatures with new animations play the damage or attack animation too early or too late?
Is there a pause effect in the battle between this creature and a creature from the original game? And if not, how did you adjust the animation from Heroes 7 to match the timing of Heroes 5, or did it just work out naturally?

Regarding the movement animation. I think this is a very easily solvable problem. Take the idle animation from Heroes 7, loop it, and if the original duration isn't enough.
Take the bone responsible for the model's waist (ideally, it should be the parent bone for the rest of the skeleton), move this bone to the desired distance, create a new keyframe,
then adjust the movement of the walk cycle up and down along the path to this frame (if this wasn't done in the original animation). And in principle, it's ready.
To better understand the task, it would be helpful to do a little research on the basic principles of walking animation.
In principle, I've just described it in a superficial way, but it's better to get information from a more competent source. It will also be clearer.
If it's possible to import the movement animation of a creature from the original Heroes 5 as a reference for timing and distance, then everything becomes ridiculously simple and can be done in three or four clicks.
(Honestly, the Nival developers' decision to make the movement animation as a series of jumps is debatable, and the seams between the "steps" are visible on some models.)

Regarding the models from Heroes 6. Just so you know, many of the models from Heroes 7 are recolored models from Heroes 6, with the original UV mapping preserved. For example, assassins, minotaurs, namtaru, etc.
There are also some models with minor changes.
For example, the medusa has the same geometry and body UV mapping as the coral priestesses, but a different staff.
The staff is a static part of the model, hanging on one bone, and it's very easy to change one for another.
By the way, there's a big advantage to this whole theme of recoloring Heroes 7 - when porting such a model, you immediately get twice as many creatures, because both the textures from Heroes 6 and Heroes 7 fit it.
And there are simply models taken from Heroes 6 without any changes, demons, succubi, etc.
In essence, there are very few models from Heroes 6 that are not in Heroes 7 and that cannot be made using the skeleton from Heroes 5.

Regarding models from the Ashan world, Dark Messiah is at your service. The game is made on the Source engine, and it's quite easy to convert models and animations from it.
And of course, there's also Might and Magic X, with models from Heroes 6. But I don't know a way to get the models from there, and I haven't seen anyone do it. Although it's not impossible that such an opportunity exists, it's just that everyone is so indifferent to Might and Magic 10 that no one has looked for this opportunity.

Another nuance, ideally, when porting these models, you should do at least some retopology. Or at least some kind of crude, automatic LODs for the global map.
I won't go into details because I'm 99% sure that everyone will ignore this step anyway. I hope there won't be any problems with this in the future.

It's funny, but now, with the ability to easily port animations and models, and with such a large database of resource donors, you look at modding Heroes 5 a little differently.
So, has anyone wanted to create their own models or animations from scratch? Or is everyone happy with the fact that no high-quality mods with original visual content for Heroes 5 have appeared, are appearing, and, apparently, will not appear?

P.S. Kha Beleth with the walking animation on the titan's skeleton. Has it been ready for how long, a year and a half? You can literally take the file archive and copy it to the root of the game, and it will work.
I understand that no one has free time, but I don't understand why, under these conditions, you would continue to work on something that already works without any problems.

Well, they are valuable because they were made by Nival... but otherwise, not really!

And regarding Kha... without fire, it's basically not a main demon, but just some kind of creature!

6) I don't recall a single game for which modders created models, textures, and animations from scratch

they would have been better off importing the gr2 skeleton into 3ds Max and making animations since you know how to do it

No need to look far, Heroes 3 HotA.

Mount and blade, jedi academy, kotor, TES series, call of duty. Why go far, Heroes 3 HotA. And that's only what comes to mind immediately. Well, basically, I also did some minor modeling for the 5th game, a gargoyle head for example.

Added after 5 minutes
Regarding the position that "only what didn't make it to release is valuable," I don't understand it; is this some form of "the grass was greener back then"?

Regarding the models from the 6th game, I say again, some models from the 7th are identical to those from the 6th, for example assassins or Namtaru; you just need to take the texture from the model in the 6th and put it on the model in the 7th. The UV map and geometry are the same.

Added after 3 minutes
Regarding retopology and animation editing. In short, whatever. There's probably no point in me writing anything about this.

Added after 46 minutes


It sounds almost as if you are telling me what to do. That's not cool. There is no need for this stupid toxicity. Alright, I hope it just seemed to me that you were arrogant and I am actually mistaken. Just in case, sorry if I happened to say something unpleasant to you.

At the moment when I, at Psath's request, was re-rigging Kha Beleh to a titan skeleton so he would have a walking animation, there was no way to import animations into the game. Therefore, the optimal solution for the situation was the one I chose. Unfortunately, I didn't have some plugins and I didn't think of your clever trick with manually changing the Maya version, so any new animation was out of the question.

And even now. There is a big difference. Slightly adjusting an existing animation—just dragging one bone in space and creating a new keyframe. Or making a walking sequence from scratch with an animated cloak, given that after export we get the skeleton without control elements. Guess at a glance which of these is easier.

That is, speaking metaphorically, it sounds like this: I say, "it's easy to move a brick from one place to another here," and you say, "you should have built a house instead, and without half the tools, since you're so smart."

By the way, can you share the export/import plugins, or are they already available somewhere publicly, and I just missed them?

Now, as I understand it, you can quite easily use any models in Maya 6 and import them back. This way, you can limit yourself to models from games in the Heroes series, rather than using a ton of mismatched models pulled from everywhere and downloaded from some random site.