Posts from МОД: Клинок Армагеддона / Armageddon's Blade Auto-translation in progress

Textured Stronghold Buildings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl5UIQbegqU

186k tris --->

turns into 6.3k --->

True, this is not the final version yet. I still need to model some kind of landscape for the Castle --->


UPD: Does anyone among the regulars know how the game recognizes the player's color and loads the texture of the flag for the heroes of that color? =

Do you want to do the same with the flags on the towers?

Do you want to do the same with the flags on the towers?

In theory, it's possible (but I don't know how to do it or how it would look).

Regarding player recognition, in the file responsible for the hero's appearance on the map (the character file, which contains links to the model and animation set), there is a line with links to colored models.

I don't remember if there's anything similar for buildings, but you can experiment.

Added 2 minutes ago
By the way, how long did the castle retopology take? Can you post a screenshot of the geometry (I mean the mesh) just out of curiosity? Especially the "complex" areas where it's difficult to save polygons, like stairs, arches, and so on. I'm interested in how you solve these problems.

Added 16 minutes ago

Textured Citadel Buildings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl5UIQbegqU

It looks very, very cool. It's perfect for the city screen. How did you make the ground, and what did you use? By the way, there might be some problems with the city screen. The position of objects in it can be anything. The position of the camera in the window for selecting a specific object can also be adjusted, but it's very tedious. However, there seem to be problems with the camera in the castle menu (the camera that does the cinematic fly-around). I'm not sure if it will be possible to create a new one.
But, you can always use an existing one. Something without any particularly specific movements, from the Mages, Orcs, or Elves. However, if you do, I recommend loading the main buildings from the city as a reference, the fly-around camera of which you will be using, and adjust your buildings to roughly match their position. This way, you can be sure that the camera won't fly through the building.

Plus, you'll save a lot of time and effort if you use an existing camera for the building in the building selection menu. You don't necessarily have to put the blacksmith where it was in the donor city, but if there was something in the place where you want to put the blacksmith, you can use the camera from that something instead of spending several hours calculating the camera coordinates for your unique building with its unique position.

Honestly, as a donor city, I think the Orc city looks best. The camera does a large panoramic fly-around and rarely gets close to the buildings, so it won't pass through anything. There's plenty of space and room to place buildings.

In general, I've dug around in the city screen files quite a bit, and I can tell you that trying to do anything there is quite masochistic. So, I advise you to approach it intelligently and just copy existing coordinates. This way, at least something can be done without going crazy.

Added 2 minutes ago
By the way, how much time did the Castle retopology take? Can you post a screenshot of the geometry (I mean the mesh) just out of curiosity? Especially the "complex" areas where it's hard to save polygons, like stairs, arches, and so on. I'm interested in how you solve these problems.

The retopology process took about a day.
I don't plan to change the city screen inside; it's too big a process (in terms of the number of models).
I'm only going to change the city on the adventure map.

I'll show you the mesh, but there's nothing special about it. Since I have a high-poly model from which the texture is baked, I don't need to smooth it out too much, unlike high-poly shading, which isn't very important (because it's correct on the high-poly model).




I know that the character inside has links to color models; that's why I thought it must somehow recognize them.

The main issue right now is that I don't know how to correctly specify the links to models in the file so that they appear on the adventure map. For example, if you build a Fort in the city, the Castle model changes; which file should I modify to achieve the desired result? (I think I came across something like this in the main Haven folder, but I didn't understand how to change it). When we build a Castle, the appearance changes (as well as the Magic Guild and the Capitol).
If I understand correctly, these lines "control" the display on the map when upgrading:

incredible low-poly texturing. Do you want to replace the towns on the map with other models that resemble those from Heroes of Might and Magic III?

incredible low-poly texturing. would you like to replace the towns on the map with other models that resemble those from Heroes 3?

Yes, I will be moving in that direction.

The lighting is definitely an issue; I don't even know what to do. It looks good in one position, but bad in another.

I think it looks quite interesting.
What I would change is the brick pattern. It's either too subtle or too small; I think in the game, it will look like a solid gray wall.

I think it looks quite interesting!
What I would change is the brick pattern. It's either too subtle or too small; I think in the game, it will look like a solid gray wall.

If it weren't for the distorted lighting, it would be interesting.
But changing the texture at this stage is already quite difficult, to be honest.

A question for the regulars: those who have added their own content to the game, how did you save it so that it would be visible in the editor? (I mean specifically new content, not replacing existing content).

P.S. I save the changes when I exit the map, just in case.

All links for the map editor are stored in the index.bin file, which is located in data.pak. When you create a new map, a duplicate folder appears: ...\HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC V\Editor\H5MMods\your map. It must contain an empty index.bin file (it is not saved in the map file). You need to put this empty file into some mod to reset the paths, and the index.bin file from data needs to be placed in the map (these files don't work like in regular mods; instead of replacing the old file with a new one, the map editor reads both files). Now, when you create objects in the map editor, they will be saved in the index.bin file inside the map BUT!!!!!! if you save the map, your index.bin file will again move to ...\Editor\H5MMods\your map, and you need to drag it back into the map. If you accidentally forget to do this and open the map, the map files without index.bin will overwrite the files from H5MMods, and all your work will be lost without the possibility of recovery, so make backups after each save. And now, about the most important thing: backups are useful when you bring files to the editor panel so that they can be easily placed on the map. There is a trick here: the map editor considers all files (AdvMapObjectLink) to be the same and displays them in one group, but this is not true - the files for dwellings, castles, heroes, etc. are different, and if you quickly add 20 files without stopping, it turns out that they are all designed for one type, for example, for dwellings, but you needed a castle, 4 dwellings, and 15 heroes, and you will have to do everything again. When you finish adding your objects to the panel, you need to put the index.bin file from the map into your mod

I found a way to make the map editor save the index.bin file into the map – for this, you need to open it differently using the Unpack Mod button, and then save the map using the Pack Mod button (you need to enable the advanced map editor for this). By the way, here you can see what happens if you insert the index.bin from data.pak into the map and don't use an empty file – all files in the window are shown twice.

Very useful information! Thank you!
But it doesn't work yet =)
Unpack and Pack don't work (I press them, then reopen the map, and everything disappears, even though I packed it). Also, the index disappears from Editor\H5MMods\TEST, even though I try to copy it there. After closing the map, it's still there, but after opening it, it disappears (as you wrote). I copied it and packed it into a separate .pak archive in the data folder, and I can open the map editor, load the test map, and there will be a folder created by me. BUT it will only exist in that map.

Ultimately, I need my mesh to be permanently in the game and in the map editor, not just in one map.
That is, the task is not just to copy the index bin, but to modify it by adding my own meshes.

I'm watching Estonian's video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuepSHcqWsI ), but it doesn't bring clarity. He simply copied the index from the original (data) to the map; I do the same, and it weighs 29k there. But then he went to his packed archive and took his version of the index from there, which weighs 32k, that is, it already contains his new data with fan objects on top of the original.

Essentially, the video lacks "understanding" - a piece of the process in which the original index was modified and how it was saved and then packed so that it could be used everywhere =(

Very useful information! Thank you!
But it's not working yet =)
Ultimately, I need my mesh to be permanently present in the game and in the map editor, not just on a single map.
That is, the task is not just to copy the index bin, but to modify it by adding my own meshes.

When you create a castle model in the map editor, a file named index.bin appears in the map, containing the path to the model. HOWEVER, if you put the ORIGINAL index.bin from data.pak into the map, after creating the castle model, it will be written into the ORIGINAL index.bin that you put in the map (that is, it will be an index bin with all the paths and the path to your model), and then it can be put into any mod in the data folder.