You’re both sort of right. It’s possible to change skins only for certain civs, but in order to do it you need to use a data mod. This has several drawbacks: for example, you can’t use them in ranked multiplayer, you can’t use multiple data mods at once, anyone playing multiplayer with you has to use the same data mod, they prevent achievement progress, and data mods need updating after every balance patch.
The Mongol Yurt mod was a special case, and was no longer usable after the event it came from. The other event mods are graphics mods – they just change specific graphics files, and therefore change those graphics for all civs.
Personally I’d like a way for graphics mods (rather than data mods) to change graphics for specific civs, but I’m not sure how that would be implemented. Having duplicate graphics files for each civ would increase the overall file size of the game massively, especially for those with the UHD graphics. Separating graphics data from the rest of the game data would avoid that issue, but mess up every existing data mod. I don’t know what other options there are.
There was a change in the Aoe II HD edition that de-centralised the assets for all original civisiliations. This occurred roughly the same time Italians came out, and allowed for full customisation of architectures at a civ specific level.
Yes in the past you had to work within the architecture set, however this is no longer the case, especially in DE.
I do not know whether this extends to units however, or if it is simply the architecture/buildings/ships.
However it is possible to individualise units in the same way it was done for buildings back in the Aoe II HD.
Oh, ok. How do you do it? And what does “de-centralised the assets” mean?
I’ve never modded with HD and everything I said was about DE. And I thought everything I said was true, but maybe not, if I understand you correctly.
I’m not sure what you mean here either. If I wanted to change, say, the Huns’ architecture without changing the Teutons/Vikings/Goths architecture and without using a data mod, how would I do it?
The issue with buildings is more complicated and just decentralising the assets is not enough as nobody really know how to do the destruction animation to make proper assets for any fan made mods. This wasn’t an issue in HD and that’s why we had so many beautiful mods. I just with the devs would take those same HD mods and just do a proper job of bringing them to life with the destruction animations.
yea there use to be a datamod, which basically allowed each civ to reference different graphic packs, but the devs made it possible to do that for any civ after italians were released, and they exemplified that by releasing the custom persian architecture set.
I’d check that out if I wanted to recreate anything in that vain.
To be honest I dont know whether it applies to units or not - I doubt it. as units don’t tend to have architecture styles… maybe monks hold some secrest there. and ships.
the devs have an automated software package that records the destruction animation, and I think it does this from the original 3D file - it only takes weight paints of cloth / stone . and wood and it automates the animation for recording.
One would have to ask the devs for public access to the tool.
I am pretty sure the software is not owned by them and anyone who knows how to use it can use it. I actually posted some videos of it a while ago which showed the artists creating the destruction animation using the software. It was fairly involved to say the least and not something just anyone can grab and use without getting deep with it.
Hmmm this doesn’t sound right… I was following all the independent architecture stuff pretty closely back in the HD days and never saw anything official. It was all fan made, and the Persian set was incomplete anda mish mash of assets from other packs and some unique stuff.
Are you talking about the Independent Architecture mod?:
That’s a data mod, not an inbuilt feature. I can’t find an official Persian architecture mod for HD, and nor can I find anything about this being an official feature (for any version of the game).
This could be a good start.
I understand it’s too much work for devs to create regional skins, but they can just separate the models and leave us players to mod them to our liking. Client-sided ofc.
Exactly. At the least you should be able to put an architecture set type prefix at the start. Less efficient and won’t look as good, but at least it is a step in the right direction. Or if each civ had its own folder with all the .smx files, and you could edit the ones in each folder to change the appearance for the civ.
Again… without destruction animation it is pointless to include independent architecture. The whole point of these mods are to make the game look better, without the proper animation it will just make it look worse so why would anyone bother?
The size would be huge if you break it like that,also would Slavic looking units fit Magyars or vise versa?they both have the same buildings.
I would think Europe should have the default units africa india and eastern one set,central and east asia one set south east asia could be included here as well. obviously meso civis one set,they are the once that should have totally different looking units.