Realistic scabbard/sheathed gladius for roman legionaries

[NELGH]

*I am using DEI 1.2.4 + XIIICaesar's legions as a base to do the modification, mostly because it has the rigid model for roman scabbard sheathed/empty*


*this is not a mod to be used, but a working way to share with the modders, as achieving this will require modification on the units variantmeshdefinition, and the animation fragments*
Here are two screenshots first[IMG]<a href="https://ibb.co/dgqW09Z"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/PQnmZpk/Total-War-Rome-II-Screenshot-2019-06-21-21-00-49-58.png" alt="Total-War-Rome-II-Screenshot-2019-06-21-21-00-49-58" border="0"></a>[/IMG]
[IMG]<a href="https://ibb.co/dgqW09Z"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/PQnmZpk/Total-War-Rome-II-Screenshot-2019-06-21-21-00-49-58.png" alt="Total-War-Rome-II-Screenshot-2019-06-21-21-00-49-58" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/T2D921b"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/4twht2Y/Total-War-Rome-II-Screenshot-2019-06-21-21-00-54-04.png" alt="Total-War-Rome-II-Screenshot-2019-06-21-21-00-54-04" border="0"></a>[/IMG]

Explain:

I realized that when the roman units holds their pilum, the sword is in a position where there is no scabbard, as many have complained. Thanks to DEI team there are two rigid model of roman scabbards in the mod, one with a sword sheathed, one being empty. After numourous trial-and-error I found out that if the I set the scabbard model to have a same SLOT name as the weapon, when the weapon bone is set to off in the animation fragments, the rigid model will also disappear.

Here is a brief procedure using legio X
1. in land_unit_table, find the table with the row of the unit you want to have this feature. locate the animation column, and find the animation set in the animation_tables.

2. in the animation_table, for DEI 1.2.4 there is a fragment called rome_man_javelin_legionary_fragment.txt, basically contains everthing animation scene related to throwing pilum.

3. open that .txt, find and replace every [weapon_bone_1=on, weapon_bone_2=on] to [weapon_bone_1=on, weapon_bone_2=off], don't include the brackets. this will make sure the gladius won't get hanged on their butts,

4. open the folder variantmeshs, in PFM/RPFM whatever, direct to _variantmodels/man/armour/, create a new variantmeshdefinition called scabbard.variantmeshdefinition, name doesn't matter. inside, put these lines:

<VARIANT_MESH>
<SLOT name="weapon_1" attach_point="bn_hips" >
<VARIANT_MESH model="VariantMeshes/_VariantModels/man/armour/roman_gladius_empty_scabbard_sheathed_polybian.rigid_model_v2" />
</SLOT>
<SLOT name="weapon_2" attach_point="bn_hips" >
<VARIANT_MESH model="VariantMeshes/_VariantModels/man/armour/roman_gladius_empty_scabbard_polybian.rigid_model_v2" />
</SLOT>
</VARIANT_MESH>


5, then include this scabbard.variantmeshdefinition into your unit's variantmeshdefinition file.


I have been trying to achieve this for soooo long and finally it worked, can't help to share it! Let me know if any explaination is needed.

[AphixE8]

5, then include this scabbard.variantmeshdefinition into your unit's variantmeshdefinition file.

If you still look at this thread,

1) How exactly does someone go about incorporating this into the units variantmeshdefinition? Is this a mesh reference? is this inserted as a direct definition? Am I understanding correctly that I would need to go back and modify the units to have different sheathes for the swords than I currently have? More detail and clarification would be greatly appreciated?

2) if the animation fragment is changed directly in DEI with out changing the animation name and adding it as an additional animation fragment to the overall pack file, wouldn't this apply to every single unit that uses that same animation and wouldn't this break all of the other units? I would greatly appreciate more detail and clarification on this because I would like to incorporate this into my own pack file but I am somewhat lost on how to implement this on specific units while not affecting others that use the same fragment.

either way cheers and thank you for the information.

Again hopefully you still look at this thread because I would really like some additional details on the implementation of this