A few questions for experienced modelers

[WoK.Vingador]

Hi,

I just started trying to create my own models. My idea is to have units with several extra animations, and some way to change the look&feel of the units. I was planning to have some way to create Diablo heros in this way:
o 1 animation for one hand weapons
o 2 animation for 2 handed weapons, one for sword/staff like weapons and one for spear like weapons
o if possible, don't have the weapon in the model, just attach it as a special effect
o same as weapons for different armors/helms, but I feel it is not possible, but I hope it is possible to at least create one model per class that can be attached later.
A page with different armors http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/Modenschau/assa/ and different helms http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/Modenschau/helm/

But I am a complete novice at it. I don't know all available tools. I started trying to use Oinkerwinkle's tools but I felt it was too hard to try to "make by hand" one model. I downloaded Gmax and Milkshape, but so far I did not use Milkshape; and it has a 30 days trial and I did not like those warnings about needing to write information in hidden parts of my system because it is a trial version, etc.
I finished all tutorials of Gmax, and I am finishing reading all the help files. But I feel I already have most of the knowledge to make the models in gmax, but don't know if I will be able to convert them properly; Dex scripts seens to only write to the "listener" for Gmax, but if it writes proper data, no problem in cut&pasting in a mdl file. But I did only a few experiments with models, maybe I messed and did not select "bones" and such, but did not see any information about animations being written to the listener...

Anyway, what tool people use? I mean something legal, I don't want to use pirate copies, etc. And I am somehow just learning it by myself, but don't know if I will just forgive about it, as it isn't really simple to learn and do all the stuff by myself. Maybe I will need to hack in Dex scripts and learn about all the file formats...

 

[Kimbo]

I use 3dmax, you can dl it for free and use its 30day trial.

Im very sure there are other gmax users that can help you, try to paragraph better though.. hard to understand you =/

 

[WoK.Vingador]

Thanks. Sorry for the paragraphs, I tried to put too much information in the message.
I am still very new to modeling, but I believe gmax is the better option at least for learning. Milkshape, from the screenshots seens to be a completely different program; while gmax user interface is almost identical to 3dmax; same icons, etc. Well, I have been using gmax for a few days and I am starting to feel confortable to use it as a modeling program.
Hopefully I can later download 3dmax trial version and use/convert gmax files for use with Blizzard art tools, or at worst will need learn max script to hack the already available Dex and import/export scripts.

I still have a lot of doubts, but will leave it to ask later probably, when I know better details of questions and if I can't figure it by myself..., i.e. things like what coordinate system to use (if aplicable), how to generate a template bitmap skin, etc.

 

[Kimbo]

Hmm..well gmax is rather limited, the unwrap features are really cruel and you cant render to my knowledge. But i wish you luck, i use max as stated, but since i dont know how to animate in it i export to milkshape in 3ds format and animate there.
Milkshape is rather basic, buggy..but it gets the job done, i Highly suggest you dont use it for modeling though, very poor and limited tools.

 

[WoK.Vingador]

After that post I searched the tools in the hiveworkshop and found this gem http://hiveworkshop.com/resources_new/tools/367/
and there is this very good "beginner" tutorial on using gmax (and how to animate on it):
http://momm.seiken.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=44

I did not test everything yet (still reading all gmax documentation), but from the tutorial, Magos used Inverse Kinematics to animate. Almost anything can be animated on gmax, but it seens to export to mdl one need to first convert the model to a editable poly/mesh.
Also not sure if only with IK one can animate (and have it to work with the export script), certain animations could be easier to do either by just moving primitives by hand, or morphing, etc. But probably not required to have too much precision; I will later try to import a few models to get a better feeling of what precision one needs, but I am pretty sure it must be kept at very low polygons, etc.

I can't comment much on the gmax limitations, so far I only know it is free and has a huge amount of features that once one understands them, can make modeling quite easy.

 

[Pyritie]

There's some tool over at wc3campaigns, but it's down at the moment. It "bakes" the IK animations so that wc3 and dex's script recognises them.

And bones are the shizz for animating, morphers are a pain in the ass.

And how else do you get a model the way you want without converting to an editable poly? Are you just making baby blocks then? ^_^

If you want, I made a basic golf ball (with anims) in gmax, you can take a look at it if you want.

 

[WoK.Vingador]

Sorry, I did not explain well I think, and I was still learning gmax. But at that moment, my plan was to work as much as possible with primitives, to take advantage of the modifier stack (it is possible to actually edit faces/vertices/etc of a primitive (cube/sphere/etc) with a modifier, but easy to mess up things...), and then keep a copy in that format, before converting to an "editable mesh/poly/patch" format.
I did not experiment enough with maxscripts, but probably one could figure out the geometry before converting, but sure it would be easier to convert...

 

[Pyritie]

What I normally do is just make a primitive, set the amount of faces, etc, to what I want, and then convert to editable poly. It's much easier than modifiers.

 

[Nasrudin]

I did something like that for a map a while ago, with anims for bow, staff, 1h\2h weapons. Only, it uses a custom texture by someone unknow and I can't be bothered to rewrap it.

 

[WoK.Vingador]

What I normally do is just make a primitive, set the amount of faces, etc, to what I want, and then convert to editable poly. It's much easier than modifiers.

I understand. I did not even start serious modeling, before at least for the moment, giving up on gmax. What I probably would do is to have a background image for top, front and left view, then start modeling with curves/lines, i.e. not a parametrized primitive from start. But use instanced copies to model only a half of the model, etc.

I did something like that for a map a while ago, with anims for bow, staff, 1h\2h weapons. Only, it uses a custom texture by someone unknow and I can't be bothered to rewrap it.

This idea was what made me start trying to model custom characters; there are some very good mod tools for converting Diablo images, making character animations, etc, that I was planning to use as a basis to create the 3d models/animations... I think I could do most of it for an existing model using Magos model editor and Oinkerwinkle's tools. But I am trying to have an environment where I could create models from scratch.
Blizzard actually, made everything for Diablo in 3dsmax, as high detailed models (at least this is what is said at http://www.michaeldashow.com/gameart.html), what I was planning to do is to do that in reverse order, and only for heros, but with low poly models to match Warcraft models.

 

[Pyritie]

I still don't get why you're trying to do everything the hard way. And oinkerwinkle's tools CAN be used to start from scratch. There are primitives included, you know.

 

[WoK.Vingador]

I am not saying Oinkerwinkle's or Mago's are bad tools, they are awesome, but for "minor" changes on existing models; but also, I am very new to modeling...
What I am trying is to get an environment where one can create/edit a model, and see it rendered in real time, work on an animation and watch it in real time, while tweaking it to make it more natural, etc.
I know I may seen confused or expressing confusing messages in this thread... But, I am a programmer, and I am not afraid of writing programs/scripts to convert from one format to another (provided I can get enough information on how data is organized in the different formats). But I am also trying to analize if I will get something usable in a reasonable amount of time... Right now I am doing a lot of Blender tutorials, and learning about it. Blender has all that is required, now if I will be able to build a system on top of it that would allow one with minimal model/programming knowledge to easily work with Warcraft models is another history...

 

[Pyritie]

I still think gmax has all of that. You edit the models, I dunno what you mean about "rendered", as a render is basically a picture of the model making it look all nice and fancylike. And as you work on an animation using the bones, you could always "freeze" the main body and make it transparent so you get more of an idea of how it's going to look like.

 

[WoK.Vingador]

Gmax has "almost" everything that is needed, it is basically 3dsmax4, but the Blizzard plugins won't work on it (like particles system, an interface like "View Game Settings" in World Editor, load/save as mdl/mdx/blp, etc).
I believe Blizzard's Warcraft Art Tools were mean't to work with gmax, as a gamepack (there are gamepacks for Quake 3 and several other games), but Autodesk discontinued gmax before Blizzard finished Art Tools; anyway, I did not "investigate" much about it.
Without a Warcraft gamepack to it, gmax limitations don't allow someone that spend enough time learn about all it's internals, scripting language, etc to use it; you can manipulate data, but there are some limitations with string objects, but you can't write data to disk (major limitation), and the only way to comunicate data with other programs is the listener interface, but there are some hardcoded limitations on it also, to not allow selecting all the text, and several other small hardcoded limitations.
Anyway, if you learn gmax, you pretty much learned how to use 3dsmax.

By rendered I mean't like loading the model with the textures correctly applied, and any other information related to the model already in place (like portrait camera, etc), so one can easily modify it, maybe add extra animations, an easy way to modify textures, or how textures are applied, etc.

 

[Pyritie]

By rendered I mean't like loading the model with the textures correctly applied, and any other information related to the model already in place (like portrait camera, etc), so one can easily modify it, maybe add extra animations, an easy way to modify textures, or how textures are applied, etc.

That's called "exported" and yes, gmax has a plugin to allow that.