Adding an Animation to an Existing Model

[Dark.Revenant]

Yeah. I want to add an animation to the peasant model without screwing with the existing ones. Can it be done? How can it be done?

Yes, I've searched around for this and have not gotten answers that way.

And yes, I have modeling and animation experience but not for games.

 

[BlinkBoy]

Yeah. I want to add an animation to the peasant model without screwing with the existing ones. Can it be done? How can it be done?

Yes, I've searched around for this and have not gotten answers that way.

And yes, I have modeling and animation experience but not for games.

which version of 3dsmax do you have? depending on which you have, you must follow a method or another, but let me warn you, it will be in FK. You could also do it using Warforger, Warshape or MdlVis, but it's quite hard to animate in those.

You could also import the model, do the new animation, export it and transfer the new animation to the original. For this last method, you can use Bipeds and IK.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

I have access to 3ds Max 9 at school but any recent version of 3ds max screws with my internet settings. I can't seem to host any WarCraft III games when it is installed, no matter which settings I change or parts of it I install. And then there's the problem of the trial having run out last month, but that's nothing a torrent can't fix.

And why exactly would I make a biped? Doesn't the peasant already have a skeleton?

 

[BlinkBoy]

I have access to 3ds Max 9 at school but any recent version of 3ds max screws with my internet settings. I can't seem to host any WarCraft III games when it is installed, no matter which settings I change or parts of it I install. And then there's the problem of the trial having run out last month, but that's nothing a torrent can't fix.

And why exactly would I make a biped? Doesn't the peasant already have a skeleton?

you can always make a new skeleton and once you convert it to FK, rename it so it be the same as the peasant.

If you are using max 9, then you may have 2 options, import the model create an skeleton, create new animations, export and transfer. You can also use Fadis Moundir's importer, reanimate and export the animation, but this last method requires MDL Editing knowledge.

Tell me what you think you could do and I'll explain a bit more.

Also, don't say "but that's nothing a torrent can't fix" talking of piracy, warez, torrents, etc is forbidden within the forums.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

I'll go with option 1 because it seems the most straightforward of the bunch. What would I need to do to make a warcraft-compatible skeleton animation and how would I set it up and such?

 

[BlinkBoy]

I'll go with option 1 because it seems the most straightforward of the bunch. What would I need to do to make a warcraft-compatible skeleton animation and how would I set it up and such?

in max 9, you must make a simple Bone structure and skin the mesh using the Skin modifier. Then you must animate in FK, you could do IK and Bipeds but if you don't know how to convert them, don't worry.

I'll post a tutorial in some days about Basics of animations in 3dsmax any version, there I explain how to set the Skin modifier for it to work with dexporter.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

So once I have the animation done, what must I do to export it? Most of the tutorials seem to be with just 3ds Max 5...

 

[BlinkBoy]

for 3dsmax 6 and up, you export like in GMAX, just that instead of using Print to listener, you use Export file.

Here's Magos tutorial: World-Editor Tutorials Site

and Here's Dexporter: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/f276/warcraft-modelers-must-have-7414/ (look at second post).

 

[Dark.Revenant]

Yeah, I kinda noticed a problem with DExporter... Wc3campaigns is down and has been down for nearly a week. If you have it, can you attach it somewhere?

 

[BlinkBoy]

okay, here it is:

 

[Dark.Revenant]

Thanks.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

A problem: I have done the animation and all that, then transferred to the existing peasant model. In Magos' Model Editor (after being converted to an .mdx because it can't open the .mdl) the sequence editor shows the animation correctly, but when I go to play it, nothing happens (except for the gold bag, wood, and bones disappearing because i deleted them from the animated model).

What am I doing wrong? The animation plays fine on the animated model, but the transfer is going wrong somewhere.

 

[BlinkBoy]

post both models, please.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

It's an animation of pulling a gun to the head and pulling the trigger. Yes, it's for russian roulette.

JPeasant is the one i need the animation inserted into.

Edit: Hell, I even tried it again with a different animation, this time not deleting anything from the model except the old bones (since I made new ones), to no avail. I won't bother uploading the broken one... XPeasant.mdl is the one with the new animation, and JPeasant.mdl is the base peasant (both are weaponless).

Edit Again: Further investigation reports that the transfer was... failtastic. Notepad showed me that the new bones were not added to the new model! I tried manually adding them, but it didn't work very well (the model didn't bug up, as before. It just didn't do anything).


Using notepad, I was able to add the textures/materials to the 1-animation peasant, so that should be a placeholder for now... (Triggers to hide/unhide units ftw)

 

[BlinkBoy]

The problem is simple, in order for the transfering to be succesful, the Skeleton of both models must be identical. The skeleton in Xpeasant has no names, name them using the same names as the ones in JPeasant.

Btw, Spell should start in the position of Stand Ready, and ends the same way. Add 2 Spell animation one when it triggers and one when it doesn't trigger. The one that triggers stops there, and the other goes back to Stand Ready. Both must be NonLooping.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

Uh... What? Explain what you mean by 2 Spell animations. I can see what you mean with starting at Stand Ready (though it is impossible to do this, as the importer fucks up all of the animations and randomly throws the bones around) but what's with 2 spell animations?

Also, from what I've seen in the world editor preview box, if i have the animation time longer than the set keys, the animation goes back to its original state by the end of the sequence. Would that work?

Edit: I tried with the same bone names. For God's sake, this is annoying. The transfer failed because it tried to put linear rotations in a hermite sequence of animations... Wow...

How the fuck do I do this?

Edit2: Oh, God. The model is rotated 90 degrees clockwise. When will the FAIL end?



At this point, can someone please just do this for me? There's no way that I can do this given the amazing failure of my technology.

 

[BlinkBoy]

export the animations in TCB. I'll PM you a link to a tutorial for which I've been working, it should help you export the model correctly.

 

[Dark.Revenant]

I've given up with doing it properly. Hooray for complicated triggering and using my horribly buggy animation to end up with a decent result...

I've repped you for trying, anyhow. I guess warcraft models are just too tedious for me to work with.