Blender for Warcraft 3 Modeling

[LazyCoder]

Is there any way to make models in Blender for Warcraft 3? What I've been doing is exporting the model from Blender into the md2 format, then opening that up with magos's model editor tool and saving it from there as a .mdx.

That works for incredibly simplistic models, but what about things with more than one material, things with bones, or models with animations? MD2 sucks...

Warblender seems to have been abandoned and doesn't work with the latest official release of blender (2.49b). No one's gotten it to work have they?

EDIT: HAVE THEY???

 

[dgriff]

I'd like to know this, too!

 

[Taylor Mouse]

I don't know why you guys use Blender, use GMAX, it's free, and the tools here on the hive support that so you can make your model from scratch up into the game !

T.

 

[LazyCoder]

Gmax sucks. No rendering, interface makes me want to gouge my eyes out, and the 'tools' you speak of are also horrible, unless of course you don't mind copying and pasting hundreds of times for a single model only to have it not show up in warcraft 3 at all.

I'd like to ask an equally arrogant question: why don't you guys make an exporter script for Blender?

Sorry if I come off as grumpy, but I have a headache and that wasn't what I was asking for.

 

[twotonedbeat]

Why don't YOU make one? If you don't like programs that function fine, why don't you go do it.

We like Gmax and 3ds max, if you don't that's your issue, and its not our job to run around coding solutions for you when there are tools already in existence.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Why don't YOU make one? If you don't like programs that function fine, why don't you go do it.

We like Gmax and 3ds max, if you don't that's your issue, and its not our job to run around coding solutions for you when there are tools already in existence.

Peace !

T.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Btw, google is your friend:

http://projects.blender.org/docman/view.php/67/20/mdlxdata.txt

http://infoceptor.net/files/warcraft3.shtml

http://www.blender.org/development/coding-guides/

http://files.magosx.com/download.php?file=MagosMdxFormat.txt

http://home.magosx.com/index.php?topic=20.0

The last one is probably the one you want cause it allows you to download an assembly that you can use in your app

T.

 

[LazyCoder]

All I was asking is if there was a way to export models from Blender. I don't like Gmax (I put up with it for 2 years) and I don't have a time machine and several thousand dollars, so 3ds max is out (and I'm NOT torrenting it).

 

[Mechanical Man]

Blender, as all graphical pingoware, has a horrible interface and is very cumbersome, thus not worth writing a script. Really, gmax is so much better.

 

[Mulgrim]

I don't know why you guys use Blender, use GMAX, it's free, and the tools here on the hive support that so you can make your model from scratch up into the game !

T.

it all depends on style, i couldn't stand gmax myself.

on topic: i don't think there's a direct converter, but because blender is a nice tool someone will most likely make one, i've been thinking of using it myself to put fur on a model I've been making on ms3d, in that case i already have it planned, ms3d and blender share a few exporters/importers for other file formats, and ms3d has the exporter to wc3.

 

[LazyCoder]

Blender, as all graphical pingoware, has a horrible interface and is very cumbersome, thus not worth writing a script. Really, gmax is so much better.

I could say the very same about Gmax. The thing I like about Blender is it's FAST. I barely ever use the interface, it's mostly done through hotkeys which unfortunately, you just have to learn through experience.

 

[BlinkBoy]

to be honest Blender is way better than Gmax (well it's opensource, what would you expect) the problem is that learning Blender and actually using it correctly is a lot more difficult than Gmax.

There's an script around for exporting from Blender, but as I recall it was very buggy.

You can also always write an script if you know Python.

 

[LazyCoder]

Yea blender is very hard to get used to. But once you do get used to it... WOW it is fast!

 

[dgriff]

I have most of the skills required to manually make an .mdl export script for blender (I know python and blender), and it would be a great learning experience.

That said, realistically, it would take me at least a month or two. And, since Starcraft 2 is right around the corner, I'm not sure it would be useful for very long at all since Starcraft 2 will likely use a different format for their models (I assume?). But, once I finish my map, we'll see...

Oh, and to all the people who are saying blender is trash: I thought the same thing when I first tried it. It's unlike anything else I've ever used. However, it's very powerful and easy to use once you learn the interface. Learning the interface takes about a month. So here is my pro-blender argument/analogy: If using a program were like reading a book, blender would be a great novel written in some retarded hick dialect. And all the haters on here only know formal English so they can't read it very easily so they assume the rest of it is just trash =P

 

[LazyCoder]

Yea SC2 will definitely NOT use the exact same format. The new units have diffuse, normal, and possibly specular maps, not just diffuse maps like in warcraft 3; so the format is already slightly different there. Plus, there's the IK system used in the colossus that surely makes for a few new options in the model format.

It'd be nice to have an exporter, but I agree with you: it's really too late for WC3.

 

[dgriff]

I found an .mdl exporter script for blender. It was made for Quake, but it might work for war3. I haven't tried it out yet myself.

http://glbsp.sourceforge.net/files/pak2.zip

 

[LazyCoder]

I found an .mdl exporter script for blender. It was made for Quake, but it might work for war3. I haven't tried it out yet myself.

http://glbsp.sourceforge.net/files/pak2.zip

Nah they're not even the same format. mdl is blizzard's own file format. It's just short for 'model' so I can see how it would be a common extension.

 

[LazyCoder]

I tried installing milkshape 3d, but I didn't realize it wasn't free.

What formats can gmax import? I might just use it as an intermediary...

 

[LazyCoder]

Ok I found a pretty usable solution. It's really just the modeling/UV mapping tools of gmax I can't stand.

What I do is I export the model from blender as a .3ds file. DO NOT use gmax's built in importer, it discards the UV coordinates. Use the ".3ds to gmax" converter, find it in the tools section of this site. Then I simply use Dex script to export it to the listener, then cut and paste all the data over.

lol, I remember ages ago when it would take forever to export a model from GMax because I'd have tens of thousands of tris.

 

[ManDraKer]

I think its the .obj exp. or the .3ds exp. from blender.

 

[LazyCoder]

I think its the .obj exp. or the .3ds exp. from blender.

Think what is?