General Questions about Modeling

[Princess Kiali]

Hello!


I'm still kinda new to the World Editor, but I've seen some fantastic custom models on here and I'd love to see if I could make anything good. But I have some general questions about modeling.

First, what programs do you need to do it? And second, how long does it take to make a decent model with team colors and animations and all of that? I'm curious if I'm looking at something that takes like 8 hours or 8 weeks! If anyone can just answer these little questions for me, I'd be very happy

 

[skrab]

I use 3Ds max 5 for model and animation, photoshop for the texture (if i don't use ingame textures).
It depends on your skills. If you're new to this stuff it will take a lot of time for you to learn everything first.. Also it depends on you free time. If you don't go to school or you don't work you can finish in just few days if you have skills (model, animations and texture).
You can also do model edits like just mesh editing or just texture or animations. (you can do this in hours)
Read the sticky's in the Modeling and animation forum for more information.

 

[chilla_killa]

When I started modelling I first removed things from warcraft units, for example make a weaponless Arthas or cut off the staff of Medivh and use it as an atachment.
Check this video series, that's very good to learn this stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikiqwL25t-4

 

[Time-to-die]

Once you learn the program it is pretty easy to do things. You could use 3ds max, milkshape, and I think I heard gmax had plugins. gmax is basically 3ds max but free.
Took me about 6 hours to make and texture and animate some of my starship trooper models. Guess it really depends on how organized you are and how good you can do things your first time. As in not having to go back and fix stuff.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

To learn how to make a full model thats decent with team color, particles, animations, attachments, collision, portrait, and event objects would take a long time if you didn't know anything about it to begin with. 8 days or 8 weeks? I'd pick the 8 week option. It depends on how good you want the model to be. I started out here on the hive model section and learned from nothing all I know. Great tutorials they have here.

 

[Princess Kiali]

Thank you all for your answers about getting started modeling. Sadly, I didn't realize that 3ds max costs a fortune, and photoshop isn't exactly cheap either.. Looks like this is one part of WC3 that I'm not going to get to try my hand at any time soon.

Still, thank you for the replies!

 

[A.R.]

Gmax and GIMP are free to download and use though

 

[chilla_killa]

Oinkerwinkles tools and Magos and GMAX and GIMP are very good FREE tools.

 

[Princess Kiali]

I've been looking through tutorials and stuff, and other than the fact that trying to read them is like trying to read another language to me, I notice that they all seem to use nine different programs! I downloaded GMax, but one post says that animation is impossible in GMax, and that it doesn't skin models properly, another one says you need Magos to find in-game textures, you need a converter to change model types, there's some sort of vertex changer that you need, and so on.

I have some very complex ideas in my head that no one would ever make for me, so I really need to learn to make my own models. I'm not exactly artistic, so I'm not sure I can actually DO it, but I want to try. What are all the programs I will need, and where can I find them?

 

[skrab]

Many tutorials on this and other sites about 3D modeling are not updated.

 

[chilla_killa]

Well, don't expect you will do a very complicated thing at the first time you make models.

You should start easily, and then learn more and more in many steps, you can't learn everything directly.
Even me, after month of starting modelling don't know all about modelling.
It's something, you have to learn about a long time.
From which country do you come?
I'm german.

So, like I said above, I would start practising by removing things from the blizzard wc3 models.
Like removing the sword of Arthas or make the removed sword as a new atachment model, you can atach to the villager, or whatever you want.
For this the, video linked above is just perfect, if you understand a little bit the english language.

If you practised this a bit, you could make some geoset merges.
This means for example make a footmen with a knight head.

If you want to do something totally new, you should get a real program like GMAX, Milkshape or 3dsmax.
3dsmax will nearly be impossible to get (if you stay on the legal way of life)

Well, I prefer Milkshape 3D and hate GMAX, but it's only my opinion, others say GMAX is better.
It's up to you, you could try Milkshape by getting the 30 days trial for free.

You check some video tutorials on youtube for Milkshape and you can learn all the basics you need to know for modelling with Milkshape.

If you have any questions, whatever it is, just ask me and write me a PM

 

[Devine]

lol.
Milkshape is the best tool you can use. Costs about 25 dollars.
I wouldn't recommend it for any 'nextgen'-game though.

 

[Princess Kiali]

I managed to find and download a free trial of milkshape 3d, which seems like a decent program so far. And the tutorials I've found are all nice, but they really need a "Tutorial for people with no talent at art and no skill on computers." I barely know where to start. I don't even know how to tell the scale that my model would have when it's done. How do I know the thing won't be ten times the size of a normal warcraft unit? And no one says anything about the process of the actual modeling. Do I have to make the model in pieces so that they can be put together with joints later? Sadly, I think this might be beyond my grasp.

 

[chilla_killa]

You often don't know exactly how big the model will be in warcraft, but you can re-size the model VERY easily, after you finished the whole model.
Yes you can make models out of many pieces, for example 2 wings, 1 nose, 1 body of a airplane.
Joints=Bones are for animating your model. But that's an advanced thing.
First play a bit around with primitives (boxes, sphere, cylinders etc.)

 

[Dumbdumb36]

Hello!


I'm still kinda new to the World Editor, but I've seen some fantastic custom models on here and I'd love to see if I could make anything good. But I have some general questions about modeling.

First, what programs do you need to do it? And second, how long does it take to make a decent model with team colors and animations and all of that? I'm curious if I'm looking at something that takes like 8 hours or 8 weeks! If anyone can just answer these little questions for me, I'd be very happy

Well IDK about 8 hours but I can make decent models in about 30min to an hour using Milkshape3D (I like it better than 3dmax lol)