[3D Art] Importing War3 (SD and HD) models into Blender

[BogdanW3]

Hey there, this post's task is to outline the simplest way to get a model straight from the game into Blender.

Required programs:

• CascView
• Blender (latest is probably the best, 4+ at the time of writing, subject to update when the plugin updates)
• Importer plugin: Tw1lac's maintained version of the Khalv's mdl-export plugin (it does importing too)

Steps:

1. Extract the game data using CascView (either only the assets you need for the model, or the whole game data, currently 65GB when extracting all HD textures)
2. Download the importer plugin
   1. If there is no release on the GitHub releases section for the plugin, download the code as zip (currently 3.4 branch)
3. Import plugin to blender
   1. To do this, go to %appdata%/Blender Foundation/Blender/{version}/scripts/addons and place the export_mdl folder here. (Using the Blender's install button might create an incorrect folder structure)
4. (optional) to get the models' textures correctly set up, find the exporter's preferences (the search bar will help there), open them, and set the resource path to point to the war3.w3mod root folder that you extracted, then set the alternative resource path to the war3.w3mod/_hd.w3mod folder, also set the image extension to dds.
   1. the models themselves might or might not look completely correct as they were made for unity-like shaders, so manual adjustment might be required for them to look close to the ingame appearance, or the plugin might've updated that by the time you're reading this
5. import the model from File->Import->Warcraft 3 (.mdx/mdl)

No fancy images, no fancy wording, shouldn't require much knowledge of blender to execute these steps

FAQ:
Q: Where are the animations?
A: In the action editor, and all sequences is the track you'll want to select for most usecases

Q: CascViewer is reporting as unsafe?!
A: If the link to the original source is reporting as unsafe, you can probably find it rehosted on Hive, but I assure you the tool itself is safe.

Q: The model imports but it's crystallic
A: You didn't set up the texture paths correctly (step 1 and 4 are applicable here), you can also set up the materials manually if you'd like.

 

[TJ6]

Hello, BogdanW3

That's a great guide, thank you!

Now we have Blender v5 and I thought I could enhance it a little bit:

3. Import plugin to blender
3.1. To do this, go to Blender installation folder, then to

%\Blender 5.0\5.0\scripts\addons_core

and place the folder

export_mdl

.
3.2. Then you should go in Blender to Edit -> Settings -> Addons (if you don't see the plugin, press Refresh locally in the up right button). After it apperead in the list, leave a mark on the plugin.
3.3. (optional) While you're there, to get the models' textures correctly set up, click at dropdown button on the plugin, and set the resource path

war3.w3mod

root folder that you extracted, then set the alternative resource path to the

war3.w3mod/_hd.w3mod

folder, also set the image extension to dds.

Edit. And, it doesn't work with models...

 

[BogdanW3]

Hello, BogdanW3

That's a great guide, thank you!

Now we have Blender v5...

Hey there! The version on my github might be more up to date in some regards, idk if it works with blender 5 but it did work with blender 4.5 I had tried last.