In-depth Animation Tutorial [3ds max]

[Cyb3r]

or get an student license for 50$

First of all, thanks for the big tutorial, well but I don't use 3dsmax
Wanted to see how this program does work but other tutorials(+ art tools FAQ) did not explain how this really works. That is a nice insight into this program and I will maybe buy it later as student license, but what happens after the student license expires after 2 years, is it possible to extend the license while I study for more than 4 semesters?
Would be thankful for an answer

 

[BlinkBoy]

First of all, thanks for the big tutorial, well but I don't use 3dsmax
Wanted to see how this program does work but other tutorials(+ art tools FAQ) did not explain how this really works. That is a nice insight into this program and I will maybe buy it later as student license, but what happens after the student license expires after 2 years, is it possible to extend the license while I study for more than 4 semesters?
Would be thankful for an answer

yeah, but you would need to pay an extra after those 2 years.

Kenichi_101: you were doomed ever since you decided to get a mac. The only 3D modeling package that support macs and has an mdx exporter is Blender. However, there are no tools to edit or convert mdl/mdx in mac.

 

[Cyb3r]

yeah, but you would need to pay an extra after those 2 years.

How much ?

 

[BlinkBoy]

How much ?

no idea, I haven't done it yet.

 

[Darkgamma]

lol this is gorgantiquely funnily large. I just have a problem How do you import the model into 3Ds max 10? Btw, I got Windows 7 ^-^

EDIT: Fixed! And can you tell me how to link hierarchy? lol, if anyone can, please do.

EDIT 2: Fixed again! Now I can't unlink my wrongly-placed hierarchy.

EDIT 3: Fixed again... Will start linking now.

EDIT yet again: Fixed my linking. Took me time to figure it out.

EDITed post: I finished the model and it looks cool! Thank you! BTW this is the bday present for my dad as he likes CG and animations. Thanks!!

 

[BlinkBoy]

lol this is gorgantiquely funnily large. I just have a problem How do you import the model into 3Ds max 10? Btw, I got Windows 7 ^-^

oh right, most people don't know of the ancient methods. here is a tutorial: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...82/how-to-edit-models-a-complete-guide-12167/ the link to the script is broken so: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...76/important-3ds-max-and-gmax-scripts-128498/

 

[Spet]

Amazing tutorial, ive never seen one this in depth before 5/5 furshure
+rep

 

[Vosty]

WOW!
I'm not even a modeller, and I still thought this was EPIC!
11/10! (Not a typo!)

 

[The Panda]

Very Nice.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

This is nice but a lot of people also don't have the money or feel like spending for the student license. Is there any way to do quality animations in Gmax?

 

[locast]

need help

i've been trying to add materials/ colours to the model,
following tutorials all over the forums, i see that i need to unwrap,
then go to material editor and select "Warcraft III" right?
but i do not see "Warcraft III" anywhere, bitmap does not works either.

using vista, 3dsmax 2010.
please help i've been trying all sorts of stuff for a few days now
finally able to post cos of email problems

 

[locast]

need help(2nd post here)

my previous post got deleted for god-knows what kind of unknown reason


i wanted to ask how i could add material/ colours to the model.
i notice most tutorials says to go to material editor,
and selecting "Warcraft III" from the list after clicking standard.
but i do not see any "Warcraft III", the last 2 are Top&bottom, and Xref
anyone help me get this "Warcraft III" in my list?

i've been waiting for a few days waiting for the email issues to be gone, just able to post (again) since the issues are hopefully&finally over.

pls do not delete again!!!

 

[BishopOfDoom]

This is seriously the best tutorial I've seen
Wish someone made a tutorial for milkshape animation like this.
Well. Too bad I don't have 3ds.

 

[Sooda]

I use Gmax and learning animating myself, BlinkBoy takes care of Wc3 Mod community -- respect!

Wanted to say in skinning link is broken (or attachment removed?)
Broken Link: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...gmax-warcraft-iii-art-tools-documentation.pdf

It is something with skinning mesh to bones, please Blinkboy fix it, Art Tools documentation surprisingly is rarity outside of Blizzard Installation.

EDIT:
I can not believe I overlooked Art Tools Documentation.pdf in NeoDex thread, it is attached to first post, the tutorial link is supposed to link to same attachment, but for some odd reason it did not work for me and lead to main forum page instead. I post NeoDex thread first post here:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...mdl-kit-3dsmax-6-2010-gmax-115767/#post996865

for other blind people like me.

 

[vladimir3388]

Why my 3ds max5 with war3 art tool doesn't count animations made without bones (autokey animations)? I have set notetracks and time tags, but I still got error during export to mdx (it says that there are no keys set) Is it even pocessible to export simple animated models like that?

 

[vladimir3388]

This box doesn't open to me when I add note track:

 

[vladimir3388]

Here is my screenshot:

As you can see, I have made note track, but I still got error during export to mdx. I hope that i'm finally going to recieve some answer

 

[BlinkBoy]

you must add the note track to "Objects" not just to any random bone.

 

[vladimir3388]

Firstly, I have tried to do that after watching your animation tutorial, but since animations are attached on bones and there are no keys on model, i've placed them to bone. Anyway, I didn't want to make bones for that model (since it is only football ball, which needs 1 rotation animation only), but I had to attach bone, because it is not possible to export animations to mdx without them. What should I do now?

 

[Graber]

Hey man i got stuck to the point where u have to asign some vertexsis to a bone, i placed the weight table values and the area turned red, after i done i tryed to move a bone and only the bone was moving not any part of the mesh.

 

[vladimir3388]

You need to use "physique" operation, but since there is no script or anything else for warcraft that supports that command, bones are completly useless for warcraft animating...

 

[vladimir3388]

Blizzard was obviously using some tool that supports bones, but all they gave us is war3art tool which suks as hell, and if you want to animate anything, you have to cut off model parts and make them move separately.

 

[Graber]

You need to use "physique" operation, but since there is no script or anything else for warcraft that supports that command, bones are completly useless for warcraft animating...

Where is that operetion? i am new to 3ds max

 

[vladimir3388]

You need to select mesh, go to modifier panel, and then select "physique" from rollout...

 

[Graber]

I found out what was the problem and solved it, it seems if i had the vertes displayed ont he screen then skin the boones it ditn worked even if the area turned in red.
But now i have some hard time making some animations and later on export in war3 i guess.

Ive imported a Villager model in 3ds max 6 but i cant see his skin the blp doesnt work. I didnt so any pre made bones or animations why?

 

[vladimir3388]

I'm working on some uber huge model, but I got this error box during exporting it via 3ds max5 with war3art tool:

Guess what, almost all of my uvw unwarpings gets reseted after importing it to worldedit, but model looks perfect if I open it via warcraft3viewer. Any suggestions?

 

[BlinkBoy]

you may have unwrap vertices outside the main wrapping area.

all the vertices should be inside the blue square.

 

[vladimir3388]

I think that it's because of stupid warcraft limits. It works fine at war3viewer, but textures are being splashed if I import it to worldedit. I have tried to put 1 small texture about nearly 100 times on 1 surface and warcraft simple refuses to render it. The error which appeared has nothing to do with that export. It has appeared because I have forgotten to put textures on some small models that shouldn't be previewed anyway. I think that I'll have to make that texture 512x512 instead of 64x64 in order to complete my goal

 

[vladimir3388]

Here's one simple example that worldedit can't support (it's not the thing that I'm making, but it doesn't work with same reason as my model).
If you want to make a brick wall, but you don't want to spend too much map memory for unnecessary huge texture, I would make texture like this one:

(it has resolution 128x64, so it should't make any problems)

During uvw unwrap inside of blue square borders, so there would more than 4 bricks bricks, we got something like this:

After proper exporting, exported mdx model works perfect in warcraft3viewer:

And finally if I try to import that nice looking wall model to worldedit all I got is a freaking suprise:

So do you think that it can be made some other way but making huge texture that takes at least 0.5 MB?

 

[vladimir3388]

you may have unwrap vertices outside the main wrapping area.

all the vertices should be inside the blue square.

Hmmm, were you talking about the smaller restangle that has the same dimensions as texture?

 

[BlinkBoy]

Hmmm, were you talking about the smaller restangle that has the same dimensions as texture?

yep that's it.

oh and you should use the EDIT button, instead of triple posting.

 

[vladimir3388]

So I would have to make huge texture with all bricks painted on it in order to make it work. Since maximum texture size that warcraft supports is 512x512, each brick would have very low resoulution.
Sorry for spam, I was little pissed off because of those stupid limits, and I wanted to get quick answer, because some guys are waiting for me to finish some model, which textures will take about 10 times more memory because of this limit.

 

[BlinkBoy]

So I would have to make huge texture with all bricks painted on it in order to make it work. Since maximum texture size that warcraft supports is 512x512, each brick would have very low resoulution.
Sorry for spam, I was little pissed off because of those stupid limits, and I wanted to get quick answer, because some guys are waiting for me to finish some model, which textures will take about 10 times more memory because of this limit.

you can have bigger images, as far as they are 2^n dimenssions for example: 1024*1024

 

[vladimir3388]

Huge textures like those are going to take at least 1MB each, even with blp file compression. This way my model would take at least 4MB instead of 400kB

 

[dunce326]

Hey, i been searching for importing tutorials, well after @#£$ING 2WEEKS I CANT
@#£$ING IMPORT MY MADE @#£$ING MODEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
could YOu PLEEASSEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! POST HOW TO IMPORT MY @#£$ING MODEL
I SO DONT HAVE ANY PATIENCE NAD I FUCKING HATE 3DMAX @#£$INGNESSS
BESIDES SRY FOR CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HATE 3DMAX!!!! if i could just find a @#£$ing way
how the hell i could import... EERRHHH... IT MAKES ME SCREAM!!!!!!!!!

{EDIT}
BESIDES< I"AM USING 3D MAX 9 AND THE SCIRPTS DONT WORK, APCEPT FOR THE @#£$ING MILkSHAPE IMPORTERS/EXPORTERS !!!!
JESUS, PLEASE I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE, THE HEADEGG, THE PAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SORRY AGAIN FOR CAPS DOUBLE POSTING AND @#£$ING BAD WORDS!!!!!AND THE !!!

 

[vladimir3388]

Neodex's script sux, and that's why I use 3ds max 5... War3art tool is good for making static models at least, because it doesn't supports bones, so you'll have to break every model to hundreds parts to make it look almost as good as bone animated model...
Btw, what are you trying to make? Could you post some screenshot from 3ds max if you're stuck at exporting?

 

[HeroSlayer]

Vladimir... about ur texturing problem... get Mago's war 3 model editor, open ur model, select Windows tab<Texture Manager<right click on texture<edit<check wrap width and wrap height.
You dont need to wrap everything on the blue squeare, blinkboy was wrong at that (nobody is perfect)
fixed

Blinkboy i have 4 questions for you


all vertices must have dominions of (1/number of linked bones) in each bone?
for example... can a vertex have 0,6 on the foot and 0,4 on the leg 2?? or it has to be always 1/2 and 1/2?? <-- please answer this one
what happens if i dont make mesh unselectable and skin?
what happens if i modify absolute world values when making keys?
what if i leave some bones with 0.00 in the weight table??

 

[vladimir3388]

Nope, blinky wasn't wrong, warcraft has some stupid limits and that's all... No matter what program you use, it won't make warcraft decode models differently. If you want some huge model with detailed texture, you'll have to use huge texture and that's all...
I've checked that model editor earlier, and it sucks just as any other few MB free software... It's can do only some small edits to models, but can't do anything about creating anything new. It's not bad for some newbies who want to do something without making any efforts... It sucks even for creating loading screen mdx because it can make it only out of one texture, which causes very low quality... There are a lot better alternatives to that program and there's no any need for using it

 

[HeroSlayer]

Vladimir, you are the stupid one.

 

[vladimir3388]

Lol, the guy who is using Mago's war 3 model editor is saying that I'm stupid? So ironic...

 

[BlinkBoy]

You dont need to wrap everything on the blue squeare, blinkboy was wrong at that

you should only do that when you got texture vertex animations, else you are overloading the game with unnecessary work for your lazyness. (This method makes warcraft use the CPU for processing that texture rather than the GPU, thus it's slower and overloads the CPU)

all vertices must have dominions of (1/number of linked bones) in each bone?
for example... can a vertex have 0,6 on the foot and 0,4 on the leg 2?? or it has to be always 1/2 and 1/2??

yep, equal distribution.

what happens if i dont make mesh unselectable and skin?

I doubt I've said something about skinning an unselectable mesh. Maybe you confused there.

what happens if i modify absolute world values when making keys?

You'll notice that the other axis will also rotate to some random angle.

what if i leave some bones with 0.00 in the weight table??

well the exporter could count them as affecting the vertex, so it's better to remove them.

 

[vladimir3388]

Vladimir... about ur texturing problem... get Mago's war 3 model editor, open ur model, select Windows tab<Texture Manager<right click on texture<edit<check wrap width and wrap height.
You dont need to wrap everything on the blue squeare, blinkboy was wrong at that (nobody is perfect)
fixed

Blinkboy i have 4 questions for you


all vertices must have dominions of (1/number of linked bones) in each bone?
for example... can a vertex have 0,6 on the foot and 0,4 on the leg 2?? or it has to be always 1/2 and 1/2?? <-- please answer this one
what happens if i dont make mesh unselectable and skin?
what happens if i modify absolute world values when making keys?
what if i leave some bones with 0.00 in the weight table??

Wooooops, heroslayer, I'm sorry for flaming you. ^_^
3 weeks after your post, I've finally decided to try it out, and noticed that it actually works! =) It took me like 2 minutes to fix and test model. I'm taking back everything bad I told about you and Mago's model editor =)
I'm adding Mago's model editor to my list of necessary warcraft tools <3
Thanks a lot once again! =)

 

[Rui]

You didn't mention a link, but I assume it's this thread you're talking about?
~Thread reopened on request!

 

[BlinkBoy]

You didn't mention a link, but I assume it's this thread you're talking about?
~Thread reopened on request!

Thanks, I'll it later today when i get back from work.

 

[maz.maz]

Help plz

i m a total noob at this, plz help.
i ve tried to find a tutorial about importing but cudn't find 1.
cud u kindly give me a link to such tutorial.
also plz state the path of the village child's model.

 

[Dristitia]

how can i make thing spin, like cannon turret, spin his head to where the target is.

 

[HappyTauren]

I think you need to call the bone bone_turret or something, not sure though, see the cannon model for more insight

 

[Dristitia]

i'm can't even imaging how to do it

 

[HappyTauren]

What? Just see how it's done by blizzard.

 

[Dristitia]

Well, i'm just a newbie in modeling, i hardly know any basics. like a monkey copy. :-/