• 🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
  • It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!

Quick and dirty way to mirror a character model? Or turn an attachment point?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
So I have the following problem:
All attachment shields I imported into my map are right-hand versions, as I'm using them to attach them to footman animations.

However, this new character model I made uses different animations and would use the shield on the left hand.

Is there a quick and easy way to basicly rotate the left hand attachment ref by 180 degrees so that it faces backwards without affecting the translation and rotation modifiers on animations?
How does that work? I mean, attachment points are points, how can they have directional information in them? But attached models somehow do know which orientation they should have? Can someone explain how that works?

The problem would obviously be that any swords carried in that hand would basicly face backwards... but I can live with that, I think. I'm not planning to attach swords or weapons in that hand anyway.


An alternative would be to mirror the whole model and all animations along the X/Z plane, then just rename the left and right hand attachment points, so that it functions the same as the footman. How can I do that quick and easy?

PS: Using mostly Matrix Eater, MDLvis and Magos. I don't have Neodex installed because it doesn't work on my machine with my 3ds max version.

145916d1433628960-introducing-mystic-mystic1.png
 
Level 19
Joined
Aug 29, 2012
Messages
793
You can do this in Mdlvis, but be sure to make a safe copy of your model first, Mdlvis doesn't like rotating attachments and it can screw your entire model.

How I usually proceed in such cases is like so :
- I add a dummy bone (let's call it Bone_Shield) and I create a totally new attachment point, for instance, "weapon gold" or "weapon first", this way it won't interfere with the left hand.
- I attach this new ref to the bone, and the bone to the left arm (usually to Bone_Arm2_L).
- Finally, you just have to create a global animation for your model, in which you rotate the Bone_Shield to the value you see fit. And it should work!

Edit : Forgot to mention that both your bone and attachment should be placed near the arm you want, like halfway between the elbow and the hand, and a bit off, so the shield won't clip in the arm.

I hope it's understandable, not easy to explain for a non native speaker ^^"

PS: Sweet little model btw, I'm sure you can design your own shields, and make them face the right angle!
 
Last edited:

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
How I usually proceed in such cases is like so :
- I add a dummy bone (let's call it Bone_Shield) and I create a totally new attachment point, for instance, "weapon gold" or "weapon first", this way it won't interfere with the left hand.
- I attach this new ref to the bone, and the bone to the left arm (usually to Bone_Arm2_L).
- Finally, you just have to create a global animation for your model, in which you rotate the Bone_Shield to the value you see fit. And it should work!
This is actually pretty clever. I didn't know that you can also use gold and first animation tags on attachment points? I thought ref points were restricted to the small catalog of basic names.

- Finally, you just have to create a global animation for your model, in which you rotate the Bone_Shield to the value you see fit. And it should work!
Can't I just, say, create that bone as a child of the original hand left ref point and set its rotation value to a static 180 degrees in magos?
Why do I need that global sequence here?

Edit : Forgot to mention that both your bone and attachment should be placed near the arm you want, like halfway between the elbow and the hand, and a bit off, so the shield won't clip in the arm.
The small displacement is actually accounted for in the shield models themselves, as they are meant to attach properly to the standard hand attachment points.

PS: Sweet little model btw, I'm sure you can design your own shields, and make them face the right angle!
Thanks; I put a lot of work into this. It's not about making my own shields and turning them; it's about saving filesize by only having to import one shield for both left and right hand attachments.
 
Level 19
Joined
Aug 29, 2012
Messages
793
You can add several tags to your reference points' names. I have models that use "weapon alternate fourth" attachments and they work perfectly fine. You can add many attachments to your models like that, it's pretty cool!

About rotating the bone in Magos, honestly I can't tell ^^ I've always been using this method so far, but if you want to give a shot in Magos, please give it a try and let me know. It would make the process less tedious, that's for sure.
I use a global only because I am a lazy bum and I don't want to edit every single animation and rotate that bone every time. With a global it just does the job for all animations and I'm clear hehe ^^
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
I got it working now.
The extra bone wasn't even neccesary, I just basicly duplicated the "Hand Left" attachment point in Magos, then turned the attachment point in MDLVis until the green axis (Y) faced inwards (instead of outwards), leaving the direction of the red (X) axis as is.

Did this only for frame 0.

Then I went back into Magos, copied the rotation values from the attachment point at frame 0 and used search & replace in notepad to copy/paste it to all start and ending frames.


Oh and I used your idea naming it "Weapon Gold". Pretty neat idea!
 

Attachments

  • step1.jpg
    step1.jpg
    54.2 KB · Views: 89
  • step2.jpg
    step2.jpg
    332.8 KB · Views: 82
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top