Warcraft III Reforged - MDX format

[Taylor Mouse]

Hi all, trying an import script for 3D Studio Max for the new mdx models

Everything I have at the moment can be found here:

TaylorMouse/MaxScripts

I could use some help with the animation of the bones actually.

Here is what I got so far:

 

[stein123]

Duuuuuude, you're back!!!!!

 

[Taylor Mouse]

 

[CentaurWarlord]

Taylour_Mouse!!! You rock dude!

If you or Retera or others in the community can crack this WC3 Reforged MDX to WC3TFT MDX conversion. That'd be OH so swell!

So I tried to re-rig a WC3R Centaur Outrunner model vertex-by-vertex to the animations of the WOW Centaur Warrior, which I've ported successfully already... the result was pretty bad still.

I'd love a WC3Reforged Export that RETAINS the animations and such.

So far, WET v0.4.2.3 can do Warcraft 3: Reforged MDX conversion but only to OBJ, which is halfway there. I was wondering how far you got with unpacking the new MDX file format? I'd love to help out, though I'm still quite newb at WC3 modding.

Here's my custom Centaur race mod by the way: Warcraft III: Frozen Throne Custom Race Centaur Horde Version 2.0 2019

I'm still struggling mostly with Animations... though finally I made some headway and now I can reliably craft Decay Flesh and Decay Bone animations, to "complete" and "polish" the look.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

My 3D Model Viewer can convert all new mdx models to Obj already, but only LOD 1, which means that the number of polys is way to high to use in the TFT (old) engine.
Most mdx models are between 10 to 25 K polys while the old specs are 300 to 700 polys

Current status, the animations are 95% working. some animations are weird, now this can be becaus it is still beta and not final release.
I still need to import loads of stuff, where I don't even have any clue yet what it is.

Visibility Track and Sequence Track (or note track) are imported correctly, also the bounding spheres are imported.

Like I said, loads of stuff to do yet

T.

 

[Rui]

@Taylor_Mouse how much harder do you think it'll be to model for Reforged?

 

[Taylor Mouse]

I think it will be a lot more different that you are used to, I know that the models are done in Maya, Sculpt in Z-Brush, textures done and baked in Substance Painter, no more handpainted stuff as far as I know, the textures are PBR, meaning ambient occlusion, roughness and metallness are rendered by the GPU,

They way to do this, is like they did in DOTA2 and SC2 and Overwatch

So the ORM texure that is in Reforged is the R channel = Ambient Occlusion, G channel = Roughness, B channel = metalness and they added an Alpha channel that is used for the Team Color
There will not be a diffuse map anymore but an Albedo map a Emission Map and a Normal map, but not like SC2 ( where the R channel is in the alpha channel and the G channel is inversed )

So we need to find a way to create these textures and apply them to the correct slot to create new models. I don't know Maya but maybe there is a PBR Material that can support this. Or probably Blizz made their own PBR material ( like they did in SC2 )

T.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Here is a tutorial that you could follow to get the basics:
Steam Community :: Guide :: Dota 2, Weapon Creation Tutorial - Pudge's Offhand.
T.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Question, how did you add sound in Max 2005 back in the day for the old mdx format?

T.

Never mind found it

 

[deepstrasz]

Maybe this post (click) helps with something.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

EVTS tag (aka events) are now correctly imported confirm to the WC3 Documentation

@deepstrasz don't rly know what to do with that other than it is linking back to my post and the model viewer is for the old mdx format

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Converted the chaos peon to SC2 just to see it it works

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Got the import of all of the tags for the battrol

Still need to do lights (LITE) particle emitters ( PREM & PRE2 ) ribbons (RIBB) texture animation ( TXAN ) global sequences (GLBS ) and CORN ( whatever that is )

T.

 

[CentaurWarlord]

My 3D Model Viewer can convert all new mdx models to Obj already, but only LOD 1, which means that the number of polys is way to high to use in the TFT (old) engine.
Most mdx models are between 10 to 25 K polys while the old specs are 300 to 700 polys

Current status, the animations are 95% working. some animations are weird, now this can be becaus it is still beta and not final release.
I still need to import loads of stuff, where I don't even have any clue yet what it is.

Visibility Track and Sequence Track (or note track) are imported correctly, also the bounding spheres are imported.

Like I said, loads of stuff to do yet

T.

Way to go, Taylor_Mouse!

Oh snap, I learned something new. Yeah, this is why it takes AGES to load up the MDX900 Reforged models in MdlVis or MAGOS.

Keep it up!

Ooooh, looks like you really nailed that Chaos Peon, but the Troll Batrider as a Flying unit, must be quite more difficult, much more animation involved and extra adjacencies.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Looks like CORN is linking to an external file, in the mdx file it contains animations ( like scale, transform, rotation, visibility and alpha ) all that I can read, but I'm not sure how to read the external pkfx file, anyone has an idea?

(Warcraft3_Reforged_CORN
id:1
name:"GeneralAuraTarget"
filename:"Abilities/Spells/Other/GeneralAuraTarget/GeneralAuraTarget.pkfx"
Properties:#("Always=on", "Death=off", "Decay=off")
flags:4096
KPPA:undefined
KPPV:#((Warcraft3_Reforged_KG time:0 Point:1.0 inTan:undefined outTan:undefined LineType:undefined), (Warcraft3_Reforged_KG time:65 Point:1.0 inTan:undefined outTan:undefined LineType:undefined), ...
KGSC:#((Warcraft3_Reforged_KG time:0 Point:[1,1,1] inTan:undefined outTan:undefined LineType:undefined), (Warcraft3_Reforged_KG time:65 Point:[1,1,1] inTan:undefined outTan:undefined LineType:undefined), ...
KGTR:undefined
KGRT:undefined
)

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Currently I still need to import the Particle Emitters, ( 1 & 2 since both are found in the new models )
For the Ribbon Emitter, Events and Attachment points I decided to create my own plugin ( challenging, since I never did this before )
I succeeded in creating the ribbon emitter plugin and importing it into max

Is working pretty neat... soon an update

T.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Added custom ribbon plugin to support the features for Reforged and a custom Warcraft 3 Reforged Standard material to support the ORM map

T

 

[8Yaron8]

@Taylor_Mouse, Cool! You are awesome! But I wanted to ask how to correctly import models into 3ds max as well as their animations. When I try to use a script to import a model, I have this error. I read a lot of other forums and they mention that need to model viewer to download a "some" file that allows you to open models from Reforge, but I don’t know where to look for them. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe I didn’t install the scripts correctly and run them incorrectly, etc.. Can you then make tutorial and a video demonstration on installing scripts and importing models and animations?

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Hey guys, the importer is finished, you can download it from my Game Dev Blog, here I explain how to install and use it:
Taylor Mouses Game Dev Blog

or from SC2 Mapster:
https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/taylor-mouses-stuff/files/2824842

You need ofcourse the CascViewer to extract all the models from the Blizzard Game (Casc Storages - Main page)

I know there are still bugs, but as long as the game is not released, I won't be doing any major changes

As I said on my blog, next up is the export functionality

Enjoy

T.

 

[8Yaron8]

Yet it worked! Just for some reason, textures did not load, but this is ok, I can load the textures into the model myself, and the model is on the right side and not in front.

 

[flocks]

Hi taylor mouse thanks for the script but i have a problem when importing

useful reason why its like this? thanks

 

[jessy]

Hi

i think you have problem with you link for your 3d model viewer

and how to fix this??

thanks

 

[Zak17]

Are you using an older version of 3DS Max? Is there a version of 3DS Max that doesn't cost $1500+ a year that I am missing somehow?

 

[Taylor Mouse]

@Zak17 Register yourself as a student at Autodesk, pick any college from the US, and you get every version for the next 3 Years, Max, Mudbox, Maya, etc... up to Max 2020

Every 3 years, you need to change tho
And I'm using 2016 because the ArtTools from SC2 only work in that version & 2020 to test

 

[Profi]

Hi, Taylor_Mouse
Thanks for the tools. It looks like you incorrectly pasted link to download the new 3d model viewer in your blog (it refers to 3ds max scripts)

 

[jessy]

@Profi have you successfully import it to 3dsmax?

 

[8Yaron8]

@Taylor_Mouse, my friend and I have observed that the bones of the face are located above the face, which makes it difficult to control the face in 3d programms for animation (Source Filmmaker and Unreal engine tools), and faces with such bones are deformed. I have found at the moment 2 models that do not have this problem - this is Kel'Thuzad Lich and Diablo on kart. I think this is a problem due to "Face FX", which displaces the bones of those models that have, let's call it "lipsync", while Diablo and Kel do not have them. Maybe then add an option that removes this lipsync from the models? And why is the model not in front, but in the right angle?

 

[Profi]

@Profi have you successfully import it to 3dsmax?

Yes. But I have error message too and animation tool doesn't work. But model itself and materials works fine.

 

[Trallor]

Hello everybody!
Great work @Taylor_Mouse ! i'm also trying to get the reforged model, and, i got the same error than @Profi , @flocks and @jessy.
Incompatible types : 1,0 undefined.

what are you calling root asset folder? the: war3.w3mod? the whole War3 folder? only the one with the model?

Hope someone can help us!

 

[8Yaron8]

@Trallor need war3.w3mod. Before extracting content, need to use the latest version cascview, the old version with problems extracts textures, and because of this, the model could not load in 3dsmax.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

But the did actually, open the Material editor (press M) and press the button, view in viewport
THis happens when you create custom materials (was my first time so I don't master it yet)

Looking sweet


For the face bones, I don't know why they are placed on top, maybe it needs to work with the .FaceFX file, but I haven't gotten to that, maybe they are placed there for easier animation, maybe the script is not 100% correct, maybe pigs can fly if you throw them hard enough, maybe I don't care

The link for my viewer has been fixed btw

T.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Update:
Testing the import of the bones again, its not the skin, because, when I import the bones and the mesh without applying the skin modifier ( so no bone weights ) the bones are still positioned above the model )...

Update 2:
its not due to the bone animation, because when I do not apply any bone anim to the bones, the position is still the same...


Update 3:
other than the fact that this is weird, having facial bones, above the head, the animation looks fine:

Keep you posted

 

[8Yaron8]

Some character face animations work “normally”, but some characters have bulging eyes, a lower hanging jaw and teeth sticking out! With the same facial expressions do only memes!))
I still hope this models will not have such a problem by the release of the game.

Spoiler: Meme faces

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Hey, by pointing this out I found a bug, actually a chunk of animation on the PopCorn particles I did not read previously, this has been fixed, fix can be found on my github

Edit:
- Also found the code to show the materials automatically in the viewport of Max

Edit:
- Added the bounding box, previously neglected. (found this when I was writing the export )

T.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Ok changed some stuff in the code, get it from my github page

Here is a little teaser:

 

[Trallor]

@8Yaron8 yeah it work, (was targeting old models... hehe...) still got an error for the texture, but model and bones are ok, and that's all i needed!!
great work thanks!

 

[WollieWoltaz]

@Trallor

I've gotten the texture error as well, that it would not be viewable in the viewport automatticly but then i've tried the path "_teen.w3mod". And now it works!
I only have an issue with some animations not properly showing in the animationproperies script. All the animations are imported on the timeline but not all of them are readable in the property script.

 

[Retera]

My stuff just got hit by the Reforged Beta upgrade to MDX1000 format from MDX900, so far the only difference I was seeing were 5 additional fields on Layers, maybe floating point. But it means that models made previously in MDX900 format on Reforged Beta custom maps don't work in the new version... Or at least, mine don't. The game does not seem to support MDX900 anymore but MDX1000 is almost exactly the same. @Taylor_Mouse Did you have a source you were using for the format specifications or were you data mining it yourself? I'm curious to keep up to date with any info on what the new layer data is. Previously I had just copied from Ghostwolf, but I don't know if he datamined MDX1000 yet. I'll probably be keeping in touch with him about that, too.

 

[8Yaron8]

After updating the game (Night elves update), the script stopped working. I still have the old extracted content and the script works on them.

 

[Retera]

Coming from being the developer of Retera Model Studio Reforged Hack myself, as far as I can tell, the only needed fix is that VERS chunk now has 1000 instead of 900, and also the LAYS chunk has 5 additional floating point numbers per layer. But I do not understand what these 5 numbers do yet. I used an automated script to check a lot of models, and they were always [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0]

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Hey, I tried you Retara Model Studio, but, at least for me, did not get it to work at all...
My 3D Model Viewer still works with ALL models, no need to change there.
I'm testing the new Elves atm... since I had a hard working week and not really the time to change my script yet

Now the script I did was mainly mined by myself and cross referencing it with existing resources, but most of the existing resources are incomplete (which I understand cuz not everyone wants to give away their hard work )

Keep you posted.
T.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Updated my import script, looks like the import of the animations are still :/ I tried a billion different ways to get this to work, alas..

Update can be found on github: TaylorMouse/MaxScripts

T.

 

[8Yaron8]

Thank you, but for me the new version of the script does not work, I have a debugger running and the script will continue to work if I press the run button, but errors will appear after the script runs.

Spoiler: Script Error

Edit: I thought that if I save all the old scripts in a separate folder, but they interacted with each other since they were in the startup folder. The script still works!

 

[feber13]

I do not understand how it works, I have problems with the directory?

 

[Triceron]

I've been getting errors with some of the scripts at load time.

I updated my scripts to the latest upload on Nov. 25 and it worked for importing. I imported the Footman.mdx and it came out right, with animations in tact.

I'm still unsure how any of the shaders are set up though. What I found interesting is the normal maps use Red channel for Y and Green channel for X. I had to swap the channels in photoshop to have the normals display right in Maya.

Also it looks like the ORM file is used for PBR shaders
O = Occlusion, Red channel
R = Roughness, Green channel
M = Metallicity, Blue channel
I'm unsure what the alpha channel does right now, haven't had time to look into it. Could this be for team color?

I tried using a out-of-package PBR shader in Maya but it didn't seem to work right for me, and my videocard is an old 570 so it was really struggling. I'll have to swap it out this weekend.

My work contract ends on Dec. 6th, so I'll have more time to delve into modding after that.

 

[deepstrasz]

I'm unsure what the alpha channel does right now, haven't had time to look into it. Could this be for team color?

Think so, yeah.

 

[jessy]

alpha is the team color

 

[Taylor Mouse]

@Triceron, yeah I explain that in my code, also the custom WC3 Reforged Material that I created shows that

Grab the new code, since it fixes like almost 99% of the animation issues like the positioning of the bones in the face and the deformations as well


@feber13 You need to use the casc explorer to extract everything, then select the root folder

T.

 

[BlinkBoy]

hmn interesting, I still don't get how LAYERS work now. Before they used to be added over one another but now they represent different maps. This will be problematic on transforming old models as many abused layers to create certain effects.

 

[Taylor Mouse]

So there are a few things we need to get out of the way, first the "Toggle Layer Explorer" is used to group together a bunch of objects, I attached the <L> shortcut to open en close it and is configured Vertically and sorted by layer and not by hierarchy. Here blizzard uses the LOD0 to LOD3 to seperate the objects for that level of detail. Just like they did with the SC2 models
Then there is the animation layer, not really sure how they work but the is exploited in SC2 as being a 'turret' animation
You also have UV Layers, they use a second layer to render out the Decal in SC2 and in Overwatch (now overwatch is a whole other thing because it was made in Maya)

And I believe the new Reforged models were also made in Maya

T.