Actually...

My apologies for double-topic-ing.

But I just realized that I really don't know anything about mdl-editing or modeling. I jumped into it, hoping it would be easy, but I was sorely mistaken.

I've looked for tutorials, and they are helpful; but they're really only for specific things, like [changing decay anims to dissipate], or [adding/removing hero glow/team color].
I'm looking for an all-purpose, introduction tutorial. Case in point; I have no idea what a geoset is, or what bones are, or helpers, or sequences, or rotational bones, or object ids, or headings, or all the gibbedy-gook that Notepad shows when I open an .mdl, or material-layer-managers.

I swear, I can't figure it out. And I don't think it's something I can "get" by messing with it for a couple months; I'm not sure I have the time, what with college and jobs and life. So since I can't expect someone to just write up a general tutorial for me, I was of the mind that a topic could get some helpful traffic of the teaching persuasion. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The best thing to do is just follow all of Oinkerwinkle's tutorials, even if the particular thing it's telling you about doesn't interest you. The hands-on approach will bring you a more comprehensive understanding in time, but something like this really can't be rushed.

If it's any help, I actually learned most of my MDL knowledge finalising models exported from Milkshape rather than through direct editing; every model, I did slightly more and more advanced tricks, and learning how to make them happen involved looking at real in-game models, figuring out what did what.

I have often considered writing a 'complete guide' to MDL editing, but it's a huge task and one that I simply don't have the time nor inclination to do.

The important thing is not to start by directly looking at an MDL file full of code -- that way leads to madness. Start off with the Oinkertools, the high-level concepts, and then work your way down with changing texture paths and then materials and so on...

Besides, Magos' Model Editor can do it all in a pretty nice manner which, nine times out of ten, you can fuck around with as much as you want without risk of syntax errors or other faggottry a simple text file leaves you open to.

Yeah, I guess you're right. But even the [Help] in Oinkerwinkle's tools all reference things I don't understand, so messing with Magos is a bit more likely.

Actually, one thing about geomerges is bothering me. I've seen geomerges that are all animated and work and stuff (like General Frank's stuff). But then I follow the "geomerging tutorial" and make a "DreadGhoul" (dreadlord w/ ghoul head", and the Ghoul head is completely unanimated; same with everything else I merge together (assuming it works).
So how is this possible?

General Frank has been doing it for a long time and understands some of the finer points of assigning vertices and groups.

When you geomerge, as I hope you've noticed, you select a single bone for the new geometry to follow. In order to make things animate properly, one must assign some vertices to follow different bones... Or, indeed, copy entire tracts of new skeleton.

But only the really experienced kids, like General Frank, are going to go into that kind of shit.

Curses.

But then what in the world is Oink's "Geoset Merger" useful for, if I can only select one bone to attach to? And I've seen less experienced modders make... "satisfactory" geomerges.

Or are they using stuff like Milkshape?

Well, I do believe they just geomerge on distinct parts in seperate pieces -- if you look at any lower-quality geomerge that looks like a whole new model, you'll find that it has a very large number of geosets -- eight or more, against an actual model's three or four.

I'll have to look around; I'm not sure I have any geomerges on me.

Ok then, I'll just start messing around. Particles may be the way to go, though; somewhat-intuitive options, and rapid feedback. If only it was as easy as copy/paste on Word...

It is once you really know what you're doing. But don't expect that kind of ease to come overnight.