3D model import into WC3 MPQ Theory

This thread is addressed to WC3Campaigns Modding Tools Programmers:

I do not know anything of modding, 3D, or programming. So please, I beg your pardon if I make a blunder or big laughable theory.

I am MEDIEVALDRAGON, site admin of Blizzplanet. I have heard there havent been any MOD tool that can successfully import a 3D model into the Warcraft 3 MPQ and make it work successfully. I think I had an idea or theory on the mechanics of Warcraft 3 for 3D models.

We have to see at Warcraft 3 not as a game. Warcraft 3 is a 3D engine. It is like a 3D software engine + a game at once. We are looking at Warcraft 3 only as a game trying to think of it as Starcraft which used 2D images from 3D rendered units. It is certainly not just a game. It is a software and an engine.

Now let's go deeper into this theory. If we iimport a 3D model into WC3 MPQ nothing happens(or so I heard). I think I got whats going on. Let us talk about a simple software like Poser 4. It is a human modeling software. You can create a human unit: Female or male or baby. You can customize its look by changing some variables for length, width and dimensions of any body part and even change facial gestures.

If you use Poser's timeline for animation you can click few algorythms options and you set your unit to walk or to run. Movement. Animation. Algorythms. Variables. Keywords in this theory.

Back to Warcraft 3. It is a 3D software+an engine+a game. This means the 3D models imported into the MPQ have some sort of coding somewhere in the MPQ with some instructions(algorythms) telling to a specifc unit how to move creating animation. This instructions tell the 3D model how to move certain keypoints located at body joints and facial points to create face expressions. There is no animation portraits. There is no animation of models in the MPQ. I think what there is , is merely 3D models standing on default mode. And somewhere in the MPQ is tons of files that hold instructions for a specific unit.

This instructions file contains the data of some sort of timeline that tells the model keypoints/joints how to move to a certain command of the mouse. Another set of instructions for default movement as well(when unit is idle) and another set of instructions for the animation portrait. We can import 3D models. But the keypoints/joints arent the same made By Blizzard, therefore the units do not work on Warcraft 3 after you import them. The instructions file giving orders to the keypoints/joints do not match the ones of your 3D model. Instructions for animation then cant be executed.

I'm not the big 3D modelling professional, but I can clear up a few things:
1) We can implement new models. Since some time there are also plugins for 3D modelling programs (3D Studio Max, Milkshape 3D) that support animations.
2) The animations are stored within the 3D models (MDX files).

But it would be better if you ask someone from the modelling and animation forum (FM_Drax or kdub).

Welcome to 4 months ago.

Do you mean where we weren't able to use animations?

Yeah.

Alrite, Starcraft freak and MasterSlowPoke ... I havent kept track of WC3Campaigns new updates concerning Modding tools. Last I heard there was no way to import 3D models. Time later, I remember I read that WC3Campaigns programmers found a way to import 3D models into the MPQ but the animations as in Units moving in-game werent working.

That what modders could do so far was to change the skinning of Blizzard-made units. Did WC3Campaigns create a tool to go around the limitations?

Could you list the success of things achived concerning tools to import 3D models and a list of things still needed?

Thanks,

MEDIEVALDRAGON

AFAIK the model exporters have no problems, and anims, etc work perfectly.