Noob question about animation

Okay, I'm now familiar with pretty much every other modding type (well, using world editor, creating new icons and skins and such), but I don't know much about modelling yet. I don't have a modelling program yet. I have a couple of questions:

1) Is a model's animation imbedded in the .mdx/.mdl file, and editable with a modelling program?

2) When I import a model will I have to replace an old model by changing the imported models pathfile name (as with skins and such)? Or can it just use it's own imported pathfile name?

3) Is there an important difference between .mdl and .mdx?

4) Which model editor should I use and where can I get it?

Well that's about all the questions I can think of right now. If anyone can answer any or all of these, it would be appreciated.

The main thing I'd like to do with a model editor right now would be to complete my black mage character -- so far I've taken the child model and re-skinned it with a black face and glowing yellow eyes and clothes like those of Vivi from FF9. Then I added a pointed hat attachment that I found online to his head using the special effects trigger. It looks cool, but it's not glued to his head right (when the child does his little jump in the air animation his head goes through the hat). What I'd like to do is attach the hat directly to the model, maybe add a glowing effect to his eyes, possibly give him a small staff, and create animations for casting and attacking (maybe I'll just make the jump in the air animation the attacking/casting animation ;) ).

Let's see, there's probably one other major thing I'd like to do, or possibly hire someone else to do... and that's to create a good monk/black belt model (I'm creating a Final Fantasy I campaign). Currently I'm using the druid of the claw for my monk (being one of the only living unarmed units). But it just doesn't look too good.

Okay, I'm now familiar with pretty much every other modding type (well, using world editor, creating new icons and skins and such), but I don't know much about modelling yet. I don't have a modelling program yet. I have a couple of questions:

1) Is a model's animation imbedded in the .mdx/.mdl file, and editable with a modelling program?

Yes and yes. In certain narrow cases, it's even editable in notepad.


2) When I import a model will I have to replace an old model by changing the imported models pathfile name (as with skins and such)? Or can it just use it's own imported pathfile name?

Depends. It's quite possible to have many unique models without losing any old models or skins, though it's a tiny bit more work, especially with skins, where you *have* to mdl edit if you want to preserve the old skin as well.


3) Is there an important difference between .mdl and .mdx?

MDx is a binary file that contains all of the model info in a compressed format. Mdl's are text files that are openable in notepad. I *think* wc3 will happily use either, though.


4) Which model editor should I use and where can I get it?

Personally, I use notepad. This limits me to moodifying already-existing models (since you cannot create new 3d shapes (called geosets) in notepad, nor can you do more than the most basic animation), but you'd be amazed what you can do even with already-existing models if you try hard enough. In this enlighted time, I believe you can use GMAX to model, or milkshape.


The main thing I'd like to do with a model editor right now would be to complete my black mage character -- so far I've taken the child model and re-skinned it with a black face and glowing yellow eyes and clothes like those of Vivi from FF9. Then I added a pointed hat attachment that I found online to his head using the special effects trigger. It looks cool, but it's not glued to his head right (when the child does his little jump in the air animation his head goes through the hat). What I'd like to do is attach the hat directly to the model, maybe add a glowing effect to his eyes, possibly give him a small staff, and create animations for casting and attacking (maybe I'll just make the jump in the air animation the attacking/casting animation ;) ).

Coincidentally, I'm about 3/4 through ff9 after getting it last week. If you describe precisely what looks wrong with the hat, perhaps I or someone else can show you how to use mdl-editing to correct it. For animations, you'll need a 3d program of course, and to create a "vivi" animation set it'll probably take no small amount of time, just warning you.


Let's see, there's probably one other major thing I'd like to do, or possibly hire someone else to do... and that's to create a good monk/black belt model (I'm creating a Final Fantasy I campaign). Currently I'm using the druid of the claw for my monk (being one of the only living unarmed units). But it just doesn't look too good.

In general, people don't hire other people here, since everyone's an amatuer and doing this for fun. You'll have better luck trying to persuade someone to help you, though the better a wc3 modder you are, the more likely you can persuade someone that you're not simply asking them to do your work for you.

The best 3D modeling program for Warcraft III units is 3dsmax. gmax, which is free, also works for this, but you must go through some more steps to export. Also, I have never been successful at getting the game to use MDL files. I have always had to convert them.