Attachment points in 3ds Max

I'm making a model of Troll Destroyer (see picture below) and all went ok until I hit an unusual problem. Whenever I try to add an attachment point, the 3d studio collapses on me. I followed every single step written in Warcraft III Art Tools readme (.pdf :)), namely create a box without animations, and set User Properties - attachment point. Whenever I try to tick that one, even in premade model (Grunt) Max collapses on me. Any idea what could be wrong?


Oh, the model (yesterday's version, I've changed the sail and certain animation properties):

Sadly...This seems to be a complete bug. I have been looking around for a solution, and so far, everybody who try it, gets a locked up max. There was a suggestion about right-clicking the box, and find the attachment flag there and manually put it on, but that does not seem to work right, as then max crashes the next time you "select" the file.

So our only hope right now is to write a detailed and formal e-mail to blizzard about this bug, and hope that they mind taking the time fixing it. As it logically shouldn't be hard fixing it, sounds just like a coding messup, as i doubt they had this bug going on when they created all their own models.

But we are talking about blizzard after all...and if they decide not to care, there will always be other possibilities, one is that a good pal in the community creates a manualy attachment-point exporter that gets fused in a "art-toolz" generated "mdl" file. And it would just export those boxes specified by us to be "attachment points" (note: this would not be the same as art-toolz's "attachment points", as ..clearly they don't work)

There are enough people around here that have the knowledge for creating this kind of software and i'll just have to present this case to them.

Cubasis

Thanks, I've just seen a couple of replies on Battle.net. I've tried it out, and I could get the attachments to work. But I still hope Blizzard can remove the bug...

Yeah this happens to me also. You can work around this problem by merging the Ref Objects from the grunt/peon/brewmaster examples.

:D

Yes, this has to be by far the biggest pain in the butt!

And from the .pdf I cant understand how to get events to work either...

Do you guys think it could be possible to .mdl edit the boxes to make them the right attachment points?
I dont know much about .mdl editing, but if it would work, I would have to learn it pretty quickly

Just wanna see what you guys think....

Peace,

lazy asses, you can create a attachment point through mdl if ya want =P

anyways, just create a bonepoint at whichever location you like (attachmentpoint) and name it something that you can recognise

then port it into mdx (or mdl) and rename Bone into attachment point: voila done

just be sure its in a hierachy.

(or you could just CnP a atachment section from other mdl and change the pivot's point)

Cookie,
I figured something like that would be possible, but I have no experience with .mdl editing, so I would probably mess it up...

3 questions,
1- if you export as .mdl and edit it, how do i get it back to .mdx, do I need a different converter program?

2-i opened the Grunt example with the art tools, and it has some high frikkin poly spheres as collision shapes... isnt this a waste of polys? or because it doesnt render it doesnt matter? It must increase the .mdx file size a bit no?

3-can anyone (maybe you cookie) just paste in a small example of what changing a bone to an attachment point would look like in the file...?? I know i could go and read 20 faqs about .mdl editing but i've got like 10 model requests to get done, and I dont have time to search through all the forum...

any help from anybody would be very appreciated!

Thanks,

Mdl editing is easy if you are used to it. I might help you ther eif your projet looks promising =P

1) yes you need yobguls mdl converter/wc3 file converter
its available in the dl section. it is quite fickle to use (needs dll files from original cracked wc3) but when you have it running, it converts flawlessly.

2) collision spheres are not shown and not calculated to the poly count. In mdl its just the max width/height coordinates of it. or the radius amount of sphere. it is not counted as a geosetobject so dont fear

3) ill do that when I get my wc3 installed again. For now, try uploading the mdl as example so i can help you. just be certain to create bone points already that acts for attachment

Ok, go into the max and create an object (say, a box) in position of your attachment point. Now you have two options: mdl editing or manualy setting the attachment point in max.

Option 1:

Name your box something like, say, Bone_AP1 and mark it as a bone. Now export your model using Art Tools, then convert mdx to mdl using File Converter. Open the mdl file in notepad.

Now look for your "Bone_AP1". When you find it, copy the whole section and move it to the section of mdl where attachment points are set (check other mdl files, like footman or something for a guide). All you have to do now is mark the moved section as an attachment point. Voila.

Option 2:

First, open User Property Editor (you probably know where that is if the thing ever collapsed on you before). Right after that, open another add-on (possibly Warcraft Previewer or something) so that the UPE closes. Now right click on your "attachment" box and open User Properties. You'll see a set of commands. All you have to do is mark the user property called "attachment" (change false to true). That's it. Oh, if you choose this way, never, ever after you have done this, select the box if you have User Property Editor opened!

Thanks for the help cookie, much appreciated..

Tufy.. thanks too... I think I tried manually editing the User properties by right clicking, but it seemed to crash it too...
if all i gotta do is NOT click on it with User Properties open, then I can probably do that to avoid problems

Other people have suggesting cut and paste attachment points from the peon model... that seems sloppy but if it works whatever!

I'll go try those 2 solutions in max, and if its still not working, i'll venture into the world of .mdl editing!
Peace,