i made a model, HOW DO I ANIMATE IT!!!

i made many amazing models but simply cant animate them. i have like 5 diferent 3d programs and im not sure if i can animate with any of them.
is there a program wich i can download that i can animate with.
giv me some names cause i might already hav it.
correct me if im wrong but animations are in mdl files right??
emote_confused

use 3ds an read art tools documentations :p

i don hav 3ds but i hav:
1. Gmax
2.anim8or
3.MS3D
i also hav mdl importers for gmax but when i import a file the program crashes.
plz HELP:WD:

i can t help you if u don t have 3ds.. sry

I think you should download the evalutation version of milkshape 3d and use the milkshape exporter (ive heard of it somewhere in the forum).
But personaly i dont have it and the best way to succed is to get 3ds max......

gmax is the same as 3ds max except gmax is stripped down and the button arrangmaent is diefferent so basicly gamx is the same as 3ds max just looks different.

actually 3ds max has more animation/shapes etcs and a little thing i call character studio.

the shapes can be made in gmax but not like in 3ds max where u just click a buttonj u have to do it manually

i have 3ds max 5 n i did read the "Art Tools Documentation" but i cant really seem to find out the part that it is for animation...

-- Animation with arttools

First thing ist, u have to chop up your finished mesh into the parts of the model. e.g. if u have a human swordsman, u mark all polygons of the lower left arm and detach them (rightclick-> detach) to e.g. Armleftlower. U have to do this for all parts of the model, until its all in single parts. Now u make the bones u use to animate the parts. Just create Boxes und form them to roughly resemble the form of the detached bodyparts, then move these cubes into the bodyparts to make it easier. Then select all the Bonecubes and go to the Utilitiestab and then to User Propertyeditor (under more, i suggest making a button for that and wc3 preview) Got to Meshproperties and select Bone. Now u have to link the bones to the Bodyparts, so select the bodypart, press the linkbutton on the toolbar and go to "select by name" and select the bodypart (i suggest u tick the left top box at the bottom). Do this for all the bodyparts, then make the lower arm a child of the upperarm, the upperarm a child of the torso etc etc. At the end everything should to be the child of a simple bone at the origin (bone_root). Then u have to set up the controllers for each bone. It says how to do this in the doku..., simple enough. Then u should set the Connected Flag to true for all bodyparts that are ment to be connected to eachother. Wc3 welds the detached polys together at their edges, even though when u animate there are holes in the model, it will look fine in wc3. When the controllers are set, open the dope sheet (somewhere in the top menue) and go to objects and add a notetrack under tracks\notetrack\add . Now add the start and end keys of your animation (-> dokumentation). Now you can start to animate the bones, so klick on "set key" after having changed the time to whatever amount of frames you want. Create keys at the beginning and end of every animation that is meant to loop, with the model in standard position. Now move the little thing in the red timebar to the frame you want and move/rotate all bones as u want them to be at that position. Then klick the Keybutton. Make as many keyframes as u like, depending on the complexity of the animation.
When all is done, export.

This is not a very complete, nor very exact description, but i hope it helps.

Whoa that does help a little but.....:foot: Thankz :D

if that doesnt work follow the 3dmax 5 tutorials.

which tutor i cant found it...emote_confused

can some one plz animate him for me plz and can u add him a sword too plz.................

hey can i copy other model text from mdl and paste it into mine model mdl?

if yes then please tell me where shuold i copy it from PLZ