Modeling from Scratch with Milkshape

Welcome to Ss4_kamon's Modding Tutorial


Files you need:
MilkShape 3D - http://www.milkshape3d.com
LithUnwrap - http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?fileid=198
WC3 Map Utilities - http://www.wc3campaigns.com/files.ph...ile&file=33&s=
YobGuls File Converter - http://www.wc3campaigns.com/files.ph...ile&file=32&s=
Any Paint Program


We are going to be making a pyramid with a floating ball on top unwrapping it, skinning it, and animating it.

First off, open up MilkShape.
Now, make a box, and make sure it's on the ground.
Now in the right toolbox, goto select, and goto near the bottom of the right toolbar, and select "vertex".
Now you should have dots in the 4 corners of your box.
On the top right screen, select the top right dot, and drag it half way to the left, now do the same to the top left dot, but drag it over top of the dot you just moved. Now do the same on the top left screen.
There you go, you got a pyramid!
Now select sphere and make a ball over the pyramid.
Now, select joint, and make a joint in the middle of the ball.
Now goto groups on the right toolbar, the sub-section one, highlight sphere 01, then goto joints and press assign. Now we got a ball that can move!

Animating
Now we will have to animate the ball. This is pretty hard. goto the bottm right of the screen, and click on "Anim". Now select the joint. Press Ctrl + K ( I will refer to that and keyframing). Now there should be 2 numbers to the left of the Anim button. Set the one on the right to 10. Set the one on the left to 5. Now take the joint, and move it up about 3 cm up the moniter. Now keyframe this frame. Make the number on the left to 10. Make the ball a little lower than where you keyframed it first, and keyframe the frame. Now make the number on the left to 1, and click to ">" button above Anim. The ball should move up and down. Now for unwrapping.

Unwrapping with LithUnwrap
Save your pyramid ball combo. Make sure you dont export it, but save as. Now save it anywhere with any name. Now open LithUnwrap. Goto 'File > Model > Open' and open your model. There should be many triangles. Thats ok, so dont worry. Now on the right toolbar, press the + beside groups. the select box 01. All the triangles should disappear, and there should be a box with a "/" through it. Now right click on box 01 under groups, and press select. Now right click on the box to the left and press "Scale > Arbitrary...". Click on X0.5 and press the close button. now move your small square to the top right of the grid. Now to the same with sphere 01, but move it to the bottom right. Now save the file as '<name>.3ds'. Then goto 'File > UV Map > Save...' and save it as 'pyraball.bmp' ( you need to save it as this, or you cant use your skin. Make it "Color" And check off "fill" There, now you are done unwrapping.

Conversion Junk and Skinning
Now open your UV map you just saved it your paint program. Now make colours or some kind of pattern (the square is the box, and the pointed box is the sphere). Save it again. Now open up WC3 Map Utilities. Goto "Plug-ins" and open "(3DS/OBJ) -> MDX Convertor". Now find you "<name>.3ds" file and put it in the first field. Then Goto a folder and save it as "pyraball.mdx". WARNING!!! Don't convert it yet!!!! This is where most people will go "I'm a genius, so I'll just press CONVERT now!" Well, DON'T. Well, you can if you want your model to have a messed up skin. So now goto "Textures > Texture Pathname..." and type in "Textures\pyraball.blp".
NOW you can press convert. And then close it. Now in plug-ins, goto "WarCraft III Viewer". Then click on the button that says "? - .blp" right below the top toolbar. Now find your "pyraball.bmp" you made, and convert it to "pyraball.blp". You are very close to done... Now open YobGuls File Converter and convert "pyraball.mdx" to "pyraball.mdl". Then find "pyraball.mdl" and use it with notepad. There should be a place near the top that says...
Sequences 1 {
Anim "Stand" {
Interval { 0,3333 },
Change it to...
Sequences 1 {
Anim "Stand" {
Interval { 0, 10 },
Now it you haven't already, close YobGuls, and reopen it. Now convert the file back to "pyraball.mdx"

Importing it!!!
Ok, you are done the model!!! Now open a WE and goto "Import Manager". Import "pyraball.mdx" and "pyraball.blp". Change the pathname of the .mdx to "Unit\Other\PyramidBall\pyraball.mdx" and the .blp to "Textures\pyraball.blp". Now goto "Object Editor" and make a custom unit with the model file we imported. Now place it on the map and you should see it... just joking... Save the map and close it, reopen it and it should be there!

Creidts:
Ss4_kamon - Tutorial maker
People from chat - Helped me along the way

i dont know if its just me, but the world editor seems to keep renaming the .mdx to .mdl when attaching it to a units art - model file path
?!?
i followed the tutorial step by step and i seem to only have this one problem at the last step...

the result is the map editor saying it cant find some .mdl file
(every time i enter its name as .mdx it renames it to .mdl !)

Question how the **** to i move the joint

K, i got to the point were you open the all in one thing. is that thing for RoC. I have TFT and i cant open it. god do i hate things that dont work. I try over and over and it wont open. Could not load file. stupid world editor

i had problems with the tutorial too, but not with WE, quote what sentence you had problems and i, or someone else will try to help you

the dark green is where i got to. wont open in my world editor. It says when you try to open wc3 utilities could not load file blah blah blah. Its soo fusterating. I even downloaded it a second time to see if something happend to the file. Is it the version of world editor i got (TFT) does it need to be RoC's world editor. Is there another program like it that i can use instead. Give me some links if you got one. Its my first time modding so im not a professional of coarse that is said when i start looking at tutorials. o_O

Yeh i no wot u mean... i get the same thing. But if u read later on in the tutorial it says:
Basically all u have to do is ignore the fact that it changes from .mdx to .mdl and continue onward. Just save the character, place one on map. Then save that map, close the editor then reopen it... TA DA... the model will be there.

Ok now for the reason im here (cos i copied n pasted the tutorial to a word file, good thing i put the url too.). I've had several errors while doing what the tutorial says, i kinda assumed that it was cos the version used is different from the one's available now. So i continued on even tho i found a few errors. Once I'd finished the model n stuff, and imported it into WE, put a model on the map, saved it, then restarted the WE then the model showed up... I was really happy up n till i relised that it wasnt moving. I tried opening it into TFT and still the model wasnt animated. Plus another thing that was not right was that the skin i put for was the wrong way round, I put the green for the ball and yellow for the square... but instead i got a yellow ball and a half green pyramid and the other half black (the square).

Ok i guess thats a lil useless knowing all that when u dont even no wot the errors were lol. Well here they are:
1) When U open "YobGuls File Converter" and u click on "Load File" and try to open the .mdx file it shows the error "Unknown File Format" but i figured that this was only to verify that some information was in the converted file. And i'm sure the converter works cos i've used it in the past and had no problems.
2) When i import the files to TFT WE n make the unit etc.. i get the model w/ skin... model is too small and the skin shows up incorrectly (mentioned above).
3) Animation doesnt show up in the WE and in the game TFT. But the animation works perfectly in MilkShape.

I think the problem is with "LithUnwrap" or "(3ds/obj) => MDX Convertor"... Anyone think they can help me with this?

Thanks in advance,
Haz

Ok i need help. I got past all the parts except for importing the model into WE. Well i did it but it didn't show up in WE or when i tried to play a map wit it in it. I reopened WE like 5 times. Can anyone tell me why i cant see it.


Thanks,
BigCow

i cant drag the vertexes, i can select them but i cant drag them
[edit], ok i solved that problem but how do i move the screens, zoom in and out, and move up and down ect?

Milkshape cost money now, you can free download it, but if you want to save your model. It say you have to pay money, like 25 Dollars.... :( That sux from Milkshapes side :<

Plees wher is in Warcraft editor import manager ?
thx.

IMP open up world editor. At the categories at the top theres one that says module. click module and import manager is the last one.

Its the button of the page with the green arow on it

Thanks, but in modules i hevent it :(
[IMG]C:/WE-scr.jpg[/IMG]