Milkshape question

Ok I have Milkshape and now have the WC3 MDX exporter, but bare with me 'cos I'm new to this...

Oh, i also have Oinkerwinkles tools.

My edited and exported model has no animations, is that 'cos I did something wrong or do I have to add them to the file again after exporting?
Also the alpha parts don't show up as team colour, but instead they're big holes in the model (although I didn't edit the alphas, in fact all I did was rescale parts of the model)

Thanks in advance

ignore the holes in the model, the alphas etc dotn really show wel in milkshape, adn yes, when u import, it doesnt import animations, u will have to make them all from scratch.

Team colour is simply a matter of using a slightly more complex material/texture combo. In the mean time, use "None" instead of "Transparent" as a filtermode. That should stop the holes, at least.

it wouldnt matter much while hes in milkshape though, but he will need to fix the headers on that , yeah

Yeah. With Milkshape you have to do a lot of visualising in your mind. The finished product doesn't translate well from Milkshape.

thank you for your help.
I've been wanting to model for ages, now I understand a little more of what the right procedure is. Just have to suss out Oinkerwinkles' tools; Looking at the Header tool, I wasn't sure what to do with it exactly, but I was probably being impatient..
I see Magos has a new version of his Model Editor out which can import Milkshape files, haven't had a chance to try it yet..
Thanks again, that's useful, excellent

You might want to talk to RDZ about his new program for milkshape if you're planning on dfoing soem long-term work with milkshape, it's proven very useful so far.

Infact, RDZ should consider making a thread asknig people to test it, I managed to find a bug or two I think, but there may be more.

that tool sounds useful -is it available for download somewhere?

Not yet. The Finaliser is still undergoing final alpha testing, and the GeosetAnim editor is in the process of being overhauled.

The Finaliser will be released alongside a mighty help document at a later date.

Busy man, then..ta for reply, look forward to the tool, in the meantime I'll have to do my homework as regards model editing.
BTW seems like Milkshape doesn't export the ,err, bones and helpers I think they're called, therefore there's nothing to stick anims onto?

Hm? The exporter will export everything you need for your base model, you just have to do a lot of refining to get it working. By animations, do you mean your sequences?

I think you need to follow some of the basic tutorials on the Milkshape website. Understand Milkshape, then you will be ready to understand its relation to Warcraft III modelling.

yup, in the words of manuel from fawlty Towers, 'i know naathing'.

i was just after some reassurance really, having bought Milkshape to firstly edit some existing models, as a test to go through the process of getting a working model into Worlded.

So what I meant by animations was;
I edited the captain model, just rescaling very slightly, and deleting the wings. Exported it to see what the next part of the process was. Looked at it in Magos editor under 'nodes' and there were none of the usual entries (bone leg, foot left ref.) Used Oinkerwinkkles tool to import all animations (is that the same as sequences? dunno), they imported okay and the animation names were all there but the model still didn't move. So I made a wild guess that the 'nodes' or whatever were missing, so the animations weren't moving anything 'cos they had nothing to get a hold of.

The weak link there is the MDX importer for Milkshape - can't handle bones or Warcraft's evil interpolation methods. So you lose all forms of animation. Thus, when using Milkshape one must either re-animate completely or model from scratch. Considering Milkshape's methods compared to Warcraft's, an animation importer for Milkshape is impossible. However, with a dummy skeleton, an exported Milkshape edit or scratch model can be grafted on to an existing warcraft model.

okay, the process is clearer now, thank you...hmmn i'll start with a crossbow then