How to edit models with "Mago's model editor"

How to edit models with "Mago's model editor"

This tutorial is about basic editing a model in Mango's model editor.

Download the editor here:
http://magos.thejefffiles.com/War3ModelEditor/

Opening a model


When you start the program select "Windows > Mpq Browser"


Then click "File > War3.mpq" to open the Warcraft 3 mpq file. (Wich contains Warcraft 3 models/skins)


Now you can select wich model you want to edit!
Lets just start whit an easy one; the sheep model.

Now you can view the model as in "Warcraft 3 Viewer" and play its animations.

Editing a model


Now we are going to edit the model, and we need to open the model editor.
Select "Windows > Model Editor".


This may looks a bit confusing, but dont fear!
Now click the "+X/Z" window, and zoom in (scroll on mouse) on the sheeps ear.


Select the 4 red dots (they are turning green when selected, look at the image).


Select "Transformations > Scaling". Then set X, Y, and Z in "Scaling" (not the pivot points) to 0.
This will hide the ear in the model, so the ear will disapear.
You can fill other values in to the X, Y and Z.
X= Forward/Backward
Y= Left/Right
Z= Up/Down

So if the Z where 0.9 (and the other fields where 1) the selected points will get moved a little bit down, etc.. (remember when all fields are 1, the point will stay where it are).
Lets try it here.


Here you can see that i have moved some points abit.
(After you finished moving some points, be sure to unselect them before selecting some new. You can unselect them by clicking "Selection > Select None")


And heres how the models look with the new points!

Saving a model


To save a model is pretty easy, just select "File > Save As" (Remember to write .mdx after your filename!!).
But, what if we want the model to use a custom skin?


First we'll need to open the Texture Manager.. "Windows > Texture Manager".


Now select all textures you want replaced (in this case theres only one, the "Textures/SheepA.blp") and remove them/it.


Now, right click and chose "Import" to import your custom skin.


The model should disapear now.
Then select "Windows > Material Manager".


Double click the file in window "1", a new window will open (window "2"), then double click the file in window "2".
Another new window will open (yep, you guessed it, window "3").
Here you just change the "None" dropdown to whatever your skin file is called. Then click "Ok" sometimes and your done!

Portrait Camera

If you are editing the skin on a model, with an extra "portrait" model, and you dont want to reskin the portrait model too, then just follow these easy steps!
There are 2 ways to do it..
An easy way, and a hard one.. (just take the easy one :P)

Easy way


Find a nice view of your model.
Then select "Windows > Camera Manager".
Right click and select "Create new Camera from current view".
Just name the camrea "Camera01" or something..

Hard way... (just so you know it..)


First you will need to open your model in Mango's model editor.
Then save it as an .mdl file by writing .mdl after your filename when saving it.


Now, open your .mdl file in notepad.
At the end of the text file, insert this little code:


Replace the X, Z, and Y with values.. These values will change the camera position. (You can view the camera in Warcraft 3 Viewer, just enable "View > Cameras").

Done!


Hope you learned something about editing a model (and more) :)

By Gerlif

you have almost copied my tutorial =(
I think you should look if the tutorial alread exist next time.

Please link us to your tutorial since it does not exist on this site (atleast not in your submissions list).

here it is: http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=89388

sorry about that, just though that i would add some more about cameras and made it easier to understand... also when i used the program first time, lots of thing i didnt knew, and that was f***ing it up for me, and i could have avoided it if i knew etc, that i should unselect all before selecting new, and what the Z X and Y was..

Thank you very much!

Not for the tutorial, but for letting me know the latest version of War3modeleditor had a working model editor, still, good tutorial.

I don't know if this is worth a tutorial.
You'd have to attach the images to your post instead of linking to offsite images anyway, in order to get approval.

Done...

It's quite similar to the other tutorial, but I approve.

I like it, mostly for the portrait part though! Now I can fix some of my retarded models so they have good portraits.

Thank you for this turtorial!
I had the version 1.02 and there was no working model editor !!!

ummm well u know ahh when i save the model and when i imported in into WE it dont work, the WE says that it could not read the model


how i fix that problem?

To get the editor to find the model, u have to save, then close the editor, (after importing) then just reopen and it should have it.

Also, u have to get rid of the war3mapImported\ to get it to read it right.

someone should elaborate on this to include rotations and translations.

link dun work