Thanks for looking into the model import issue, I really appreciate it. I was wondering if you had the time to fix it yet? I downloaded the latest version and still have the problem.
Also, I was wondering if anyone knew how to copy one animation (such as "Walk") to create a new animation? When I "add" a sequence it just starts at the last frame of the last sequence. Sorry, it's more of a 3Ds max question, but after a quick search I couldn't find much on it.
It's uploaded. Can grab it here once it's approved.
Smoothing groups should now export correctly. I also found a bug with exporting emissive maps that should be fixed. The importer should no longer garble animations on import too. I've been looking into particle emitter support, and that looks tough. I don't know if I'll be able to provide that anytime soon.
What I was thinking for a future plugin, the ability to take animations from one bone system and transfer it to another. There's a tool out there that could do it for WoW models and is something I have envisioned for a long time. Let me explain the premise and then you guys can tell me whether it's already possible to do or there's already plugins that can do it.
My idea is to be able to transfer animations from a pre-existing bone structure to a new bone structure. Most models share similar bone structures to one another (bipedal models especially). The interface would be dotnet treeview style. So you'd have two models in the scene, the one you want to transfer from and the one you want to transfer to. Using the treeview interface you would assign which bones are most similar to one another in each of the models (i.e. the 'knee' bones, the 'hip' bones, the 'right shoulder' bones, etc). Then you would select a time range to take animation data from the outgoing models bones and copy it to the corresponding bones you've established in the treeview. In this way, you could make a ghost dance like a WoW character model or give the highly detailed campaign models standard run and walk animations from other models.
This doesn't just apply to Blizzard models either. Models from Doom3 or virtually any model with bone animation data that can be brought into 3ds Max that has a similar bone structure to your model could be animated with another models animations. Blizzard enjoys doing this on a more subtle level by creating meshes over old skins (in WoW, skins are reused a crazy amount).
A very old demonstration of the possibilities with a 3ds Max plugin I created roughly around BC's release:
Some of the animations are glitchy as the plugin is very ancient that I used to accomplish the task, so ignore the glitches. As you can see though, not all the animations fit properly into the golems bone system. I think it'd be a powerful way to add say a jump animation to your model for instance. Let me know what you guys think, cheers.
Awesome work, can't wait to try it out.
Particle emitter support would be awesome, so many uses for it :)
Animation transfer would be great, would bring life to many old models, and give us a huge library of animations, small glitches are easily keyframed.
Has anyone tried out attatchments?
I tried making a shield on a shield bone with a hardpoint and tried importing it into galaxy editor , shield showed up even before the upgrade,
I will study the marine model more closely, even try a export import of it to see if it works in the exporter.
Attachments are working fine. Ask if there is something unclear for you.
I dont know what problem is there with emissive maps ? One guy already made one cool looking model that is using emissive map. And it looks great. Did you compare old and new version with emissive maps ?
I am not sure if I am allowed to post that model, since I cant take credits for it.
Same as that mouse detection system... got flamed later why I didnt post code... still laughing on that.
How would animation transfer work ? Transfering keyframes(copy paste) from one bone to another ? Or baking animation, into other bone.
Coz I am using tool that bakes frames into other bones. Actually I am using it coz I cant export rigg to SC2... So I have to bake animations.
How does smoothing groups works ? De-attaching faces by smoothing groups ? That's what I am doing anyway before exporting now. If tool will do that instead of me, ok then.
About particles... I actually have some kind of plugin in max, where I can create particles and other SFX/VFX for Wc3 engine/models.
Can I transfer those into SC2 ? Maybe you can look up into code. I assume its quite similar to Sc2.
Btw, check out http://www.laurenscorijn.com/viewportshader , its a shader that you can use in 3ds max viewport to be able to see in realtime your shaded model as it would look in a game engine, complete with normal maps and specular maps.
Has saved me from alot of exporting and importing.
Forgot to include exporter in the latest script bundle (thanks to WadeArcade for alerting me). It's been since fixed and 1.7 now includes the exporter script.
M3 Plugins v1.7
Smoothing groups should just work now. No need to detach faces or anything. Test it out with your simple crate model without detaching any faces and you'll see the normals are now all correct (or should be!)
I tried to import Lineage 2 graphics into the game but rescaling their animations seems to insert a large number of keyframes that causes the animation to become completely destroyed and cannot be fixed without manually deleting these keyframes for all of the bones. The problem lays in that the importer for these does not allow you to specify a framerate so you get maybe 100-200 frames per animation. Nowhere near enough for sc2...
Import and export are working fantastically, thanks!
One quick question (I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this, but I thought it might be related to exporting):
I altered a Firebat model but only changed the walk animation (by moving bones and setting keys) and it seems to work great except for one thing, the attack animation no longer has the yellow glow below the weapons. I noticed this when I made a separate unit and ordered it to play the attack animation. Any ideas? If you suspect this issue is not related to exporting/importing, please let me know.
Looks like firebats have a light object in the model that probably causes the orange/yellow to light up the model when the attack animation is played. Light objects are not currently supported but I'd like to add support in the future.
Ah, ok, that is what I was guessing. I just checked the original model in the viewer and they have a light, like you said. Thank you so much for all your hard work!
One other question: say I wanted to copy the "Walk" animation of the unit to a new animation sequence ("add" a sequence to the unit). How would I go about doing that? When I add a new sequence it defaults to "stand."
EDIT: I think I solved my own problem. For anyone who is interested: If you want to copy one animation from a sequence to another (or possibly even one file to another)
Select all the bones
Go to Animation -> Save animation
Check the boxes for Animated Tracks, Include Constraints, Keyable Tracks and Segment
Set "From:" to the starting frame of the sequence you want to copy, and set "To:" to the end frame. I left Key per frame unchecked. Save the animation.
Go to the beginning frame of your new sequence, select all the bones
Go to Animation > Load animation
Check "Loading into Active Layer," Relative, and Insert At (set insert at to the first frame of the new sequence
Load the motion - it should copy the bone movements to the new sequence.
Selecting different bones from different sequences and repeating the above can allow you to combine two animations (e.g. "Walk" and "Attack")
I apologize if this is common knowledge (I am guessing it is) to people more versed in 3Ds MAX, but I thought it might help at least one person!
Hello, im new here !_! , first of all sorry for my english, im spanish ><!
Thank you NINtoxi for this great script, i was trying to use the Malfurion model and the ogre model, but look at the screenshot...my ogre is like a lamp !_! it only happens if it face to a determinated direction, i tried to change the Normal Map color to orange, but doesn't work, anyone can tell me how to create a Normal Map and a Specular Map with the texture??? T_T like those great spiders !_!
Omg, it works! but now i need to learn how to create Specular Maps xDDDDD and then the shiny ogre will disapear!! xDDD Thank you a lot! !_!
EDITED: Okey xDDDD I dont need the specular map xDDD I only needed to re-export the model in 3ds max with the new normal map, and...IT WORKS!! Realy, thank you THANK YOU!! !_! now i can begin to learn other things like attach armor and weapons to the models, even mounts, and then, i will begin redoing the WC3 campaign with Wow models !_!
Glad you got it working, specular maps should work without needing to do as mouch as the normal maps.
I usually save my specular maps in the same way as i did the normal maps.
Just make sure you set the specularity in the 3ds max material, or it wont show at all.
Wow this plugin is amazing. Thanks for you work. But i encountered a little problem - when i import Archon model and then trying to export it 3dmax says "Runtime error: No material assigned to mesh" or "Unable to convert: undefined to type StringStream" if i deleting parts that not have material assigned. Anyone had this problem before? I am using 3dmax 2010 maby its better to use older version? Cos it look like i making something wrong...
Anyway thank you very much for plugin, i replaced sentry with old nullifier (does anyone have normal Nullifier model? cos mine is made from sentry and not perfect) so i hope i can make my Dark Archon.
Salrith has been making a model for me, and I'm assuming he's using your exporter. :P Anyway, he's having a problem with exporting a halo effect around the model. I know it can be done in-game with the actor settings, but the Halo effect from the actor settings does not work well on lowest settings. So, Salrith tried to make it into the model. Didn't work. I'm trying to give the details from memory, but read the thread I linked, too, that should give you an idea of what we're trying to do. Thanks. :)
Well, I need help now with the transparent textures !_! how i need to implement them in 3ds max?
Hi , most world of warcraft textures have built in alpha opacity maps.
Place the texture in the Alpha Mask map slot, using a starcraft 2 bitmap.
Also, make sure that the texture has an alpha channel by clicking the button i have ringed out on screenshot number two.
The white parts are the parts of the texture that will remain visible.
Edit : You get that image dialogue by clicking view image underneath the dialog where you added it.
@NiNtoxicated01: Go
Thanks for looking into the model import issue, I really appreciate it. I was wondering if you had the time to fix it yet? I downloaded the latest version and still have the problem.
Also, I was wondering if anyone knew how to copy one animation (such as "Walk") to create a new animation? When I "add" a sequence it just starts at the last frame of the last sequence. Sorry, it's more of a 3Ds max question, but after a quick search I couldn't find much on it.
Thanks!
It's uploaded. Can grab it here once it's approved.
Smoothing groups should now export correctly. I also found a bug with exporting emissive maps that should be fixed. The importer should no longer garble animations on import too. I've been looking into particle emitter support, and that looks tough. I don't know if I'll be able to provide that anytime soon.
What I was thinking for a future plugin, the ability to take animations from one bone system and transfer it to another. There's a tool out there that could do it for WoW models and is something I have envisioned for a long time. Let me explain the premise and then you guys can tell me whether it's already possible to do or there's already plugins that can do it.
My idea is to be able to transfer animations from a pre-existing bone structure to a new bone structure. Most models share similar bone structures to one another (bipedal models especially). The interface would be dotnet treeview style. So you'd have two models in the scene, the one you want to transfer from and the one you want to transfer to. Using the treeview interface you would assign which bones are most similar to one another in each of the models (i.e. the 'knee' bones, the 'hip' bones, the 'right shoulder' bones, etc). Then you would select a time range to take animation data from the outgoing models bones and copy it to the corresponding bones you've established in the treeview. In this way, you could make a ghost dance like a WoW character model or give the highly detailed campaign models standard run and walk animations from other models.
This doesn't just apply to Blizzard models either. Models from Doom3 or virtually any model with bone animation data that can be brought into 3ds Max that has a similar bone structure to your model could be animated with another models animations. Blizzard enjoys doing this on a more subtle level by creating meshes over old skins (in WoW, skins are reused a crazy amount).
A very old demonstration of the possibilities with a 3ds Max plugin I created roughly around BC's release:
<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fvid6.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy234%2FNiNtoxicated%2FArcGolCust02.flv">
Some of the animations are glitchy as the plugin is very ancient that I used to accomplish the task, so ignore the glitches. As you can see though, not all the animations fit properly into the golems bone system. I think it'd be a powerful way to add say a jump animation to your model for instance. Let me know what you guys think, cheers.
The video looks really cool :)
@NiNtoxicated01: Go
Awesome work, can't wait to try it out. Particle emitter support would be awesome, so many uses for it :)
Animation transfer would be great, would bring life to many old models, and give us a huge library of animations, small glitches are easily keyframed.
Has anyone tried out attatchments? I tried making a shield on a shield bone with a hardpoint and tried importing it into galaxy editor , shield showed up even before the upgrade, I will study the marine model more closely, even try a export import of it to see if it works in the exporter.
Attachments are working fine. Ask if there is something unclear for you.
I dont know what problem is there with emissive maps ? One guy already made one cool looking model that is using emissive map. And it looks great. Did you compare old and new version with emissive maps ?
I am not sure if I am allowed to post that model, since I cant take credits for it.
Same as that mouse detection system... got flamed later why I didnt post code... still laughing on that.
How would animation transfer work ? Transfering keyframes(copy paste) from one bone to another ? Or baking animation, into other bone. Coz I am using tool that bakes frames into other bones. Actually I am using it coz I cant export rigg to SC2... So I have to bake animations.
How does smoothing groups works ? De-attaching faces by smoothing groups ? That's what I am doing anyway before exporting now. If tool will do that instead of me, ok then.
About particles... I actually have some kind of plugin in max, where I can create particles and other SFX/VFX for Wc3 engine/models.
Can I transfer those into SC2 ? Maybe you can look up into code. I assume its quite similar to Sc2.
Look at vjuex, spammer... xD
Btw, check out http://www.laurenscorijn.com/viewportshader , its a shader that you can use in 3ds max viewport to be able to see in realtime your shaded model as it would look in a game engine, complete with normal maps and specular maps.
Has saved me from alot of exporting and importing.
Forgot to include exporter in the latest script bundle (thanks to WadeArcade for alerting me). It's been since fixed and 1.7 now includes the exporter script. M3 Plugins v1.7
@tigerija: Go
Smoothing groups should just work now. No need to detach faces or anything. Test it out with your simple crate model without detaching any faces and you'll see the normals are now all correct (or should be!)
@NiNtoxicated01: Go
This sounds VERY interesting.
I tried to import Lineage 2 graphics into the game but rescaling their animations seems to insert a large number of keyframes that causes the animation to become completely destroyed and cannot be fixed without manually deleting these keyframes for all of the bones. The problem lays in that the importer for these does not allow you to specify a framerate so you get maybe 100-200 frames per animation. Nowhere near enough for sc2...
Then you are my hero.
I'll DL plugin now. Will try it when I will have to export something xD.
@NiNtoxicated01: Go
Import and export are working fantastically, thanks!
One quick question (I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this, but I thought it might be related to exporting): I altered a Firebat model but only changed the walk animation (by moving bones and setting keys) and it seems to work great except for one thing, the attack animation no longer has the yellow glow below the weapons. I noticed this when I made a separate unit and ordered it to play the attack animation. Any ideas? If you suspect this issue is not related to exporting/importing, please let me know.
Thanks!
@ef55515: Go
Looks like firebats have a light object in the model that probably causes the orange/yellow to light up the model when the attack animation is played. Light objects are not currently supported but I'd like to add support in the future.
Ah, ok, that is what I was guessing. I just checked the original model in the viewer and they have a light, like you said. Thank you so much for all your hard work!
One other question: say I wanted to copy the "Walk" animation of the unit to a new animation sequence ("add" a sequence to the unit). How would I go about doing that? When I add a new sequence it defaults to "stand."
EDIT: I think I solved my own problem. For anyone who is interested: If you want to copy one animation from a sequence to another (or possibly even one file to another)
I apologize if this is common knowledge (I am guessing it is) to people more versed in 3Ds MAX, but I thought it might help at least one person!
Hello, im new here !_! , first of all sorry for my english, im spanish ><! Thank you NINtoxi for this great script, i was trying to use the Malfurion model and the ogre model, but look at the screenshot...my ogre is like a lamp !_! it only happens if it face to a determinated direction, i tried to change the Normal Map color to orange, but doesn't work, anyone can tell me how to create a Normal Map and a Specular Map with the texture??? T_T like those great spiders !_!
@hipnos14: Go
Hi, I saw several people were wondering about this, I created a quick tutorial over here : http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/tutorials/6030-tutorial-normal-map-conversion-from-purple-to-orange/#p3
It should explain step by step how to convert old normal maps to sc2 normal maps.
Omg, it works! but now i need to learn how to create Specular Maps xDDDDD and then the shiny ogre will disapear!! xDDD Thank you a lot! !_!
EDITED: Okey xDDDD I dont need the specular map xDDD I only needed to re-export the model in 3ds max with the new normal map, and...IT WORKS!! Realy, thank you THANK YOU!! !_! now i can begin to learn other things like attach armor and weapons to the models, even mounts, and then, i will begin redoing the WC3 campaign with Wow models !_!
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x31/Hipnos14/Terreno004.jpg
@hipnos14: Go
Glad you got it working, specular maps should work without needing to do as mouch as the normal maps. I usually save my specular maps in the same way as i did the normal maps. Just make sure you set the specularity in the 3ds max material, or it wont show at all.
Wow this plugin is amazing. Thanks for you work. But i encountered a little problem - when i import Archon model and then trying to export it 3dmax says "Runtime error: No material assigned to mesh" or "Unable to convert: undefined to type StringStream" if i deleting parts that not have material assigned. Anyone had this problem before? I am using 3dmax 2010 maby its better to use older version? Cos it look like i making something wrong... Anyway thank you very much for plugin, i replaced sentry with old nullifier (does anyone have normal Nullifier model? cos mine is made from sentry and not perfect) so i hope i can make my Dark Archon.
Well, I need help now with the transparent textures !_! how i need to implement them in 3ds max?
@NiNtoxicated01: Go
Hey, man. http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/artist-tavern/1533-request-psionic-hydralisk-model-portrait/?unread
Salrith has been making a model for me, and I'm assuming he's using your exporter. :P Anyway, he's having a problem with exporting a halo effect around the model. I know it can be done in-game with the actor settings, but the Halo effect from the actor settings does not work well on lowest settings. So, Salrith tried to make it into the model. Didn't work. I'm trying to give the details from memory, but read the thread I linked, too, that should give you an idea of what we're trying to do. Thanks. :)
Hi , most world of warcraft textures have built in alpha opacity maps. Place the texture in the Alpha Mask map slot, using a starcraft 2 bitmap.
Also, make sure that the texture has an alpha channel by clicking the button i have ringed out on screenshot number two. The white parts are the parts of the texture that will remain visible.
Edit : You get that image dialogue by clicking view image underneath the dialog where you added it.