Your efforts are indeed greatly appreciated. Both my friend and I have waited for the ability to put m2s into 3ds max for many, many years. Between Lick King and the mdlvis developer jumping ship our hopes were crushed little by little until we eventually completely gave up. I am going to be converting a lot of graphics (hundreds in the end most likely). Mostly for Age of Wonders 2, but if I try a sc2 project I'll be using them for that as well (on top of the many graphics out of the other MMO I am porting graphics from for the exact same purpose).
Now that ultimately doesn't really mean anything to you... So. If you need voice acting for anything you want to make in the future, let me know when you start working on it... I'll see what I can do.
If/when you enable particle/ribbon support, will that allow us to import stuff like Frostfire Bolt?
The plugin seems to be working perfectly so far. I've got the Icebound drake in max and am fixing up the textures. Lord Dread 2.0, here we come!
oh boy, it seems like I'm the only one going to bring something negative to this... ugh... I hate being the bad guy >.>
I remember when this first became possible for War3. Now, since I've been so busy working lately, I dunno' if anything has changed but, last time this happened? Blizzard EXPLICITLY STATED THEY WERE AGAINST IMPORTING WOW MODELS INTO WAR3. Now, don't you think we might have the same problem here?
www.hiveworkshop.com
I dunno' if the info is still there, but I know under the rules, they state WHY they will NEVER ACCEPT a WoW Import.
I first saw the WoW imports on www.wc3campaigns.com. Hive came after those guys. For the same reasons, they were forced to remove all models that were WoW imported, even ones that were edited to use content (one I remember most was the WoW dragon model that was re-skinned to be a magma dragon).
So, please, while I to would LOVE to use the models provided by WoW? BE ON YOUR GUARD. IT MIGHT NOT BE ACCEPTED.
If it is, please show source and cite the permissive info on using another Title's material in SC2. If you cite that, then I too will join in on the many possibilities for maps using WoW models. 'Til then, please be careful.
They host wc3 maps with WoW models on them on their site (that MC map iirc). In either case that won't stop me, since my productions are all private releases :) (Now maybe they took down the map I'm thinking of, I haven't checked for a while... but eh.)
Also, there's a billion sites out there that host WoW models for wc3 maps and such, and none of them have ever been shut down except for their own internal drama (wc3 sites seem to like drama for some reason).
I'm not gonna say it's 100% safe. Because it isn't. I wouldn't try to publish maps with WoW models in them unless I knew for sure. But I'm not going to be publishing maps, anyway. 10mb limit doesn't exactly let me voice act much, much less import custom graphics. :)
im stuck at opening the M2 Model Importer, i cant find that importer, or any place to chance the import settings. i have the newest version of autodesk 3ds max 2011 (30 day trial version). can anyone help me get past this?
Edit* ok I've fixed this problem, im able to do it all except i dont know how to aply textures in 3ds max, they just look grey clay figures. also once i import them inot SC2 i cant find where they are at to apply them to a unit's model. but i can look at it in the preview section but i only see a black outline, with none of it's animations (i did the sequence thing, i just clicked on the animations i want and hit "add") what else am i doing wrong? how can i fix it so i can actually put the model in the SC2 map
it's been mildly discussed and without 'cause for concern' the mod's and all our 'understanding' is 'free game'. not much to worry about personally as anything you make to make $ with on sc2, blizz will tax/make $ off of. so chilll, it's been discussed so far, and until 'further notice' import to 'our' liking from what ive understood on this site and the moderators etc....
but if anyone else wants to post a long something about how they had 'copyright' problems with a company in a mod they made when they were younger plz post your eliteness (seriously NOT referring to ANYONE imparticular) but its been discussed somewhat and pretty sure nintoxicated and the mods have a raport well enough to not 'get sued' or overly worry. if theres a problem im sure itll get stated and deleted if need be (your personal 'sky is falling' is not necesarry). until then, enjoy what the community has to offer (make no mistake all your hard work that makes any money blizzard will capitalize on and rightfully so, but just ENJOY IMO until then!!!) :)
Ok so i finally got it to kinda work. i now know how to get the models in SC2, ive loaded it and everything. But now i have two problems, textures, and animations.
i imported a northrend worgan into my map and he's all black, no textures or anything. and other than that his animations are funky, the only one that really works 100% of the time is his run. his stand animation is him almost lookinglike he's lunging forward, he's not even on the ground. and some of his atks do the dodge animation or somethin funky like that. can anyone give me a step by step tutorial just on the steps to apply textures in 3ds max and set up all the animations? this would be GREATL appreciated. thanks for these tools though, i've always wanted to use WoW models in a map.
P.S. also when i try and import charcters from the WoWmodelviewer the model in SC2 has every hair combination possible, even when i import a character that i've made bald. what can be done about this? and how do i attach models to units in SC2 like swords/shields and shoulders?
Thanks for this great tool. :) But if u would allow, i have some questions and probably requests about it.
All my requests are based on that fact, that i need to work with the imported model not for further exporting to SC2 as i understand this forum mostly assume, but to make from it a rendered sprites for an old, but anyway great game - heroes of might and magic 3. :) So...
1. Whats happening with animations of the imported model? I mean in the former versions of this script u can press "play animation" button on the animation trackbar and all animations that model has will be played one by one in the viewport window. Does something changed in the current script version or i am doing something wrong?
2. Does m3 animation sequecer control script work only for a model, which had been imported as m3 model? If not - is it possible to make a similiar tool that will allow to control all original WoW model animations. +a question - if i would save a scene with a model - will it allow to manage animations after scene reopening or 3ds max relaunching?
Edited: ok, it was my fault. M3 sequencer can control original animations too (i just didnt noticed that he just marks by default only some of the them while importing), but the problem still exists for me - i cannot make animations be displayed in viewport windows.
just to update on my progress, i have every animation working now besides the stand animations. seems no matter how i mess with them, in game they're always frozen solid, looking very lifeless and tacky. anyone know a fix to this?
I've always thought the most badass model in WOW was Nefarion (Dragon boss in BWL), you should import that model if you ever make a second vid like that ;)
can someone PLEASE explain how to apply textures to the models, and get rid of the "frozen" stand animation. i cant find how o do it in 3ds max, and all my imported models look like black 3d shadows in SC2. any help would be enormously appreciated.
When you imported the model you were presented with a list of geosets and animations to import. Cross-reference the animations with those in the WoW viewer to get the ones you want.
To assign textures you use the material manager (press m). By following his initial tutorial on the OP you should already have some tga files to play dress-up with.
awsome, thank you very much for mentioning "m" shortcut, that was no where mentioned in OP. the issue im having now (would just be too simple if it worked the 6th time around) is that during each frame of animation, the skin color changes on the guy. any way to solve this other than deleting the other skin colors i dont want from the import file? Also how do i attach weapons to creatures? i can import them but i dont know how to make them "snap" to where they're suppose to be.
Edit* now the models load in SCII as white models, instead of black... static progress.
Edit* resaved files as TGA in photoshop, and now the models have turned purple... im just not making any real progress with this.
That looks like the keyboard texture that the engine uses when a model references an invalid texture. This must mean you have:
Not imported the textures to the map in the right path (Import them into 'Assets\Textures\' folder in the import window by default)
Haven't added the correct texture in 3ds Max so the internal filename is being saved into the M3
If the textures are being applied properly in 3ds Max, and you're resaving the textures as 32 bit in photoshop, then you must not be importing the texture into the map correctly. The default 'internal directory' set in the M3 exporter is used to define what folders you'll be placing the textures into within your map. By default it's 'Assets\Textures\' and if you don't import textures into this folder in the map the M3 will incorrectly reference the texture and you'll get the funky keyboard texture you're seeing in the screenshot.
For example, if you're trying to apply the map 'Worgen_diffuse.tga' to your model you'd first apply the texture to your model in 3ds Max so that the model exports with the path properly. Then in your map you'd import the TGA and place it in the 'Assets\Textures\' path and THEN import the model. If you import the texture first, the model should appear in the editor textured.
Bare in mind when importing some M2's there are meshes that are relevant to particles which should be removed and for characters there's meshes that are only present with certain character configurations (setup in the DBC files, if I update this further in the future I'll most likely add better support for importing characters).
I'm back at uni now and with the game released I'm leagueing quite a bit with what little spare time I have. It's doubtful I'll be able to provide any updates to the plugins for awhile but I still do have plans for them in the future.
This is really awesome =D
Im not sure if im doing something wrong but uv maps for characters seems to be off, creatures work perfect :s
thx for the awesome tools!
Edit:, found out how to fix my problem, you need the "combined" texture u get when exporting as .obj or similar, not the ones you get by exporting all textures, that one fits the models uv cordinates. great tool NiN!
Hey nin.. have you checked your PM's?
@NiNtoxicated01: Go
Your efforts are indeed greatly appreciated. Both my friend and I have waited for the ability to put m2s into 3ds max for many, many years. Between Lick King and the mdlvis developer jumping ship our hopes were crushed little by little until we eventually completely gave up. I am going to be converting a lot of graphics (hundreds in the end most likely). Mostly for Age of Wonders 2, but if I try a sc2 project I'll be using them for that as well (on top of the many graphics out of the other MMO I am porting graphics from for the exact same purpose).
Now that ultimately doesn't really mean anything to you... So. If you need voice acting for anything you want to make in the future, let me know when you start working on it... I'll see what I can do.
If/when you enable particle/ribbon support, will that allow us to import stuff like Frostfire Bolt?
The plugin seems to be working perfectly so far. I've got the Icebound drake in max and am fixing up the textures. Lord Dread 2.0, here we come!
rofl that is freaking awesome dude
oh boy, it seems like I'm the only one going to bring something negative to this... ugh... I hate being the bad guy >.>
I remember when this first became possible for War3. Now, since I've been so busy working lately, I dunno' if anything has changed but, last time this happened? Blizzard EXPLICITLY STATED THEY WERE AGAINST IMPORTING WOW MODELS INTO WAR3. Now, don't you think we might have the same problem here? www.hiveworkshop.com I dunno' if the info is still there, but I know under the rules, they state WHY they will NEVER ACCEPT a WoW Import. I first saw the WoW imports on www.wc3campaigns.com. Hive came after those guys. For the same reasons, they were forced to remove all models that were WoW imported, even ones that were edited to use content (one I remember most was the WoW dragon model that was re-skinned to be a magma dragon). So, please, while I to would LOVE to use the models provided by WoW? BE ON YOUR GUARD. IT MIGHT NOT BE ACCEPTED.
If it is, please show source and cite the permissive info on using another Title's material in SC2. If you cite that, then I too will join in on the many possibilities for maps using WoW models. 'Til then, please be careful.
@Pimpmunkeh: Go
They host wc3 maps with WoW models on them on their site (that MC map iirc). In either case that won't stop me, since my productions are all private releases :) (Now maybe they took down the map I'm thinking of, I haven't checked for a while... but eh.)
Also, there's a billion sites out there that host WoW models for wc3 maps and such, and none of them have ever been shut down except for their own internal drama (wc3 sites seem to like drama for some reason).
I'm not gonna say it's 100% safe. Because it isn't. I wouldn't try to publish maps with WoW models in them unless I knew for sure. But I'm not going to be publishing maps, anyway. 10mb limit doesn't exactly let me voice act much, much less import custom graphics. :)
im stuck at opening the M2 Model Importer, i cant find that importer, or any place to chance the import settings. i have the newest version of autodesk 3ds max 2011 (30 day trial version). can anyone help me get past this?
Edit* ok I've fixed this problem, im able to do it all except i dont know how to aply textures in 3ds max, they just look grey clay figures. also once i import them inot SC2 i cant find where they are at to apply them to a unit's model. but i can look at it in the preview section but i only see a black outline, with none of it's animations (i did the sequence thing, i just clicked on the animations i want and hit "add") what else am i doing wrong? how can i fix it so i can actually put the model in the SC2 map
@Pimpmunkeh: Go
it's been mildly discussed and without 'cause for concern' the mod's and all our 'understanding' is 'free game'. not much to worry about personally as anything you make to make $ with on sc2, blizz will tax/make $ off of. so chilll, it's been discussed so far, and until 'further notice' import to 'our' liking from what ive understood on this site and the moderators etc....
but if anyone else wants to post a long something about how they had 'copyright' problems with a company in a mod they made when they were younger plz post your eliteness (seriously NOT referring to ANYONE imparticular) but its been discussed somewhat and pretty sure nintoxicated and the mods have a raport well enough to not 'get sued' or overly worry. if theres a problem im sure itll get stated and deleted if need be (your personal 'sky is falling' is not necesarry). until then, enjoy what the community has to offer (make no mistake all your hard work that makes any money blizzard will capitalize on and rightfully so, but just ENJOY IMO until then!!!) :)
@jakpe: Go
can you please upload the map of your world of warcraft model video?
would be awesome to be zoom in to see all this characters in detail :)
i would realy love it !!!
@Enterich: Go
Ok so i finally got it to kinda work. i now know how to get the models in SC2, ive loaded it and everything. But now i have two problems, textures, and animations. i imported a northrend worgan into my map and he's all black, no textures or anything. and other than that his animations are funky, the only one that really works 100% of the time is his run. his stand animation is him almost lookinglike he's lunging forward, he's not even on the ground. and some of his atks do the dodge animation or somethin funky like that. can anyone give me a step by step tutorial just on the steps to apply textures in 3ds max and set up all the animations? this would be GREATL appreciated. thanks for these tools though, i've always wanted to use WoW models in a map.
P.S. also when i try and import charcters from the WoWmodelviewer the model in SC2 has every hair combination possible, even when i import a character that i've made bald. what can be done about this? and how do i attach models to units in SC2 like swords/shields and shoulders?
Most textures doesnt apply in themselves in 3dsmax, and most animations are off.
Those which textures doesnt work in 3dsmax doesnt get any specular map in the editor, making them siluettes. =(
I got 3 models to work with textures in 3dsmax. Then I manually made the animations using the M3 - Sequencer.
The first and foremost issue I have is that the models I got working aint what I need. ><
And secondly the models turn blue/purple in-game even though they work in the editor.
Uploading a map with 2 models in a moment.
jakpe please give me the link ^^
and @ NiNtoxicated01 what is about the original wow-model dancing map, you cant upload it? plleaaassseee :)
Hi2All.
Thanks for this great tool. :) But if u would allow, i have some questions and probably requests about it.
All my requests are based on that fact, that i need to work with the imported model not for further exporting to SC2 as i understand this forum mostly assume, but to make from it a rendered sprites for an old, but anyway great game - heroes of might and magic 3. :) So...
1. Whats happening with animations of the imported model? I mean in the former versions of this script u can press "play animation" button on the animation trackbar and all animations that model has will be played one by one in the viewport window. Does something changed in the current script version or i am doing something wrong?
2. Does m3 animation sequecer control script work only for a model, which had been imported as m3 model? If not - is it possible to make a similiar tool that will allow to control all original WoW model animations. +a question - if i would save a scene with a model - will it allow to manage animations after scene reopening or 3ds max relaunching?
Edited: ok, it was my fault. M3 sequencer can control original animations too (i just didnt noticed that he just marks by default only some of the them while importing), but the problem still exists for me - i cannot make animations be displayed in viewport windows.
just to update on my progress, i have every animation working now besides the stand animations. seems no matter how i mess with them, in game they're always frozen solid, looking very lifeless and tacky. anyone know a fix to this?
Wow that is incredible. It looks fantastic.
I've always thought the most badass model in WOW was Nefarion (Dragon boss in BWL), you should import that model if you ever make a second vid like that ;)
I can see it happening now. Fan remake of some of the newer World of Warcraft storylines in RTS-style, making some sort of Warcraft 4 :P
can someone PLEASE explain how to apply textures to the models, and get rid of the "frozen" stand animation. i cant find how o do it in 3ds max, and all my imported models look like black 3d shadows in SC2. any help would be enormously appreciated.
@MangledMind: Go
Use the m3 sequence manager to see/manage animations,
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6722/72157283.jpg
When you imported the model you were presented with a list of geosets and animations to import. Cross-reference the animations with those in the WoW viewer to get the ones you want.
To assign textures you use the material manager (press m). By following his initial tutorial on the OP you should already have some tga files to play dress-up with.
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/3316/64468177.jpg
awsome, thank you very much for mentioning "m" shortcut, that was no where mentioned in OP. the issue im having now (would just be too simple if it worked the 6th time around) is that during each frame of animation, the skin color changes on the guy. any way to solve this other than deleting the other skin colors i dont want from the import file? Also how do i attach weapons to creatures? i can import them but i dont know how to make them "snap" to where they're suppose to be.
@MangledMind: Go
That looks like the keyboard texture that the engine uses when a model references an invalid texture. This must mean you have:
If the textures are being applied properly in 3ds Max, and you're resaving the textures as 32 bit in photoshop, then you must not be importing the texture into the map correctly. The default 'internal directory' set in the M3 exporter is used to define what folders you'll be placing the textures into within your map. By default it's 'Assets\Textures\' and if you don't import textures into this folder in the map the M3 will incorrectly reference the texture and you'll get the funky keyboard texture you're seeing in the screenshot.
For example, if you're trying to apply the map 'Worgen_diffuse.tga' to your model you'd first apply the texture to your model in 3ds Max so that the model exports with the path properly. Then in your map you'd import the TGA and place it in the 'Assets\Textures\' path and THEN import the model. If you import the texture first, the model should appear in the editor textured.
Bare in mind when importing some M2's there are meshes that are relevant to particles which should be removed and for characters there's meshes that are only present with certain character configurations (setup in the DBC files, if I update this further in the future I'll most likely add better support for importing characters).
I'm back at uni now and with the game released I'm leagueing quite a bit with what little spare time I have. It's doubtful I'll be able to provide any updates to the plugins for awhile but I still do have plans for them in the future.
This is really awesome =D Im not sure if im doing something wrong but uv maps for characters seems to be off, creatures work perfect :s thx for the awesome tools!
Edit:, found out how to fix my problem, you need the "combined" texture u get when exporting as .obj or similar, not the ones you get by exporting all textures, that one fits the models uv cordinates. great tool NiN!