SC2Mapster

In this tutorial I will explain all the steps to create an animated coin model for Starcraft 2 with Blender 2.69.

Installation

Blender is open source and can be downloaded free: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

Starcraft 2 uses m3 as model format. I wrote a Blender addon which allows you to import and export m3 model files with Blender 2.69:

https://github.com/flo/m3addon/

If you can't find the download button, then click here to download the newest version.

The m3addon folder with the souce needs to be placed in the addons folder of the current Blender version. For Blender 2.69 this location is on Windows XP at:

• C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.69\scripts\addons

and on Windows 7 at:

• C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.69\scripts\addons

It can be that you need to create some folders if they aren't there yet.

Once the source is in place start Blender. The addon isn't active by default but needs to be enabled. To do so we need a "User Preferences"-editor.

Preparing Blender

• Video Tutorial: Part I: Preparing Blender (2 1/2 min ogg video)

Creating the static mesh

• Video Tutorial: Part II: Creating the static mesh (4 min ogg video)

Assigning the mesh to a bone

• Video Tutorial: Part III: Assigning the mesh to a bone (3 min ogg video)

Animating the model

• Video Tutorial: Part IV: Animating the model (3 min ogg video)

Making the model selectable

• Video Tutorial: Part V: Making the model selectable (2 1/2 min ogg video)

@DrSuperEvil: Go

The point of this tutorial is not to provide the readers with a coin model, but to show them how to make models with Blender for Starcraft 2.

It is already possible to add attachment points by using the "M3 Attachment Points" panel in the scene tab.
To animate an attachment point you need currently to add a bone with the same name.

Attachment volumes aren't supported yet.

I haven't investigated in how to make turrents, but making a model with team colors is simple.
By default it uses the alpha channel of the model as team color. You can adjust that setting
in the "M3 Materials" panel of the scene.

I haven't added support for m3a files yet. Currently the exporter calculates new animation ids for the attributes.
It should however be possible to store a (blender object name, blender property path, m3 animation id) tripple when importing a model in oder to keep the animation ids the same when exporting. Maybe that's all needed to implemented the export of m3a files.

@println: Go

Amazing on making an M3 Plug-In for Blender thanks so much, now I Can make models without the expensive 3DS Max. Keep up the wonderful work you're doing, and hopefully if it doesn't already have ribbon and/or particle support it will soon. It'll be great to be able to work with either 3DS Max (NiNtoxicated01's M3 Plug-In) or Blender (printIn's M3 Plug-In).

@DaFunk86: Go

It is possible to create particles with my m3addon. There is a "M3 Particle Systems Panel" in the scene tab of the properties editor:

A lot of properties of the particle system can be configured, but you can't preview the particles it in Blender yet. It offers however a possiblity to export a model with one click. It takes me about 4 seconds to get the model from Blender into the Starcraft 2 Previewer.

Ribbons aren't supported yet, but you can make a lot of particle effects already:

• Particle systems with different kinds of emission areas (Sphere, Cuboid, Cylinder, Point)
  
• Particles with different kinds of emission rate, speed, angle and spread.
  
• Particle systems with particles with animated color, speed, size
  
• Particle systems with random color, speed, size, lifetime,
  
• Particle systems that create particles that don't follow the emitter (trailing particles)
  
• Particle systems with an animated emission location, rotation and scale (via bone animation)
  
• Particle system with animated particle images (e.g. the image shows 16 variantes of the same particle at different states, which will then be played as animation)
  
• Particles that get slowed down or are under the effect of positive or negative gravity
  
• More stuff, which I forgot, or don't know yet in detail for what the configuration parameters are good for.
  

@DrSuperEvil:
There is so much more stuff I want to add to the addon, but since I am no longer a student my free time is pretty much limited. So I have to decide between making a nice long tutorial or working on the m3addon. I hope that an user will make a better tutorial then I made. Also for learning purposes you could also simply import a marine, zergling or whatever.

By the way: The addon can now import and export attachment volumes. They can be used to mark where attack missiles can hit a model. E.g. That way you can make missiles hit the legs and head of a collosi instead of the empty center between the legs.

having a hard time importing any sc2 m3 files into blender with this. everything gives an error. only one that hasn't yet is the zergling.
am i doing something wrong or do you not fully support this?

Awesome:

@maverck: Go

Which Blender version are you using? Currently it works only properly with 2.62 since in 2.63 they introduced a new way of storing meshes which my addon can't deal properly yet.

When you receive erros when importing other models please report them either here or at the issue tracker at:

https://github.com/flo/m3addon/

Generally the importer will always show an error message when it finds anything unexpected in the imported file. In most cases simple adjustments in the structure.xml file can make every model load.

i downloaded 2.63, didn't work, so uninstalled and downloaded 2.62 but dont have much better results.
everything i tried didn't work. some terran units. some protoss units like immortal. some protoss buildings like gateway. i couldn't load any of the custom models that i have for SC2BW.

it's probably just something on my end since i assume the majority of models should work?

http://i.imgur.com/H12zo.png

@maverck: Go

I haven't tried to load that many models yet. Mostly I tried to load particle systems which worked pretty well.

The error message you posted came propably when you tried to load a model exported with 3ds max. I adjusted my addon so that it is hopefully compatible now. I also tried to load the immortal and the gateway. It didn't worked at first as it complained about some unknown structures. I added those structures to the structure.xml file to make those models load.

Sadly I noticed that there is some kind of strange performance issue when a model has a lot of M3 materials. If you experience those too, try to delete some M3 materials. I will investigate when I have time and propably create a bug report for Blender.

When you find any other model that doesn't load, please tell me.

I'm having trouble using the m3 exporter on a obj file I have imported into blender.

I'm trying to get Civ IV units into SC2, and have found a tool that converts .nif into .obj which blender can import, but I get an error when trying to export

More info: http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/art-assets/36886-civ-iv-models/

@Wraith367: Go

As the error message say: The export of multiple mesh objects isn't supported yet. If you want the model badly in SC2 you could export each mesh individually.

Export of multiple meshes is planned, but there are a few things I want to implement first. Like more material types, proper material-mesh-relations and Blender 2.63 support.

Deleting all but one of the model parts and trying to export to m3 yields:

Exception: Require a m3 material to export a mesh

@Wraith367: Go

In the "scene" tab of a properties editor in Blender there is a panel "M3 Material". Click "+" there and configure an diffuse image path in the "M3 Material Layers" panel. It's also an good idea to add an m3 animation in the "M3 Animations" panel since even static models have usualyl an animation.

When I try to export, it gives me a bunch of errors.

@Barricader0: Go

I can't reproduce your problem. Without further information I can't help you.

I was following your tutorial to the dot up to the first export and it gives some errors in the code. It also does it to your file when I try to export that. So it is either the software or me.

@Barricader0: Go

Works for me with Blender 2.63. Which Blender version are you using?

Edit: Can you post the error log here if you are using Blender 2.63 already? (To copy text from a command line window you need to use the top left icon of the window.)

Error Log:

Traceback (most recent call last:( File "C:\Users\Joseph Jones\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.62\scripts\addons\flo-m3addon-4a6ee60\init.py", line 1077, in execute m3export.exportParticleSystems(scene, self.properties.filepath) File "C:\Users\Joseph Jones\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.62\scripts\addons\flo-m3addon-4a6ee60\m3export.py", line 1153, in exportParticleSystems exporter.exportParticleSystems(scene, filename) File "C:\Users\Joseph Jones\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.62\scripts\addons\flo-m3addon-4a6ee60\m3export.py", line 58, in exportParticleSystems model = self.createModel(m3FileName) File "C:\Users\Joseph Jones\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.62\scripts\addons\flo-m3addon-4a6ee60\m3export.py", line 66, in createModel self.initMesh(model) File "C:\Users\Joseph Jones\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.62\scripts\addons\flo-m3addon-4a6ee60\m3export.py", line 317, in initMesh mesh.update(calc_tessface=True) TypeError: Mesh.update(:( was called with invalid keyword arguments(s) (calc_tessface), expected (calc_edges)

location:<unknown location>:-1

Edit: I am using Blender 2.62