Milkshape Map object help??

FU3L3D

i have animated an extremely simple model in milkshape, and the model is not a player model, but a map model, for q3. i started digging through pak0.pk3 to see how they animate map models, only to find no animation.cfg files for them. i was wondering how the armor spins, and the health bobs up and down etc, with no animation.cfg files.
and if i must have an animation file with my model to make it move, how do i export the animation from milkshape? i tried just exporting the md3, but the model just sat there, and the file size of the md3 was much larger than a model that sits still.
any help would be greatly appreciated, this stuff is driving me insane

MoP

Quake 3 map models are not animated via the md3, or via .cfg files. Animation.cfg are only used for player models.
The armour bobbing up and down, weapons spinning etc. is all hard-coded into the engine, you will have to change the source code if you want other map models to spin.

The only way you can get custom map models to animate is by careful use of shaders with vertex-deformation functions in them.

FU3L3D

thanks for the quick response MoP, its nice to get a Diffinitive answer on a forum, because on most boards you get hazy answers that dont solve the problem whatsoever.
thats good news on the shader bit though, because i have been toying around with q3ase, and i should be able to get somewhat of the effect i am looking for.

FU3L3D

ok i have a new problem, i have created my simple model, and extracted the uvw map, but the map is wrong, and if im not mistaken it should be a rectangle and a circle on the map. but i tried painting up some reference points on the map anyway to see if it worked, but its just using the same image thats painted on top of the sphere, and putting it on the bottom flat side also. so i guess its wrapping the skin around it wrong?
here is a link to a .zip with my ms3d file inside.
LINK
please download, and tell me whats wrong with my model. thanks guys

Mark Dygert

A few things,

1) Milkshape is a HORRIBLE program to unwrap anything in. I would suggest using a copy of G-Max or finding a copy of a program that went by the name of lith-unwrap. It was free back in the day but I think it changed names and they charge to use it. G-Max comes with tutorials on how to use the unwrap tools. In the long run if you are considering getting into 3D I suggest you learn them.

2) The underside of the half-sphere is a mess, way too many polygons make up the underside. It looks like you flatened half of a shpere? Make sure to keep game models as clean as possible. This means don't use 40 polygons when 2 will do.

3) For some bazar reason I decided to clean up the model and unwrap it for you using Max7. All of the tools I used are included in G-Max so if you like what you see, you should take the 30min to go thru the G-Max unwrapping tutorial. I'm pretty sure you won't learn anything and by me doing this "for you" this will just teach that you can leach off others by pestering and begging instead of taking the time to learn and do it yourself. But like I said for some wierd reason I fixed your model and gave you the refernace map you will need to texture it... don't ever ask me to do anything like that again, I won't do it. I'm not even sure why I did it in the first place.

Fixed file

CheapAlert

LithUnwrap!

You could try Blender for unwrapping the mesh, or hell, I recommend swtiching to that permanently like I did.

FU3L3D

thanks guys, ill try that unwrapping software. And Vig, i am definately not a leach, actually its usually quite the oppisite, people leach from me quite often :P, but i enjoy learning things, especially gaming related material. I make gaming videos, do some mapping, and am now trying to do a bit of map object modeling, to add a little more detail to my maps, but i understand what you mean
You guessed right about the flattened sphere, it was the only way i could figure out how to get an exact match to cover the bottom. How did you redo it? did you manually create new faces by connecting vertex's?

@ CheapAlert: is blender completely free? and does it export .md3?

id also like to know what you guys think of TrueSpace 3 which i found here. sounds pretty good to me, but i dont want to spend a lot of time learning something that is substandard.

Gmanx

[ QUOTE ]

id also like to know what you guys think of TrueSpace 3 which i found, sounds pretty good to me, but i dont want to spend a lot of time learning something that is substandard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't bother with software from years ago. Blender is full of current-gen features, has a very powerful set of UV unwrapping tools including LSCM, and is completely free with lots of detailed support.

Mark Dygert

I agree with Gmanx and Cheapy, drop Milkshape like a hot rock. I used it to get started and I use it every now and then to import/export files but I really wouldn't recomend that anyone use it. The biggest problem is that it just doesn't support the current generation of games. Blender is the best bet for free apps. But if you ever look to the game industry for a job no one is going to hire someone who only knows blender. Max, Maya and to some extent XSI are the industry leaders and would need to be learned before you could actually get into the industry.

Since G-Max is being disolved, your best bet is Maya PLE, which is the free "learner" version of Maya. It's annoying as hell to work with because of a giant watermark. It also doesn't export to any useful formats which makes it next to useless.

For a long time I used a combo of G-Max, which exports to Md3 and Milkshape wich imports Md3 and exports to 3ds. Because I could export from G-Max to Milkshape then other formats it was my program of choice. For getting the basics of Max, G-Max is as good as it gets. But it is starting to show its age. Since I picked up a very cheap copy of Max7 I haven't looked back. No it's not a hacked copy, I managed to score it when Humongous Entertainment was down sizing.

As for the sphere I used a tool in Max7 called target weld. Basicaly it lets you select a vertex and move it to another vert and weld it. Normally if I was to make that model, I would delete half the sphere, select the edges on the "open end" and use a modifier called "cap holes" it creats those polys automaticly.

Sage

You might as well pick up a copy of the Xsi mod tool as well since you it lets you make models for HL2 and UT 2004 I think. Check out Wings3D if you don't like modeling in Blender and it also has a nice unwrapping tool.

Alex

FU3L3D

I picked up the latest version of gmax which was 1.2, because the older one that polycount links to can no longer be registered, and i noticed that you can only export "plasma" files .ps extention i think it was. I also downloaded blender, and have been watching some of the video tutorials, which are very handy. Does blender have a plugin or something that will let it export directly to .md3?

@ Vig: sorry to ask a hundred questions, but why did milkshape not properly unwrap my model, but it would with your fixed version of it? I know mine had more poly's on the underside, but other than that werent both identical? or did i miss a step somewhere, that allows you to properly uv the model?

One last question for now... how does modeling software deal with negative space? like say i deleted the bottom half of the sphere, and wanted to uv the outside, and also the inside of it? im thinking it would not show up on the uv map, because it is nothingness?
up till now the only 3d apps ive used were an old version of poser, and bryce 5, so im glad you guys are helping me out so much, because those old dinosaurs dont prepare you for more advanced things

Sage

Max, Maya and Xsi and I imagine Blender and Wings 3D basiclly only take into account the direction the normal is facing. The back of the poly doesn't really exist although Xsi will display the back of polys as black by default, I don't remember in Maya. Max simple culls back faces by default. As far as Poser goes, I don't think they gave you control over that at least in version 3 you basically imported your finished models into the program and god have mercy on your soul. Bryce I hated everything about that UI, but I can't remember if it had those features or not, I won't dig to deep into those memories either;)

My experience with cheap programs like byrce and infini-D was they didn't allow you to cull backfacing so you had no control over it while modeling or at render time and with software like Max, Maya or Xsi you have control over it. You can make a shader that tells the renderer to render polys as two sided or you can make the polys two sided. A two sided poly is a poly that has a front and back and they are on top of each other. If I understood you correctly, how does modeling software deal with negative space... it simply doesn't exist until you model it.

Milkshape 3d doesn't unwrap things properly because it's just very hard to use. If you put a crap load of effort into it I'm sure you might figure out how to do it. It's just better to use something else and put all that effort into that. Okay lame analogy time, what would you rather make a hole in the wall with, a toothpick or a rocket launcher? Trying to use milkshap 3d to unwrap anything is like trying to make a hole in the wall with a toothpick. Lame analogy time over... Hope that helps.

Alex