Need some help with converting Valve files to Maya

ClockHavoc42

I am some what new to Maya and I am trying to teach myself now animation and modeling. Due to the fact that it is rather complicated to animate an unfinished model (and I would prefer not to use primitive "box" modeling) I thought it would be fun to use the TF2 character models for animation. I found a tutorial on Youtube that explains how to convert these files to 3DS Max, I know for a fact that there aren't many differences between these programs. I have downloaded the GCFscape program to my computer and and have moved the needed files to a folder as stated in the video. However, I don't have the option to edit any mdl files with a notepad, which seems to affect the MDLDecopiler as well, since when ever I try to extract that mdl file it says "unable to load model." I would appreciat if you were to tell me how can I get the option to edit a mdl file with a notepad to work, and if there are any other programs that I need to download in order to extract files to Maya (not including texters, as I have yet reached that part).
Thanks in advance guys.

Mark Dygert

I haven't used maya in this way and unfortunately this is one way they differ, I'm not sure anyone has written a SMD importer for Maya? At some point you'll need to export your meshes as .smd and compile them which means you might have to use milkshape3D.

To at least get started and you can get the source files here, which include FBX files that contain meshes and skeletons.

ClockHavoc42

Well the good news is that I have found out that I need the notepad++ to use the notepad (yes really! I am that stupid). The some-what bad news is that I found out that Source SDK comes with scripts that allow Maya to import and export SMD files, which is good, however as I mention earlier I am as dumb as a brick and I can't seem to read what is the folder in which you need to put the contents without getting confused (and a slight headache)... Am I allowed to post links to other websites in this forum, so someone might explain to me what to do?
Thanks again.

ClockHavoc42

Alright! I manged to import what I wanted. Everything is working fine and dandy. Now I just need to know how to rig the skeleton so it may be used for animation... I'll figure it out... I hope.