Mastering My Warcraft Studio(Picture Heavy)

[A_Snake01]

Mastering MyWarcraftStudio.

Mastering all the techniques of My Warcraft Studio, from basics to the more advanced.

Linghuye is a professional Chinese Scripter who has his own blog(Temp: add in link)

I recommend visting it periodically for updates to MWCS. The next update, scheduled to come at the release of Burning Crusade can view the m2s.

The base Interface looks like this:



The green circle is there when nothing is loaded visually. It should be moving at a good pace, and not slow enough that you can see the runes clearly, otherwise you have a slow computer.
This is the toolbar:



This is the Status bar:



This shows you what file it is exporting at the moment, and how far along it is when loading an MPQ file.


You can change the background color by clicking on the Blue box in the tool bar:



You can also click on the jumbled mess of letters below it to get a custom color:



I tend to stick with blue.

Currently, these buttons don’t do anything, along with UI Script:



Clicking on the Question Mark or About brings up the credits:



You can change your cursor by clicking on Setting ~> Cursor. You can select from all the WC3 ones, like Undead, Orc, Human and Elf.:



Clicking on Welcome to Destiny matrix clears the screen and makes it as though you haven’t clicked on anything.

To view a single file type, go to the bottom left hand corner and click on the dropdown menu to select which one you want to view:



To extract a single file, open up a folder and right click on the file you want to extract. Right click it and hit Extract File, then save it to where you want to. As a note, you cannot click on a folder then right click on a file to extract, you must Left click a file then right click it to do so, this goes for everything, too.:



You can also click on Copy Tree Path to get the correct tree path for that file. Incredibly handy.:



To extract a folder, you left click on the folder and right click and select Extract Folder:



When viewing a BLP(Blizzard texture file), you’ll notice box that says Image.:



This box allows you a few options. First, if you click on Enable Blend to turn the check box off, you will see the picture with all the layers. If there are blank parts to an image that appear see through, turning this off will show it all. This is what’s called an Alpha Layer, it allows the picture, when used, to have parts that are transparent. It’s quite useful.:



This box also shows the dimensions of the Image at the top part of the box. Most Texture files are 256x256.

You can also click Apply Minimap, which stretches the picture to fit a Minimap screen, this has no practical purpose. You can also select Minimap0 through Minimap 8, this is in correlation to the + and – marks on the minimap saying how far the zoom is. This is useful for testing out custom minimaps.

You can also click on Save Image, which exports it as a targa. I do not recommend using this feature, or any feature in MWCS that allows a direct export to a file other what it currently is, as it’s usually very buggy.

When viewing an M2 file you will most often crash. This is due to The Burning Crusade being updated with new model types every now and then, and Linghuye cannot keep up. Wait until Linghuye releases a new version.

If you can view the m2, you will be met with the model, and a box. This box offers a lot of options to fiddle with.



You can view the different Animations by clicking the dropdown Animations box and selecting one:



Below Animations, you will see an Animation Speed bar. This can be slide to adjust the speed at which the animation is playing at. Sometimes this bugs out and you need to click it again to go back to where you were. The default speed for all animations is 10.

Below that, there is an Animation Range slider. This is a slider to pick what frame your animation is at.

You can select the different skin to be viewed when viewing a creature with many textures, wolves, furbolgs, some items, etc. You can click the View Bones Only check box to see the skeleton of the model used for Animation, and you click the Auto Stand box so that when you click a model, it automatically goes into animation, rather than freeze frame.

To the right of the model box, you will see a Model Status box. This shows the Pitch, Yaw, Roll and Scale that the model is currently at. You cannot alter these stats, this is just a position viewing visual confirmation. It depends on how the model is tilted, what way it’s facing, how large is it on the screen and where it’s position is on the screen.

You cannot currently View ADTs or WMOs in MWCS, you can click on and export them, but not view them. I recommend WarcraftModelViewer for WMOs. You can see ADT’s in MWCS 0.7 version. It’s very hard to manipulate the ADT to view as you want it to, however it is useful for determining how flat one is.

To make a new MPQ for use, click on Pack and select Create MPQ.



It will ask if you want to close the current Archive. Select yes to continue. Then you type in the name of the desired MPQ and hit Save. You will now be in your custom MPQ.

From here you can import folders and files.

It gets a bit trickier from here on out, so I’ll start with the basics.

To import a file, click on Pack and select Add file to Archive. You will be met with a box that looks like this.



Click on the Ellipses(that’s the three dots) to be met with a browse box. Search for the files you want then double click it.

It should now look like this, as an example:



Now put your cursor before the file name and click on it. You can now add file paths, known as a Tree Path before the file name. This is imperative to add Model Changed files, as you need to keep the same treepath. Remember, we don’t determine when and where Warcraft calls for a file, we only determine what it gets when it does.

You also need to separate the different folders with backslashes, or \. Never use the slash for slash commands, or /, as they won’t work.

An example completed tree path will look like this:



Hit OK and then you will have your successfully added file:



You can then right click it and hit rename if you want to rename the file or alter the tree path. You will be met with the same box as before, as if you were adding a file.

You can also remove the file if you so desire.

Note, however, that you cannot remove a folder, you must remove every file within that folder, then you’ll be met with an error box that says “Sorry, error to extract Data!” :




You can achieve the same effects in Edit MPQ mode, which is gotten through Pack, then Edit MPQ.

Do not remove or add files to the base MPQs. Never open those MPQs in Edit MPQ mode. You could seriously jeopardize your wow data.

Now I’ll show you how to import folders and single files right from the start of a new MPQ.

First make a new MPQ. Then right click on the area where Files would be, you’ll be met with a box like this:



If you have more than one file/folder, I highly recommend importing a single file with no tree path first. We will call it Listfile, a blank .txt file.

Click on Import File and choose Listfile. Double click it and it should now look like this:



From there, right click on Lisfile and choose Import Folder:



You can now add multiple folders to your MPQ. I do it this way because once you add a folder to an MPQ via this method, you cannot ad more. Just one more bug in the program.

This is extremely useful for adding entire tree paths to a new MPQ. We will use an Air Elemental tree path as an example.

First create a folder called “Creature” without the quotes, anywhere on your computer. Just remember where it is. In that same area, make a folder called AirElemental.

Now put AirElemental in the Creature Folder, and create a new text document.:



Also create a New Text Document in the Air Elemental Folder, as well, as without it, it won’t import that folder.

Double click on the document and it will import the parent folder and every sub folder correctly into the MPQ.

You now have a correct tree path in your MPQ.:



Using this, you can add folders to other folders by right clicking on an item and selecting Import Folder. Remember, this can only be done in Edit or Create MPQ.

And there you have it. You now know how to:

Create an Edit an MPQ
Import Single files into an MPQ
Add entire folders + Sub folders into an MPQ
Export files
Manipulate MWCS
And many other things. Congrats.

[tilt]

Hey Mr. Snake can you shed some light as to why I can't export single files with MWS, however i can export folders. On the import side, i can't import folders only individual files. I'm using MyWarCraftStudio_0.9.5991

[idusy-org]

Hey Mr. Snake can you shed some light as to why I can't export single files with MWS, however i can export folders. On the import side, i can't import folders only individual files. I'm using MyWarCraftStudio_0.9.5991

Delete m2craft.dll

And to mport folders, add an empty file (like a .txt file) and right click > import folder, and to import into a already made folder in the MPQ, right click the folder > import folder.

[Subconsciousness]

Nice guide

[A_Snake01]

bump up my post.

[Jones4ever]

Very Nice for newb's dude

[MrClean]

Thanks alot, there is good stuff in this guide!

[general_salsa]

Where do i download mwcs?