[Guide] model changing

[drcar]

This is my walkthough, may be simpler or not and is not a to repost but to give you a non copy pasted walkthrough that explains it for non experienced model changers.(this is all that I have learned from the new model changing after 1.11)

First of all if you want to customise your model changes then download this program.
http://www.cnitblog.com/Files/linghu...Studio_0.8.rar

you have this program open you can lookthrough directories of the world of warcraft Data

(.MPQ's). Currently you will want to open the Model.MPQ in your
C:\Programesfile\worldofwarcraft\data\ folder. Which you can open this by looking at the top and clicking the folder icon.once you look through all the stuff you want to identify the thing you want changed. You will most likely be looking through character, creature, and item. then you can start the model changing.Here is a key to get you familiar with the file types you will be dealing with-.MPQ) These are the files you have in your data folder they are valuable directory files that can be opened with "mywarcraftstudio&amp"

.M2) These are the files inside the .MPQ's, most commonly found in the modle.MPQ. These files are the actual structure of the object. EXAMPLE: you see the structure of a globe, its a sphere type object. That is the structure of a ball, the immage of a sphere

.BLP) These are the files inside the .MPQ's, most commonly found in the Texture.MPQ. They are just as they sound for to be in the texture MPQ. They are the texture of the object. EXAMPLE: You see a baseball, it is white with a curved red line going around it for stitching. The colors, the immage is the texture of the ball.

There are many other files you can experiment with but these are the most commonly used ones.


red=example of something wrong
blue=example of something correct
green=example of something important
white=important in general
Changing .M2's(structure)

1.) find the thing that you see and want changed to something else. If it is the structure of a nightelf and you want it changed to a frog you will locate these two files. Character\Nightelf\Male\Nightelfmale.m2 and Creature\frog\frog.m2.

2.) you will want to right click then Extract the frog.m2 to an available folder for later use. I recomend it in the data folder.

3.) remember the exact name of the nightelf .m2 which would be "NightelfMale.M2&" So you will rename the frog file that you extracted to the data folder to "NightelfMale.M2".

4.) now for future use you will want to go to the night elf .M2 and right click it click Copy Tree path. This will copy the tree path of where the night elf .m2. which should be "character\nightelf\male\" If it has anything extra in it dont worry about it now.

5.) now go to Pack(P) on the menu bar at the top. Press "Create MPQ Archive..." Name the new MPQ you are about to create "Speech2" you have to name it this. I will be searching formore for any other MPQ you can use this in later.

6.) now the whole left columm with the information should be black. Click Pack(P) once again and this time click on "add file to archive..."

7.) in the popup click the "..." button and find the frog.M2 which is in your data folder which you renamed. So click the "Nightelfmale.M2" and it should be in the text field of that popup. Now this is where you click infront of the text that should say "Nightelfmale.M2"...press CTRL+V(paste) and it should paste the tree path of the night elf .m2. You should now see "Character\Nightelf\Male\NightelfMale.M2" If you see any more "Character\Nightelf\Male\NightelfMale.M2NightelfMale.M2"or"Character\Nightelf\MaleNightelfMale.M2" Then you need to fix it. there should not be the extra "MaleNightelfMale.M2" or a missing "\" between "male" and "nightelfmale.m2"

8.) now when you have it all correct, in this case it should say "Character\Nightelf\Male\NightelfMale.M2" in the popups' text field then clink "ok".

9.) you should now see a folder on the left columm that says Character and if you open all the folders up at the end it should be the "Nightelfmale.M2" except it shows a frog as the graphics.

10.) now open wow and if you look at any nightelf males they will appear as a white frog.

This is how you model change the structure of things. The .BLP is what you will want to finalise the model change so it isn't the white frog but it is a regular colored frog.

Now for the .BLP(texture) changing...

.BLP changing is no different then .M2 changing. This one aquires more files usually. I will write a guid for this as well soon.

The big note that I want everyone that wants to model change out there is that when you put the changed .M2 and the .BLP in the Speech2.MPQ at the same time the .M2 will only work. If you take the .M2 out the .BLP's will work. This is the problem that were having. What i'm trying to say is that, I dont know and this method doesnt let you change the structure(.M2) and the Texture(.BLP) at the same time. I am working on how to do this at the moment, and I would appreciate any ideas or tips or an answer for this.

Also, if you dont want to download the mywarcraftstudio program then you can MSN/AIM/E-mail/PM me for any requests but I am expecting you to have read the "bolded" paragraph above.

Also i'd like to note that some .M2's have the .BLP built into them. Such as: The Darkportal, The Podracers. and if there is any other wow model editing program that can blend the the .M2's and .BLP's together or something. please share.

[Toxic Speed]

Great guide, sorry to ask this question, but how do you add the .blp's to make the "colored frog"?

[drcar]

I think i'm finished with editing the guide now, sorry

If your tree path and the file your uploading is to long in the box. No worries, download WinMPQ http://warcraft3.filefront.com/file/;23017 And you can open your Speech2.MPQ and rename the treepaths as long as you like. just open the speech2 MPQ and click the one that is too short and missing stuff, right click it and rename it so that it's all correct.

[drcar]

you can also open Patch.MPQ now with the 0.8 version, so you can find some of the .M2's and .BLP's in there.

[anotheralt]

i find it helps a lot to use Mywarcraft studio to add the files, and then edit the file names in WinMPQ.

[Demonkunga]

i find it helps a lot to use Mywarcraft studio to add the files, and then edit the file names in WinMPQ.

I got winmpq and it wont open lol
think you could send me your copy please?

my warcraft studio 0.8 crashs on me right when i open it, anyone know why? Could be because im on my grandmas computer, crappy graphics card, but 0.6 and 0.7 work fine.

The big note that I want everyone that wants to model change out there is that when you put the changed .M2 and the .BLP in the Speech2.MPQ at the same time the .M2 will only work. If you take the .M2 out the .BLP's will work. This is the problem that were having. What i'm trying to say is that, I dont know and this method doesnt let you change the structure(.M2) and the Texture(.BLP) at the same time. I am working on how to do this at the moment, and I would appreciate any ideas or tips or an answer for this.

Well i did this fine, works for me. Im good at this **** haha. Changed my troll to a human just now, textures work fine. Only thing I need to really learn, is how to change all my armor to look like a set (i only could do Shoulders, weapons, shields and i think thats it).. and i didnt really learn how to swap instances, but iv got the main idea down, its just a bitch though. But anyway this new way of MCing isnt really any harder. I did it easily enough.

[Cookiethief]

Just tried it out on my druid . Can't thank you enough for this. Before they fixed it the first time I used to run around with my druid as the cat from ZG and my Sealion form as a shark .

Just a few questions though..can't seem to get them working, if its even possible at all.

1) After I do everything here and login to wow, everything works great, but when I log in again, everything resets. So in order to keep my Shark Sealion form and ZG cat catform, I have to re-do everything over again. Is there any way to fix this? I've gotten to the point where I got so fed-up with doing the steps before I log into wow so many times that I don't use them anymore.

2) How do I change the model and texture of a spell? I found the spells I want but I'm not sure how to rename them. I can't figure this out for the life of me. I was trying to turn starfire into a meteor animation, moonfire into a lightning bolt and thorns into that spinning bones animation the caster mobs in Strat have.

3) Another thing I've been trying to do with my female gnome warlock is to make it so that she appears like the gnome necromancer mobs (female preferably). The ones you see when you first head into scholo in the first and second big rooms. I can't find the texture or file for the gnomes, only the ones for the high elves (Scholomance Occultist and Adept). Anyone know if it can be done or what it is named?

Thanks so much in advance.

[jacca]

One of the .Dll's is broken for me -.-

[drcar]

I figured I'd write the rest of my guide now for the .BLP's(Textures)...It's really simple and really is the same thing..BLP's are found in the Texture.MPQ and the Patch.MPQ.For some things its really simple.

There are 9 different colored skins(.blp's) for each race and each sex.say were changing a charactor into a rat. There are only 1 or 2 different rat .BLP's i think. just download 5 of one rat .blp and 4 of the other color .blp. then rename 5 of them after 5 of the different skin .BLP's from the charactor. and 4 of the ones left over.it doesnt get to complicated but you can do endless combos with .BLP's...Shouldn't be more tough, but if you got any questions please ask.

TO Cookiethief: 1.) This is not a problem me or anyone else has encountered. If you save the Speech2.MPQ and keep it in your Data folder then it should stay the changed way forever until you rename it, after you rename it the next time you log in, you will see the correct models in place. Not to much more I can say.

2.)should be able to extract the Meteor, lightning bolt, and spinning bones .M2's and .BLP's and just rename them to what you want them to look like, make sure you got the treepath correct when putting it into Speech2.MPQ.

3.) well I know you can change the look of your gear : /...that takes quit a long time though =(

[Demonkunga]

Explain instance swaping and changing of all gear into a set. Like Dreadnaught for example.

[_Shapes_]

i get an error when i try to start up wow
( DBFilesClient\GMSurveyQuestions.dbc has wrong number of columns (found 2, expected 10) )

is any1 else having it or is it just me?
because i don't see what this is making to the gmsurveyq thing :P

[lvlrbojang1es]

Explain instance swaping and changing of all gear into a set. Like Dreadnaught for example.

that was totally on topic...

I used to have a program that would combine .m2's with .blp's for a different game, but i uninstalled all associated with it a while back... I'm trying to see if i can find it again.

[mason]

Do you know how to make the textures work with the model ? I just cant get it right : \