[Guide] Making M2 models without 3Dsmax.

[joeyshinobi88]

Its possible on Live. You need to update 3dstom2 though. The 3ds format sucks big, floppy, sweaty donkey dicks so goodluck getting anything animated in game. Whats needed is something like a FBX-M2 or even MS3D-M2 conversion. The WOW import scripts (one of them floating around at least) is capable of importing animations et all to 3DS Max9, then you can export it to MS3D format and maintain animations, bones, materials uv(easy to fix anyway). A script that seperates the geosets to different elements instead of cramming it all into one big seizure inducing mesh wouldn't hurt. When you create the m2 from 3ds you'll have to open the model up in M2Modder and fix the texture flags depending on what type of model it is and how its going to use the skins. (Creature, Character, Item ect) Example: Items use Cape 2 for their main skin and some have Hardcoded additional ones, but due to limitations on M2MOdder being able to insert absurdly long path names into the file for a hardcoded texture is out unless someone wants to rewrite it. The WOW engine does not handle very high end models well at all. M2Modder will (rarely, maybe 5% of the time) crash part way thru conversion due to submeshes for some reason. If you just insert another folder path to get around the long path name insertion problem with m2modder (upping the limit from 15 to 35 for example) it will crash everything. You can inject particles, extract ect as well still but yet again you have to fix the programs and its more than a bit buggy, the client usually will refuse to load those models even if WMV does.

+rep
now i know why i fail
and knowing is half the battle.

[siegfried.it]

ah its nice that progress is being made in editing these m2 models
do you guys think it will soon be possible to fix the weapon and shoulderpad align point
what i mean is fixing the floating shoulderpads the sheated weapons clipping through the cloak and other things
i'd even pay money for that

[oyax]

doesnt work for me...its the 1.12 converter !

[Elites360]

yeah.. this has been broken for a While.. it May work for a few models.. but not all. i hope ppl listen to *OYAX* ^^

[JimbobGo]

You need to update the 3dstom2, I used Dev-CPP, Lib3ds 1.3.0 (a 1.2.x version too) and changed what was related to the model format change. Its about 20 minutes of work at most.

[Krazzee]

If you updated it, release it, you can become famous if you allow some noobs to be able to turn themselves into a pretty 3d item

[L'Lawliet]

hey can someone reupdate the 3ds to m2 and is the 3ds file suppose to be like name.max cause thats all i get in 3ds max and how the hell do i add a blp to a glock?

[joeyshinobi88]

You need to update the 3dstom2, I used Dev-CPP, Lib3ds 1.3.0 (a 1.2.x version too) and changed what was related to the model format change. Its about 20 minutes of work at most.

i'll start looking for those programs and comparing/contrasting the old and new .m2 files at wowdev and hope i don't **** it up.

wish me luck.