[Guide] Complete Guide To Custom Models

[Glitchy]

Complete Guide to Getting Custom Models In game

Information
This Tutorial Takes you from Getting a 3d Object to Putting it in the Game. Some Parts in this tutorial Are A little Advance. If you are Some what of a beginner i suggest that you start off with a model that already comes with a Texture.

Files
First your Going to need Some Files Here Is a List

3ds To M2 Converter
Cryects Tools
My Warcraft Studio
Milk Shape 3D
BLP Converter
WoW Model Viewer (Only if you want to View Your models Out side of wow)
Ultimate Unwrapper 3D (Only If Your Model has No texture)
House Model (used in the UV mapping part of the guide) -- Second Download Location

Converting to 3ds
In odor to proceed You will need your file to be in a ".3ds" format. To do this it is very simple.
1. Open up Milk Shape 3D
2. Goto File --> Import --> (File Type of your 3d File)
3. Goto File --> Export --> Autodesk 3DS

UV Mapping Custom Model

Intro
First let me start off By saying If you Have received a 3ds file off the net that has already come with a single texture file then you can skip this part. Also if you already know how to Map out UV textures this part is completely useless. I only included this part in the tutorial as a lot of models do not come with textures or they come with multiple texture files.

What is UV mapping?
In odor to texture Models you need a UV map. If you just made a custom model you are not going to have a UV map. Also if you download an untextured 3d object off the net you are going to need to give it a UV map most of the time.

Starting off
For this part of the tutorial I'm going to show you how to do UV mapping with a model that i provided. First your going to start off by Opening "House.3DS" In Ultimate Unwrapper. Your program should look something like mine.



Texturing:
Now a lot of people have problems Texturing Models they make so I'm going to take the LONG process of trying to teach you how to texture your model.

Hot Keys:
OK now there are some hot keys you need to know now.
S - Selects parts of your model in 3D-view
Shift + S - Allows you to select multiple parts at one time, similar to how CTRL works in Windows when you select several files.
CTRL + S - De-selects vertices/spaces on the model, without loosing the whole selection which basically means starting all over again if you're not careful.


Selecting Faces:
Now that you know the hot keys Time to put them to use. Go to Tool bar and and click on "Select -> Face". Now go to the Perspective view Hit your "S" hot key and you are now able to start selecting faces on your object. HOLD Shift + S and proceed to Select the entire roof. When you get done you will have something like this.



Find this menu


Buttons:
Ok now let me explain some of these buttons as you will be using these a lot. When you have all the faces selected these buttons determine how the engine will map the texture to the faces you have selected. Now since we can pretty much see the roof all from 1 side we are going to go with the 1 sided planner mapping. I'm not going to go to far into detail about each type as the most common type you are going to be using is 1 sided planer mapping and Cylindrical Mapping wich i will show you in a min. So go ahead and select 1 Sided planer mapping You should get something like the following



Options:
Axis alignment - This is the axis the plan(Texture Plan) Will Lay on. If you Don't understand this. Best thing To do here is Select an axis click apply If it looks right go with it. Most of the time you can tell if you messes up on this option.
Scaling Options - Leave this as it is.

Move It
Hit apply and your done. While you still have your Faces selected MOVE them Away from all objects in the UV Map perspective. If you don't Later on you will have a hard time Reselecting your Specific Objects to Scale and Move

Start Over:
Hit apply and your done with the roof. Now Time to start all over with Another Part. This time we are going to select the Chimney. De-Select what ever you have targeted Go to the perspective view and Select the chimney.



Back to this Bar


Cylindrical Mapping:
This time we are going to select Cylindrical mapping.Why do we Choose Cylindrical mapping you ask? Because the Chimney is Cylindrical(Round)! Now the only option you really need to worry about Is Axis Alignment and do the same thing you did for the roof. Click Apply and that part is done.

Your on your own
Now I'm going to let you finish Mapping the rest of the model on your own! But here is some suggestions on what to do.



Left Overs?
OK so now you have a bunch of Objects on your UV Map Side What do you do? Your are going to use the UV Tool bar!



UV Tool bar
Now with this tool bar you can move and resize all the objects you made. You have to move all the objects you made into the gray box in odor for them to even be of any use. The gray box is the UV Mapping limit So go a head and start to move and resize every thing.

INTO

Finishing up
A few More Steps to Finishing up texturing the model.
1. Goto File --> Save As (Save Your File as a .3ds)
2. Goto File --> Export --> UV Map (Width 512 Height 512 File Type BMP)

End Result


Wrap Up
Now you can take this file into your favorite Editor and Texture it how you please.

Editing Your Texture!
If you followed the above steps and have a blank texture file. You can now open that file in your favorite image editor and edit the file. Note that each blank spot in the image is where you are going to be placing your texture at. Also don't be afraid to go out side the lines as You will not be penalized. Any thing that goes out side the lines will not show up.

Converting Texture to BLP
You should Have a Texture at this Point. If its not in PNG format Open it up in Paint and save the file as a ".PNG". At this point all you have to do is drag the File onto the BLPConverter Program you downloaded. You should Now have a .blp file in the folder where the PNG was.
Note: If your are a bit more advance you can save your file as a TGA as it supports better alpha-channel texturing.



Converting 3ds to M2

Installing The Application
For this Tutorial we are going to make a new folder on the "C:/" Drive called "ME" and put "3DSToM2.exe" in that folder. So go ahead and do that now. the file should now be located at "C:/ME/3DSToM2.exe".

Converting The File
1. Put Your 3DS File in the ME Folder I'm going to call mine "model.3ds"
2. Goto the start menu and Click run
3. Type in "cmd"
4. In the CMD Prompt type in "cd \"
5. In the CMD Prompt type in "cd me"
4. In the CMD Prompt type in "3DSToM2 model.3ds model.m2 30"



Explanation
3DSToM2 XXXXX YYYYY ZZZZZ
Where X is the 3ds Model Y is The M2 File your saving it as and Z Is the Size Multiplier of the model. You will need to mess with this value as some times your model is too big or to small this is where you can fix it the fastest.

Linking The BLP to the M2

What you need
You are going to need Cryects Tools to do this. Your going to need One tool to impaticular "M2Modder". To use this tool all you have to do is Drag your newly made M2 file onto the program and a prompt will pop up.



Where now?
From here you have a couple options But we are only going to use one.
1. Push "t"
2. Now Push "n"
3. Now type "0"
4. Now here you are going to type the name of your blp. My Blp is named "model.blp"
5. Type -1
6. Hit "q" 2 times and your done this part

IMPORTANT!!! ONCE YOU PUT THIS NAME IN HERE YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR BLP THE SAME NAME OR YOUR MODEL GOES TEXTURE LESS!!!

Adding the Files To a Mpq

My War Craft Studio
Open up MyWarCraftStudio and do the following.
1. Goto the Toolbar and click Pack --> Create MPQ Archive
2. Name your Mpq as you wish.
3. Pack --> Add File to archive
4. Select your BLP File and Put it in. YOU MUST NOT PUT IT IN A FOLDER OR RENAME IT!
5. Pack --> Add File to archive
6. Now select your M2 File. (Don't rename it or put it in a folder unless you what you want to replace a Certain model)
7. Pack --> Save And Close Archive

Viewing Your New Model
If you would like to view your new Model with out replacing a model in game you can follow the folling steps.

1. Open Wow Model Viewer
2. Click on Option --> Settings
3. Click Add
4. Select the Mpq that you made
5. Restart the Program and your model With now Show



Important!!
When adding the files to a MPQ the M2 file can be named anything. HOWEVER the BLP files has to stay the same name as it was when you put it in the M2Modder program. Also the BLP has to be in the root of the MPQ. When i say that i mean The BLP cant be in any folders.

Your Done!!
Your done! Time for you to take that fancy new M2 and and BLP and show them off to the world!! You can take the M2 now and rename it to what ever you want. Just remember don't rename the BLP!

FAQ

Q. My model Is Green in game.
A. You Renamed Your BLP wrong or you didn't place it in the main folder of the MPQ

Q. My Model is textured in Model View But is Green in game.
A. Your texture is to big and you need to size it down a little.

Q.How do i place a Weapon so it lands on a Pearson?
A. I made my self This LEET Picture to help myself Remember



And a Special thanks to Andrige for giving me feed back and helping me making my guide more user friendly.

[L'Lawliet]

and what site do you get the models
and also if you get a character model and you do this will it move?
and also is thier any way to convert .max to .3ds?

[Glitchy]

and what site do you get the models
and also if you get a character model and you do this will it move?
and also is thier any way to convert .max to .3ds?

1. I just Google search when I'm looking for a specific model
2. Not with out alot of tweaking in m2modder.exe that i did not describe in this Guide
3. Using 3ds max is the best way to do it.

[L'Lawliet]

so you know how to make characters move with all the wow animations?
and also how am i suppose to edit the blp to make it look like the item?
and also what if the item has a texture on it but no texture file
and also can you tell em what you typed in to get the tidus brotherhood sword?

[Glitchy]

so you know how to make characters move with all the wow animations?
and also how am i suppose to edit the blp to make it look like the item?
and also what if the item has a texture on it but no texture file
and also can you tell em what you typed in to get the tidus brotherhood sword?

1. Not Fully
2. Open The PNG in a Image editor Before Converting it to a BLP
3. What?
4. I think ffx models?

[L'Lawliet]

2. no i mean its in png but you dont know how to make it look
3. some .3ds files already have the ttextures on them and no texture file. do i need to do anything.

[Glitchy]

2. no i mean its in png but you dont know how to make it look
3. some .3ds files already have the ttextures on them and no texture file. do i need to do anything.

2. As you are Mapping out the UV map you should get a general feel for what each part should look like. For example in the guide the first step of the UV mapping you mapped out the roof. When you get to the end you should remember where you put that part of the UV map and Texture it accordingly(Shingles For instance)

3. .3ds Cant contain texture files such as BMP/PNG what you are probably seeing is the different groups of your models having different colors assigned to them. Some formats can include texture files and models at the same time. In this case you are going to have to view the Material editor and extract the texture from the the file and save it as an external file.

[Andrige]

It's awesome, seems like my review helped here and there too...
Now I just need models with animations-guide >_<
+Rep

[Eluo]

awsome +rep

[L'Lawliet]

and can you show like a little tut on how to do that here?
and what do you mean by making it land on the person i have my model and all but whnen i put it on it doesnt move or anything like that its jsut up

[Glitchy]

It's awesome, seems like my review helped here and there too...
Now I just need models with animations-guide >_<
+Rep

Yes thank you Andrige for helping me make my Guide more user friendly.

[^Xayo]

This
is
great!
Now i can texture my models
The only thing i was missing all the time was the texturing ^^

[Croak]

Only problem is finding a nice texture you don't have to pay for to put in game >.<

[^Xayo]

hmm the thing is:
make ur own texture and ur own model

[maclone]

Very Nice Guide thx! +rep