Creating a new weapon model

[ZeroRaven]

So I've been contemplating making a new weapon for some of my levels.

I have the OBJ model, textures, and Blender, but it seems we have no tutorials for creating and importing custom weapons.

We had a video tutorial but the link appears dead.

Unless someone wants to offer help?

[Droidy365]

Well, I do have some (albeit very limited) knowledge of porting models as weapons. I mostly work with sabers, but I have made one that was a blaster pistol. What sort of weapon are we dealing with here?

[mrwonko]

As far as I remember, you'll need two versions of the weapon, a GLM for third person, and an MD3 for first person. You can use the MD3View / ModView tools from the Jedi Academy SDK to look at existing models for reference, there'll be tags that define e.g. where the weapon is held. It might be easiest to import an existing weapon as a base for a new one.

[ZeroRaven]

2 hours ago, mrwonko said:

As far as I remember, you'll need two versions of the weapon, a GLM for third person, and an MD3 for first person. You can use the MD3View / ModView tools from the Jedi Academy SDK to look at existing models for reference, there'll be tags that define e.g. where the weapon is held. It might be easiest to import an existing weapon as a base for a new one.

I was aware of needing both a glm and md3, but isn't the pickup version also an md3?

Presently I'm sitting on 2 models, both in OBJ format, one internal and one external.

[mrwonko]

21 hours ago, ZeroRaven said:

isn't the pickup version also an md3?

I don't know. Possibly, though I would've guessed it's the glm.

[ksgWXfan]

Just curious, which weapon are you looking to replace with your new model?

* Do you have mrwonko's Import/Export Tools Blender plugin? https://jkhub.org/files/file/3521-blender-279-jedi-academy-plugin-suite/

* Get MD3View and ModView

On 12/7/2020 at 4:28 AM, mrwonko said:

It might be easiest to import an existing weapon (using MD3View) as a base for a new one.

*** I HIGHLY recommend this! It helps you size correctly and such.

The following are some tips I've ran into as a frequent mrwonko's blender tools user:

EXPORTING FROM MD3View

* in MD3View, when exporting, and if using with Jedi Academy, USE the "Export as GLM (Ghoul2) *without* 90-degree skewing for JA" option

I learned the hard way.

IMPORTING INTO BLENDER

* Remember with MD3View, you're EXPORTING the MD3 as a GLM so that you can import the GLM representation of the MD3 into Blender. And once you're done building in Blender, you can then export as an MD3.
* When importing that GLM representation of the MD3 into Blender, clear the skin box (it says 'default') because md3's don't need it, and it will throw an error otherwise.

BUILDING

* Stay true to the hierarchal setup: scene_root (an empty) -> model_root_0 (an empty) -> your_model_goes_here_0
* you can have multiple meshes as part of your model; it being best to parent them to model_root_0
* all mesh origins should be centered at the world origin (0,0,0); any rotation, scaling, translating should be done only in Edit mode; if anything like that is done outside of edit mode, you'll have to manually move the origin back to the center (includes ensuring the 3D cursor is set at the center: SHFT+S -> cursor to center; then in object mode with the mesh selected, SHFT+CTRL+ALT+C -> Origin to 3D Cursor)
* If the scale is changed outside of edit mode, Apply the scale/rotation of the mesh (CTRL+A).
* Tags should be empties. The naming convention should be tag_<name>. So if you have the flash or fubar tag, they should be called tag_flash and tag_fubar, respectively.
* When a GLM representation is imported, the tags are imported as well, but they are meshes, named like their glm counterparts (*flash; *fubar) Think of them as placeholders. The empties should be placed at the same location as the right-angle of the mesh placeholder. (in edit mode of the placeholder, select the right-angle vertex, SHFT+S -> Cursor to Selected; then exit edit mode; add a new empty. it should be added at the new location of the 3D Cursor). Remember to rename the new empties properly.
* Shaders: each mesh part of your model needs a custom property called md3shader. Then the value of that property should direct the game to the location of the texture defining the mesh (i.e. models/weapons2/thermal/xyz_texture.tga). Select the mesh, then the custom properties can be added via the Object tab in properties (right-bottom panel); it's at the very bottom.

EXPORTING

* More than likely, your MD3 won't have animations. I have no idea how to handle it if it does. BUT, if it doesn't, as I suspect it doesn't, on the timeline, ensure the start frame is 1 and the end frame is 1.
* You then need to select each part of the new MD3 you want exported. Remember to select the tags as well. This is advantageous because you can have other meshes to assist you in building your model, but if they're not selected, they won't bother with the exported MD3.
* Go to file -> export -> JA MD3
* if you had imported a GLM representation as reference, you probably hadn't changed the scale from the default of 0.1. If you chose to do that, just remember when you export the new MD3, scale it by 10.0 to set the MD3 back to the proper size, or it will appear very small in-game.