Saber Modelling Assistance

[wdbrown491]

I've been playing around with models as of late, and decided I wanted to try to do something, I took a saber hilt, with a sort of hook blade coming from the top, and just took the hook blade and stretched it and made it an almost sword-like saber hybrid. The thing is, when I finished, I had to save it as an md3 with 3ds max 7, and the import and resave it as a glm in milkshape. THe thing is, when I did that, the skin wrapping canceled out somewhere, because when I go in-game, it's being held right, and the animations are on key, but it's untextured and the saber blade is now coming out of the side of the hilt pointing sideways. Any suggestions/aid?

[Pande]

When I first made a saber I used Gmax > Milkshape as well. 

 

We have better tools 8 years later.

 

I strongly suggest, even if you don't use or care to use Blender, that you download it and also Mrwonko's plugin suite. 

http://jkhub.org/files/file/1413-blender-264-jedi-academy-plugin-suite/

 

It's really simple to make a saber. 

 

A quick tutorial:

 

Import Kyle's saber .glm. 

 

Make sure you have a window with the Outliner open (bottom or top left of any window is what it type of window it displays, click to change). Remove the model_root_1 by right clicking it and pressing Select Hierarchy. If you have any of Kyle's saber selected already, just press it again until you see everything selected in the 3d view. Right click again and press delete.

 

Open up the tree for model_root_0 and remove the saber_w_0 and the other hilt part and put your saber in it's place. To do this:

 

First scale your saber to match the size and location of the tags / kyle's saber. Rename the object in the outliner to be saber_w_0

Next, press ctrl + a to and apply Location, then again and apply Rotation and Scale

With your saber selected, go to the outliner and shift click on model_root and press ctrl + p and parent to selection.

 

Now you have to go to Properties window and give your saber a few properties - hit the Add G2 properties button and give it the name 'saber_w' and point the shader to models/weapons2/your_saber/your_saber's_texture

 

Export and it should work great!

 

 

Now, if you still want to use the milkshape route, I suggest you check the console and see if it's looking for the right texture. Make sure that the texture path is being properly saved into the .glm by right clicking it, Open With > Notepad and check the first few lines where the texture is stored in readable format. Do not edit the file, you can't do that with .glm as compressed files like that are based on text character locations and such.

[Asgarath83]

Well, i modelling the weapons on 3d max and after i export in Quake 3 format md3 with a plug in, after, i use md3view of sdk folder, need to be configured for worked, md3view is very case sensitive and hate the long path address. so yu need to make a folder base in your c: with models folder and inside models the folder weapons2 and the folder map_object,

 

for map_object:

when yu are finishing a map object with max, export with md3, put the .md3. creating a folder in map_object with the name of map and put the .md3 inside him. create a skin file, like the file SKIN that used for character on JA, on skin files yu can specify for every mesh the texture yu wanna apply.

example of a skin file,  architecture of script isvery simply is mesh ,  address of texture.:;

 

chapelblock.skin

3d_object1,models/map_object/chapel/chapelblock.jpg

3d_object2,models/map_object/chapel/woodblock.jpg

etc.

 

okay, open the chapelblock.md3 with md3view navigate into the folder of your pc until you find.

yu see the model white and with no texture. go to file "apply skin" command and select the skin file.

- skin file need to have the same name of object, or yu get an error message.

- the meshes named into the skin files, need to have the same name of the meshes of your model, if not, yu get an error message.

if you see the message that texture is not found of something check the paths of skin file if working goods.

however, when you open the skin files, yu see the model magically textured.

at this poin yu need to simply to export as md3 and md3view will save the model with textures applied to the meshes.

also, yu can export as GLM, for sabers, is the same system, but the folder is weapons2 and you need a create a different folder for every saber for contain the md3. i suggest you to make the enumeration simple if yu have a mod with a large number of saber. so yu can make sword1 folder, sword2 folder, sword3 folder, etc etc.

REMEMBER: for JA game using "export glm without *90degrees rotation" . or you can have some trouble with the tag orientation, yu need the tag blade are oriented in correct mode. if not, yu get some funny and mad effect when yu use your blade ingame... the first time i was a disatser in tag orientation and every saber had a blade oriented in angles very strange... 90° 18'° degrees.. 90 degees at left.... lol, a time for error i make a saber with the tag blade oriented on 180° wrong and the blade pratically was penetrating the player AHAHAHA.

Is not much cutie to see, so be careful with tag orientation.

i suggest you to save a max scene with a tag fine oriented at 0 0 0 origin and when yu need to put the tag on your model simpluy merge the scene and moving the tag to the point of weapon you want the origin of the blade.

well, that's is how i work with md3 for map object and saber. is the more fast mode for apply the textures.

for me making sword and map object is a work of factory. i fell like a blacksmith that create in sequence... O.o

i can pass a day assembling 15 swords together with md3view, and all pretty working.

 

a suggestion: when you make your saber, rename every mesh for starting the name with w_

w_saber

w_hilt

w_blade

etc etc

i ever use that's names on my swords. that because the engine want that saber mesh start with w_*

well, is not really necessary but making more compatibility to the swords.

i getting trouble and crashes with same swords, i not did that until using the Openjk exe. now i not have more that's

problem.

important thing: NEVER do a mesh with more of 1000 faces for your sword... or map object. they crash the game.

if yu have a mesh with so many faces, detach in more parts.