How To Make Your Own Actors: lemurboy's Way

[Lemurboy]

I'm sure some of you are thinking "How do you make your mods?" I'll show you how right now.

Step 1: Find a model. Any model, and make sure it's an .obj model. I get most of my models from www.models-resource.com, but you can find other models all over the internet.

Step 2: Download Misfit Model 3D. It's an .md2 animator, and as we know, 7gen has an .md2 importer.

Step 3: Open your model in Misfit Model 3D.



Step 4: Now that that's out of the way, go to the Animation tab and click Start Animation Mode.



Step 5: Select the Frame tab. Click New to name your animation. Add as many frames as you want. To add more animations, just click New again and name your next animation.



Step 6: Select any part of your model with any selection tool, then use the Move tool or Rotate tool to do whatever you want with them. When you're done with your frame, move the bar in the Animation window to the next frame.



Step 7: When you're done, go to File>Save As



Now name it whatever you're gonna call it. Just remember to add .md2 at the end.



Step 9: In 7gen, go to md2_to_vxp. For a tutorial on that, go here.

Step 10: You're done! Have fun with your new actor! If you want to share it with everyone, submit it to this site!

[Phil Williamson]

Nice writeup! Can a mod add it to the tutorials thread?

[Scatterbrain]

yeah, nice one!

[Adelitas]

nice one lemurboy, i was wondering how you done it, i tried it myself and obviously done it completely wrong, as it kept saying i needed a skeleton to do it whenever i looked for info.

only problem i had with it (other than that) was when i try to export it as an md2, it doesn't work, it says all parts need to be the same?

[Lemurboy]

Originally Posted by Adelitas

nice one lemurboy, i was wondering how you done it, i tried it myself and obviously done it completely wrong, as it kept saying i needed a skeleton to do it whenever i looked for info.

only problem i had with it (other than that) was when i try to export it as an md2, it doesn't work, it says all parts need to be the same?

Were you trying to use Skeletal animation?

[Adelitas]

not that i know of? i done it the exact same way as you've laid out the other day, opened the .obj and went to animation mode, obviously it'll take me a while to animate a model so i just decided to see if i could export it first, i tried and it said all layers had to be the same, or something like that. i'll check again tonight, i reaaally want that massive creature i found haha

[Lemurboy]

Originally Posted by Adelitas

not that i know of? i done it the exact same way as you've laid out the other day, opened the .obj and went to animation mode, obviously it'll take me a while to animate a model so i just decided to see if i could export it first, i tried and it said all layers had to be the same, or something like that. i'll check again tonight, i reaaally want that massive creature i found haha

An .md2 needs at least one animation in order to be exported.

[Adelitas]

okay, i found a model with a lot of animations already made, tried to export it and there are none in v3dmm when i open up the movement bitty?

edit: ballocks, know exactly what i'm doing wrong now. this is actually a really helpful instruction thread, good job! should have my model done soon

edit 2: fuck it, i give up. even with the animations with the model, i still can't get my head around it..

[Jt Copper]

Originally Posted by Lemurboy

I get most of my models from www.models-resource.com.

MY GOD, This site. I love this site!

[Evil Ash]

Awesome stuff. I was wondering if you were animating them yourself or not. Hardcore props for that. Also really cool that you found a vertex animation tool. Ialways did skeletal. Definitley simplifies it for those who are new to the process.

Good stuff.

[Eukos]

Good work!

[Lemurboy]

In case anyone has a problem when the object has multiple textures, here's how to fix it.
This is only for if your model has more than one texture.

Okay, so you've downloaded your model, animated it, and you're ready to import your .md2! But wait, your model has more than one texture, and skins must be one picture! So, here's how to merge textures.

Step 1: Open your textures in whatever photo editing program you use. I use Paint.NET for these.
These are the two textures for Farfetch'd.





Step 2: Combine them both. (Just note that Farfetch'd needs only one eye texture.)

[IMG]moz-filedata:c27a4efc-cee2-41a1-9cba-a85ea3180419[/IMG]

Step 3: Okay, now to apply the texture to him in Misfit Model 3D! Go to Groups>Edit Materials...



Now click New Texture... and import your texture.



Now go to Groups>Edit Groups...



Set every group's texture to the main texture.



And now...



Well, uhh... that can't be right. We can't just leave poor Farfetch'd like a freak, so let's fix him up.

Step 4: Select the "Select Groups" tool.



Now click on your model. It should select all of one group. Farfetch'd has two: his body and eyes.



Now go to Groups>Edit Texture Coordinates...



I hope I don't lose you here, but here's what pops up:

[IMG]moz-filedata:000d9454-bbfa-4c30-86be-3a4b82282e01[/IMG]

Step 5: Since we expanded the original texture, now it's all scaled and screwed. However, fixing this is way more easy than it looks. Select "Scale" and scale the coordinates to what looks correct.



That looks about right. Now for the eyes. For the other groups, do the exact same thing.



And tada! Your model is ready to be ported with it's texture. For alternate skins, just do whatever changes you wanna do to the texture and save it as a different file.

[Dominator Dan]

hahah great choice of example model

[LuNine]

*BUMP* (Or not?)
Oh no... it is saying to me "Model has a texture that is not powers of 2"
And I did put the 2 textures on the same image.
What did I do wrong?
EDIT: Well, it happens that the model I selected has no Defined groups by default. So, should I create new groups?

[Lemurboy]

Originally Posted by LuNine

*BUMP* (Or not?)
Oh no... it is saying to me "Model has a texture that is not powers of 2"
And I did put the 2 textures on the same image.
What did I do wrong?
EDIT: Well, it happens that the model I selected has no Defined groups by default. So, should I create new groups?

That doesn't mean anything, so just ignore it.

[Scdaniel Greeny]

I Made it work, finanly! Oops, i might of spelled it wrong, but who cares!

[Lemurboy]

So what did you make exactly?

[BiznessMan]

Finally got around making my own character over the weekend. It was fairly easy thanks to your tutorial. I did have a question though.

If you were to put bones in a character, could you still animate them with the "frame" animator? Moving the vertices around without a bone is pretty difficult at times. I haven't really had the time to play around with it myself.

[Lemurboy]

Originally Posted by BiznessMan

Finally got around making my own character over the weekend. It was fairly easy thanks to your tutorial. I did have a question though.

If you were to put bones in a character, could you still animate them with the "frame" animator? Moving the vertices around without a bone is pretty difficult at times. I haven't really had the time to play around with it myself.

Yes, there's a skeletal animation mode actually. Use the bone selection tool.

[Scdaniel Greeny]

A Pipe,

[BiznessMan]

MD2 only supports frame animation as far as I know.

But I think I answered my own question. Looks like Misfit Model 3d allows you to convert a bone animation into a frame one.

[Lemurboy]

Is anyone ever gonna sticky this? I mean, it's helping a lot of people, and if Evil Ash's tutorial on fixing textures for mods gets stickied, I'd expect this one too.

[Bjorny]

agred

[Jt Copper]

Originally Posted by Scdaniel Greeny

A Pipe,

WOOOOO!! YEEAH! IVE BEEN WAITING For a cylinder...




























seriously?

[Andro Wahbaa]

Wow Man I Was Really Want That Cause I Was Going To Have That Cause Lemurboy 123 I Will Just Get aN obj Models And Turn Them To MD2 TO VXP SO I WAS DOING THAT ANYWAYS THANKS