GUIDE: Making a weapon for mir

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stephenking

I HAVE A DREAM!!
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Aug 28, 2005
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First of all Download Maya 2008
this guide assumes your skilled enough to find it and crack it yourself.

also download the guideprojects i packed here

ok to start with some comments :
this guide is based on the animationframes i created
so i will not explain how to create the animation nor will i explain how to create a weapon from scratch
(for help on how to create a weapon from scratch goto this guide written by Thanatos)
if you wish to know how to create your own models from scratch you will be better of searching for tutorials on that part
all this guide shows is how to attach a fresh model to the current animation
and render all the needed images and ready the images for import
so this will be usefull also when you create something from scratch
*i recommend watching all the learning movies that come with maya itself it just take a few min*

*if you have created a custom model then make sure you select and export the model before you continue!!!

ok to start the guide :
in the ExampleScene you will see the owsword i released earlyer with animation keys , customcamera and a controlcurve
from now on there will not be much explained , we wil just start with the work;)
its important you dont change anything in the scene only when i say so or when you know what your doing.
enough talk lets work :D

start with opening the ExampleScene located in the Examples folder.
1.bmp

goto File and select Import... then import the CavernsOBJ file located in the Examples folder
the sword is now imported in the scene.
it should be at the center of the grid
2.bmp

when you select it you will see that it exists of 2 parts
make sure both parts are selected
(you can Shift-click to add to selection and ctrl-click to withdraw from selected)
when you selected both parts press "e" on the keyboard
(all shortcuts are case sensitive!!)
now make sure the channelbox is open and set RotateY to 90
3.bmp


now with both parts still selected press "w" on the keyboard
now hold spacebar and without moving your mouse hold the rmousebutton now drag and select Top View then release.
now press "4" on the keyboard to get wireframe now hold and drag the red manipulatorarrow it will colour yellow
now drag and move the both selected parts and try to match the center of the example weapon.
if you look at the image you can see what my TranslateX values are
4.bmp

now hold spacebar and rmouse then go to sideview just like we did with topview
now with the 2 parts still selected and the translationtool still selected , hold the green manipulatorarrow
and try to match up the center of the exampleweapon again
5.bmp

now hold spacebar and rmouse to go to perspectiveview
now with the 2 parts still selected press "r" on the keyboard
you will see 4 colored boxes as manipulators hold the yellow one and drag to the right to enlarge the sword
and match it up with the example weapon roughly
6.bmp

now press "w" on the keyboard and hold and drag the blue manipulator to match up the sword better
7.bmp

you can always resize abit more to get the result you like personaly
now press "6" on the keyboard to see the textures
goto window/Outliner select both caverns parts in the outliner
8.bmp

now in the dropdownbox at the topleft set it to Polygons you will see you have differant options now
now with the 2 parts selected goto Mesh/Combine now hold Alt-shift and press "D" this will delete the history
in the outliner dblclick the polySurface1 now created and rename it to CavernSword and press enter
now goto Modif/Center Pivot
9.bmp

ok now to give it some texture with the cavernsword selected hold rmousebtn and goto MaterialAttributes...
you see a box open at the left side put the Transparency slider at the way left now click the checker button
at the right side of the Color Slider a box will popup in there select File then click the folder button at ImageName
navigate to the Textures folder located in the Examples folder and open the CavernsTexture image
now we most likely need to fix the texture placement, select the example weapon and open your channelbox
now set the Visibility Attribute to 0 this will hide it so we can work on our sword
now we can easily see that our texture is not correct to fix this goto Window/UV Texture Editor
10.bmp

*if you dont see the textureimage in the editor goto Image/Displayimage*
if you look at the lines in that window you should notice it represents the swords curves
if you compare those lines with the textureimage you should notice that its upsidedown
hold rmouse button on these lines and select UV now select all those lines by draggin a box around them
now press the button like the image below , this should flip the lines and now the texture should be correct
11.bmp

hold rmousebtn on the sword and select objectmode to clear your selection
ok we resized it to the correct size , we gave it a texture now lets attach it to the examplesword and make it move:P
in the outliner collapse the testgrp and select the OWsword, open the channelbox and set Visibility to 1
now make sure the current frame is 1 in the timeline below before we attach the sword
12.bmp

now set the dropdownbox at the topleft to Animation
now select the example sword and then shift-select the cavernsword (its important that our sword is selected last)
now goto Constrain/Parent this will attach our sword to the example sword that means our sword now has the same animation

Congratulations you'v just prepared the sword for imageoutput ;)
uhh not yet realy :P
 
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stephenking

I HAVE A DREAM!!
Developer
Aug 28, 2005
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Netherlands
goto File/Project/Set and select the Examples folder as projectroot so we know where the images come ;)
now hide the examplesword by setting the visibility to 0 in the channelbox
now goto Window/RenderingEditors/RenderSettings and set the options just like the image below and close the window
13.bmp

info:[
now comes the DirectionCurve , that big green circle underneeth the grid controls the direction
of the sword. this means that 1 animation (like walking) can be repeated in all directions so i dont have to create
animation for every direction myself this just rotates the whole sword without adjusting the keyframes
DirectionCurve - Direction Attribute info:
Direction 1 = UP
Direction 2 = UP-RIGHT
Direction 3 = RIGHT
Direction 4 = DOWN-RIGHT
Direction 5 = DOWN
Direction 6 = DOWN-LEFT
Direction 7 = LEFT
Direction 8 = UP-LEFT
]
KeyFrameNumbers:[
ok this is very important so your images dont end up in the wrong place when imported
select the examplesword in the outliner then look at the timeline
you see alot of red lines these are the animations.
ok first i will list all the keynumbers so you know what is what
KeyFrame 1-5 = BindPose [all attributes are set to 0 so you can attach things to it]
KeyFrame 6-9 = Empty
KeyFrame 10-13 = StandAnimation
KeyFrame 15-16 = HarvestAnimation
KeyFrame 20-25 = WalkAnimation
KeyFrame 30-35 = RunAnimation
KeyFrame 39 = ReadyHit
KeyFrame 40-45 = HitAnimation
KeyFrame 50-55 = Hit1Animation
KeyFrame 60-67 = Hit2Animation
KeyFrame 70-75 = SpellAnimation
KeyFrame 80-82 = StruckAnimation
KeyFrame 85-88 = DeathAnimation
KeyFrame 91 = StateItem
KeyFrame 92 = DNItem/Item
]
ok now we know wich framenumber does what , we can start and try to get the first animation out.
select the directioncurve and make sure Direction is set to 1 (UP)
ok look at the image, you can center a piece of the timeline by putting numbers in the boxes ,
put the numbers in just like in the image this will focus us on only the standanimation
14.bmp

now make sure the first frame is selected the frame will draw black when its selected and you will
see the sword move in the scene.
now open Window/RenderingEditors/RenderView
hold rmousebutton in the empty renderview then go render/render/camera1 this will create a image
in the projects tmp folder (this case Examples\tmp) from the placed camera called ExampleScene.10

15.bmp

now press the next frame button and then the redorender button as in the image
repeat this step for frame 10-13
now open the folder Examples\tmp and there should be 4 images numbered corresponding to the keyframes
now make sure you rename these 4 images to 000000/000003 like building a new .wil file stick to the
naming like in a wil file this wil help you not to get distracted and have a correct wil file
ok when you renamed these images its best to put them in the cropperstructure\Stand folder rightaway
so you dont get confused.
make sure you do this because when we render the next direction of the standanimation it will overwrite any
images (with the same name) still in the tmp folder

ok now select the directioncurve and set Direction to 2 (UP-RIGHT).
repeat the render steps as like the first 4 images.
now rename these images to 000008/000011 since there are 4 empty images after the first 4 ;)

do this for every direction so you get all the standimages in its folder

when you finished the complete standanimation
set the Direction to 1 (UP) again

now set the start and end time boxes to 20-25 so we can focus on the walk animation
and offcourse make sure the frame is selected ;)

now lets see if you can do all these steps again to get the complete walkanimation out ;)
i trust you guys get the picture with the render steps and can render all the animation yourself

so now we got a bunch of images in a folder structure that are all size 640x480 and i trust its all named
correct so now we need to crop these images to get some smaller images to import in a wil

*Its Recommended To Backup all the images by just copying the folderstructure!!!*
now open the LomcnCropp Program select mode/automatic click "Set Folder Structure" select the folder
CropperStructure where you have putten those images
now you see some buttons popup at the left there you can select the animation folders
now select an animation folder and you will see the images at the right in the listview
dbl clicking will display the image, now leave all options as they where and click "Crop Current Folder"
wait untill it is done or else it will mess up.
now that whole folder should be cropped, do this with all the folders and your images are ready to be
imported into your .wil file i presume you all know how to import images into a wil file

that wraps up the guide i hope this is of any use to you.


======AutorenderScript======
iv decided to release the autorender script i created particular for this scene.
ok get it here
to use this script first rename the directioncurve to "DirectionCtrl" or the script wont work.
now open the scripteditor and load the script.
now make a shelfbutton from it (button adds to the custom shelf).
ScriptGuide.bmp

before running the script make sure you rendered camera1 at least one time so the script
knows what camera to render :P
then press the newly created button in your customshelf
and enjoy the show :D

the script does all the renaming and rendering for you so you only need to crop and set placements

enjoy :P
 
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stephenking

I HAVE A DREAM!!
Developer
Aug 28, 2005
616
39
175
Netherlands
after a long and hard struggle i finnaly found a way to render out all the
animation images automaticly , without even doing a thing :D
altho dont hate me for this since im not sharing this unless some ppl can
prove to me that they have been able to do this guide and finish a weapon
since imo you need to have at least some skills in this i dont wanna make
it to easy for you offcourse :P:P

i would love to see that the most new items will come from lomcn in the future instaid
off us always needing to steal asian files ;)
so come on ppl try it its easy ;)
 
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Liandrin2

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What files can you open with Maya?

Can it use 3dsMax stuff?

And where did you get the cavernsOBJ?
 
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stephenking

I HAVE A DREAM!!
Developer
Aug 28, 2005
616
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175
Netherlands
What files can you open with Maya?

Can it use 3dsMax stuff?

And where did you get the cavernsOBJ?

it can open alot of file types (not very common tho)

it cant use 3ds files itself but it reads .obj files and 3ds can export as .obj
so that will be possible since i do it that way myself

the cavernsOBJ and the other 3 ones in the untouched folder
are taken from wow and then converted to .obj file with 3dmax for use in maya
you need a maxscript to open wowmodels tho
 

Andreas

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i think yyou need to get a gold member or a V.I.P for all do you did for LOMCN and for us
+rep :P
 

Leetabix

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Great guide :)

Deffo +Rep.

I agress with JP GoldMemeber Or VIP.
 

84785238

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it can open alot of file types (not very common tho)

it cant use 3ds files itself but it reads .obj files and 3ds can export as .obj
so that will be possible since i do it that way myself

the cavernsOBJ and the other 3 ones in the untouched folder
are taken from wow and then converted to .obj file with 3dmax for use in maya
you need a maxscript to open wowmodels tho


I would like to ask you to release a video teaching it? I do not understand a little English but I can read operation. ~ ~ If a video teaching materials that I had also. ~ Aha. ~
:)
 

Liandrin2

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it can open alot of file types (not very common tho)

it cant use 3ds files itself but it reads .obj files and 3ds can export as .obj
so that will be possible since i do it that way myself

the cavernsOBJ and the other 3 ones in the untouched folder
are taken from wow and then converted to .obj file with 3dmax for use in maya
you need a maxscript to open wowmodels tho

Thanks for the info, I think you could see I was getting at importing wow models.

I'm pretty sure when I looked at this last time I found that Wowmodelviewer could export to milkshape3D (not 3dmax as I though) and that there was a ms3d plugin for Maya. I didn't take it any further though as I couldn't be bothered to do the placements.

So am I not right in saying any WoW model could be imported? Or is that making it sound easier than it is.

Oh and top work btw :D
 

stephenking

I HAVE A DREAM!!
Developer
Aug 28, 2005
616
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175
Netherlands
Thanks for the info, I think you could see I was getting at importing wow models.

I'm pretty sure when I looked at this last time I found that Wowmodelviewer could export to milkshape3D (not 3dmax as I though) and that there was a ms3d plugin for Maya. I didn't take it any further though as I couldn't be bothered to do the placements.

So am I not right in saying any WoW model could be imported? Or is that making it sound easier than it is.

Oh and top work btw :D

you need to export the wow model as a .m2 file
and get the maxscript for .m2 import thats all for 3dmax
so ye your right any WoW model can be imported if you manage to get it out , but will it fit mir ;)
 
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stephenking

I HAVE A DREAM!!
Developer
Aug 28, 2005
616
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175
Netherlands
with regards to placements are we required to do all them ourselves? Sorry if iv missed something

yes you do since i havnt found a way to do this fast and easy yet
im currently working on a program to make all the placement txt files for eachimage number
tho this will be a long project since i want it to check the correct placement automatic ;)


p.s if this guide is usefull enough could this be sticked?:eek:
 
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Zen2

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Im going to put a few hours in tonight and *try* make a weapon or atleast start one :P

Cheers

/Zen2