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Vatican City State1650 Posts
Hi there. After years of modding games by rudimentary methods such as hex/memory editing, decrypting and re-packaging game programming codes and using editors that are provided with the games, I've reached the point where I want to do something further - to actually create models and animations that are of my own, instead of just modifying parameters and code to alter pre-existing resources.
A preliminary googling indicated 3DSMAX as the premier program for doing such a thing. So I obtained and installed it, and started trying to figure out how to begin.
The first thing that I tried to do was simple - change the position a model will be displayed in a game called Dragon Age. Dragon Age apparently uses 3 different files to show their animations: (for example)
dm_hlh_crn_3.msh
dm_hlh_crna_3.mmh
dm_hlh_crna_3.phy
All 3 files seem to work together to create the model of a crown for dwarves in-game. Unfortunately, when I use the same model files and equip it on humans, I merely see the same model sticking out of the chest of the human - that is, it remains in the position that would be appropriate for a dwarf. I've been trying many things to move the model higher.
Modders more talented than I was able to provide a variety of plugins that could import the mmh file workeable through 3DS MAX and then export it back in mmh form - or at least that was the claim.
This was the starting model:
I noticed that I could increase the height of the model by simply changing the "z" values in the lower right. So I did that, as shown below:
And then I exported it into the game. However, I was unable to actually see any changes - indeed, it was as if the game couldn't read the resulting file, no matter how hard I tried for the past 3 days.
So this was a terrible start to my modeling and animating experience. Perhaps I started off wrong, but I'm slightly discouraged that I can't even do something as simple as moving a set of vertices.
Some further things that I have been trying to accomplish include shrinking the above model by a certain amount in every direction.
My final goal would be to be able to actually animate a body according to several of the common martial arts forms, such as Muay Thai.
Through my ~2 years of lurking in TL, I've understood that it is a hub of many experts in a variety of fields. I've even seen actual game developers that weighed in when the needs arose. So I'm confident that there has to be some, if not many, people who have previous modeling/animating experience.
Can anyone give me guidance on where to begin, how I could learn to accomplish my ambitions? I'd appreciate any and all help.
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I have no 3D modeling experience in 3dsmax, however. If the file can't be read, it is saved in a format that the program cannot recognize, it is corrupt, or has the wrong file extension. If it's not these then you might be using assets within the file that the program doesn't know what to do with so it won't load it.
Since there are 3 files used to create 1 model, maybe there are some inconsistencies between the three so they don't work properly together? I have never used this kind of stuff, i'm just throwing stuff out there to think about.
Have you tried finding a site where there is a dedicated modding community for the game?
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I spent 3 years at school majoring in 3d modeling animation rendering etc and it is still an incredibly complicated process for me..
i used maya (never used 3dsm unfortunatly) so i cant really help you specifically however i can say that you need to take it slow and be prepared to invest ALOT of time and work
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Yeah, I 3d model for fun with 3ds, so I can give some basic advice if you need it. And for modding, you have to make sure the resource files are in the correct paths. Also, make sure your 3d models are named appropriately.
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It's a kind of frustrating and finicky process to import 3d models into a normal well-documented game engine, nevermind an already completed game that wasn't designed to allow for easy asset importing (unless dragon age is? I dunno...). So you're starting off with a pretty awkward and complicated part of the process. This isn't a modeling or animation problem at all, there's even an entire profession (Technical Artist) pretty much devoted to getting assets working correctly in-game.
There's a lot of stuff to learn to know how to model, and there's a whole other lot of stuff to learn to know how to animate. If that's what you're interested in, you should learn the basics and learn how to model from scratch, or how to animate with a pre-made rig. A good starting point would be video tutorials to explain the basic tools of Max (can't help you there, I'm a Maya user) - you can find some less professional ones free on youtube, or you can buy/pirate more professional ones (Digital Tutors, Gnomon Workshop, and Autodesk themselves make videos).
If you're only interested in getting some martial arts moves into Dragon Age, it's probably not worth it to learn the amount of shit you'll have to learn and the headache you'll have to go through when nothing EVER works.
If you're interested in learning how to model and animate in general, though, then I'd say make "importing models into Dragon Age" a goal for a little further down the road, and just concentrate on learning how to model in Max. It'll be a lot more fun.
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