Basically you have just to do the following steps:
Import the model into Blender
Make sure the correct material is selected in the "M3 Materials" tab. You can find out which material a mesh has by right clicking first the mesh and then selecting the materials tab in the Properties Editor. The materials tab contains a "M3 Material Settings" tab which shows the name of the material the mesh uses.
Once the correct material is selected, go to the M3 Material Layers tab and select the Diffuse layer. Change the image path to your liking. The path needs to be the same like the one which can be found at the right side of the Archive Browser(SC2 Editor->Window->Console->enter "browse"). It can also be the path of an imported texture
You can also adjust other layers. To add the classic emissive texture you need to select the "Self Illumination" layer in the M3 Material Layers tab and set the image path to whatever you want. (Actually I am not sure myself what all the layers do exactly, if anyone wants to experiment and write an article about it would be cool :D )
Export the model. Either via menu or via the "M3 Quick Export" panel
Import the textures at the correct paths, save and check via the File->Add menu of the Cutscene Editor if the model is correct. Once you are statisfied just use the normal way of importing a model.
It's important to note, that if the Starcraft 2 Editor fails to lookup a texture for a model, that it will use a placeholder texture. That is why you should import the texture first, save, and then import the model. The saving is necessary to make the import effective. The only known way to stop the editor from using a placeholder texture is to restart it.
Nice to hear that some people find it usefull. I just found and fixed an issue in the script. The old version was just modifying the animations in the m3 file but not the attribute definition. Thus the result file was not loadable as a m3 file. That's now fixed. I also made the script transfer the boundings animation, but it seems like the model doesn't contain any.
Btw. it would be cool if you could link in your tutorial to the actual m3addon homepage: https://github.com/flo/m3addon/ Users can download the newest version from there using the ZIP-button at the top left.
Note that Out.m3a will still contain the mesh of B.m3 and all other data. if you want smaller file sizes you can open it with Blender and remove the mesh manually.
Btw the hair and cloth animation looks impressive, is it baked? It's to bad that you aren't making classic fantasy models. Starcraft 2 lacks just the fantasy models Warcraft 3 had....
About the not working models: Yes I would like to have a look at it.
My tutorial lacks a description of how the m3 animations actually work. So let me explain it now:
All animatable attributes of objects in a m3 file, have an unique animation ids. This includes bones which are most commonly animated, but you can for example also animate certain particle system parameters or material properties.
An animation in an m3 file is more or less a collection of key frames for certain animation ids. The m3a files have the exact same structure like m3 files. The only difference is, that they usually do not contain the actual mesh and other static data(-> smaller files). The animations provided in a m3 file have only an affect on a model, if the animation ids matches.
When you import a m3 file in Blender then the addon will remember the original animation ids used for the different types of attributes and will reuse them at export. Thus when you reexport a m3 model as a m3a file, then the m3a file should work with that m3 model. So C should work for B. For A it would only work if the 3dsmax plugin reexports the same animation ids as well(which seems not to be the case).
So my suggestion for you is, to just create a m3 file with multiple animations (in the same file). Either with 3dsmax or Blender.
You propably forgot add an armature modifier to the mesh as it's shown at 2:15-2:35 in the Part III video.
Or there where already other modifiers on the mesh. In that case you need to apply them first.
About the rotation issue: The exporter does not export the object scale, rotation and postion yet. You can use bones to archive the same. Or you can rotate the mesh in edit mode.
@JackRCDF: Go
@Monkalizer: Go
There are two ways of scaling a model in Blender which the exporter understands:
You can scale the mesh in edit mode
You can assign the mesh to a bone and use then this bone to scale the mesh. it's the best way of doing it, since the bone is animatable. How you can assign a mesh to a bone I show in the new third video of this tutorial. Of course you would ideally not assign the complete mesh to a single bone, but to a complete skeleton. The process of creating a skelton for a mesh is called "rigging" (if you want to google for it). Expecially for human models there are some (half) automated ways of creating skeltons for it. You may want to checkout this video: http://www.sintel.org/news/rigify-auto-rigging-system/
The m3addon works with Blender 2.64, if you place the files at the correct location. The code needs to be able to generate a m3.py file which is not possible if you place the files into the write protected programs folder. Instead you have to put the files on windows 7 to:
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.64\scripts\addons
@chaos2night: Go
I know now what is causing the issue with the always visible energy core of the battle cruiser. Since you said it's low prio I am currently focusing on other things.
I made a Target / True Shot Aura model with my Blender m3 addon (Tutorials can be found at (1), (2) , (3)).
The model contains 4 animations: A brith, stand and death animation and a global loop animation which runs in the background independent of the other animations. In the following video you can see the animations in the following order: birth, stand and death:
It would be possible that it's an older model format, but I doubt it. It's just the version number of the EVENT structure that differs. It's otherwise using the exact same format. At least if you dont coun't that the model isn't using the animation id 0x65bd3215 for animation end events, but a random animation id.
Since Leruster is using the m3addon too for validating the 3ds max files I assume that Phaos used an old version of the 3ds max exporter or even another tool.
The UV issue have been caused by Blender chaning the order of the vertex indices. In the newest version of the m3addon (master branch) I worked around this issue by using the reordered indices.
0
Basically you have just to do the following steps:
It's important to note, that if the Starcraft 2 Editor fails to lookup a texture for a model, that it will use a placeholder texture. That is why you should import the texture first, save, and then import the model. The saving is necessary to make the import effective. The only known way to stop the editor from using a placeholder texture is to restart it.
0
@Delphinium1987: Go
Nice to hear that some people find it usefull. I just found and fixed an issue in the script. The old version was just modifying the animations in the m3 file but not the attribute definition. Thus the result file was not loadable as a m3 file. That's now fixed. I also made the script transfer the boundings animation, but it seems like the model doesn't contain any.
Btw. it would be cool if you could link in your tutorial to the actual m3addon homepage: https://github.com/flo/m3addon/ Users can download the newest version from there using the ZIP-button at the top left.
0
@SoulFilcher: Go
Fixed
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@Delphinium1987: Go
The m3addon creates random animation ids.
It would be possible to fix the animId manually by editing the xml but it's to much work.
I added another python script which you can use to transfer the animation ids of bones with the same name:
It can be called like this:
Example call:
Note that Out.m3a will still contain the mesh of B.m3 and all other data. if you want smaller file sizes you can open it with Blender and remove the mesh manually.
Btw the hair and cloth animation looks impressive, is it baked? It's to bad that you aren't making classic fantasy models. Starcraft 2 lacks just the fantasy models Warcraft 3 had....
About the not working models: Yes I would like to have a look at it.
0
@Delphinium1987: Go
My tutorial lacks a description of how the m3 animations actually work. So let me explain it now:
All animatable attributes of objects in a m3 file, have an unique animation ids. This includes bones which are most commonly animated, but you can for example also animate certain particle system parameters or material properties.
An animation in an m3 file is more or less a collection of key frames for certain animation ids. The m3a files have the exact same structure like m3 files. The only difference is, that they usually do not contain the actual mesh and other static data(-> smaller files). The animations provided in a m3 file have only an affect on a model, if the animation ids matches.
When you import a m3 file in Blender then the addon will remember the original animation ids used for the different types of attributes and will reuse them at export. Thus when you reexport a m3 model as a m3a file, then the m3a file should work with that m3 model. So C should work for B. For A it would only work if the 3dsmax plugin reexports the same animation ids as well(which seems not to be the case).
So my suggestion for you is, to just create a m3 file with multiple animations (in the same file). Either with 3dsmax or Blender.
0
@Delphinium1987: Go
The bug should be fixed now. Since I don't have a model of yours, I can't verify it.
0
@Tai0: Go
You propably forgot add an armature modifier to the mesh as it's shown at 2:15-2:35 in the Part III video.
Or there where already other modifiers on the mesh. In that case you need to apply them first.
About the rotation issue: The exporter does not export the object scale, rotation and postion yet. You can use bones to archive the same. Or you can rotate the mesh in edit mode.
0
@JackRCDF: Go @Monkalizer: Go There are two ways of scaling a model in Blender which the exporter understands:
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I converted the rest of the tutorial to a video. I added however placeholders for an extension of this tutorial.
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I just converted another part of the tutorial from text to a video.
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@Monkalizer: Go
No, you don't need admin rights. You just need to place the files not in c:\Programs but in the folder I posted for your system.
0
@Dryeyece: Go
The m3addon works with Blender 2.64, if you place the files at the correct location. The code needs to be able to generate a m3.py file which is not possible if you place the files into the write protected programs folder. Instead you have to put the files on windows 7 to:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.64\scripts\addons
and on Windows XP to:
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.64\scripts\addons
@chaos2night: Go I know now what is causing the issue with the always visible energy core of the battle cruiser. Since you said it's low prio I am currently focusing on other things.
0
Hi,
I made a Target / True Shot Aura model with my Blender m3 addon (Tutorials can be found at (1), (2) , (3)).
The model contains 4 animations: A brith, stand and death animation and a global loop animation which runs in the background independent of the other animations. In the following video you can see the animations in the following order: birth, stand and death:
Feel free to use and modify this model. You can download it here.
The model itself does not require any additional textures, as it is just referencing an existing Starcraft 2 texture.
0
@chaos2night: Go
It would be possible that it's an older model format, but I doubt it. It's just the version number of the EVENT structure that differs. It's otherwise using the exact same format. At least if you dont coun't that the model isn't using the animation id 0x65bd3215 for animation end events, but a random animation id.
Since Leruster is using the m3addon too for validating the 3ds max files I assume that Phaos used an old version of the 3ds max exporter or even another tool.
0
@SoulFilcher: Go
The UV issue have been caused by Blender chaning the order of the vertex indices. In the newest version of the m3addon (master branch) I worked around this issue by using the reordered indices.
@PsychoticArchon: Go
The models of Phaos' models don't seem to be valid m3 files. I tried to contact him but without success yet.