Help on Making MODS?

[Vermilion]

Hey there~

Well, I'm completely new at making 3D models, and I want to create a playable character for this game (UT99). I've been surfing trough a lot of sites, and I haven't got anything concrete until now.

I´ve got the models I want to use already, but don´t know how to manipulate them. One of them is from Garry's Mod, and the other is a Jedi Knights II model; both of the same character. I think I have everything needed to make a model, there's the textures, the character and a bunch of other files in several formats; and there´s motivation too.

In other words, I want to edit a model to make it playable with UT99.
And I need :

To know what program would do work for this.
An Idea on how to mount the textures, animations, and whatever needed to edit a character.
To Learn how to make the "animations" of the character, or program them, among other stuff.

I shall update this topic with more specific info. if needed
Thank you~

[zertech]

ive been trying to find out the same thing. its odd though you go to a place like skincity.beyondunreal.com and there are tons of custom character models. but i cant find ANY tutorials on how to make them. where are all these people learning how to make them if there aren't any tutorials. grrr. its so frustrating.

i got models, and everythign, i know how to animate in Blender 3d and texture and everything. i just need to know how to bring it all into unreal ed properly.

[TheDane]

I've never tried this, but Feralidragon has made many cool animations. I think the animations will be added automaticly when you convert the meshes from your 3d program into UT 3d models? There is a tool for 3dmax, but i'm not sure about blender?

if you go to: http://www.ut99.net/index.php?dir=UEditor_Developing/ there is the file for 3Dmax: UTexporter43DMax.zip, there may be other tools of use in that folder for you?

[Feralidragon]

Well, MilkShape 3D is the best for animating UT wise, as you can animate it by a skeleton/joints, then you can export to psk/psa (UT skeletal mesh format, with the joints intact) or _a.3d/_d.3d (vertex mesh format, the sketelon animation will be converted to vertex frames).

For player models, is best to make a skeletal mesh and then use it with Bonus Pack 4 skeletal mesh support, as you only have to make the model itself, link the joints, and afaik you don't need to make the animation itself (it will share the animation with one of the BP4 skeletal player models, I think, not sure).

However, so far, for weapons and vehicles, I only used vertex animations (so the BP4 isn't needed on the servers, and I really don't need skeletal for those kind of models, although for the miniguns and other rotating animations, it would come in handy since I wouldn't have to give so many vertex frames, and therefore rise the filesize a bit more), so I really don't know the whole process for making the player model, and import for use, I only know that MS3D is one of the best animating programs for that effect (for modelling it quite sucks, is very basic so you can't do all the details as easy and they could be), and then you need ActorX (or something like that), for link joints and import the psk mesh. But I would like to see such tutorial as well though...

Try to ask it over unrealsp.org, since they build several models (I think even a few users are already professionals at the modelling/coding field there, so...), and afaik they don't use MilkShape, they must use 3DStudio or Blender for that effect (or even Lightwave... idk).

[zacman]

Qtit (From USP) made a basic tutorial for modelling on the UTSurvival forum, unfortunately it appears to have been abandoned/shut down (At least, the URL no longer works) but qtit's tutorial was really good.

[Feralidragon]

Qtit (From USP) made a basic tutorial for modelling on the UTSurvival forum, unfortunately it appears to have been abandoned/shut down (At least, the URL no longer works) but qtit's tutorial was really good.

It was shut down. Some other tutorials were lost as well:
- Shadow's tutorials regarding native scripting (the basics);
- Some tutorials of mine (regarding a theory relative to PHYS_Trailer, PrePivot and mesh drawing, fixing the "mesh disappearing" bug/feature of UT, and another to explain how to do dynamic colored particles using plain UScript, and an image editing program, between a few others I think);
- Some from gopostal himself relative UT in general;
- Etc...

It was becoming a great coding resource though...

[zacman]

Damn, that sucks... Real pity, there was some good stuff there