Animation Conversion (Blender)
Purpose:
So in essence, this tutorial is to help people learn how to convert the animations from a wow model (Panda 5.0.5) to a custom model (Static) of choice. You can easily convert the end model to WOTLK compatibility later. Also,
Just one thing .... use Lastest version of M2redux for Blender 2.72 so you can use model from 6.x.x ( WOD )
In this tutorial, i will be using a old version of blender but you can still follow along with the new version(s). Now I know there is a way through mdlvis but this method is by only using Blender. A heads up, I am a 3ds max user and NOT a Blender User. Thus, if you see me using any wrong methods / terminology for blender, then please point it out. I love to be corrected. (Side note: I am not an expert at this but I will be sharing the knowledge I have so far)
Materials:
• Blender 2.62
• M2ModRedux
• Wow model viewer
• Custom model (mesh)
Steps:
Step1Now let’s get down to business. To start off, open wow model viewer and find the model which you want to take the animations from and put it on your custom model. For this tutorial, I will be using the hozumonkeyking model.
Please make sure you are in “.m2” section. Now after you have found your desired model, go to “file > save file…” and save it in your project folder. After it is done exporting, you should have m2 in the folder you had exported the model to. It should look something like this but with a different name.
Now you must go to the skin section, and export ALL the skin files of the model to the same directory you saved the m2 file in. The skin section of the WMV should look like this
After you have exported all the skin files, go to your folder and make sure you have all the files. The folder should only have the m2 and skin files, like this:
Step2Now taking M2ModRedux (I will not teach you how to install the addons as there is already a section on that. If you haven’t still installed the M2ModRedux, please check this thread
Setup M2I Plugins. Now open up the application and where it says “Input M2”, click the “…” that is beside it and open the m2 file that you exported from WMV. After that, click on the “…” for the “Output M2I” and select the folder that you had exported the m2 in. In the end, you should have something like this:
After having everything correct, press “Go!” and the application will generate an m2i file in the directory you had told it to save it in. The m2i file should look like this
Step 3Now it is finally time to go into blender. Open Blender up and then scroll to “File > Import > M2 Intermediate (m2i)”. Now click the on the m2i file that you had just recently generated.
After you click on the file, blender will open up the model with bones, attachments, and meshes attached.
Now it is the time to import your own custom model. If you are working with 3ds max like me, just export the model as an object format and import it in blender. I suggest that for your custom model, you should separate it into different significant limbs. Such as making the right arm, right arm palm, right arm fingers their own meshes and so on. The reason for this is because you will be weight painting these meshes later it and it will be hard for you to painting them when they are attached with one another. However, if you think that that is too much of a pain, then by all means, ignore this suggestion. Here I will be using Son Goku from the Naruto Series as my custom model because I have already done this model for the project I am working on which is called JutsuONLINE.
As you can see, I have separated each significant limb by itself to make the process easier.
Step 4Here comes the hard part, now I suggest to move the custom model away from the wow model. Now take the meshes that you want to use from wow model (main body) and make a copy of it by pressing “SHIFT + D” and moving it to the side where the custom model is. Join all the wow model together by pressing “CTRL + J”
Now what you need to do is make copies for each mesh that you have for each custom mesh you have. I have 33 meshes and so I will be creating 33 copies of the wow model mesh that I had separated. Make sure that you press “SHIFT + D” but pressing “ENTER” right away without moving the copies from one another. In the end, you will have 33 copies of the wow model mesh.
Step 5Now pay close attention to what I say, for if you mess up this part, than all of your model will be ruined. For each custom mesh, head over to the object section of the mesh and scroll down to “Relationship”. You will find a “Parent” section which when you press the box under it, a roll out will pop up. You must pick “Armature” as you want to connect the mesh to the armature of the wow model.
Now I am not sure if this is needed but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Go to “Object Modifiers” and click on “Add Modifier”. Another roll out will appear and this time also pick “Armature”. Under “Object:” click on the box and pick yet again “Armature”.
Now do this for every custom mesh that you have.
Step 6Now press on one of your custom meshes and then press “SHIFT” and click on one of the copy wow models. Press “CTRL + C” and a copy attribute roll out should pop out. If not, than you must go to “File > User Preferences” and enable the “3D View: Copy Attributes Menu” and then press “Save as Default”.
When the roll out comes up, click on “Copy Location” and the custom mesh should move on to the wow model.
It should look like so;
Press “TAB” to open the wow model in edit mode and you should have all the vertices selected, if not press “A” and then that should work. Press and keep on pressing the red arrow (x-axis arrow) and type in how much you want to move the mesh away from its original point. I usually do use 2 as my number as I find it not too far or too close. After inputting the desired number, you should see that the mesh had moved and if so, let go of the arrow.
Leave Edit mode by pressing “TAB” once again and now you should press “SHIFT + J” to join the meshes together. Now if you had accidentally removed the selection on the two objects through this process for whatever reason, remember to click on the custom mesh and then the wow mesh when joining them.
Do this for each custom mesh.
Step 7It is finally time for Weight Painting. What I usually do is that I take down all the bones that I will be using and for which part of the model they are for. So for example, I make a list of all the bones that are associated with the right hand and which bone corresponds to which segment. (Bone 44: Right arm shoulder, Bone 12: Right arm middle part, Bone 25: Right arm palm, Bone 52: Right arm thumb, etc…) This will help you to be more organized and in reality it helps me to do it faster. Here is an example of the bones of the Monkey king that I am using for this tutorial.
Now you should start on weight painting. The only thing that I can tell you about this is that you should color the mesh the same colors and positions that you see that wow model is colored in. Here is an example of what I mean:
Here is another tip from Soldan!
Another little pointer that might help you out a bit is when weight painting, you can select the vertices in edit mode, change back to weight paint and hit F (Painting Mask) and then hit Shift-K and it will paint all the selected vertices.
Makes it ALOT easier to paint. (When I started doing models 2+ years back I used to blindly paint and move the bones via pose mode to check what I was missing).
Use the wow model as a reference for your custom model and make sure you don’t leave out any vertices unpainted. For if you do, when you export the model it will crash when converting back to m2. After you had finished painting, to make sure that you haven’t missed any vertices, select the Armature and go to “Pose Mode”. Press on “A” to select all the bones and start to move it around. If you see that some vertices from your custom model don’t move and are left behind, then that means that you hadn’t painted them. Here is an example:
An easy way to fix this is by moving the bone in “Pose mode” a certain units backwards and then clicking on the vertices that didn’t move them and paint them like that. All you will have to do than after you are done is to go in “Pose mode” again and return the bones to where they originally were.
Step 8We are almost there. The only thing left is to delete the wow mesh from our custom model. To do so, you must press the custom mesh, go into “Edit Mode” and then click on all the wow model vertices. By click “Delete” a menu will come out and just click on “Vertices” and that should do the trick.
Repeat this for every custom mesh you have. Now we must move the custom meshes to where the original wow model was when we first imported it. We should have the original wow model as we only used copies of it so far. Using the same method as before, pressing our custom mesh and then the original model mesh, we press “CTRL + C” and copy locations.
Step 9Now try to make the geometries positions of the custom model match that of the original wow model(You must do this in edit mode). What I am trying to say is that if the wow model has his arms pointing downwards and your custom model’s hands are pointing to the sides, then edit the arms so that they overlap that of the wow model as much as possible. This is where my downfall comes as I am not good in editing in blender which is why I edit most of models in 3ds max before I export them to blender and start this process. So if you have something like this
Try to make it like this
Now you could move the bones but I don’t recommend that as that could mess up the animations of the model if you translate them too much.
Step 10The last thing left to do is to delete the left over WOW model meshes and select everything with “A” and by going to “File > Export > M2 Intermediate (.m2i)” save it in a different folder than where you had the original m2i because you don’t want to replace it.
If it had been exported successfully, you should have an m2i file in the directory as so:
The only thing left to do is to convert it back to m2 format, open up the M2ModRedux application once again. In “Input M2” put in the original WOW m2 file that you had extracted from WMV. Leave Output M2I empty. In “Input M2I” put in the m2i file that you had saved from Blender. For “Output M2”, just put it in the same folder as your blender m2i for it will save you time to create a new folder for it.
Then finally press “Go!” and you’re done!!!
NOTE:Now it might not come out right with your first try but practice makes perfect! You will just have play around with it to get it to your liking. Also remember that if you want to convert it to WOTLK compatibility, follow this guide
Cata Models to Wotlk.
Special thanks to:
• Phucko1: He is the one that taught me how to do this in the first place. He has helped me greatly and answered almost all the questions that I had when I first started practicing this. Much respect!
• Will: Will was the one that got me into WowModding and as I still work under him, I have much debts due. He is one of a kind.
• Skarn: Thanks for the M2ModRedux tool and for the great tutorial on how to use it!
• PhantomX: Thank you for the tutorial on how to convert from Cata to Wotlk
• PhillipTNG: Your old videos were a great help even if they are not available anymore. Your tools and tutorials helped my knowledge in wow grow drastically.
Here are some examples of my work:
Also, I have been trying to figure out a way to do all of this in 3ds max for the past week. The idea I have been trying to implement is that in 3ds max 2015, python is supported in maxscript. However, when the import/export plugins that are used in blender for the m2i are run through the maxscript’s python interpreter, the bpy module is undefined. So what I have been trying to do is to compile blender as a module for the maxscript’s python but I have been facing great difficulty in compiling blender itself. I really don’t know if this will work or not but if it does, I will update this tutorial with my findings.
