The first phase of creating a custom mod for Warcraft

Today, we will introduce the first phase of this article, mainly to give a general introduction.

The world editor provided by Warcraft is very powerful and can customize many things. The most important thing is that we can customize model textures, with this function, we can completely design RPG maps or team warfare mod different from the Warcraft style. In addition, the mod Production Development Tool officially released by Blizzard is only available in the for max version, this is a good news for max fans. The purpose of this tutorial is to teach you how to create and import your own models, Animation models, and role models, I believe that you will be able to master these technologies after studying them carefully.

Well, this article is intended to develop Warcraft mod by myself, and most of the interface technologies of max will not explain the use of the world editor. (There are many world editor tutorials, please search for them by yourself and I will provide them later). This first set mainly introduces the concept and nature, so that you can have a general understanding.

Well, let's talk about the necessary production tools first. Preparing these tools is the basis for production.

3 dsmax 5
I don't need to talk about this. Most of the productions will be completed. It is worth noting that arttools only has the for max5 version, which is a pity. Of course, max6 should be used, even 7 is completely feasible. I will introduce it later.

Photoshop
Don't say that, you can draw textures or something. Of course you are used to other software.

WarcraftIII Art Tools
An external Warcraft development tool provided by blizzard, we can see that most of the special effect hero models in Warcraft are currently in this tool, but it is worth noting that this version does not seem to be an internal version of blizzard, because some functions do not seem free.

World editor
Of course, it is essential to have this article 3. We recommend that you install the English version, because the Chinese version editor has a lot of translation problems, and sometimes it is hard for you to understand the Chinese version editor. If you have a Chinese version installed, you can use an English Editor to convert a file. This file will be provided later.

Warcraft3viewer
This is a world of warcraft resource browser that can view and export the internal model maps of World of Warcraft and other resources. It is very useful for us to study our own models of World of Warcraft.

War3FileConverter
File Format Conversion Software, used for model format conversion, will be introduced later.

MDX-MAXplugin
This plug-in is a script used to import anti-missile warcraft models to max, but this plug-in is not perfect, instead, it requires a huge amount of modification (the mdx model in Warcraft cannot be added to max ).

Snapshot plguin for max (optional)
This is used to improve efficiency. This involves the World of Warcraft engine, which does not support bones, not to mention the skeleton tools of some colleges and universities such as cs, it only supports the skeleton using the standard TCB controller, which means low efficiency (especially in role animation, it is hard to imagine using a bunch of boxes to connect together for skeleton, using FK to give them a walking animation), so after a while I looked for it, I found the snapshot plug-in, which can remove cs from the original controller and convert it to the max standard controller, this is an efficient production shortcut for us. After repeated tests, we can finally use CS in production. This will be detailed later.

Basically, you can use the above tools to create custom models, Animation models, and roles.

The following describes how to create a role model:
First, create a model texture in max, then create a skeleton, and then split the skin. The skin modifier used here is the World of Warcraft engine. We all know that most 3d engines have their own capabilities to process the skeleton skin, however, World of Warcraft does not lag behind. its working principle is to attach the vertex near the skeleton to the skeleton, and the deformation will be very strange, especially when there are few polygons, fortunately, most of the organizations in Warcraft are very small, so some models can even ignore the skin step. Of course, this skin process must be completed by a module provided by art tools, this will be introduced later.

After doing this, we can make animations. We need to make walking, attack, release magic, death, and many other actions. Therefore, the appendix of art tools provides a series of action naming lists, these lists show the actions that can be recognized by the engine. After these actions are created, the note track will be added to them and named accordingly, the naming rules are carried out according to the list officially provided by the role. After completing these steps, you need to test them in a preview provided by arttools. Here, the World of Warcraft engine is called directly, in other words, the effect you see here is basically the effect in the final game.

After all these steps are completed, you can use the mdx export plug-in to export the model to the mdx format, which can be directly recognized by the world editor. The rest is to enter the world editor, import the model we created for the unit.

The following describes Warcraft III Art Tools:

Warcraft III Art Tools is a plug-in under 3dsmax5. With this plug-in, we can create models used in Warcraft. This plug-in consists of the following parts:

Model exporter plugin
This scenario is used to export the final result, including the ability to export intelligence models and animations into mdx and blp files.

Material plugin
Used to make materials used in the game. To see the material effect in the game, you must use the material type provided by this module. Otherwise, the model in the game will be completely white.

Preview plugin
Used to preview the final completion model, check and debug in 3dsmax.

User property editor
This module can implement many functions. For example, the definition of the skeleton skin is all done in this module.

Particle plugin
This module is used to implement particle effects in the game. It is a special particle type, such as the flame and smoke in Warcraft.

Robbon plugin
It is not as effective as creating a shadow.

It is worth noting that the official documentation provided by Warcraft III Art Tools is not comprehensive. There are many things that are not described or clearly understood. After all, this tool is free of charge, blizzard is also beginning to express that it will not provide any technical support, which requires everyone to work hard to practice.