Fast & Easy - A way to convert Half-Life MDLs to MD2?

[Tormentor667]

Doesn anyone know an easy and fast way?

[DOOMERO-21]

http://www.kingpinforever.com/fredz/modelhltoq2.html

i think this can help you but i dont know

[Tormentor667]

Already read that but that's a bit complicated (but not undoable at last), no easier way? A simple converter?

[Nash]

There isn't. Half-Life's player models are in a compiled model format... what appears to be a single .mdl is in fact made up of lots and lots of .SMDs. I talked about the complexities of decompiling a Half-Life player model because ReX enquired about it over at the DRDTeam forums, if you care to search for it.

To cut a long story short:

1) Lots of manual work to attempt to piece back together the decompiled SMDs into a single model
2) You'd have to re-rig and manually animate your character again as the animation data can't be ported over

Not worth it.

(BTW MD2 sucks)

[Tormentor667]

2) You'd have to re-rig and manually animate your character again as the animation data can't be ported over

I tried that by importing the SMD files for the animation. It seemed to work on MilkShape, so when I export it to MD3, does that data get lost or what actually happens to that?

[Nash]

Really? Well if skeleton and animation data works in Milkshape, then it'll export fine with Milkshape's MD3 exporter.

To be honest, I've never worked much with the Half-Life model format, but I've read up on it so I know a little bit about it.

[Tormentor667]

Well, I am trying to do this later this evening and let you know if I have success. But I have another question and maybe you can help with that as well: Some models seem to consist of multiple "body parts", for example a zombie consisting of a "head" smd, a "body" smd and "leg"/"arm" smds. When I load them all into MilkShape, I can get one complete moving zombie as well. But as fas as I have heard correctly, GZDoom can't work with multi mesh models. Is there a way to combine all body parts?

[Nash]

As far as the mesh goes, it's as easy as selecting all polygons and regrouping them into a single mesh.

How this handles the UV coordinates, I am not sure. I don't recall it automatically spreading the UVs out nicely. You most probably have to adjust the UVs of the individual parts to anticipate a single UV space.

I don't use Milkshape anymore so I'm afraid I can't guide you step-by-step but I HAVE done it before. I just can't remember the process exactly. Maybe Enjay can give you a step-by-step guide.

[Tormentor667]

What are UVs?

Another question: When I import the walking smd into MilkShape and play the animation, the actor is actually really moving (walking away from the center position), is this a bug or is this normal?

...oh and thanks for all your advice, it's very helpful

[Nash]

UV mapping

Or in plain english: UV coordinates are used to describe how to "wrap" a texture around a model. Without UV coordinates, it wouldn't know how to project the texture onto the model.

Try this for yourself; in MS3D, select all polygons, go to the Group tab, then click the "Regroup" button. The textures SHOULD screw up.

How to retain the UV mapping when you have collapsed everything into a single mesh and a single material? As I've said, I don't remember the process anymore because I don't use MS3D anymore, but it certainly involves re-arranging the UV coordinates of each mesh part to conform to a single texture space... I know Enjay does this a lot so maybe he can help you?

Regarding the walking: That's most probably normal. It is how it's animated in HL. This is what I mean when I said you will have some manual tweaking to do to the animations. You'll have to re-keyframe the animations so that the characters walks in place.

[Cutmanmike]

Btw does 3dsmax have any feature where you can just draw onto the model? Leilei has a video on youtube of a birdo model which gets sprayed on with a live view of the model and quickly turns into a half decent texture.

[Nash]

It doesn't, but Polyboost's texturing tools does.

I've never used Polyboost. I used to use Maxon's BodyPaint for direct texture painting, but nowadays I just use MudBox. 2009 allows direct model painting and it's super awesome.

I've read that Photoshop CS4 also has model painting support but I wouldn't rely on it...

[Tormentor667]

So concerning the movement, I simply need to make sure that the model stays in the center while walking yes?

For the re-texturing, I just wrote Enjay a little PM for this thread, hopefully he can help

[Enjay]

I don't recall it automatically spreading the UVs out nicely. You most probably have to adjust the UVs of the individual parts to anticipate a single UV space.

Correct. The different UVs will all be on top of each other and you'll have to move them manually to the correct position on the skin image. With the models that I have used (not HL ones but MD3) the different mesh groups were preserved so it was relatively easy to select them and then that selection carries across to the texture coordinate editor.


(@Torm, PM already replied to)

[Tormentor667]

Last remaining problem is the walking animation. As I already said before, the models don't stay at one point while running, instead they are moving already in the model editor (in my case MilkShape). The ingame result is the same in this case, the model moves away from its base actor in an endless loop. But well, just try it on your own:
http://rapidshare.com/files/194811414/e ... s.zip.html
Type "summon cerberus" in the console. My problem is that I do not know how to properly move animations in MilkShape. Everytime I try, the position gets reset or the whole model fucks up: