animating model

(WeeBull) #1

i’ve modeled a helicopter in gmax, it doesn’t look very good but it’s a start. i’ve made a 5 frame animation of the rotorblades rotating 360 degrees. i’ve downloaded a MD3 exporter and when i want to export it, a small window pops up with some options. one of them is: the following frames:… so this is probably which frames i want to export. so i typed: 0 1 2 3 4 but i don’t know if this is the right way, maybe i have to put a comma between the numbers or something? i click on export now and i have a .MD3 in the folder i want. i open radiant and add the helicopter as a gamemodel. from this point i don’t know exactly how i animate it. i clicked start_animate i added
k: frames v: 5
k: start v: 0
k: fps v: 30
but no animation in game, the rotorblades aren’t rotating. how do i have to do this?
i used Export MD3 v1.0 by Pop N Fresh to export the model to MD3.
this is from the readme: To use, select Export from the File menu, select “Quake 3 MD3” as the file type, and enter the range of frames in the dialog that appears.
but i still don’t know how to enter the frames

and another thing, i want it to play those frames over and over again, in other words, i want the rotorblades rotating forever without making a million frames. how do i do that

thank you very much

(No1_sonuk) #2

In the exporter, try “0-4” (zero dash four, without the quotes) for the frames to export.
It means “0 to 4”.

(DAbell) #3

Why don’t you just make the blades a mover in radiant and script them to spin up like the ceiling fan in goldrush (you know the one in the inital Axis spawn point).

I don’t do much with importing models so i can’t comment too much as to how easy or hard this maybe. But i’m sure this way could be a whole lot easier.

Also helicopters were only really being developed in WWII take a look at these links for an idea.

http://www.military.cz/usa/air/war/helo/r4/r4_en.htm

http://www.military.cz/usa/air/war/helo/r5/r5_en.htm

Hope this helps you out a bit.

<DJ>

(Loffy) #4

The second chopper above, the R5, is used in the 1954 classic “Them”.

(WeeBull) #5

w00t, thanks No1_sonuk that did the trick :smiley:
@DAbell: i was thinking about a scriptmover but i thought this would be easier and now it works so it is easier :stuck_out_tongue:
and the helicopter is for my map tankrace, if you’ve seen it you would know it’s not really a WWII themed map so i want just a simple nowadays helicopter, but thanks for the links, maybe i’ll make another helicopter for another map, who knows…

(No1_sonuk) #6

NP, WeeBull.
DAbull’s suggestion has a major advantage over your animated model. If you animate the model, the file contains the position of EVERY vertex for EVERY frame. This means your model file is 5 times the size of one using DAbells suggestion.

@DAbell: I did try posting a link to Paposo’s tutorial, which covered exactly what you mean, but it’s gone offline. He described modelling a helicopter in Milkshape, AND adding tags, etc. Then the mapping and scripting stuff for RtCW (which also works in ET) to attach the blades and rotate them.

(Shaderman) #7

I’m not sure if it’s the latest copy of this great tutorial but better than nothing:
http://users.adelphia.net/~paposo/howdy.html

Big credits go to No_1sonuk for helping me out on this stuff.

Do you know how to contact him? It would be nice if we could host his tutorial somewhere else if he would agree :slight_smile:

Shaderman

(No1_sonuk) #8

I’ve not heard from him in a long time.
That one looks like the latest, but the frames aren’t working.

*EDIT - I’ve had a look - that’s an “older” version of his site. I gave him a tutorial on wheels which he had up too. That said, what’s there is all the modelling/tags/export/scripting/etc. stuff that there was.
What I helped him with was getting the tags stuff right in MS3D, but I use Max now.

I’ll try contacting him, but I’ve downloaded it all to make sure I have it. When I get some time, I’ll tidy it up and upload it