CrackedGear on 13/8/2007 at 23:58

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hello to all.
because i have no sense of starting small, i've been trying to figure out how to change garrett's model.
edit: it looks ugly as hell, but i can get it to load in the editor and play levels. still trying to figure out the animation part. directions have been changed accordingly.

first i shamelessly stole a ut psk importer and modified the importpsk script so it looks like
(http://eds.org/~venter/thiefDS/garretskel.py)

ran the script in blender, then ran:
(http://eds.org/~venter/thiefDS/psk2blendermesh_v01.py)
on the model i wanted to use

followed the instructions here for linking the mesh to the skeleton:
(http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~masood/teaching/304a/assignments/a2p2/individualprojectpart2.pdf)
what will help a lot at this stage is when you parent the skeleton and the mesh, be sure to use "name groups" instead of "choose closest bone". unreal has a limitation of 4 bones per vertex group, which blender doesnt care about. also, (this may be common knowledge, but i didnt know it) when assigning weights to vertex groups, make sure that the total weight from all bones on a given vertex isnt larger than 1. this makes the mesh freak out in t3ed. and finally, select all faces on the mesh and run "normals->recalculate outside".

and then ran a jankily modified version of optimus p-fats blendermesh2psk script (i just commented out all the .psa references)
(http://eds.org/~venter/thiefDS/Opti_PSK_Dump2.py)

this leaves me with something that can be viewed with
(http://eds.org/~venter/thiefDS/ViewPSK.exe)
which isn't really needed, but if you're having trouble, this may help you visualize the problem.

now take the .psk file and put it in the skeletal meshes folder of your t3edit directory, open up t3ed and go to the skeleton browser. it should automatically generate the files needed to load the model into your level.
finally, make a copy of playergarrett in the actor browser, note the class name under "object" and add the property "skeletaltag" under "render" now for the skeletaltag use the name of your psk file. now head out to default.ini, and under defaultplayer change Class=T3Gamesys.D_584 to whatever the name of the object class that was in MyPlayerGarret. (mine was Class=T3Gamesys.P_1)

like i said, i havent yet figured out how to make the animations work right, but i'm sure someone here knows how to do that part.

Tiptoe on 14/8/2007 at 06:57

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Oh how much I wish I could add models to Thief3. I have 3DS Max 7, but I've searched and searched and I can't find a copy of 3DS Max 5/5.1 anywhere (legal or otherwise :tsktsk:).

I wonder if someone who has a copy would consider uploading it somewhere to share with other modders. Or if you know of a download link please post it (or PM me if such things are frowned upon in the forums).

Cheers.

CrackedGear on 14/8/2007 at 21:33

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ok think i've got it figured out. will test more when i get back from class.

Tiptoe on 15/8/2007 at 07:29

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I understand Scumble, that's fair enough. Well, after much searching I've finally managed to get my hands on a copy of 3DS Max 5 (CrackedGear if you or anybody else want a copy just send me a PM and I'll give you the download link).

One question: Does anybody know if you can have two versions of Max installed at the same time? Because I really don't want to uninstall Max 7 (I've got it setup just the way I want it :cheeky:).

Cheers