Porting NWN animations - a work in progress

[The Artisan]

So uh, yeah, this is a thing I've learned to do using Blender. I'm no expert on 3D modelling so this took me the better half of Saturday to figure out through trial and error. Because of this I don't know if I could provide a step-by-step guide on what to do, and I've only done a couple of animations for the NWN iron golem so far and I don't know if I can even learn how to handle the animation cycles when I get to it, but fingers crossed I guess.

This is a bit of a stretch since I don't know if anyone with this kind of experience is still around, but the only thing I desperately want but haven't a clue on how to do is attach a weapon to the 3D model. In any case figured getting this to work was something I felt good enough about to share.

[Acifer]

This looks great! Adding new animations from NWN would be absolutely fantastic and sharing a step-by-step guide would be awesome.

I tried to convert a couple of animations using blender but switched back to 3DS Max because of some issues I could not solve. So I have a couple of questions:

- How did you import the mdl file?

- How is your camera setup?

- Did you manage to create a proper working shadow? This is the greatest obstacle using blender in my opinion.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Acifer

[The Artisan]

I downloaded the NeverBlender plugin which had instructions on importing - the mdl needs to be exported with NWNExplorer in ASCII form and then I removed the .txt from the c_goliron.mdl.txt file.

I swear I had shadows working at a certain point but then I did something that got rid of them and can't bring them back. I'm still trying to figure it out.

As for camera, I have it set up like this but I'm still fiddling with the settings:

Spoiler

 

Edited November 28, 2021 by Artemius I

[The Artisan]

Attempt with shadows.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Artemius I

[The Artisan]

I'm going to share my .blend file to let other people have access to the (probably inefficient) setup I'm using. Just in case anyone else is crazy enough to try to attempt this with me. I assume you could insert any .mdl file you want for the model you're looking for and it should work with a bit of tweaking of the camera.

Edit: added an updated version

 

iron golem.blend

Edited November 29, 2021 by Artemius I

[The Artisan]

Ahahaha I figured out weapons

[The Artisan]

And all the work's done. Unfortunately I can't seem to get a decent gif attached, but everything looks good in-game. It's tedious enough that I don't think I'd be up for doing that many more, but I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

 

[Acifer]

Good work! And thanks for sharing your .blend file, it's especially useful because of the decent shadow catching node you created.

May I ask how you managed to attach weapons? I couldn't find the corresponding mdl files with NWNExplorer.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Acifer

[The Artisan]

Weapons were a pain, and yes, finding the files was the first headache, but there's a trick - if you check the baseitems.2da file the ItemClass section shows the prefixes of each item's model name, which you can then find in data\models_02.bif and extract. Weapons have three different segments so each needs to be extracted, as well as the w_metal_tex.tga for textures.

In Blender, I imported the models (each section individually, importing them at once seems to do nothing) and added a 'Child Of' object constraint linking it to the golem's right hand. Then I simply align it to the right hand on golem's model as accurately as I can.

[Acifer]

Thank you so much! I've been waiting for a workaround like this for ages. 

[The Artisan]

Edited December 1, 2021 by Artemius I

[Gorionar]

More beautiful and different monsters for your favorite game. Thanks for your hard work.

[Acifer]

Awesome! 

The first animation looks like a Stone giant.

[The Artisan]

Uploading a .zip with another updated .blend file with a much more efficient setup, with multiple cameras set up to render animations for all eight angles at once. Also an empty animation folder for sorting things because my god I kept forgetting to keep one around to copy and rename for each sprite I'm doing.

blendanim.zip

[haiduk]

Looks awesome.