basic model questions

[CarnageIKU]

sorry if this is posted in the wrong area, i tryied to post in the skinning a moding section but it wouldnt let me, maybe one of you admins can move it over.

NOW ON TO THE QUESTIONS!!!

1. i have already figured out how to open models, yet a cant seem to figure out where they can be found in the tetra editter

2. while i know that all you guys are going to say is read the read me i still feel i should ask if anyone has a good modeling tutorial

3. is the .mdl file the actual model and the .mdx the file the tells the computer how to apply the skin over top of it? or is this visa versus or just completely wrong?

 

probably more and more questions to come from me and hopefully other interested modelers

[T7nowhere]

This is the correct forum to post in, the other forums above are for tutorials only and are closed to posting new threads. The only exception is the Mod request forum, anyone can freely post their requests in there.

 

1.) For KotOR models can be found in items.bif and models.bif and for TSL all the models are in models.bif. If you want to quickly extract them you can double click on the mdl and KT will convert it to ascii andextract the texture.

 

2.)If you have never done any modeling with gmax first download the free gmax tutorials http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax and complete the first couple to get familiar with the app. Also there are a few KotOR/TSL specific ones in the Skinning and modeling forum.

 

3.) Honestly I'm not even sure, All I know is that i need both for my models to work correctly.

[CarnageIKU]

k, question number 3 was just an guess to be honest, i dont know what i did but somehow when i opened p_miraBB model(i think, it was something of mira) it overwrote all of the other model files(.mbl and .mdx) some how, to make it even crazier the mdl file had the .ascii(or what ever) at the end of the file name when i had not converted it, it also came with a tga file of miras clothes and no mdx file?? what ever i accidentally did i dont know but I WAS ABLE TO OPEN THE MDX FILE WITHOUT CONVERTING IT. so please anyone who knows how this happend, this may be one for cchargin himself.

 

all i can say is wtf

 

oh yeah, thanks for the locations for the files t7, i had found tsl's file a while after the post, but not kotor1, so thanks. as for the tutorial i figured as much, but still its amazing what you can do just renaming models(i guess the same thing could be done in a .2da editer bu i like this better) and reskinning the skin to have something completely different.

[T7nowhere]

I WAS ABLE TO OPEN THE MDX FILE WITHOUT CONVERTING IT. so please anyone who knows how this happend, this may be one for cchargin himself.

 

See the second sentance for answer #1

 

If you want to just extract the .mdl and .mdx without converting them , simply select the file and click the extract button.

[cchargin]

Hello,

 

3) Of course I get to answer this one. The .MDL holds the main model information like animations, texture names, object names, object hierarchy, etc... The .MDX holds pre-compiled data that is created from the information stored in the .MDL, stuff like bone weights, vertex normals, etc...

 

My guess is that they do it this way so that the data can be read in and used quickly, there is no need to do any additional calculations. This also means that there is much duplication of data. It also means that a messed up model will most likely crash your game hard.

[CarnageIKU]

ok, thanks cchargin. im still trying to figure out everything, i usually just press the next button so im still learning everything.