Forums - Modeling

[Archive] Custom m2 using MDXtoM2 + fixing broken animations

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:18 +0000

Introduction
Hello, BNet-Dev. Today I am going to show you guys how to make custom non-animated .m2 models out of .mdx (Warcraft III) models. It is believed that converting models using MDXtoM2 is quite a complicated process but actually it is not that hard.
You may ask: "Why do we need to do it if we have OBJtoM2 and it works fine?" Well, the answer is simple. This converter provides you a lot more possibilities than OBJtoM2, such as multiple materials, textures, lights, animations and etc. At first, I will show you how to convert static .m2s but I am going to update this tutorial from time to time when I find out something new. Okay let's go.

Tools and resources
The full conversion will require quite a big bunch of tools which you have to download.

1) MDXtoM2Converter_lazy - a tool that generates .m2 models out of .mdx files.
2) 3DS Max with MDX export plugin or Milkshape. Well, just something to convert your model to .mdx. If you already have your .mdx object, you don't need it.
3) MDLXConverter - a tool that converts .mdx files into .mdl files which are possible to edit manually via Notepad.
4) MDLVis - .mdx/.mdl editor.
5) War3ModelEditor- a tool that allows you to add some additional sections to .mdx, such as lights, bones etc.
6) BLPLab - for converting your textures to .blp (BLP2) file format which is undesrtandable for WoW. (Warcraft textures are BLP1 and cannot be read by WoW).
7) Collision adder - a tool that generates collision in your m2 file.
8) Resizer.py - a python script that allows you to resize the initial size of your model.
9) PyModelEditor (+Python 2.6 (see PyME thread for details)) to run Resizer.py
10) AddViewDistance for editing the render distance of the model.
11) Sweetscape 010 editor (+ M2 template) - a hex-editor which we are using for fixing bugs in the model.
12) Nullmodel.mdl - .mdl template to make your model understandable for MDLVis.
Well, there are plenty of other utilities that can make your model better but they're not essential. The list is quite huge, but don't worry, it won't take that long to get your model into game. Tools which are not linked here are either included into one of the linked packages or can be found in the resource section of Modcraft.

Chapter 1. Static models

Step 1. Preparing your model
1. I won't explain you how to make an .mdx model. There are plenty of tutorials on this theme over the internet.
At first, your .mdx file does not contain all the information you need for converting it to .m2. In order to fix it you need to convert your .mdx file into .mdl using MDLXConverter. I will call the result model tree.mdl.
2. When it is done you need to open your model in MDLVis. To make MDLVis open your file you have to make the .mdl structure understandalbe for MDLVis. So, pick up Nullmodel.mdl and tree.mdl model and open them in Notepad++.
Find a section called Model in your tree.mdl and add missing strings into this section from Nullmodel.mdl.

* tree.mdl

}
Model "pine" {
BlendTime 150,
MinimumExtent { -261.362000, -252.451996, -88.562103 },
MaximumExtent { 273.287994, 307.015015, 1465.869995 },
BoundsRadius 796.038025,
}
* Nullmodel.mdl

}
Model "Sword_2H_Claymore_A_01" {
NumGeosets 1,
NumGeosetAnims 1,
NumBones 1,
BlendTime 150,
}* Result

Model "pine" {
NumGeosets 1,
NumGeosetAnims 1,
NumBones 1,
BlendTime 150,
MinimumExtent { -261.362000, -252.451996, -88.562103 },
MaximumExtent { 273.287994, 307.015015, 1465.869995 },
BoundsRadius 796.038025,
}3. Now go to the end of both files and replace everything starting from "Bone" till the end of the file using data from Nullmodel.mdl. Now you can open your model in MDLVis.
4. Find string Image and write in the path to your textures. This path will be used in your MPQ files.

Step 2. Fixing the model in MDLVis
1. For some reason MDXToM2 does not create a usual transparancy chunk in the model. In order to resolve this issue open your model in MDLVis, go to Modules>>Sequences>>Skeleton>>Switch back to Anims. Select both geosets (using check boxes) and mark them as visible.
2. Save your model as .mdx

Step 3. Solving possible problems
1. In most cases now you can just drag'n'drop your tree.mdx to the converter and it will turn it to m2. Try doing it. If there is a crash open your .mdx in War3ModelEditor, go to Windows>>Node editor>>Right click on the bone>>Add light. Add 4-5 lights and try converting the model with MDXtoM2_lazy. If it does not work, add more lights. Okay, you should get your .m2 model now.

[subsection]Step 4. Fixing different converter issues[/subsection]
1. Open Resizer.py with a Notepad. (should be placed inside a PyModelEditor folder). Edit paths to your model, set the size to 0.02. We need to decrease the scale of your model in 50 times. Save the file.
2. Run it by double clicking. If it works you will see a black command promt window for a second.

3. Open your model in the 010 editor. Run a template on the file.
4. Go to "struct TheFloats floats" and divide each value there by 50. For doing this operation faster open "Hex operations" tab, "Divide". Use the following settings: Treat Data As: Float, Operand: 50, Decimal, and press Okay. Now make sure that BoundingBox size is equal to VertexBox size. If not, copy values from bounding box to vertex bpx. Go to "struct sAnimations _Animations" and make sure if the bounding box values are divided by 50 too.

5. Go to "struct RenderFlags _RenderFlags" and set the blendingmode of every geoset to RM_AlphaTesting (1) (for usual models) and set the Render Flag to the one you need. I used double sided on my leaves geoset to make it visible from both sides. You can find the flag explanation on the WoW Dev Wiki.
6. If you added lights with War3ModelEditor you have to go to "uint Lights", "ofsLights" and set the values to 0. Then go to "struct Lights", select the section and press Shift + Delete on the selected bytes.

Step 5. Adding collision
1. If you need your collision to be 100% of the size of the model, just drag'n'drop your .m2 on CollisionAdder.exe and you're done. If you need to make some parts of the model non-collideable, you need to create another .m2 model which contains only the geometry you need to keep the collision on. You can even add more geometry if you need to make some invisible collsion walls in your model or smth else. For example, for making tree collision for the second model you leave only bark without leaves. Generate the collision for this model and open both ones in the 010 editor.
1. Copy the values from "uint BoundingTriangles", "uint BoundingVertices" and "uint BoundingNormals" to your model. Go to the end of the file and add 5-6 empty strings containing only zeros.

Pick up the offset of the last empty string and write it to "uint ofsBoundingTriangles". Copy the entire bounding triangles section to the empty space. Finish the string with zeros. Pick up the offset of the new string and do the same for the rest two sections.

You're done. Don't forget to rescale the collision model before doing that using Resizer.py.

Chapter 2. Animated models
I won't explain you how to convert animated models because there already a good tutorial by Phucko1 which should explain you everything you need to know about getting animated models to work. Here it is: [/url][url=https://www.wowmodding.net/%7Boption%7D]http://modcraft.superparanoid.de/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5536 So, let's think you already have your model converted.

However, I am pretty sure that after doing eveything written there most of your model animations will be glitchy. How? This video is the only example I found over the internet, but it looks exactly like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUtNSHAPML4
(To the author of this: I just used your video to show how the bug looks like and demonstrate the solution to this problem. I hope you understand it.)

Well, as you can see, some models glitch on some parts of animation. If you reduce the speed of changing frames, you will notice that it looks like the animations start going back at some point. So, it is correct in general, but goes in wrong backwards direction instead of looping. Yeah, that's the mistake of MDXtoM2 converter. I don't know what exactly it is caused by, but I know quite a simple solution for this problem.

Step 1. Gethering data
Go to model viewer and open your model. Start playing animations in slow motion mode and make a list of the bugged ones. Now, comes the hardest part. By moving the frames switcher in your WMV you change animation frames. Though, not all of these frames are real. Actual KeyFrames are written to M2, and there are not so much of theme. All other hundreds of frames are just interpolation between them. So, you need to slowly move this switcher and stop it when the animation starts behaving weirdly (most likely goes back or loops where it is not supposed to). Pick up this numbers and add them to your list under your animation. Do it for every animation if necessary.Keep in mind that these frames value are always approximate, and later you will need to find the closest keyframe value. Though, it is not hard as it probably seems to you now. By opening your model in MDLvis (mdx/mdl source model, not m2), you can pickup the bone numbers of the bugged animation parts. Just look in WMV what parts of the body swing badly, find the corresponding bone numbers in MDLVis and add them to the list for each bugged animation.

Step 2. Fixing bugs
Now open your model in pymodeleditor. Show Node Tree>>Pick up the bone

You will now see the Bone Editor. Here you have two buttons: Edit Translation and Edit Rotation. One of them, or both can contain bugged data. Fortunately, it is quite easy to track.

When you open either of them, you get the animation KeyFrames cords. For fixing animations, you need to pick up the animation ID of the animation you need to fix in the dropdown menu marked as 4 in the screenshot. Now, speaking about the data itself.

Let's now see what is wrong here. This the original block of data.

0:{ -32759 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }
1:{ -32758 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }
105:{ -31914 , 31173 , -31813 , -64 }
243:{ -29948 , 26571 , -31292 , -749 }
313:{ -29284 , 25977 , -31367 , -932 }
382:{ -28844 , 28110 , -31543 , -595 }
521:{ -29063 , -29421 , -32425 , -385 }
590:{ -29558 , -27700 , 32598 , -555 }
694:{ -30218 , -29822 , 32081 , -240 }
868:{ -31503 , 28143 , 31892 , -365 }
973:{ -32071 , 25472 , 32029 , -839 }
1077:{ -32320 , 26522 , 32240 , -609 }
1251:{ -32396 , 31488 , 32626 , -28 }
1424:{ -32577 , -32500 , -32588 , -3 }
1667:{ -32758 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }
1668:{ -32759 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }
The number of the each string before ":" is a KeyFrame number. So, the error should be in some numbers close to our previous WMV records. If you look carefully, some values does not follow the common pattern in the middle of the structure. The errors can be only related to negative/positive value differences. You never need to change the numbers. In most cases you mostly need to remove some minuses in from of the first value. But I picked up the hardest example I could find for you here. :twisted:

521:{ -29063 , -29421 , -32425 , -385 }
590:{ -29558 , -27700 , 32598 , -555 }
694:{ -30218 , -29822 , 32081 , -240 }These 3 keyframes look weird for me. And they suprisingly almost exactly match my WMV aniamtion bug records.
Let's see why. Keep a look at the second coloumn. These 3 values are negative while everything around them is positive. Here our animation is most likely to go backwards. Let's change them to positive.

0:{ -32759 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }
1:{ -32758 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }
105:{ -31914 , 31173 , -31813 , -64 }
243:{ -29948 , 26571 , -31292 , -749 }
313:{ -29284 , 25977 , -31367 , -932 }
382:{ -28844 , 28110 , -31543 , -595 }
521:{ -29063 , 29421 , -32425 , -385 }
590:{ -29558 , 27700 , 32598 , -555 }
694:{ -30218 , 29822 , 32081 , -240 }
868:{ -31503 , 28143 , 31892 , -365 }
973:{ -32071 , 25472 , 32029 , -839 }
1077:{ -32320 , 26522 , 32240 , -609 }
1251:{ -32396 , 31488 , 32626 , -28 }
1424:{ -32577 , -32500 , -32588 , -3 }
1667:{ -32758 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }
1668:{ -32759 , -32317 , -32287 , -7 }And it works like that for Translations and Rotations. Just save your files more often to avoid erros and make backups. It takes approximately and hour for every model. But I am pretty sure if you do it often, you will get a faster skill.

That's all for now. Big thanks to Vel, Malice and other people who helped me and to the authors of all these tools I used here. I will add some pictures soon enough to make this tutorial more understandable for newbies. If you don't undestand something (my English sucks) or have some problems/tips feel free to ask me. Check this thread from time to time for getting recent updates. Good luck with your first model .

[Archive] Custom WMO's Survival Kit

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:18 +0000

Hi model-changing.net !

I'm happy to share with you my knowledges about custom wmo's. After months of research and work, I've decided to make a tutorial for those who want to make their own wmo's.

Special thanks to stan84, Supora, Waveworms (from Modcraft) and other peoples who helped me.

Tools Used

Summary

Blender (you can use another 3D program)
Notepad++
010 editor
010 editor templates
MODRChunk file
BLPconverter
MirrorMachine
MPQ editor
WMO editor

1] Build the model before conversion
2] Conversion of *.obj to *.wmo
3] Add some doodads with WMOeditor
4] Add a doodadset
5]Additional informations

1) Use textures with transparency

2) Collisions

3) Adding lights

4) Coming soon and WIP...
6] Import/Export & edit wmos with Blender (by Skarn)

1]Build the model before conversion

To begin, you should know what you want to do. Do some research to find references that will help you give more "credibility" to your building. If you work in a particular architectural style, do not hesitate to find your inspiration from photography, if you are not in a specific style look anyway how Blizzard constructed houses, castles, and other buildings, so your model fits well and is coherent with its environment. The style of Blizzard is particular with its distortions and its side a little "used".

I will not teach you how to make 3D models (I'm not a professional) but I will give you some tips to make it a little bit "optimized" for WoW.

Here I am working on new models of houses for Kul Tiras. The island is in a Mediterranean / Tuscany theme, I did some research to see how the houses are built in these regions.

To be sure that your home is at the right scale, you can use (and it is even advisable) the human model humanmalescale.m2 (because it is the "basic" scale in WoW), but open it large enough for passing a Tauren because it must be accessible to all races (a Tauren can enter in a human house without much problem because of its wide input) . The goal is that the player's camera could pass without taking the door jamb in the head.

Don't forget to delete useless faces.

For your model is well composed, it takes several geosets, the number varies depending on the number of "large parts" (as the capitals for example, who have a lot, by districts, house interiors, etc ...). For mine, I based on basic models of human houses, so it will be two geosets: inside and outside.

For the instance of Gnomeregan the model has 73 geosets, because it's a big model. Each rooms and tunnels are geosets, sometimes divided into several parts.

This palace (from Phantomx) has 63727 polygons and 58997 faces, it's a really huge model ingame, but it has only 24 geosets.

In fact, the number of geosets really depends on how you organize your model, you can't have a wmo with only one geoset if it's a big piece because MirrorMachine can't convert it, you must divide it.

To have a better render with light and shadows, remember to apply the smooth shading on the concerned parts (mainly for use on curved surfaces, straight walls don't necessarily need it).

2]Conversion of *.obj to *.wmo

We will go to the conversion of the model. First, save it in .obj with the correct options as below.

Once done, you have two files: your model in .obj and a .mtl file with informations about materials and textures. Open the .mtl file with your notepad, you will see the names of materials and patchs of the textures used. Simply change for that of .blp's in the mpq patch. Do it for each texture. (Insert the extension .blp instead of .jpg or .png it's not really important because the converter will add it automatically)

When finished, save and close the .mtl and open MirrorMachine to convert your .obj in .wmo . Select "OBJ File " instead of "WMO v14 ", "Open File " to select and open your model, "Settings " to check that your options are much like on this screenshot. Click "Start Convertion", if your model is well built, it should work without problems.

After conversion, you must have your wmo + his group files (the 00 .wmo) corresponding to geosets, so I have two in my case.

To verify that the paths of the textures are good, open your wmo main file in 010 editor with wmo template. Here you can see that's good.

Once everything is checked, you just have to put it in a patch and test it.

Here is the result with a basic human house next for comparison.

3]Add some doodads with WMOeditor

A house that's fine, but without furniture it's a little empty.

We are going to fill it with WMOeditor and 010 editor.

This time, open the group file in which you want to add doodads. Do CTRL+F to open the search window. In Type you must have "ASCII String (a)" and write "NBOM" in Value, then click on Find All.

You will have a line including what you want that appears in the lower part of the window. Now do CTRL + I to open an insert window and look for the file containing the chunk for upgrading your sub -parts of wmo.

If you compare with your original line and it has changed, then it is good. Save it.

Repeat for each subpart involved in your wmo.

Time to get serious and open WMO editor . At first it can be a little confusing to use because it displays models with a mirror effect.

So once your wmo is opened, go to Root File to find the geosets that compose it. Click Edit to see their options, check "Has Doodads". Close the window and repeat on the other remaining.

We can finally start placing those famous doodads. Now go to Doodad, in the bottom box is the doodadset that indicates how many m2 it has in total. Most houses have several doodadsets, but I have not figured out how to add a second, I'm working on it.

Click on the [...] to open a window with a list of m2 similar to WoW Model Viewer. Once your selected an object, double-click on it, the window will then leave and you can place it in your wmo. Please note that the window does not close so far, it just comes up behind the first one.

To navigate through the window of your building, the controls are the same as Noggit. Once you have decided where you want to place your object, place your cursor there and made CTRL + V to paste it.

Here are the commands that allow you to move your objects as you like.

Once you're done, save your work in File>Save. Your wmo completed will be saved in the WMO editor folder, in world.

You just have to go in game to see the result.

Congratulations, you are with a furnished house!

4]Add a doodadset

Quote: Quote

So this time is about "how to add a doodadset"

When you got your model just after convertion you need to open your root_wmo and all of the group_wmo files in 010 Editor.

Root_wmo edition:

1) In MOHD chunk you need to set the nSets to "1" like this:

2) After edition of nSets you need to insert a MODS chunk. For this you need to find(ctrl+F) NDOM and insert "this". Then you need to find SDOM and change the value after it to 20(hexademical) like this:

3) Follow the steps which I've already explain to Met@

Quote

3]Add some doodads with WMOeditor

A house that's fine, but without furniture it's a little empty.

We are going to fill it with WMOeditor and 010 editor.

This time, open the group file in which you want to add doodads. Do CTRL+F to open the search window. In Type you must have "ASCII String (a)" and write "NBOM" in Value, then click on Find All.

You will have a line including what you want that appears in the lower part of the window. Now do CTRL + I to open an insert window and look for the file containing the chunk for upgrading your sub -parts of wmo.

If you compare with your original line and it has changed, then it is good. Save it.

Repeat for each subpart involved in your wmo.

Time to get serious and open WMO editor . At first it can be a little confusing to use because it displays models with a mirror effect.

So once your wmo is opened, go to Root File to find the geosets that compose it. Click Edit to see their options, check "Has Doodads". Close the window and repeat on the other remaining.

We can finally start placing those famous doodads. Now go to Doodad, in the bottom box is the doodadset that indicates how many m2 it has in total. Most houses have several doodadsets, but I have not figured out how to add a second, I'm working on it.

Click on the [...] to open a window with a list of m2 similar to WoW Model Viewer. Once your selected an object, double-click on it, the window will then leave and you can place it in your wmo. Please note that the window does not close so far, it just comes up behind the first one.

To navigate through the window of your building, the controls are the same as Noggit. Once you have decided where you want to place your object, place your cursor there and made CTRL + V to paste it.

Here are the commands that allow you to move your objects as you like.

Once you're done, save your work in File>Save. Your wmo completed will be saved in the WMO editor folder, in world.

You just have to go in game to see the result.

Congratulations, you are with a furnished house!

4) When you are finished with first doodadset you can add another one. For this you need only to edit the root_wmo file. So agan load it in 010 Editor. Go to MOHD and change the nSets to "2". Then ctrl+F NDOM and insert "this" just like we did earlier. But now it's time for some differences: when we added a new row for MODS chunk we need to change the name of our second doodadset like this:

Then you need to change the index of first doodad used in this set to summ number of doodads used in previous sets(if you already have 2 doodadsets and wanted to add third you set this value to number of doodasds in first set + number of doodads in second. etc etc). In my case I've added only second set when first have only 9 doodads used. So I've change the "first doodad index(FDI)" to "9":

That's it. You can save the file. Pack to mpq and load in WMOEditor.

5]Additional Informations

1) Use textures with transparency

In your buildings, you may be asked to use textures with transparency as a grid for example. On blender, you can see the transparency with the rendered mode or other stuff like that, and the material clearly indicates that there is transparency.

In game you will have opaque texture like all other.

To set the transparency, we have to open the wmo in 010 editor and look in the MOMT chunk. In it, find your texture, at the line " UINT32 blendMode " you will see that the value is 0, it corresponds to the opaque mode, just put 1 in place in order to transparent mode. It's as simple as that. Save everything and voila.

2) Collisions

Normally Mirror Machine manages well enough collisions each surface must have. If some places are little bullshit on collisions or you want to make collisions as Blizzard putting invisible walls to avoid falling into a ditch, or just block passages, well I'll tell you how.

Here is an example of collisions that Blizzard has done in Gnomeregan, most of the time there are "boxes" goshawks some pipes or rounded elements such as barrels and also invisible walls to avoid falling in some holes.

Collisions are in fact a double of the model but with the same number or sometimes fewer polygons and fully transparent. To do the same, you just have to use an invisible texture on your geoset.

Quote: Quote

If you have collision bugs likr falling under the textures, try to increase the polycount on the buggy place and reconvert the model. If you can't pass trough the door even if the geometry allows that, decrease the collision leaves size in the conveter.

3) Adding lights

a) Manually with hex editor.

You can look at the video made by PhilipTNG, it's pretty well explained.

http://modcraft.superparanoid.de/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=927

Maybe later I'll add this part in text with images.

4) Coming soon and WIP...

I wanted to wait a bit to publish my tutorial and put in more informations, but they need intensive work and research, so I'll put it later by updating this tutorial.

What I want to show you:

add music in the wmo
add footstep noises on the floor (wood, metal,...)
add more lights (glowing windows,...)
add liquids (water, lava, ...)

And here are some WIP screens:

6]Creating or editing WMOs in Blender with plugin

For this part, you can see the tuto made by Skarn about the WMO plugin for Blender, very useful and better than MirrorMachine.

___________________________________________________

I hope this has been helpful. Enjoy.

(ps: sorry for my bad english if there are strange sentences)

[Archive] Import M3 Heroes of the Storm to Blender

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:18 +0000

Hi guys, someone asked how to import models from HotS to blender, but this 3D software doesn't have a lot of plugins to do it. I'll share with you my researches and how I personally do it for me.

Tools

CascView
Blender
Addons for Blender (links in the section dedicated to this program)
Heroes of the Storm game folder
3DSmax 2012 and up (for the second technique)(if you take a lower version, you'll need an older plugin)
This addon for 3DSmax

Extract models from the game

First, you need to have the game installed.
Open the Casc Viewer, click on

Game Storage, and select your game folder.
Now, explore the folders and choose the model that you want. In my case I'll take Uther.

Now, right-click (or F5) on it to extract the model.

Choose your folder and save it.

Direct to Blender

I've searched on the web after some plugins for Blender, but have not managed to make them work. Some are too old, others not compatibles, etc...

The new M3 file format from HotS is a little bit different of M3 files from StarCraft, so SC modders are using a converter to make the models compatible with their tools..
Heroes M3 To Sc2 M3 Converter

Here's some M3 blender plugins, maybe you'll have more chance than me to make them work :
This one is 5 years old, so I think it can possibly work with older versions of Blender.
This second seems more complete and more up to date.
This last is normally compatible with the 2.71 version.

Sadly, no one was working for me (and I don't have time to test all blender versions with all plugins), so I've chosen the second solution.

EDIT (better solution):

Quote: On 12/04/2016 at 2:35 PM, Alastor Strix'Efuartus said:

Since Hots came out before Legacy of the Void for Starcraft Lizzard used their new MD34 format in Hots but they wanted to use it as well in LotV so flo made and propeth adaptation for his M3/IO to be able load SC2 LotV but since LotV has same format as hots you can now easly set up his Addon and import al working model just to Blender by one click

https://github.com/flo/m3addon

To Blender with 3DSmax
3DSmax part

I don't really like this program for now, I have not taken the time to understand all the tools, but I can use it for simple things.

So first, open 3DSmax. Click on the MAXScript pannel and choose Run Script.

In the new window, you'll see the scripts that you can run. You can just drag and drop the M3 addon in this folder, or add it manually in your program folder (in my case " C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2013\scripts " ). And open it.

Go to the right side of your screen, in the tools section. Switch to Utilities and click on MAXScript.

Scroll down to see the new pannel called TM's M3 Import (v2.1) and choose Select file.

Choose your file and open it.

Once your file is selected, check what you want to keep in the model (bones, animations, etc...) and import it.

Now you have your model.

You can export it in *.obj file, click on the Autodesk logo and choose export.

Choose a name and the file format to open in Blender later.

Blender part

Now launch Blender, go to import option and open your file. And here it is ! In my case, I have a blue pill (hitbox). Your *.obj will be like a *.fbx, it will keep all the informations like materials, bones, and animations. Just keep and remove what you want.

And voilà.

After that you can work on the modell as you wish. Let's paint Uther with abdalrahman9's technique. (all the red is the material color, not the weight paint)

And I rework the face to fit well with the human model.

I hope it was helpful, and good luck.

[Archive] Modeling in Blender using m2mod

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:17 +0000

Introduction

Unfortunately, there are no tools yet that would allow you to edit an M2 directly (although @Skarn is working hard on that), so it has to be converted into an editable format and then converted back. That can be done with M2mod, and after you've read this tutorial, you will be able to perform this incredibly complicated algorithm on an expert level.

This method is confirmed to be working in Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria, and, possibly, in Warlords of Draenor.

It has also been reported to not work in Legion, so I will soon edit this tutorial accordingly.

Tools and resources

Blender 2.77
M2mod Redux 4.6.1
M2mod Redux 4.5 (yes, you need BOTH versions of M2mod Redux) (they will be referred to as simply M2mod 4.6 and M2mod 4.5)
Ladik's MPQ Editor
Brains (I use version 0.0.2 alpha, but they aren't necessary anyway)

The Technique

Installation

Download everything listed in the "Tools and resources" section.

Install Blender.

Extract the archives of M2mod 4.6 and M2mod 4.5 (in different folders, obviously).

In the extracted M2mod 4.6, there will be another archive inside called "M2Mod scripts 1.2 Blender 2.73.zip". Move/copy it's contents into your Blender folder\2.77\scripts\addons\ (the default installation path is C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.77\scripts\addons).

Spoiler

Proceed to Model Extraction.

Model Extraction

Choose the model you want to edit. You can use WoW Model Viewer for that, but I can't make the tutorial that detailed.

Let's say I want to edit Varian Wrynn's model to make his chin even more brutal.

Open Ladik's MPQ Editor, select all the MPQs in your WoW\Data folder, tick "Merged mode" and press "Ok". Wait for the files to load.

Spoiler

Find the location of the chosen model (in my case it is Creature\KingVarianWrynn). Extract the model and the .skin files related to it: select the files > press RMB > choose Extract > enter the desired directory > press "Ok" > wait for the files to extract.

Proceed to M2->M2i Conversion.

M2->M2i Conversion

Open the folder with M2mod 4.6 and launch M2ModRedux.exe.

Choose the "Export" tab. In the InputM2 field browse the path to your extracted model and choose the .m2 file (in my case it's KingVarianWrynn.m2).

Spoiler

Press "Go!". Wait for the Status to say "Export done".

Proceed to Modeling.

Modeling

Open your Blender folder and run blender.exe.

Go to File > User Preferences > Add-ons tab > find "Import-Export: Import: WoW M2 Intermediate (.m2i)" and "Import-Export: Export: WoW M2 Intermediate (.m2i)" > tick both of them > press "Save User Settings" > close the Blender User Preferences window.

Spoiler

Go to File > Import > M2 Intermediate (.m2i) > find the converted model from M2->M2i Conversion, step 2 and press "Input M2i".

Spoiler

Edit the model however you wish.

Through hard work and skill, I made Varian look even more brutal than before.

Spoiler

Go to File > Export > M2 Intermediate (.m2i) > choose the path you want > press "Export M2I".

Spoiler

Proceed to M2i->M2 Conversion.

M2i->M2 Conversion

Open the folder with M2mod 4.5 and launch M2ModRedux.exe.

In the InputM2 field browse the path to the original model (in my case it's KingVarianWrynn.m2).

In the InputM2I field browse the path to your edited model (in my case it's KingVarianWrynn.m2i).

In the OutputM2 files choose the path and name of the new model (I'll just replace the original KingVarianWrynn.m2).

Spoiler

Press "Go!". There is no Status, so just wait.

Proceed to Patching.

Patching

I assume you know how to compile a patch using Ladik's MPQ Editor.

Enjoy your edited model!

Spoiler

Edit 17/05/18:

As per popular demand, I will add a section with Legion modeling instructions within the two upcoming weeks.

[Archive] Creating or editing WMOs in Blender

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:17 +0000

Introduction

Hello, Model Changing Network. In this tutorial I want to show you how to edit and create WMO models using Blender and happyhack's WMO scripts.

Before I start I want to say thanks to happyhack for making the WMO import/export scripts and Supora for doing multiple WMO research and telling me about the tricks of WMO editing. Special thanks to Miton for the hard work on updating the script. Also thanks to everyone who however contributed to the WMO related things.

Requirements

Here is the list of tools that are necessary for creating WoW World Model Objects (WMO):

Part 1. Installing scripts and configuring your Blender.

Download and install Blender. For the current moment the latest Blender version supports the scripts. Download happyhack's scripts and place them into addons folder inside of your Blender folder.

Blender\x.xx\scripts\addons\io_scene_wmo\

It should look this way.

Now start your Blender and head to File -> Blender User Preferences -> Add-ons -> Import-Export and enable the WoW Wmo format (.wmo). Hit "Save User Settings".

Now you are able to export and import .wmo models right from your Blender.

Part 2. Basics and peculiarities of WMO editing using Blender.

Those scripts are designed in quite a special way and it would probably be better to import some existing .WMO model from WoW to learn how to do things because the WMO from WoW will be already configured correctly by itself. For this purpose I am going to use a small human farm house. Before importing it you need to have all textures as .png images in the same folder as the model (subfolders are not needed, all in a plain way), otherwise the model won't have textures displayed.

In this tutorial I won't explain how to model things. I will just tell you how to make them work as a .wmo in the game. I will cover the unusual parts that are different from the normal Blender usage.

Materials

Those scripts do not support Blender materials or texture maps. They use their own special material properties called "WoW material" which are bound to Blender materials. There you can specify the texture you apply to the model by setting a path to it and a few other less important settings:

Transparent - the so-called ghost material. Makes the geometry invisible. Very useful for creating invisible walls and smooth collision for ladders.
TwoSided - one-layerd geometry can be seen from both sides just like two faces facing against each other. Useful for thin things like vegetation details or ropes.
Darkend - darkens the texture. Usually used on windows inside the building.
NightGlow - makes the texture glowing at night, Used for windows and lanterns, mostly in outdoor groups (can still be used anywhere).

There is a way to assign a texture to geometry in Blender without using materials. This won't work. So in order to assign the texture to the geometry you need to assign a usual material to it, go to material properties, find a tab called "WoW Material" and specify the needed settings there.

When you assign and tweak all of them, the textures will be visible in the game.

Collision

In order to create collision for a model you need to go to object data while being in Edit mode, select the geometry you want collision in and assign it to the vertex group called "collision" (if it is not there create it). Then check the "WoW collision" tab in the bottom.

WMO groups

World of Warcraft WMO supports two group types - indoor and outdoor. Outdoor is used for exterior objects and is influenced by the zone lighting. Indoor is used for interior models, interior parts of models. It is not getting influenced by the external light. If you are planning to use indoor groups in your scene you will have to create portals for them. I will explain how to make them later.

So, for setting group types, select every object one by one and set checkbox to "WMO group" and also specify a type of the group.

In the same preference tab you can also see various settings:

GroupName - anything you want. Useful for marking the groups, so it would be easy to find them if you ever need to have a look to the model structure, for example, in 010 editor. Please do not name as "Antiportal", internally reserved name that actually makes sense for the game.
GroupDesc - Group description. Anything you want.
DBC GroupID - connected with AreaID for WMO. Used to detect indoor groups for example, so server can dismount you when you enter them.
Vertex shading - enables vertex color export.
Use skybox - enables skybox in particular group. Skybox path is set on export.

Portals

Portals are used to connect indoor groups to outdoor groups or other indoor groups. If the portal is not set but indoor group is used, you will have the indoor group rendered only while standing in it, everything else will look like emptiness.

A portal is a plane that contains only 4 vertices and one face (polygon, not two triangles). Portals are created as separate objects (you can see them in outliner if you import some original WMO like I did with human farm).

Once the object is selected you can set a checkbox in "Object data" tab to enable portal settings and mark the object as a portal. Make sure that portal does not have "WoW collsion" and "WoW WMO group" checkboxes enabled, we need only "WoW Portal Plane".

Here you see two options: "First GroupID" and "Second GroupID" which are parent and child WMO groups. They can be indoor-indoor or outdoor-indoor. Which one comes first is not really important apparently. There is no need to create portals between two outdoor groups, but I guess you can do that too. Those ids are the number of the required group in the outliner list.

It is easy to find when you are working with a freshly imported original model. Though, in process of modelling those object names get messed up. In order to free yourself from calculating the number of the object manually by counting them, just export the scene and import it back. All the groups will be renamed properly.

If the portal is bugged ingame, use checkbox "Invert direction". For most cases the script detect direction automatically but in some rare cases you need to invert it. Just do for the bugged ones after checking the WMO ingame.

Creating custom portal geometry

There is nothing complicated in making custom portal geometry. Though remember that it should be precisely on the edges that connected groups share. So, for this door it will be this place (I painted two groups indoor and outdoor in two different colors for visual purposes):

If you move the portal from that point it will be bugged in game on camera rotation. Be careful with that.

So, in order to create a correct plane for a custom portal select one of the groups. Simply select 4 corner vertices and press "F". It will generate a plain between them. Then select this plane and press "P". In the opened menu choose "By selection". It will detach the plane to a separate object, so you can fill in the settings.

Vertex color

You can paint vertex colors on WMO groups. It is used for lighting particular places of a group. For doing that switch to "Vertex paint" mode. You can learn it by practice or by using some Blender tutorials or documentation. Though, I will tell you two important things about it. You can paint colors and you can fill everything with colors. For filling, pick up a color and press "Shift + K".

Indoor groups should always have vertex color, else the game crashes. So make sure that "Vertex shading" checkbox in "WoW WMO group" settings is enabled. If you group (either indoor or outdoor) has no vertex color data, but you set a check box, the model will be pitch black in the game. Be careful about it.

Export

There are some export settings to be observed when you are ready to see your awesome model in the game:

Operator presets - allows you to store "favorite" export settings for WMOs.
Use ambient - enables ambient lighting (indoor groups). The ambient color is defined below.
Fill water - makes you WMO fully filled with water. Useful for underground caves. Note that exterior parts will be "sunken" too.
Save source doodads - preserves the m2 doodadset that was imported along with the model.
Save source fog - preserver fog settings imported with WMO.

Thanks for reading! This tutorial is relevant to the recent version of WMO import/export scripts for Blender. If the script gets updated, the tutorial will be updated too.

[Archive] How to clone particles

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:17 +0000

I said it in january, I did it in June but it's finally here !

In this tutorial I'll explain to you how to clone particles from a model to another one with the help of ParticleCloner, a tool made by Tigurius. This tool is old, so it doesn't work with Cata+ models since the structure of the m2's has changed. I didn't tried with spell models from Cata and up (only doodads or creatures), maybe it's different and it can work, but not sure.

[b]EDIT : it can load WoD or Legion models, but it's pretty random, if the models are similars it can work, sometimes not, just do some tests and try.[/b]

What programs do we need ?

- ParticleCloner

- 010 editor (with m2 template)

What's the process ?

First, choose the particles you need in WowModelViewer on the model that you want.

For this tuto I choose particles from the spell Arcane_form_precast.m2 to put on 2 models, one without bones or animations, and one with both : misc_2h_pitchfork_a_01.m2 and sheep.m2 .

To make the transfert, select first the "destination" model, CTRL+left click to select the second "source" model and drag&drop on the application. (Always do backups if you did it in the wrong way, this program overwrite the original file ! )

When it's done, you'll have the particles at the same place of its original model.

Now, you certainly want to move the particles to the right place.

Open the m2 with 010editor and load the M2 Template. Go to the end of the file at the line " struct Particle ". You'll have all the informations you need, the attached bones, coordinates, etc...

Particles have the bone from the original model, for a simple animation like this, there's only one bone. For this fire, there's three elements (flames, smoke and sparks), so there's 3 bones. I used it for a Sargeras model.

You have to set the number of the bone where you want the particles to be. To move it to the right place, go to the " struct FloatVec3 pos " line. As you can see on the picture above, I modified the values on the x axis.

You can change what you want to have the good coords. Just try and retry with the help of WMV to visualize the result. For the sheep, I set the particles on bone 3 who's attached to the head.

This tool can copy the texture path of the BLPs used by the particles.

But when you'll go ingame to see if it works, you'll have little cubes instead of the texture. WMV can load them, but not WoW.

Why ? Because the tool does some mess too. In the " struct VModelFileName " 1 & 2, you have random symbols at " struct filename texture > string value " . Delete all and reload the template, or save and close the model. Do it for each particle in your model.

And it's finally done ! Good job, you can manage particles !

PS : for unknown reasons, my fork is invisible ingame after I added the particles on it. Maybe because the model doesn't have enough "informations" in it because it's a little model, or because there's no bones in the original model. I don't know. Maybe one of you will find the solution ?

[Archive] Ripping Vanilla Alpha Models (only geometry)

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:17 +0000

Hello Everyone. Many people have been asking me how I ripped the female troll from classic WoW alpha. Here is the tutorial. If done well, only takes 5 minutes.

With this method you will be able to extract only the geometry. It doesn't work for particles or animations.

Tested in WoW alpha version 0.5.3.3368.

Tools

-MPQ Editor (or any other MPQ reader)

-010 Editor

-My T-pose script

-Ninja Ripper (For this tutorial I used version 1.5.2)

-3D Studio Max (For this tutorial I used version 2012)

Step One - T-posing

First of all, you need to extract the model you want to rip with MPQ editor. Wow Alpha models are in MDX format, quite similar to Warcraft 3.

Open the model in 010 editor and run my T-pose script. This script leaves the model with just 1 animation (if you remove them all, the game crashes), and changes its animation interval to 0. This will set the model to its default unanimated state, making it symmetrical and easier to animate.

Once your model is T-posed, you have to put it back in-game. WoW alpha has local directory loading allowed, so it's quite easy. Just open the "Data" folder inside your WoW alpha client, make new folders following the original model's path and put the mdx inside of them. It's a classic model swap. You can test the model in-game if you want.

Step Two - Ripping

Now that the model is unanimated and T-posed we can proceed to rip it.

Open your server. Set the starting zone to Eastern Kingdoms. If the game is opened, close it.

Unzip Ninja Ripper. Go to the folder called "x86" and open NinjaRipper.exe.

In "EXE" select "WowClient.exe" inside your game folder.

In ARG type: -uptodate -windowed

It should look like this:

Click "RUN". The game should open.

Log-in (you have to be morphed into the model you want to rip) and open your command line (pressing "~" or "Ñ"). Teleport to the following coordinates:

worldport 0 -9999 -9999 22

(this code is for the Abyss2 emulator, it may be different in other emulators)

Why do we teleport to these coordinates? Because Ninja Ripper extracts every single model on your screen, and we need an empty environment to avoid a model overload.

Now, hide your interface with "Alt + z" (or the program also rips the interface) and press F10 to start ripping. The screen will freeze for a few seconds. When the game returns back to normal, close it. Your model has been extracted. Now you can close both the server and the game.

Step Three - Importing

There will be a new folder called "_NinjaRipper" inside your WoW alpha folder. Here you can find the ripped model. Every geoset is split into a .rip file. The textures are in .dds format.

Now, open 3D Studio Max. Go to "Maxscript-> Run Script" and choose the file "ninja_ripper_import_1.3.ms" inside your Ninja Ripper folder.

A new window will open:

-Check the "group" button.

-Go to input dir. Select the folder containing the ripped model.

-In "RIP File Nums" write: "0000-000X". X is the ammount of .rip files inside your folder (starting with 0). i.e. If you have 6 files, it's "0000-0005".

-Scale: 1.

-Rotate X=0. Rotate Y=0. Rotate Z=270

It should look like this:

Now, click IMPORT.

As you can see, the program ripped everything in the screen, even the sky, but since we teleported to an empty area, just have to delete the skybox.

And that's it! Now you can export the model to Blender or MDLVIS and animate it.

Notes

-Always open WoW alpha in windowed mode. Otherwise it can freeze your computer.

-Don't rotate your model in-game before ripping. Even without animations the game can distort the geometry (for example, the hip bones automatically stretch the mesh when you turn left or right).

-If you want to rip a full character model, play with the DBCs to show all geosets at once, or turn it into a creature model.

-If you don't want to use 3D Studio Max, there is an import script for Milkshape 3D, but the links on the official webpage are down.

[Archive] HD character model triangle reduction

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:17 +0000

Hello everyone! In this tutorial we will learn how to avoid losing geosets when porting Warlords of Draenor/Legion HD character models, although it's very useful for any other model. It's not a "completely noob" guide, so you must have some 3D modeling knowledge before starting.

This tutorial is ONLY for Blender 2.7 and beyond (The decimate modifier is included in older versions but it destroys the UVs).

Lets begin!

Triangle limit explanation

World of Warcraft models have a triangle limit of 21845. In Mists of Pandaria Blizzard managed to bypass this limit by creating geometry levels.

If you try to retro-port a model that goes over the polygon limit you get something like this:

The extra geometry is rendered as a mess of triangles in modelviewer and you will notice that a lot of geosets are missing in-game. Most people just delete or don't even try to fix them saying that it's impossible to make all geosets work in older versions of the game, but there is a trick to make it happen: reducing the polygon count.

What's decimate?

Decimate is a Blender modifier that allows you to reduce the polygon count of a mesh with minimal shape changes.

It used to work terribly in older releases but was redesigned in Blender 2.7 and now it's "magical".

We are going decimate some parts of the HD character models to decrease their polygon count and make them fully work in WOTLK (and Cataclysm).

TOOLS

-Blender 2.73 (or higer)

-M2MOD Redux 4.6.1

THE TUTORIAL

STEP 1 - DELETE VERSION INCOMPATIBLE GEOSETS

There are some geosets that won't show up in older versions and should be deleted to prevent a "polygon overload":

-Bare feet (All draenor HD character models)

-Cloaks from Mesh ID 7 to 10

-Belts with Mesh ID 3 (Pandaren Only)

-Wristband with Mesh ID 4 (Pandaren Only)

-Tabard2 (Pandaren Female Only)

STEP 2 - DECIMATING

Once you deleted all unnecessary geometry we are going to start with the polygon reduction process. Don't worry! It's super easy!

On the upper right corner of Blender you will find some information about the model. We'll be looking at TRIS. That's the current triangle count.

As you can see my model has 27060 triangles. Previously I said that WoW's limit is 21845, so some of its geosets will broke after conversion. To make it work properly we must get rid of some triangles until we reach 21845 tris or less.

I prefer to only decimate hair geosets. Sometimes you can't tell the difference between the normal and the low poly version because the texture does almost all the work as you can see in the picture:

It almost look the same, doesn't it?

Ok, to the actual process:

-Select the geoset you want to edit and go to Edit Mode. If nothing is selected, select all (shortcut: letter A).

-Go to the panel on the left and click on the "Remove doubles" Button (It's not always necessary, go to the TIPS AND CONCLUSION section for more info).

This option welds all the floating vertices together (we do this to avoid holes in the geometry).

-Now toggle object mode and go to the modifiers tab (on the panel on the right).

-1° Click on "ADD MODIFIER" and choose DECIMATE.

-2° Make sure the "Collapse" button is highlighted.

-3° Click on ratio, write 0.5 and press ENTER.

-4° Click on APPLY.

DONE! Now this geoset traingle count has decreased by half. Repeat with other hair geosets until your model reaches 21845 tris or less. Then export and convert to M2.

TIPS AND CONCLUSION

Sometimes when I applied the Decimate modifier I found holes in the geometry. That happens because some vertices are not welded. The "remove doubles" option welds all vertices that are close together and rule out the possibility of finding holes on your geometry after decimating BUT is a little risky because you don't have total control over the geometry and it can mess up certain small parts of the uv mapping. If you used it and the final result looks good, awesome. If not just undo your changes, skip it, apply the decimate modifier and weld the vertices by hand.

Personally I recommend you to always avoid the Remove Doubles option and merge the floating vertices by hand to obtain a better result. Handwork takes some time but in this case is the best choice!

However i want to clarify that this process is not 100% automatic, in most cases you will have to deal with holes and misplaced vertices, but it's nothing that can't be repaired in a few minutes

VIDEO (AKA "TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ")

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0y2md5QEo-...ure=oembed

If you have any question let me know.

Thanks for reading! Have fun!

[Archive] WoW Blender Studio | Complete guide

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:16 +0000

THE ADDON IS OUT OF DATE!

THE UPDATE WILL COME ~ ON SUMMER

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7rwmNDMMvT...ure=oembed

Introduction

Hello, Model Changing Network. In this tutorial I want to show you how to edit and create WMO models using Blender WMO addon.

Actually, this addon is much more than a usual import/export Blender plugin. Besides core functionality of importing and saving edited WMOs, this addon is also a powerful editor supporting nearly all (you still cannot create working transport objects with it) features of World of Warcraft World Model Object (WMO) files.

What is World Model Object?

World Model Object or just a WMO is a special compound 3D structure used in the game World of Warcraft for making buildings, dungeons and other big complicated 3D objects. It does not only contain traditional 3D model parts as geometry, UV maps, materials and so on; but it does also support features like liquids, complex lighting system, portal culling system and much more.

Donation

The provided software is available completely free of charge, however, if you want to support the development, here is Skarn's PayPal account.

He is also working on a similar Blender plugin for .M2 models. So, by helping him, you can speed up the development of two tools at once.

Currently supported features:

Geometry

Materials

Lightmaps

Double-UVs

Collision

and more.
Portals
Liquids
Lights
Fogs
Doodad Sets
Various WMO settings

Requirements

Blender

WMO addon

WoW Model Viewer

BLPConverter

Part 1. Installing addon and configuring your Blender

Download and install the latest Blender version (2.78c or newer).
Download WMO addon and place it into addons folder inside of your Blender folder:

blender\x.xx\scripts\addons\io_scene_wmo\

Download WoW Addon Pack which contains WoW Model Viewer and BLPConverter and place it into your WoW Tools folder:

In this tutorial I will use this path:

D:\Work\WoWTools\

Step 1. Enable the WMO addon

Step 2. Fill your tools paths

Always click on Save User Settings button after editing the addon preferences

Now you are able to export and import .wmo models right from your Blender

Part 2. Basics and peculiarities of WMO editing using Blender

This addon is designed in quite a special way and it would probably be better to import some existing .WMO model from WoW to learn how to operate it because the WMO from WoW will be already configured correctly by itself. For this purpose, I am going to use a small human farm.

In this tutorial I won't explain how to create models in Blender. I will just tell you how to make them work as a .wmo in the game. I will cover the unusual parts that are different from the normal Blender usage.

Quick WMO Tab

This tab is the easiest way to edit your model. There are few main sections:

Display - used for displaying different object types on the scene
Add to scene - used for adding different object types to the scene
Game data - used for loading your WoW MPQ patches from your data folder (Part 1 Step 2)
Selected - used for converting selected objects and materials
Apply - used for applying different actions to objects
Doodads - used for doing different actions with the doodads on the scene

Material

This addon uses his own special material properties called WoW Material which are bound to Blender material. There you can specify the texture you apply to the model by setting a path to it and a few other less important settings:

Shader

used for producing special WoW render effects

Terrain Type

used for producing footsteps sounds and footprints

Blending

used to control texture blending on rendering

Texture 1

diffuse texture (object)

Texture 2

environment texture (blending)

Flags

used for defining special render options for the texture

Emissive Color

the color of the object when no light falls on it

Diffuse Color

base color of the object

Flags

Unlit

disable world lighting effect

Unfogged

disable world fog effect

TwoSided

render from both sides

Exterior light

ignore local WMO lighting, use world lighting instead

NightGlow

used for windows to glow at nighttime

Window

has no description yet, used for windows

In order to assign the texture to the geometry you need to assign a usual (Blender) material to it

Go to material properties, find a tab called WoW Material and specify the required settings there:

When you assign and tweak all of them, the textures will be visible in-game

Collision

In order to create collision for a model you need to go to Quick WMO Tab and click on Quick Collision:

That's all! One button click - pretty easy, isn't it?

WMO groups

World of Warcraft WMO supports two group types - indoor and outdoor.

Outdoor is used for exterior objects and is influenced by the zone lighting. Indoor is used for interior models, interior parts of models. It is not getting influenced by the external light. If you are planning to use indoor groups in your scene you will have to create portals for them. I will explain how to make them later.

For setting group types, select your objects and click to Convert selected --> To WMO group and also specify a type of the group:

In the same preference tab you can also see various settings:

Name - Object's name is saved into the files and is only used for development purposes, for example, when you inspect your model using a 010 editor. Please do not name as "Antiportal", an internally reserved name that actually makes sense for the game.
Description - group description, which is also used only for development purposes. Name it whatever you want or leave blank.
Place Type - select type for your group: indoor or outdoor.
Flags - enable/disable different flags for your model. You can always see the description of each flag when you hover it:

DBC GroupID - connected with AreaID for WMO. Used to detect indoor groups for example, so the server can dismount you when you enter them.
LiquidType - fills this WMO group with selected liquid.

Portals

Portals are used to connect indoor groups to outdoor groups or other indoor groups. If the portal is not set but the indoor group is used, you will have the indoor group rendered only while standing in it, everything else will look like emptiness.

A portal is a plane that, in most cases, contains only 4 vertices and one face. Portals are created as separate objects (you can see them in the outliner if you import some original WMO like I did with human farm).

If the portal is bugged in-game:

Step 1. Select your portals

Step 2. Use Bake portal relations button

Step 3. Use Set portal direction button with Auto option selected

If it is still bugged, try one either Positive or Negative unless the portal starts working. If it does not help, make sure that relation baking algorithm has bound the correct WMO groups to the portal object.

Creating custom portal geometry

There is nothing complicated in making custom portal geometry. Though, remember that it should be precisely on the edges that connected groups share between each other.

So, in order to create a correct plane for a custom portal select one of the groups. Simply select 4 corner vertices and press F. It will generate a plain between them. Then select this plane and press P. In the opened menu choose By selection. It will detach the plane to a separate an object, so that you can fill in the settings.

If you move the portal from that point it will be bugged in-game on camera rotation. Be careful with that.

Step 1. Convert your plane to WMO Portal:

Step 2. Bake portal relations.

Step 3. Set portal Auto direction if set otherwise.

Done! Much easier than in previous addon version. Just make your plane and click on these 3 buttons. Easy peasy

Vertex color

You can paint vertex colors on WMO groups. It is used for lighting and coloring particular places of a group. For doing that switch to Vertex paint mode.

You can learn vertex painting features by practice or by using some Blender tutorials or documentation.

Don't forget to enable Vertex color flag in WoW WMO Group tab else the color won't be seen in game. The flag is forced on export for indoor groups, though.

For filling, pick up a color and press Shift + K

Better than Photoshop, right?

Fog

The fog effect mimics the scattering of light in a fog. Objects in the distance become less contrasting and acquire a fog color. In night scenes fog is usually dark, in daytime - whitish or slightly bluish, just like real fog. In Blender WoW Fog looks like transparent sphere.

In order to add a fog, you just need to click on Add Fog button in Quick WMO Tab:

Fog has some simple options to work with:

Ignore Radius

(probably) makes fog global

Inner Radius

a radius of fog starting to fade

Farclip

anything further away from the eye than the far clipping distance isn't displayed (it's too far away)

Nearclip

anything closer to the eye than the near clipping distance isn't displayed (it's too close)

Color

fog color

Underwater farclip

same as Farclip, but under the water

Underwater nearclip

same as Nearclip, but under the water

Underwater Color

fog color under the water

One-button-action. Again?!

Water

Water - used to make WoW liquid in your model. In order to add water you need to click on Add Water button in Quick WMO tab:

You can't scale water! Just edit your water size (subdivisions) in left bottom corner when you're creating it.

WoW Liquid group has own options:

LiquidType - type of liquid in WoW. There are lots of variants to work with:

Color - water color

WMO Group - parent group for this liquid. Use an eyedropper or type the WMO group name to select a parent object.

Flags

If you switch to vertex paint mode when the water plane is selected, you will be able to set flags to quads that control the rendering of the water. We do not yet know what most of them means, so if you figure that out, please tell Skarn, he will rename the buttons.

There is an easy way to work with water. Just tweak your options to get a perfect result.

Scale

This function is used to add a visual placeholder for taking some information about your model proportion.

Just click on the button:

You can edit your Scale Type in the left bottom corner when you're creating it:

Batch Types. Lightmaps. Blendmaps. Second UV

Batches are groups of faces which are used to accelerate rendering. World of Warcraft WMO supports two batch types - Batch A and Batch B.

Batches are usually used only for interior groups.

Batch A is influenced by the outdoor (zone) lighting. Batch B is not getting influenced by the external light from outdoor groups.

Lightmaps - used to accelerate light rendering. Normally used in Batches A in order to blend the geometry with world lighting. See the entrance of the human farm in order to see how it works.

Blendmaps - used to accelerate texture blending. If your material is using one of the TwoLayer shaders, you enter a second environment texture path, which will blend with the diffuse texture according to lightmap values.

SecondUV - used to define the UV map for double texture materials. Just create a new UVmap, edit it and bind to this property.

Step 1. Enable Edit Mode

Step 2. Assign faces to vertex group

Step 3. Select your group in batch vertex group

In order to work with Lightmaps:

Step 1. Create vertex group, enable Weight Paint Mode and do your edits

Step 2. Select your group in Lightmap vertex group

Weight Paint palette:

Weight = 1 - red color. Maximum effect

Weight = 0 - blue color. Nothing happens.

You can learn weight painting features by practice or by using some Blender tutorials or documentation.

Blendmaps are painted by the same way. Just try it by yourself.

Not so long for making your model looks realistic. Just keep improving your skills at it.

Doodads and models importing

This function is used to import WoW models (.M2 and .WMO) directly from WoW Model Viewer in a very fast way.

Add WMO - used to import the last selected .WMO model from WoW Model Viewer. Imported model will be just a usual Blender object to be edited.

Add M2 - used to import last selected .M2 model from WoW Model Viewer. This model is just a visual placeholder for real WoW model. Imported model will have the property WoW Doodad assigned.

WoW Doodad has own options:

Path - real WoW model path in your patch

Color - Doodad color (overlayed effect)

Accept Projected Texture - keep textures with enabled Projected Textures in WoW game options

Adjust lighting - applying local doodad lighting

For WoW Doodad you can edit only position, rotation and 3-axes scaling.

You can't scale one or two axes. You won't probably be able to see the changes correctly in game in that case.

Doodadset

Doodad sets are used to group doodads on your scene into sets. The model can have multiple sets which can be chosen in the map editor to be displayed in one particular WMO instance. Normally they are used to create different furniture blocks to add some variations to the appearance of the model. See the human farm once again as an example. Another common usage is to create the normal set of furniture and the broken set of furniture, see Westfall packs of human buildings.

There is always one global doodad set which is displayed along with the selected set. Global doodad set cannot be turned off, however, it may be empty. See the global doodad set in human farm once again - it contains a few crates, some barrels, and smoke coming from the chimney. Those doodads are displayed on all the sets available. If you do not create a global doodad set, empty one will be created on export automatically.

In order to add doodads to the doodad set:

Select them and click Add to doodadset, there you will be able to create a new doodad set, create a new global doodad set or add to existing doodad set. Choose whatever you need.

Export

There are some export settings to be observed when you are ready to see your awesome model in the game:

Operator presets - allows you to store "favorite" export settings for WMOs.
Export selected objects - makes the exporter export only selected objects on the scene.
Fill texture paths - automatically fills empty WoW Material texture paths based on texture filenames. Does not change the properties, in contrast to the same operator from the Quick WMO panel.

Part 3. Balkron's tips & tricks

1. The fastest way to add anything

You can press Shift+A hotkey to add anything to your scene very fast:

2. Disabling black vertex color

As you can see, sometimes when you import models, they are black as night. So you can disable this problem: just create new vertex color layer and fill it with white color by Shift+K hotkey:

3. Disabling doodads lines

4. My tips for viewport

You can switch your Viewport Shading options:

My tips:

modeling - Solid + disabled Textured Solid

Simplified white models without textures. Easy to work with.

bug-finding - Texture

That way I can easily find UV-bug or geometry-bug, because there is no shading, but it keeps the textures.

overview - Solid + enabled Textured Solid + white vertex color layer

It ts the best way to take a look at your model without distortions.

difficult model parts - Wireframe

Just enable and select what you want without clipping and camera moving.

5. Numpad buttons

I'm always using numpad buttons to navigate my models:

Num 1 - front view

Num 3 - right side view

Num 4/6 - horizontal rotation

Num 2/8 - vertical rotation

Num 5 - orthographic mode

Num 7 - top view

Num 9 - flip to top/bottom view

6. Hotkeys

Always try to learn Blender hotkeys. They will speed-up your work significantly.

7. Other addons

You can download other addons to improve your workflow. I recommend F2, Magic UV, Loop Tools and Quad Unwrap.

8. Customize it

Always keep making your workflow to be better. Custom hotkeys, themes, tabs placement - just try to make Blender work with you in the fastest way.

9. First person navigation (from Gratural)

One more trick - Fly mode. Perfect tool for overwiev and camera move across your WMO's.

Hotkeys:

Shift+F - enable mod

WASD - moving

Shift - moving acceleration

Space - jump to target face

G - enable gravity

LMB/Enter - disable fly mode

Scroll Up/ Scroll Down - increase/decrease speed

10. Balkron's gifts

I decided to share my settings-files with you. There are custom settings, hotkeys and theme.

I hope you will find it cool and helpful

Settings

startup.blend

userpref.blend

Setup:

%AppData%\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\x.xx\config

Theme

balkron.xml

Setup:

Blender\2.78\scripts\presets\interface_theme

Thanks for reading! This tutorial is relevant to the recent version of WMO addon for Blender. If the addon gets updated, the tutorial will be updated too.

startup.blend

userpref.blend

balkron.xml

[Archive] Creating texture animations

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:16 +0000

TEXTURE ANIMATION: THE TUTORIAL

Hello everyone.

In this tutorial I will explain how texture animations work. It's based in WotLK but it's exactly the same for Cata and beyond.

We will add a basic texture animation to this test model:

(you can download it in the Tools section)

This method is quite useful to simulate waterfalls, energy beams, fire and much more.

If you want to add an advanced opacity mask, check my other tutorial.

TOOLS

-PyModelEditor.

-My test model.

Take in mind that it can be done in 010editor as well, but it's a little more complex. Once you know how texture animations work with PyModelEditor, feel free to explore it a little further creating multiple animation layers with different renderflags or adding them with 010editor.

THE TUTORIAL

Run PyModelEditor and open the test model (TexAnimPlaneTest.m2).

1- Go to GlobalSequences.

2- Write "1500" (without the quotation marks) and click on "OK". This is the ammount of time our animation will take. 1500 milliseconds is 1,5 seconds. The more milliseconds, the slower the animation will be.

3- Go to Edit UV Animations.

4- Click on "Add" to create a new texture animation.

5- Once the new texture animation is created, go to "Edit Translation".

6- A new window will open. Go to "Add AnimSub".

7- Change the Interpolation to "Linear".

8- Apply the global sequence you just created.

9- Paste this line:

0:{ 0.0 , 0.0 , 0.0 }
1500:{ 0.0 , 1.0 , 0.0 }

Now, click on Ok on all the windows you have open to apply the changes.

10- Go to Edit Materials.

11- Select the material of the mesh you want to add the texture animation (in this case, the test model only has one) and assign the texture animation you just created.

You can now save your model. If you test the model in-game, you will notice that the texture animation works fine, but there is some kind of dragging bug and it doesn't loop correctly:

This happens when the texture is not tiled. To tile the texture, open the model with PyModelEditor, go to Edit Textures and check both "X-Wrap" and "Y-Wrap":

This should fix the problem! (you can also do it in 010editor by changing the TextureFlag to "3").

TL;DR VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MUnEp1dAcE...ure=oembed

UNDERSTANDING THE ANIMATION SEQUENCE

Now that you managed to make your own texture animation, you may be wondering how to reverse the animation, or move it sidewards instead of upwards.

The key is in the animation line we added in PyModelEditor:

As you can see, each line has 4 segments: time frame, horizontal movement, vertical movement and an unused stack of data that we will never touch.

In frame 0, your texture stays on its default pose (0, 0, 0), but in frame 1500 it moves vertically (0, 1, 0) and goes back to where it started (it loops).

"1.0" is the ammount of times the texture loops. If you change it to "0.5", the texture will start moving but will return to its defult state when it has traveled half the texture. If you replace "1.0" with "-1.0", the texture will go downwards instead of upwards.

So, basically, "1500:{ 0.0 , 1.0 , 0.0 }" means that in 1.5 seconds your texture will loop vertically once. Another example: "3000:{ 0.0 , -1.0 , 0.0 }" means that in 3 seconds the texture will loop vertically once (but downwards).

If you put "1.0" in the horizontal segment instead of the vertical segment, you'll see something like this:

And if you want it to move to the corners, you simply need to put "1.0" (or -1.0 if you want it to go to the opposite direction) in both the horizontal and the vertical segment:

CONCLUSION

Texture animation is quite easy once you know how the numbers work. You just need some practice and experimentation to master it.

If your model has many .skin files, PyModelEditor won't manage the texture animations so well. The best tool for those cases is 010editor. I recommend you to start with small models first.

This tutorial was requested many times. Hope you find it useful.

[Archive] Blend mode overrides (vertex alpha-like effect)

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:16 +0000

TUTORIAL: BLEND MODE OVERRIDES

(I'll try to update this tutorial often with new information)

In this tutorial I'll show you how the blend mode overrides work in WotLK (or "vertex alpha" as some people mistakenly call it).

This system was implemented in the Burning Crusade, but Blizzard has been using it heavily since Wrath of the Lich King.

Basically, the game loads two textures for a single texture unit, allowing you to use one of them as an opacity mask to avoid hard cuts. You can make many awesome effects:

(It's just a few planes with texture animation and a texture mask on top)

It's an advanced model edit. We don't have the right tools and the documentation is almost non-existent. However the result is really satisfying and it's actually possible to do it by hand.

Before starting, keep in mind that this system is not well documented. Most programs like Blender or PyModelEditor can break your model if you load them after applying this effect, so, leave the blend mode override for the last.

TOOLS

-PyModelEditor.

-010editor + wow templates.

-IMPORTANT: "Second UV channel creator" script.

-My test model.

THE TUTORIAL
1) Open your model with PyModelEditor:

-Open your model in PyModelEditor and create a texture animation. You can follow my TUTORIAL.

-Then, add the texture with the mask. In this case, we will use this one: World\TexAnimPlaneTest\BlendEffect.blp (included with my test model). It is VERY IMPORTANT that the texture with the mask is bellow the main texture.

You can now save your model and close PyModelEditor.

2) Open your model with 010editor:

-The main problem when trying to apply this effect is that your model must have a second UV channel. I made a script that clones the first UV channel into the second slot. Open your model in 010editor and run my "Second UV channel creator" script. If your model has blend mode overrides activated but doesn't have a second UV channel it will look invisible in-game.
Note: make sure you are working on "OVR" mode before running the script. You can change it by using the Insert Key or by clicking INS/OVR in the status bar.

-Change the renderflag that your model will use to additive alpha (4) or blend (2). Otherwise, the new blending mode won't work (will look black).

3) Now is when this starts to get complicated:

-Go to the header and change the GLOBALFLAGS to 8. When you do this, the blend mode override activates.

-Run the m2 template again and you should get an error message. Load the model anyway. Go to the bottom and a new block called "struct new_mapping" should appear:

Go to the bottom of your file and write a line of "0". Copy the position of the line. In my case it's "1312".

In "nAltMapping" write "2". In "ofsAltMapping" write the position of the line you just wrote:

Run the m2 template once again and it should load correctly. Two new lines will appear under ofsAltMapping. Write "1" in the first one and "4" in the second:

4) Go to TexAnimLookup. There should be two TexAnimLookup: -1 and 0.

The first one controls if the first texture moves. Replace -1 with 0 to make it animated.

The second line controls if the mask texture moves. Replace 0 with -1:

5) Open your model SKIN with 010editor:

-Go to texunits and change the D4 of the mesh with blend mode override to 2. This will force the game to load 2 textures for that tex unit. It will load the one referenced in the skin and the one bellow in the M2 list (texlookuptable).

-In "texanimid" there should be a 0.

You can now test the model in-game. It should look like this:

As you can see, it uses the opacity of the second texture and it doesn't affect its texture animation. Without the blend mode override system it's impossible to make something like this.

Feel free to play with the texture and create new effects.

Remember that the mask texture must have an alpha channel or your model will look black.

If you want to download the mask texture I used for THIS image, you can download it HERE.

TL;DR VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/embed/yf7fha0NaT...ure=oembed

EXPLANATION

If the GlobalFlag of your model is 8, the game triggers blend mode override for your model.

You activate the blend mode override in the .skin file, by changing the D4 of your desired texunit to "2".

When the GlobalFlag is 8, the way your M2 works changes completly. The order of your textures becomes relevant.

The order of your textures will start to be read in pairs. Here is an example:

Also, the order of "TexAnimLookup" should mirror the order of "TexLookupTable". The ID 0 of "TexAnimLookup" controls the texture animation of the texture with ID 0 in "TexLookupTable". I know it's kind of complicated, but play with it for a while and you will find out how it works.

The values you write in nAltMapping (1; 4) are the renderflags of the blending mode. It means that the base texture will be applied as additive alpha (4) over the opacity map (1). If you think it looks too bright, change it to 1,1.

MODELS WITHOUT HEADER SPACE

Some models don't have space in their headers for the blend mode overrides extra block, therefore it overrides the model name data.

What you can do in this case is opening the model in PyModelEditor and then saving it. Every time PyModelEditor saves a model it remakes the header from scratch and adds some free space for the extra header.

However, the model name block is not necessary. You can just override it with the "new_mapping" block if needed and it won't cause damage to the model itself.

UV CHANNELS

If you want to create a custom second UV channel, download THIS SCRIPT I made.

As you can see, it copies the UV channel 1 of a second model to the UV channel 2 of your first model:

The idea is simple: make your model. Then clone it, modify its UV map in Blender and copy it to the second UV channel of the original model.

This second uv channel method is used in many models, such as the fire coming out of Agrammar's eyes. You can map geometry into existing or smaller textures without having to create a new one.

Here is an in-game example of a model with two different uv channels:

After the script, the second uv channel is smaller and centered around the heart shape, but the first one along with its texture remains intact. The result is a bigger mask, leaving the original texture and UV untouched.

IN CATA, MOP, WOD AND LEGION

If you want to use this system in Cataclysm or Mists of Pandaria, the process is quite the same. Some steps are different.
(Thanks to Soldan for giving me some information)

-Instead of changing the GLOBALFLAGS to "8", you should put "128" ( or "0" if your model doesn't cast shadows). The "struct new_mapping" block won't appear, and it's not necessary, so you can skip the Step 3 completely.

-Additionally open the .skin file, go to the texunit with blend mode overrides and add "16401" to the "order" field (aka "shader"). That number replaces the "struct new_mapping" block.

If your model looks too dark, put "16404" instead, and it will look brighter.

[Archive] Add new hairstyle in Legion

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:16 +0000

This tutorial is in French, but you can perfectly see the images. Maybe a day, I'll make this tutorial in English w/o my poor French voice. It's not difficult, you just need to look for understand, I'm sorry for my bad English tho. The tutorial is only for LEGION, I think I'll don't work with TLK because of M2 limits.

The tutorial is only a tutorial for adding in game, not in Blender. If you dont' know how to place a hairstyle on a race mesh, just go away please. This is only the technical part, not the Blender part or whatever. All the tools you need, you'll see them in the video. I hope you'll understand with the video.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pcP4wqqBOl...ure=oembed

Roccus tutorial in English

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8MSxkq7s3n...ure=oembed

Enjoy!

[Archive] Collections to WOTLK

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:16 +0000

Tutorial in Text

I am too lazy to make it beatiful in here so go have fun with my bland .txt

Video <- It takes awhile to upload, then for full hd so check back in 1 hour

thanks to @everyone for helping me along the way especially ~alter.Ξgø#7193 ❤️

[Archive] [MDX to M2 Conversion] Animation Repairs

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:15 +0000

Hey everyone, ive been learning a lot recently specifically with converting some MDX files made for Warcraft 3.

To preface, im starting this guide with an already-converted .m2 file from a source .mdx, i used the Lazy Converter and assigned animation ids by hand.

So you've managed to convert your model, but now all its animations are jittery and look like garbage! Well not a problem, this is something we can *somewhat* easily fix on our own, without the help of something like Blender or other Model Editors.

To start, choose a specific animation you want to clean up first, in this tutorial ill be using my models "Attack Unarmed" animation, locate the animation ID using 010 and a matching .m2 template from the Animations block, refer to the animation by the ID referenced here:

We can see here, my animation ID is 17, with that in mind we can move on to the Bones

We need to pick out specific bones based on the animation itself, use Wow Model Viewer and find the animation you selected previously. In the below gifs, you'll see the offending animation in all its glory, ill be specifically targeting the leg bones for this tutorial

Now in WMV go to View>Show Model Control, uncheck "render" and check the "bones" box until you can see a visualization of the bone structure:

The given render of only the bone connections is useful in finding specific bones in the structure

Picking out the right bone can be difficult, but usually you can use the parent structure to find the bone you want

In my case, the legs are connected directly to the waist, and visibly we see 4-5 bones in each leg chain

With the given image, we can see that bone #2 is the waist, we can see all the bones connected to bone #2 in the image as well, with smaller offshoots being bones 8-11

That being said, we have two chains of 5 bones each starting at bone 2, those ranges in my case are: Bone #3-#7 and Bone #12-#16

Now that we've narrowed down where we need to make changes, lets open up a bone and see whats inside. 9/10 times the corrupted data is within the Rotation data for the animation. Bones store each animation separately in its own block like this:

Right here we've located the anim id #17 data for a specific bones rotation data. Not all data is corrupted, but some definitely is let dig a little deeper to see exactly what the problem is:

As you can see by the giant red boxes, some of the data here does not follow a regular "pattern", specifically, look at the 4th value in each line, these are labeled as the "W" value. These values should always line up near each other, at least with the same polarity.

In order to fix this, we simply need to target the corrupted lines (the ones in boxes) and swap their negative and positive values.

Heres the end result here:

Now my data is following a regular pattern, with emphasis on the W values being in-line

Congratulations! If you've made it this far, you just repaired the animation data for a single animation on a single bone! Great job!

Lets keep working through each leg bone, fixing each set of corrupted values so that the "pattern" is intact:

This bit of data corruption follows a different pattern. You'll notice some 0 values and some that are .000061, these are essentially null values, we need to leave them alone, that being said, the W and Y values here are corrupted. Lets fix them like this:

Looks much better now, keep working through the structure until you finish all the bones in the set.

Now we should be good to go, lets save the .m2 and try it out in-game or in the model viewer.

Excellent! Were on our way to a fully working model! This process takes absolute ages, and is a bit tedious for beginners. I strongly suggest enlisting some help, perhaps 2 could split animation data down the middle and merge corrected data together when finished

Thats all for now, happy editing!

[Archive] WoW Blender Studio - Tutorial Series for details | 01

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:55:15 +0000

Hi! The other day I posted in the modding discord Tomkek's DeathSaber with some added effects, some people have asked there, and privately how to do the light border and other things, so, here we're, I'll publish some short videos on how to accomplish it, the videos assume you've some knowledge already of Blender and WBS, but I show and write all the shortcuts and how to reach the goals, also I include the .blend file, so you can test over the same prepared model.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ARFRizotHO...ure=oembed

Official M2 Build from WBS discord: https://discord.com/channels/40204919974...8595694602

My edited M2 Build for exporting second UVMap (will be useful for the next tutorials): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iBwH7UT...share_link

WoW Blender Studio Discord: https://discord.gg/8rskkJwC

Thanks to Tomkek for giving me permission on using his model for this, visit his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Tomkektv

DeathSaber_RequiredFiles.rar