Half-Life Tutorials

Making a World model for Half-Life - by Rat

 

Well first off, as I was preparing to write a tutorial on modeling, I scoured the net for what was all ready out there on modeling a character for use in a game. What I came up with, was a truck load of information on the benefits of using this or that method, and not a whole lot on telling you how to create a model. Oh I am sure there are some really good ones out there, but you want it now, right?

A download of this entire Tutorial in HTML is available at: http://www.drawcad.com/upload/HL-World-model-Tutorial.zip.

Note: You will need to have Internet Explorer version 4.0 or higher to view this on your computer as it was written in the Microsoft CHM help file format.

This tutorial will hopefully be the first of a series, starting with the basis of what is involved in the process of creating a model, it's skin, skeleton and animation, all in this order. As a final installment we will be showing you how, by a step by step detail, to get the model into Half-Life.
What we will be making is a world model for HL, that is the things you see laying on the floor in a deathmatch or the single player game that you can pick up, or it may be placed there with the intent of killing you! (Take for example the grenades and other types of explosives that you throw in TFC).
For this Tutorial, we will be using the popular Milkshape 3d by Mete Ciragan. I plan on making a Max 3d tutorial as well.

What is needed to complete your model

You will first off have to get the Milkshape 3D program by Mete Ciragan. This can be found at the following web site: http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/index.html Another program that we will be using for the extraction of Valves and other add on packs and Modifications models is called Qped. You can find this at: http://www.planetquake.com/qped/. Also, you will need a paint program to make the "skin" of your model. There are several out there that you can use. Some use Photoshop as a basis for their creation of a "skin." These tutorials will be using the popular Paint Shop Pro for it creation of a "skin." You can find an evaluation of this program at: http://www.jasc.com/. Another program that will be useful in your creation of models is the Half-Life Model Viewer that can be found at: http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/hlmv/

Although it is not required it is sometime done among modelers to hand sketch the model, (some even go as far as fully illustrating the model on paper first), then scan this into the computer for a background to create the model by.
Below you will see and example of what I did for a mod for a health rune, that was to be as detailed as most player models. I sketched out my idea and then scanned it into my comp and used it for a background to create her.

mt-fig1.jpg
Figure 1.1 Screen shot of completed model in Milkshape 3D


In this first tutorial, we will be learning how to flesh out a low polygon world model. I feel this is a good basis to eventually come to a point to be able to do character animation. You must be able to learn the basics before being able to create fantastic warrior models that you see in 3d games like HL. A world model does not do much, and its associated compiling is relatively simple using its qc file. A qc file stand for Quake Compile, and in this file, all the necessary information is kept to instruct the compiler on how to create the model for use in a game. We will be discussing this after we get our model ready for compilation!

You can download the completed file to view how this knife was made at: http://www.drawcad.com/upload/knife2.zip You will need Milkshape Version 1.4.0 to open the Ms3d file that is contained in the zip, even though some of the figures show a lower version of Milkshape. (Hey I am to lazy to retake some screen shots in the newer version!) If you are reading this and a new Milkshape comes out since the writing of this tutorial there is a menu selection to convert an old msd3 file.

To do this click on Tools->Convert Old MS3D File Format.