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Modifying Model Animations in Warcraft III
Tools needed:
Fadi Mounir’s MDX Importer/Exporter for 3D Studio Max.
YobGuls file converter to convert MDX files to MDL and vice versa.
MPQ Viewer to extract files from warcraft MPQ archive.
WinMPQ to add new files to warcraft MPQ archive.
3D Studio Max 5. (It might work with 3D Studio Max 4)
Tutorial:
As you might already know, modifying the look of the models in Warcraft III was hard enough. Now modifying the animations for any model is not an easier job. For this reason, before you begin modifying your models, the first step is to decide which model you will be editing. Looking at the models in the World Editor might help you make a decision. In this tutorial, I will be modifying on of the standing animations for the Grunt. Here’s how to do it. You begin by extracting the model you want to edit from the War3.mpq file. Launch the MPQ Viewer.
The data file is a text file containing a list of all the files in the archive. You can download that list of the internet or even have a program generate it for you. After you open a data file, click on the “Open archive” button to open “War3.mpq”. Locate the “grunt.mdx” file. You’ll find it in the “Units\Orc\Grunt\” folder. 
After locating it, click on the “Save” button to extract it.
Now launch 3D Studio Max. Go the utilities panel, click on the “MAXScript” button, click on the “Run Script” button and choose “MDX Importer.mse”. Now expand the “MDX Importer” rollout and make sure you check the “Create Skinning” check box. This will apply the model’s animations to the model meshes.
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| Click on the “Import MDX File” button and choose the file that you extracted earlier (grunt.mdx). In the animation sequences list box, choose “Stand – 1” and click “Apply Selected”. You should now see the grunt playing the Stand-1 animation. This is the animation sequence that we will modify in this tutorial.
We’ll modify the arm animations. Select both objects: Bone_Arm1_R and Bone_Arm1_L and delete all their key frames because we’ll make our own animation. Let’s add some rotation to the arms. Set the key filter to rotations (see picture), move the time slider to the first frame and click on the button that has a big key on it (see picture). This will create the first key frame in the animation.
Be careful: DO NOT make any modifications to the animation ranges or the frame rate. If you do, the animation sequences will not be correctly exported. When you make modifications to the rotations, it’s better to rotate in the XYZ directions at the same time. Try not to rotate on one axis, then on another, then on the third axis. Sometimes, your animations will not be exported correctly. This is very rare though. Also, keep in mind that the majority of animations in Warcraft 3 are looping animations. This means that you should make your last frame look exactly like the first one. Try not to make copies of existing keys. Always make new key frames even if many frames will have the same model pose. Here’s what the model looks like now after adding some animations to the arms:
 It’s now time to export your work. Simply click on the “Export Animations” button. This will export all the bone translations, rotations and scalings in a text file format that is very similar to the MDL file format (text version of the MDX file).
Now here comes the hard part of the job. Convert the MDX file you extracted earlier to an MDL file using YobGuls’ file converter. Open both the MDL file and the text file that was exported from 3D Studio Max. In this tutorial, we only made modifications to two bones: Bone_Arm1_R and Bone_Arm2_L. For each bone, select the translations, rotations and scaling values from the exported text file and press CTRL-C to copy them to the clipboard.
 In the MDL file, replace the original translations, rotations and scaling values with the ones in the text file. Simply select these values and press CTRL-V to make the replacements. The MDL file should now have the same values as the text file.
 You only need to do this for the bones for which you made changes to their animations. When you’re finished with the replacing, you need to convert the MDL file back to its original MDX format. Again, use YobGuls’ converter and make sure that the new MDX file has exactly the same name as the original MDX file (in this case, grunt.mdx).
The last step is to add the modified file into the game. Launch WinMPQ and open “war3.mpq”. Click on the “Add” button and select the new “grunt.mdx” file that we created.
You have to replace the old file in the archive with the new one. For this reason, you have to add the file in its right folder (in this tutorial, it’s “Units\Orc\Grunt\”).
Now the only thing left to do is to PLAY he game itself. If you have followed these steps correctly, here’s how the grunt should look like in the game:
This is the first mission in the game, right after Thrall’s vision. You can see two of the grunts (the one on the left and the one in the back) playing our modified animation. Take a look at this also: I modified the animation of the archer that appears in the Night Elf campaign!! That Night Elf is now inviting you to use her bow and to play her campaign! Cool huh??
 Note: For the game models, you will only see the modified animations if you set the model details in the video options to high. To have the same animations in the low and medium levels, you will have to replace the “grunt.mdx” file found in “War3_low.mpq” and “War3_Med.mpq”. These two archives are inside “War3.mpq”.
Tutorial made
by : Fadi Mounir
E-Mailelectrichead__ss@hotmail.com
Got Questions or Comments? Direct them to the Fadi Mounir
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