[Balkron]

Hi Model-Changing!

Right now I preparing to record my modeling tutorial series in Blender and upcoming WoW Blender Studio release (WBS still in develiopment, there is no release date). 

The point of this topic is 'help'. I need your help, dear modders! 

For these series I decided to make a plan, where each lesson should cover one separate field of knowledge:

Green - approved

Yellow - approved, but there are some unresolved moments

Red - raw proposal

General Parts:

1. Inrtoduction and requirements. Basic 3D modeling workflow in general
2. Blender modeling guide. UI, tools, modifiers
3. Tips&Tricks. Hotkeys

WMO Parts:

1. Basic principles of environment design
2. Basic principles of stylized modeling
3. Blizzard's WMO analysis and differences (Classic -> WotLK -> BfA)
4. WoW Blender Studio. WMO scene type workflow
5. Up-res an existing WMO (Classic or WotLK to BfA level)
6. WMO creation. Part 1: Creation workflow. Modeling  (human house?)
7. WMO creation. Part 2: UVs and textures (human house?)
8. WMO creation. Part 3: Interior, doodads, portals, settings, export, check in-game (human house?)
9. Complex WMO creation. Part 1: Approach. Planning. Blocking out (city quarter?)
10. Complex WMO creation. Part 2: Modeling (city quarter?)
11. Complex WMO creation. Part 3: UVs and textures (city quarter?)
12. Complex WMO creation. Part 4: Separate WMO parts export feature (coming soon in WoW Blender Studio)

M2 Parts:

Props (short form of 'Properties') - static scene object in 3D environment

1. Basic principles of props creation
2. Basic principles of stylized props modeling
3. Blizzard's M2 props analysis and differences (Classic -> WotLK -> BfA)
4. WoW Blender Studio. M2 scene type workflow
5. Up-res an existing props (Classic or WotLK to BfA level)
6. Prop creation. Part 1: Creation workflow. Modeling (sword?)  I would like to hear what are you interested in. If needed, I can make few props for different puproses.
7. Prop creation. Part 2: UVs (sword?)
8. Prop creation. Part 3: Handpainting  (custom texture painting tutorial)
9. Prop creation. Part 4: Settings, export, check in-game (sword?)
10. Particles (torch? waterfall?) I would like to hear what are you interested in. If needed, I can make few props for different puproses.
11. Basic principles of character creation
12. Basic principles of stylized creature and character modeling
13. Blizzard's M2 creature analysis and differences (Classic -> WotLK -> BfA)
14. Up-res and existing creature (Classic or WotLK to BfA level)
15. Creature creation. Part 1: Creation workflow. Sculpting in ZBrush (high-res model creation) (ogre?/beast?/new race?)  I would like to hear what are you interested in. If needed, I can make few creatures or characters for different puproses.
16. Creature creation. Part 2: Retopology
17. Creature creation. Part 3: UVs
18. Creature creation. Part 4:  Using ZBrush for stylized texture creation. Handpainting
19. Creature creation. Part 5: Rigging. FK/IK (forward and inverse kinematic). Controllers
20. Creature creation. Part 6: M2 Animation Editor (WBS). Animation
21. Creature creation. Part 7: Settings, export, check in-game

Optional tutorials:

1. Concept art: Buildings, environments
2. Concept art: Creatures, props

I want to hear from you any proposals about each lesson that listed here. If you want to learn something, but there are no tutorial here, please share your thoughts and ideas in this topic!

 

[Mr. DK]

Hey, cool you make a series. Really looking forward to this! Here are my twi cents:
For 10: 

• Steps how to approach complex WMO's (like a city)
• Changing complex WMO's (like rebuilding Stratholm)

General:

• Maybe a tutorial about animation
• Sculpting and Handpainting sounds interesting!

[FiftyTifty]

13 hours ago, Mr. DK said:

Hey,

cool you make a series. Really looking forward to this! Here are my twi cents:

For 10: 

• Steps how to aproach komplex WMO's (like a city)
• Changing komplex WMO's (like rebuilding Stratholm

General:

• Maybe a tutorial aboutAnimation
• Sculpting and Handpainting sounds interesting!

Aye, having something about animations would be ideal. I've been searching for a while, and can't find anything on editing/creating animations for .WMO and .M2 objects.

[bfx]

Not sure how feasible particle based tutorials would be for waterfalls. But that would be nice to see.

Other then that maybe on how to approach larger wmo builds/cities planning etc. 

[Balkron]

On 7/22/2019 at 10:39 AM, Mr. DK said:

• Steps how to approach complex WMO's (like a city)
• Changing complex WMO's (like rebuilding Stratholm)

18 hours ago, bfx said:

Other then that maybe on how to approach larger wmo builds/cities planning etc. 

I really like your idea about how to approach complex WMO. Most of the people wants to know how to start making something big and global, e.g. a quarter of city or complex modular building.

Added complex WMO proposals

On 7/22/2019 at 10:39 AM, Mr. DK said:

• Maybe a tutorial about Animation

On 7/22/2019 at 11:53 PM, FiftyTifty said:

Aye, having something about animations would be ideal. I've been searching for a while, and can't find anything on editing/creating animations for .WMO and .M2 objects.

How can I forgot about animations and M2s... 

Added M2 proposals

Added animation proposals

18 hours ago, bfx said:

Not sure how feasible particle based tutorials would be for waterfalls. But that would be nice to see.

Yeah, particles is a neat thing  people wants to know and I'm capable to teach people how to make it in the beautiful and correct way. We just need to wait until Blender 2.8 particle branch will go to master-branch.

Added particle proposals

[FiftyTifty]

Speaking of particles, I noticed that there are significant slowdowns in scenes where there's many of them being rendered, which I assume is due to the increase in draw calls. Optimization would be a great topic to deliberate on; does the engine use instancing at all for particles, and if so, how do we ensure that it's active? If there's no instancing, is there a way to fake particles, such as by having the particle texture have an alpha map on a gradient, with the animation just being a bunch of skinned polygons at different positions being moved by a bone?

For making .m2s, one thing I've noticed is that the assets are very unoptimized for draw calls, as there's little in the way of texture altases. Now, with the sheer number of texture variations, it is unfeasible with Direct3D 9 to have large textures, as VRAM is mirrored into RAM. One solution, would be to make use of vertex colours, with the texture being completely greyscale. Is that possible with WoW's engine? If so, that would be a good topic to cover; using vertex colours to create coloured variations without having to create an individual diffuse map for each variation.

[irachkom]

m2 Camera/Lights is missing.

[Vuruba]

Can I ask if there is already a date? I had just found the news here and am very happy to read that it continues. Before, I had read the great guide and was sad to read that the addon is outdated.

[bfx]

You can join the discord channel https://discord.gg/PtC8Tdd for the development of the addon, @Skarn posts updates on the development frequently. I'm not certain if he's set a date for release yet however.

[Zehlendorf]

It would be interesting to see how to move the animations of an existing creature in wow to another creature that you have in non animated format such as a .obj, weight painting, and also how to add particles to the .m2.

[weeeyu]

你的教程地址在哪里？

[Furioz]

Been going through the list and experementing a bit with wow blender studio's and every single thing on this list looks really intresting!

[Moonsong]

I agree with the above! I'm having trouble exporting to .wmo objects though. The python error points to use of meshes. I'll dive into that further but there is little information to be found yet so I am truly looking forward to this tutorial with WMO-subjects in particular.