Brain Trepaning@Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 9:30 pm :
z1corvette created a very under-mentioned EXE found in the now-defunct Chex Trek mod. This EXE allowed me to scale existing md5meshes via rescaling their animations. Afterwards, all that was required was a new model.def and a new AF.

Image

I feel this EXE has potential that has been overlooked, so I am bringing it to the forefront in hopes z1corvette posts it and any information regarding it in this thread.



Marineofuac@Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 9:58 pm :
oh man thats awsome!!!
when rescaling, i always had to rerig the model in max!

your saying with this you just pop the model in then bam? insta big?



Brain Trepaning@Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 11:42 pm :
Like all things, there are issues, but with my rigging, it worked perfectly every time and was as simple as writing the required .BAT file, which creates x.md5anim from y.md5anim with a specified xyz scale (xyz are independent). As it is, however, it does not rework the mesh itself, so the mesh gets squashed or stretched, not rescaled proportionately. Only the "bones" get resized. Still, knowing the limits and planning to work with them allows for this to be a really cool tool.



Brain Trepaning@Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 12:28 am :
Here is a link to a ZIP of the files 10k

It says scale_biped but I used my own bone rigging.



revility@Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:54 am :
Would this allow to scale up a hellknight? If so, i could do that to the barons of hell for demon xp 2 and ruiner.



Brain Trepaning@Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:08 am :
Just a thought: Use md5scale.exe to rescale the anims by x%, then scale the rigged-mesh in a 3d program by same x% and export a proportionately scaled md5mesh to fit the anims. I can see an issue that may not work already (scaling rigged-mesh bones but may not be an issue, being the export is an md5mesh), but it's just an idea I don't have time to test beyond this.



zl1corvette@Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:35 am :
hehe you've drawn me out of lurking

Marineofuac wrote:
when rescaling, i always had to rerig the model in max!

Yeah that's what I wrote this, mostly because I could not figure out how to do it at all in max.

revility wrote:
Would this allow to scale up a hellknight? If so, i could do that to the barons of hell for demon xp 2 and ruiner.

I tried it and it crashed. The code behind the program isn't so good, looking back at it I found myself saying wtf a lot... But I managed to update the code fixing other bugs too and now it works :) I made hellknights 5x in size and they looked pretty good still.

@Brain
glad you found the tool useful. It can scale meshes too not just the animations, so it shouldn't make things look deformed. If you scale more in one axis then another it can start to look bad fast though.

Another thing you have to watch out for is if the def file has an offset for the model (because origin bone is offset) you need to scale that by the same amount otherwise it'll be all off center.

There is another mode to md5scale that reorders the joints in a mesh file. I don't even remember why I wanted to do this, I think I had changed something in a mesh file and then max had the order exported different order not matching the anim files. Anyway it's there, should still work.

I uploaded the updated code to this post. I included the source code, the exe, and two scripts for running it. One is the batch script Brain had, and the other is a shell script. Both are for scaling a model and it's animations.

Usually to convert a whole set of animations and models copy them to a subdirectory called backup or something like that. Then from the subdirectory you could do something like this to scale a mesh by 1.5x
Code:
md5scale -s 1.5 1.5 1.5 -m mymodel.md5mesh > ..\mymodel.md5mesh

animation
Code:
md5scale -s 1.5 1.5 1.5 -a mymodelidle.md5anim > ..\mymodelidle.md5anim

best way is to use a script otherwise you'll go crazy with all the files.

edit:
das big hellknight
Image
without an updated AF he goes pretty crazy when he dies though :/



Brain Trepaning@Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 7:46 am :
That is awesome, thanks for the updates!

I will make a fantasy wishlist in the event of any future development:

1. GUI

2. Scale ASE/LWO

btw, a new AF and DEF file for scaled monsters take about 10 minutes to make, a small amount of time once the original model is in place. Add some SKIN files and the character numbers grow very quickly.