Model-Making Tools

Here is an update of the GwynFlex A09 executable (gwynflexa09a.zip, 120kB) that fixes bugs in loading and saving poses, deleting and replacing triangle groups, and that caused a 'crumpling' effect in the output flexmodels.

To use this update you will also need revised motion capture data (mocap2.zip, 1.8MB).

Download both files, and unzip in the same directory as GwynFlex.

If you know the name of a Heretic II animation frame (like conjure11 or draw5), you can use this program to export Corvus or Kiera in that pose as a 3D mesh. You can even export each mesh node (head, arm, etc.) as a separate mesh.

The mesh is saved in Alias / Wavefront .OBJ format, an ASCII format that includes vertex defintions, texture vertex definitions, and triangle definitions with texture mapping. If you need to convert to another format, check out the Crossroads 3D program - it's freeware, and it works!

One new command line flag has been added since the October release.

-C outputs Corvus mesh node names ("left arm") instead of NodeX.

For those that don't have it. A standard Microsoft library used by GwynFlex. It goes in your c:\windows\system folder (1MB).

The motion capture data posted in October had several problems that caused models' heads to tilt strangely and appear backwards.

Also, the motion capture file released in October was named mocap.bin; this version is named mocap.spz so that it can be used directly for loading poses into GwynFlex. If you don't know what the poses look like, you can preview them using QMView (see below).

Download this file, and unzip it into the same directory as GwynFlex.

This is the very useful qmView tool that came in the Heretic II Toolkit, with Gwynhala's quick fixes for two bugs:

• The skin overlay button now shows all of the triangles in the model rather than just those of the first meshnode.
• The Properties menu item for meshnodes now correctly shows the number of triangles in the node rather than '&d'

This tool is really useful for previewing models and skins. Thanks so much to Josh Weier, the original author of qmView, for his permission to post this modification.

The archive includes the modified qmView.exe and the modified source code and resources needed to rebuild it. If all you want is the tool, just copy the original version of qmView somewhere safe and extract qmView.exe to your base/toolkit/designer/qmview folder.

Please note that a previous version of Gwynhala's quick fixes to qmView (available from The Ghost Shrine at HereticII.com ) was unintentionally built in "debug" mode, causing mising DLL errors on some systems. The problem has been corrected in this version.

GwynFlex is the name of the Heretic II model animation tool from Gwynhala. GwynFlex has a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that allows you to import a mesh and define a skeleton for it.

This is gwynflexa09.exe, the latest and greatest version, which was used to produce the Q2Gal model. It still has some bugs, but the user interface is nearly golden and the flexmodel output is usable - as demonstrated by Q2Gal.

Be sure to download the latest Motion Capture Data as described above, and the new version of QMView, for use with this version of GwynFlex.

GwynFlex A09 can import meshes from 3D Studio (.3ds), WaveFront (.obj), and Quake 2 (.md2) files. To generate a model, you import a mesh and a starting pose, and adjust the standard skeleton's bone lengths and positions to match your mesh. Then you assign portions of the mesh to each bone, and make the mesh poseable. The final step is to generate a working flexmodel (tris.fm file) using the Corvus motion capture data to animate the mesh.

The GwynFlex A09 archive includes the skeleton and mesh assignments used to animate Q2Gal, starting from the Salute08 pose in the original Quake 2 female model. The original Quake 2 model is not included (but it comes with every free demo version of Quake 2).

You can use a joystick, mouse, or keyboard for 3D positioning, and you can select from several camera views.

Note that pressing the SHIFT key or the CONTROL key changes the way that the mouse or keyboard controls work. The keyboard controls are:

Key	Normal	Shift	Control
Left arrow	X--	V--	U--
Right arrow	X++	V++	U++
Up arrow	Y++	Z++	R++
Down arrow	Y--	Z--	R--
Keypad Plus sign	Z--
Keypad Minus sign	Z++
Page Up	V++
Page Down	V--
Home	U++
End	U--
Insert	R++
Delete	R--

R is rotation about the X axis. U is rotation about the Y axis. V is rotation about the Z axis.

If you use a mouse, the Shift and Control functions modify the behavior of the mouse similar to the description above. Just click on objects to select them.

When you import a mesh, it comes in as a wireframe, and you can't move it. Use the Model->Make Solid menu if you want to move or rotate the model. Also, you can use the bones only if you've selected an heirarchical skeleton.

More tips in the readme file, and on this site as more complete versions of the program are released.

A snapshot of source code for Gwynhala's motion capture utilities, including changes based on the new FlexModel information from Raven. All the source code needed to build the Styx1-B model. The project has been reorganized to make it easier to build individual utility programs, like the .obj frame exporter or the model builder.