Some interest in the subject arose recently, so I decided to write a little tutorial on how you can get a model from WoWMV to Lightwave.

Required Programs
Step 1: Choose Your Model
Step 2: Export Your Model
Step 3: Converting Your Model
Step 4: Fixing The Textures
Step 5: Loading Lightwave
Step 6: Preparing Your Model
Step 7: Send to Layout

• Biturn
• Lightwave 3D (I'm using v9)
• Photoshop (possibly Gimp too, haven't tried it)
• WoWMV

The first and obvious step, pick the model you want to export. For this tutorial, I will be using the Baby Beholder model from the (currently) 2.1 test patch. In the file list on the left, select Creature > Babybeholder > babybeholder.m2. If there are more than 1 skins for the model, select the one you want in the dropdown. Now, select the pose you want by picking an animation. When you find an animation that has your pose, pause it and use the frame slider to get it exactly how you want.

Head on up to the File menu, and pick Export Model. Next, find a folder to export the model and textures to. This can be a temporary folder, since these can be deleted after it's converted for Lightwave. Pick a name to save the file as (this will affect the model name, and the texture names).


This is the most important part of this step: Change the Save as Type dropdown to Milkshape 3D (*.ms3d).


Click Save. From this point, you can close WoWMV.

Fire up Biturn, and navigate to the folder you exported the model to on the left directory tree. In the middle section, select your model (models have a blue background, images are red), and it shows a preview on the right. There are some Lightwave-specific settings in the Options of Biturn, but the default should do fine. With your model selected, change the Destination format dropdown to Lightwave 6.5+ (.LWO). Don't pick the other Lightwave reference, it doesn't seem to work with later versions. The Destination Filename will change to a .lwo, and be located in the same directory as your initial exported file. Click Convert! and once it's done, you can close the program.

You don't really have to do this step, but I think it just has better results in the end. Open up your Image editor (Photoshop/Gimp), and load the newly created textures (they will have a .tga extension). In all of the textures, delete the Alpha channel. On all files that end like this: ..._a.TGA, do the same (delete Alpha) and flip the RGB channel vertically. Save all of the files (if it asks, use 24 bit), overwriting the originals, and close your editor.

Not everybody has their Lightwave content directory setup the same way, so do this however you do the rest of your stuff. Put the TGA textures in your Images content folder, and the .LWO in your Objects content folder. Load up Modeler. Open your new model (Content/Objects/Baby_Beholder/Baby_Beholder.LWO in my case), and you'll see it complain that it can't find the .TGA file. No problem, just click Yes to selecting an alternative file, and go to the folder where you moved them at the beginning of this step, click Open. If you got all the textures in the same folder, you shouldn't see any more messages, and you'll have your model loaded.

First ting to do, Merge Points. The default keyboard shortcut is m (lower case). Use the default settings, and just press enter when the dialog comes up, and it will tell you how many points are removed. Now would be a good time to save it (default keyboard shortcut s). Now open your Surface Editor (F5), and look at the list of surfaces. Go through each one, and see which ones have the T button highlighted for the Transparency channel. If it is, click the T, and for the blending mode dropdown, change it from Alpha to Normal, and click Use Texture.

If you feel like trying to make a higher-poly version, you can try Subdividing the model (shift-d). Try each one (Faceted, Smooth, Metaform) and see which one has the best results. If you get a good-looking one, try to SubPatching it (tab).

Now send the Model to Layout using the dropdown menu in the top-right corner.

The rest will be coming soon.