Why is this so hard???

[Zaphrod]

I have been looking for a tutoral on how to get Milkshape models into UT as a player model and I have so far only found one tutoral so far at machinima but it only explains how to get them into UTMS which does me no good.

Is there anyone here who has successfully gotten a Milkshape model into UT? I would greatly appriciate if you could tell me how to do it. I have made 2 models which I want to get into UT and would make many more and even consider joining a Mod team If I could figure this out.

Also, I can find some complicated toturals on getting 3DSMax models into UT so how much difference would there be getting the MS models in?

[Fuzzpilz]

I got one weapon model into UT because that's the only one I've tried yet.
Milkshape can save directly to Unreal engine model files, which 3DS can't. Of course, there are 3D Studio plugins for that, and Milkshape doesn't support the new skeletal animation format.
When you save an Unreal model in Milkshape, you get three files. <name>_d.3d, <name>_a.3d and <name>.uc. You now have to create a directory for your package. There you create two sub-folders: one called "Classes", in which you put the .uc, and one named "Models", where you naturally put the .3d files and the textures, which need to be in palettized PCX format.
Then edit the .uc to contain the animations you want and to rename the pcx references in it to the proper files and texture names.
Afterwards, if you don't want to write any real code yet, leave it like that and edit your UnrealTournament.ini. Add a line to the EditorPackages, namely "EditorPackages=<whatever your package name is>". Your package directory needs to have that name, by the way. Then run "UCC make" from the command prompt. Afterwards, you can start UnrealEd and if there weren't any errors while compiling, you should be able to see your new mesh in the mesh preview window (because EditPackages also makes the ed load the package).
Note that whenever you change anything, you have to delete the .u file UCC generated.

[Zaphrod]

"Then edit the .uc to contain the animations you want "

You mean the animations that I do In Milkshape wont work with UT?

I am a Novice at this and your explainations are a little complicated. I could use the Skarrj Animations but they still wouldnt be right. I thought Milkshape did skeletal animations, I mean when you animate in MS you have to create a skeleton and move it around the way you want it.

Weapon models arent as complicated as a player model and they dont need animation. I have no access to 3DSmax but Milkshape was cheap and It is easy to use. I would have thought they might have done a tutoral on UT but so far they only have HL and Quake. I could do the HL model and then convert but that seems way too complicated.

[ChrisToth.hu]

They will work...
The .a3d file will contain the animations of your model when you export. In the .uc file you will have to inform the engine about the animations.

[Fuzzpilz]

You should use the animation names used by the PlayerPawn class you are subclassing. That way, you won't have to rewrite all the functions.

[ChrisToth.hu]

I think http://www.utskins.com has some tuts if you need them...

[Zaphrod]

Maybe this is all to complicated for me. If I could follow a 3DSMax tutoral then I would be fine. What is the difference between the way 3DSMax exports file and the way MS does it. Is there alot of difference? I guess I could try and follow the 3DSMax tutorals and see what happens but I would have to spend the time animating 700 frames and find I can figure out how to get them to work.

Anyway, thanks for all the replies. I really appriciate it.