UE1 - UT Making PSK and PSA files with free software...

[Ahrun]

First of all, greetings. I managed to get a copy of U.T. (after visiting every gaming shop I could find, it wasn't easy considering this game is OLD) and while I was browsing the net searching for U.T. related sites I've found the skin city and I got interested to make Models for this game.

However, it seems the softwares used to make Models aren't free and I decided to search for free programs that might be suitable to make them (I don't have the cash (and PC power) to use 3D Max and Maya, and I can't afford to even buy Milkshape for now. I've found Anim8or and Blender (they have support to export 3DS files which are required to make models if I got it right. Correct me if I'm wrong). But I've learned today about the files called PSK and PSA which are required to do models and the only free program that can export those file types is Blender and even so with a plugin which wasn't tested for the U.T. version yet (does someone did it before? it worked?). Does someone knows if there's another way to make those files other than using Blender?

Thanks.

 

[Zur]

I'm not sure but I think PSK and PSA are for UT2003/UT2004. UT should quite happily import 3d studio max files (which may need to be converted to an internal format).

 

[meowcat]

I pretty sure that the .psk and .psa format did not change much (if at all) between the UT(99) version and the UT2kx version (the bone/vertex influence weights were ignored iirc for UT99, a vertex was given a weight of 1.0 to whichever bone it was most heavily weighted to). Since Blender is free you should just give it a try and see if it works.

For the record, MilkShape3d is really quite cheap (I paid something like $20 US for it back in 2001) and supports UT99 (both .psk skeletal and vertex ._d3d animation models) and UT2kx skeletal meshes (statics as well). I have used it for all of my modeling work in both my UT(99) mods (C4) and UT2kx mods (Tango Down, YARM, TD Vehicles). I highly recommend it for basic character/prop/decoration modeling (though its utility is quite limited for UT3 work....).

 

[Pyronious]

UT99 uses Bones, therefor *.PSA(being the animation) and *.PSK(being the model) files are needed.
Oldunreal's 227 patch for unreal1 uses bones also.

all newer games use PSA and PSK too.

If you want to go free i'd use Milkshape 3d, since its easier than 3dsmax, which are both 30-day trail. Milkshape is easier to learn, so you can use it 'longer' becuase the learning path is much shorter.

P.S.: try using Gmax. its free, and almost the same as 3dsmax. not quite sure for the PSA and PSK export tho.
For 3dsmax, you can use the ActorX plugin.(same for Maya.)