MilkShape 3D

My MilkShape brings all the boys to the yard...

MilkShape 3D is a 3D modelling program that allows you to make 3D graphical models (called "meshes") that you can integrate into any graphics rendering engine. Primarily, these meshes are almost always used in any 3D game. The mesh itself is simply a set of vertices with different vectors attached to them, creating "faces" (think back to Geometry - a face is pretty much the same thing as a plane). When joining several thousand faces together, we create a 3D model thats supposed to look like something - a person, monster, weapon, spaceship, power-up Item - you name it. MilkShape 3D is a program that allows you to construct something like that.

MilkShape 3D is not a free program; it is commercial, and so it is expected that you buy it, you hoser!

     

This is an example of the kind of work that you would be doing with MilkShape 3D. This model that I am working on is supposed to be a person...don't laugh. Whats pretty handy about MilkShape is that you can paste an image onto the background of your workspace and use it as a template. I was lucky enough to find a front and side view (corresponding to alternate windows in MS) of a male with ideal proportions (lucky me), and so I simply used that as a stencil to trace all of my vertecies onto. As you can see, it's not the most realistic, but more complexity can be added by the amount of verticies you add; this model is fairly rough, but is still easily identifiable.

So can I create games with MilkShape 3D?

No; MilkShape does not create games. Instead, MilkShape creates the ever important meshes that games need. Do you remember the Ogre tutorials from the last link? (probably not because they're not there yet!) Well, "Mesh" is the root parent of entity (!!!) This means that when we place an entity into our SceneNode with Ogre...we're actually placing a very specific type of mesh in there. THAT MEANS that when we're all done with creating our model in MS3D, we can place that mesh into OGRE as an entity, and OGRE will render it on the screen for us (because thats what OGRE's are very good at...they render the $!@% out of things!) VERY cool stuff indeed! And, if we were so inclined, and with a little help from an SDK and extra libraries, we can add our model (or in programming terms "port," or "import") our new model into an already existing game, and so the mesh will be an extension of that engine. Imagine playing "Half-Life" or Quake 3 that features your own 3D model in it - be it something as simple as a new skin (new colors or textures on an existing model), a new bad guy entirely, or a new weapon. This is all possible with 3D modelling programs such as MS3D.

Make no mistake: MS3D is not a very expensive program. The graphics designers who work for reputable game companies like Valve, Blizzard, UbiSoft, Bungie, or any of the other large gaming companies - they all work with software that costs thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars. Also keep in mind that these guys have had oodles of training, and that they could model our pants off anyday. BUT, MS3D does allow us low-level programmers (I think of us as "hobbyists," that is, until we become employed) to gain a window into the realm of 3D programming and see how it is done.

Again, I'll try my best to create tutorials for this application, just as I have done with the others in the past. These tutorials will rely heavily on visuals, so pardon the slow page-rendering times, as 3D modeling gets very complicated very quick. It has a pretty sharp learning curve, however, and you'll get used to the front-side view dynamics of the software.