• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Resource Deprecated Guide #2 - ignore thread

NewChallenger

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jun 24, 2021
Messages
32
Location
Miami, FL
I'm trying to break down and really learn Bizz's method to import models into SSBM, but I'm totally new to Blender / 3D Modeling. I thought text-form like this would be easier than a 40 min video. I plan to create and upload screenshots if this post is helping people, but I also heard people don't use Smashboards much anymore..... :,( but I like it here and I think it's important to have recorded forums for longer guides.

SHOUTOUTS TO
Bizzozeron, Team Akaneia, & all you awesome Melee hackers

DOWNLOADS:

BLENDER - https://www.blender.org/ (3D Modeling Editor)
Source Plugin 4 Blender - http://steamreview.org/BlenderSourceTools/ (Blender plugin for Melee models)
mExTool - https://github.com/akaneia/mexTool/releases (CSS / Char imports / Organizer)
HSDRaw - https://github.com/Ploaj/HSDLib/releases (Main extractor for Chars, etc)
Melee Toolbox - http://toolboxcdn.lmao.rip/libzip/MeleeToolbox-5.0.1.7z (Great tool that has Dolphin emulator & other nice tools)
Melee 1.02 iso (Google it)

Other links:
Original YT Video from Bizzozeron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAIsq7M9paI&t=337s
Akaneia/mEx Discord - https://discord.gg/XxdFN9JnMX
Akaneia themselves - https://twitter.com/TeamAkaneia


I'm making this to help give a (potentially) quicker medium to learn the most recent ways to import models into Melee.

I got chewed out for not knowing this, and--being mostly a Smashboards and not Discord user--having only known about the 2016 Mario Shiek BTT importer :,(

Anyway, hope my experience learning these things helps others. So, here we go:

TUTORIAL START:



======= PART 1: Importing a full Melee Model into Blender for editing ========



- Download all things above and install and organize them. Maybe make a "MELEE MODZZZ" folder.

- Open m-Ex tool, then open your vanilla 1.02 Melee ISO. It will install m-Ex system (click Yes). This isn't permanent unless you "Save" or "Export ISO," which you don't have to right now.

- Export as FileSystem. Then go open it up.

- Scroll down until you find a fighter you want to edit / use a base to import new models over. Try to think of what character is the best fit and most similar to what model you want to import. Like for Barack Obama model you downloaded, for example, he's a person, so his model would probably fit over Captain Falcon best right? You wouldn't start with Yoshi for that. So Neutral has the main model info for each character. This tutorial uses Ness. So open PlNsNr.dat in your HSDRaw program.

- Then double click "Ply__(CHAR)ShareJoint" to see Ness in the 3D window. Awesome right?? You can scroll around and change the view in 3D. Then in the middle window, click File --> Export Model to File... Then export as _(WhateverNameYouWant).dae and then go back and do it again, File --> Export Model to File... (WhateverNameYouWant).smd (StudioMDL) and good job :)

- Now open Blender, might take a second, and it should give you a 3D area with a square, a camera, and a light. Click each of those 3 (or drag squares) and press DEL to remove them.

- Now click Edit --> Preferences, and Add Ons on the right column. Then look at the top and click "Install..." Then click on your Blender Valve Source add on you installed from the DOWNLOADS at the top of this tutorial. Hope you organized it nicely into a folder like I said up there so it's easy to find!

- Double click it after clicking "Install...." and then make sure it has a check mark next to the new Add-On that appeared below, so it will be activated. It's called "Import-Export: Blender Source Tools" and make sure it's checked. Exit this panel.

- Now that you have Blender running correctly with your Add-On, go back to the main Blender window and click "File..." --> "Import" and import your "Source Engine..." file, and then select your "WhateverYouCalledIt.smd" file for your character. The character will appear, but be laying down on the floor, and be all patchy pastel-rainbow-colored.

- Now look at the top left panel and drag "WhateverYouCalledItCharacter_skeleton" drag this a few rows up into "Collection" (with the little filing box icon). Now the skeleton is connected to the rest of the model.

- Now !CAREFUL! make sure to click "YourCharacterName_skeleton" but the one in ORANGE FONT, above "Pose" and the rest. Make sure you click this ORANGE ONE and not the green one, because we will be rotating the model, and we want everything to stay together. You can tell I messed this up a few times and am trying to save you the trouble I went through lol because OP's video really just glosses over stuff like this. Guess he has a bunch of Blender experience that I don't have, and you might not either.

- Now that you have clicked the right __CHAR____skeleton slot IN ORANGE, with an ORANGE T-Pose character icon next to it, look all the way on the left side of blender in the vertical toolbar and click the tool with a circle in the middle and two arrows going in a circle around it. This is the Rotate tool. Click it, and you will see a big cool spherical ball with different color lines appear around the character's feet. Now click and drag along the RED line to make your character stand straight up. IF YOU MESSED UP, THE CHARACTER WILL MOVE AND THE LITTLE GRAY BONE JOINT DOTS WILL NOT. CTRL+Z TO UNDO AND CLICK THE CORRECT ORANGE NAME IN TOP RIGHT BOX AND REDO. If it's still not totally even, you can drag along the other lines, and use the straight reference lines on the ground to make your character stand even, with their T-pose arms stretched even along the Red axis line on the floor. In my case I had to use the Red, Green and Blue lines because he was slightly off from every angle. ProTip: HOLD CTRL TO MAKE IT SNAP IN EVEN INCREMENTS TO HELP YOU ALIGN PERFECTLY WITH AXES.

- Now that your character is standing up and straight, we want to set this position to default. So at the 3rd row from the top of your Blender, next to Object Mode ^ you will see View, Select, Add and Object. Click "Object..." --> "Apply..." --> "Rotation"

- Now we will delete the random rainbow-patchy mesh, because it's a messed up one with all the Teams colors at once over top each other. But we needed this because the rig and skeleton comes in nicely. So click your character somewhere (NOT ON A DOT, BUT ON THE SKIN AREA), and click DEL to delete the visible skin. You will just be left with the dots for the bone joints. Good.

- Now click "File..." --> "Import..." --> "Collada (.dae)..." --> (YOURCHARACTER).dae and when it imports, you should see a cool like "Metal Mario" style version of your character over top of your old bones. You might have the rainbow-y-patchy version pop back up at the same time. Make sure they are aligned well with the steps above (click ORANGE_skeleton, then use rotate tool to match them as perfectly into each other as you can) and click your rainbow-patchy skin (OR the ORANGE "YOURCHARACTERFILENAME" entry at the bottom of the Scene Collection top right panel) and press DEL again. Now you should have only the Metally looking skin, with your bone dots inside. Good job :)

- ProTip: At any time, you can hold "Z" and Click "Material Preview" to see what your character really looks like with skin, instead of the Metallic style. If you want to go back just hold "Z" and click "Solid" to reset back.

- Now, in the Scene Collection (top right) window area, you will see Scene Collection, Collection and "YourCharacterName" and each will have the white filing box icon next to it. In the one that says "YourCharacterFileNameWhatever" in white, uncheck the checkbox. Now click the downwards pointing expand arrow nex to "Armature" and hold SHIFT + Click on top "joint_0_Object_0" and hold SHIFT and then click the bottom joint object to have them all selected. Now that they're all selected, hit ALT+P to "Clear and Keep Transformation" and now click the "Armature" above, and hit DEL to delete it. Now you just have the joints, like you need.

- Now go to the bottom of all your orange joints list in the top right menu, and drag the "YOURHARACFILENAME_skeleton" (orange T post logo) and drag it into the top list anywhere with all your "joint_21_Object..." etc type of things. Now you can select bottom collection and hit DEL if you want. Now everything's nicely in one single collection where it should be.

- Now click the "YOURCHARFILENAME_skeleton" (orange T pose icon) and then go over to the left side of blender where it says "Object Mode..." click that and change it to "Edit Mode..." and then click the first bone in top right hand collecions menu (UNDER JOBJ_0, DON'T click JOBJ_0 but the first one like joint_0_Object_0 and then scroll down to the final one, and SHIFT+click it, to have all "joint_0_Object_etc" items selected, and thendrag mouse into 3D character area in the middle, and type DEL key, and then click "Bones"

- Now click the bottom Orange bone object in collection, with the Orange triangle logo, will be called "joint_43_object_1_SINGLE" etc or similar, depending on what character you are working on, and scroll to the top and click the top joint bone object with SHIFT+click to select them all. Now your Metal mario looking character will have orange outlines all around and through it. Now scroll down and select "YOURCHARFILENAME_skeleton" and CTRL+Click it, and then in the middle 3D char area hit CTRL+P

- Now MAKE SURE YOU'RE IN OBJECT MODE, this threw me off forever in the video tutorial, wasn't said, and move your cursor into the middle 3D area and click CTRL+P, and then click on "With Empty Groups" and now the bones should work. Try dragging the arm or something (ALWAYS HIT CTRL+Z TO UNDO MOVEMENTS AFTER TESTING EACH TIME) and you should see the dots and everything staying with the character as you move arms and legs back and forth etc. To try this, click on one of the gray dots on your character by clicking them perfectly on, or by clicking their body near a joint and scrolling using the arrow keys left/right until you have one of the dots selected, and then "Pose Mode..." will be available under "Object Mode..." on the top left hand side of blender. Now in this mode you can use rotate tool etc to move arms and legs around to see the model working correctly, with things being connected.

- Now you have a totally imported, working, jointed character model! Great job, it's a good idea to save. So "Save As..." and whatever you want to call it.blend



=====11min mark==== PART 2: IMPORTING YOUR NEW MODEL ========



- Good resources for finding cool models are kitty corp meow-mix BrawlVault (google it), or www.Models-Resource.com so get a good .dae model that you want to fight as in Melee, and download it.

- Download a cool model that mostly fits the one you imported. If you only have an OBJ file, open it in blender, make it fit the axes well (ProTip on AXES: hold Z, or X or Y while sliding your character into place, so you don't have to click the 3D arrows, and your character will slide along any one of those axes you are holding down). Check it also by pressing Z and clicking Materials, to see how it really looks. After cleaned up, export it as a .dae file, and continue.

- Now open your original Melee fighter from Part 1 above. Now click "Import..." --> and choose your new .dae object model that you want to fight as. Make them line up along the axes, and if it's too big or small hold "S" to scale it larger or smaller so it's right on top, and really try to make everything, hands, feet, legs, arms, head line up and match perfectly perfectly as you really can. Hopefully the proportions aren't wayyy off. This is so that the animations can work best.

- SKIPS ALOT OF HARD STUFF VERTEX SMOOTHING AT 14min MARK (because mine doesn't have those Vertex buttons he has at top next to "Options" dropdown menu) HALP

- Uncheck the base character in collections menu, so it disappears and you only see your new char. Then drag a box around your new character and do ALT+P (with cursor in 3D area) and click "Clear and Keep Transformations" and then delete the Armature.

- Now, in the bottom right box, there's icons along the left side, click the Wrench one to see Modifier settings. Now see where it says Armature, an click the little X on that same line, near the right side, to delete that Armature. If you've got alot of the Orange label objects, try to click on every one of them and do this same thing, clicking the wrench and deleting the Armature.

- Now, below the wrench icon, in that same column scroll down and click the green upside down triangle. That's the Vertex menu. Then, on the right hand side, click the dropdown arrow and click "Delete All Groups..." and, similarly as above, do that for all orange triangle icon files you have above, in the Collections menu.

- Now make a Collection (right click in top right menu, or use "New" button in top right corner) called "TRASH" or something. Now use SHIFT+Click to select all original char's objects (joint_0_Object_0 etc through final one), and drag them into TRASH collection. Now UNcheck the TRASH collection, so you only see your NEW character, with the bone joints.

- Now we gotta find which bone is which. One way is making a 3rd collection, putting all of your NEW character stuff in there, and then UNchecking it, and REchecking TRASH collection, so you have your original Melee character showing. Then, for example, click their foot, go to "Edit Mode..." at the top left side, and (WTH I DON'T HAVE THIS "ITEM" SIDE MENU IN MY BLENDER THAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT)


This is about as far as I got.....

Paying for Skype help! 1 on 1 call, $1 /min if you know how to import models and can help me understand this. Honestly giving it my best, and consider myself quite techy. Just a few broken steps when I recreate everything he does.
Updated guide here:

 
Last edited:

BrassMonkey

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Messages
28
Location
Tulare Basin, California

Little tease

Edit: Seem to have run into a problem. I follow the guide up to the part where I have a functioning model. However even If I don't edit anything I've been unable to make it work in game. .dae makes the model all wonky, .smd doesnt have textures, and .fbx freezes while loading a match.

Not sure if I'm missing some steps or saving it wrong. I followed Bizzozeron's video part about saving as .fbx and I'm able to get the model to turn up in HSDraw correctly (as seen in the screenshot.) But I cannot get it to work in game.
 
Last edited:

NewChallenger

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jun 24, 2021
Messages
32
Location
Miami, FL
Thanks, I definitely posted this before it's 100% done. And yeah that's about as far as I got with it too, I can get the texture to load up well in HSDraw but always just crashes in Melee.

Basically there will be 3 parts, part 1 is done above, about prepping your original model, part 2 is all the crazy expert blender stuff that Bizz really blows straight through quickly in his video that I keep getting messed up on, and part 3 is a real quick part about just throwing it into HSDraw & then mEx tool & then melee, which basically everyone knows how to do.

This part 2 is a BEAST though and I'm putting more hours into it today, after having put alot into it yesterday too. I sincerely hope that once I finish the guide, it will be quite universal, but if Bizz is here maybe he can let me know if his video guide needs to be changed for every character / model import? hope not....

I know this guide isn't finished, but I was using Capt Falcon and a Superman skin that were both kinda wonky,

so I'm redoing it with Ness & Lucas like Bizz, and doing a compressed version here --> https://smashboards.com/threads/melee-model-imports-bizz-method-quick-steps.514132/
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom