Supporting LotR-Modding-Projects tutorial

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Gandalf, in J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Shadow of the Past"

Sometimes it's a little push which brings players into the world of modding. Some beneath you might want to help your favourite development team at their modding projects, out of different motivations. Be it that you want to try yourself in being creative or want to learn a new software or skill. 3D-modelling is one of those skills, modellers are always welcome to bring in their workforce. For those of you who want to give it a try, I present you today some first steps videos into modelling with Wings3D.

For starting in the wonderful hobby of 3D modelling going for Wings3D is a good choice. It is open source and completely free for use in both personal and commercial projects. Simon T Griffiths, a well known modeller at Morrowind who is also doing it for a living, suggested this programme in a recent blog post (you can have a read here) for beginners in modelling. The main advantages of Wings3D is in his opinion the ease of use of the software, compared to Blender's UI ('a horrible experience to a brand new model maker') and Maya ('equally terrifying, not to mention expensive').

There is one of the big three game-series popular in the Tolkien Modding Community in which you can bring in your models created with Wings3D, there might be more of the 'little' games of which I am unaware. The following games are at this topic the ones known to me:

• Mount & Blade
• Mount & Blade: Warband

So if you have a favourite mod at one of these games or a LotR-fan anyway and want to jump into the entertaining but time consuming (fair warning) world of modding, have a look at the following tutorial videos. Maybe I manage to lure you into modelling ^^

For the Mount & Blade series, Highelf noted in one of his ancient tutorials a tri count list down. It's a list with different moddeling types and the ammount of triangles you should aim for in order to not overload M&B. These values are just set by him, so if you cross the limits that will not crash the game or something, they are more existing to give you a good orientation for the beginning.

Normal helmet : ~500
Full faced helmet : ~800/1000
Body armor : ~1000
Sword : ~250
Special/Detailed sword : ~400
Small axe : ~300
Two handed axe : ~400
Two bladed axe : ~500
Lance : ~150/250
Spear : ~200/300
Shield : ~400/500
Bow : ~100/200
Crossbow : ~300/400
Interior scene : ~1000
Detailed scenery : <2000
Medium scenery : ~700/800
Small scenery : ~250
Tiny scenery : ~100/200

Interested? Then head over to Wings3D and download there the latest version. They recently opened up a discord, at which you can ask for help in case you get stuck at something, they will be happy to provide you with informations.

Join their discord here

And that's it from my side. Have a nice sunday!
Earendil

Errata: I made a crucial misstake while looking through the games who are making use of Wings3D. For the Battle for Middle Earth series the files used have the format w3d, which can for now only be exported by renx and 3ds max 7-8, a blender addon is in work. The format name w3d missleaded me to assume it is for Wings3D, I am sorry for everyone who got a useless ping from me due to tagging the BfME games here!