How to turn a convert a custom ragdoll into a pac3 for the semi experienced and impatient
So by now you've probably gotten pretty good at prop placement in pac3. You've learned the proxies and bested the custom models but there's just one thing that's been in the back of your head about this the ability to turn a custom playermodel you found somewhere on the workshop or the re upload graveyard at garrysmod.org, but theres just one problem. Pac3 only supports wavefront .obj files, and if you remember correctly wavefront objects don't save bones. You've been scared from the idea of chopping it up in a rendering program because it all seems so complicated and you can't find a tutorial on how to do the thing. So today I decided to finally make a tutorial for those who have absolutely no clue what their doing.
Assembling a custom model with no bones into a pac3 is quite the feat. To do so I recommend you use these things:
- A basic understanding of how to use pac3 and change a models bones
- An understanding of clipping models and/or Blender Modelling Program
- A model with humanoid proportions (unless you intend to make custom animations for a model that comes with gmod like D.O.G. or a antilion guard
- A sharing program that works with pac3, I recommend Puu.sh
Once you have these things it's time to get cracking away at your sanity. The main idea of this is that you want to make a model that uses your custom model but has bones. This can be done using a mixture of separate .obj files made in blender and clipped models of your model ( I recommend using a headless t-pose for the clipping). There are two methods for doing this.
If you're choosing this method of making a custom playermodel you most likely are making a pac3 that doesn't need to rely on complete accuracy to give off it's desired effect. This method is much easier than the hard way but may produce a pac3 with visible clipping and glitches.
First you will have to cut out the neck and head as separate .obj files so as have the head ( what people will be looking at) be as flawless as possible. If a model comes with a separate head texture this is much easier. What you want to do is inside blender select everything except for the head and delete their faces. Export this as a .obj file and use the texture you would normally use for said object if it were a normal object. Do this for the neck aswell. Make sure to get the head on the head bone and the neck on the neck bone and position them correctly. Now you want to get a headless ( leave the neck there) version of the model and export that as an .obj aswell. Now it's time to start clipping
Now that you have your headless model you want to start clipping up your model. You'll first want to start with your spine 4 and the right and left clavical. The 4th spine should be the very upper body with a little bit of where spine 2 will be and the very bottom of the neck, make sure to clip off the arms. The clavicals should be comprised of the a small amount of the arm and about half of the spine 4. Usually 4 clips is enough for every piece. Now that you have your stepping stones in place you want to slowly but surely start filling in bone spaces with clipped models that extend a little bit into the other bones. Once you feel that you've done most of the bones that need to be put in place you should exit it out of the t-pose you were in and watch as everything falls away. Don't worry, it looks semi decent and'll still turn a few heads. Make a few more adjustments as you see fit and then move on to the advanced idea.
Know your stuff in anatomy? Feel you're decent at blender? Got a lot of time on your hands? If you answered yes to all of these then you can do this the hard way! Doing this the hard way will most likely eat up all your free time and cause you to have a mid life crisis if you don't remember to take a break when things get hard. The hard way doesn't include any use of clips unless you accidently make the models too long.
If you're a masochist and everything needs to be perfect then chances are you're doing this way. Go ahead and open up blender and have garrysmod running in the background with your pac3 ready. What you're going to be doing is chopping up your model in such a way that every single bone in your pac skeleton will be replaced with something from the model. When you feel ready, start chopping up your model in any way you see fit. Remember to take a break everyone once and a while to have some fun, eat and drink, and empty your bowels and bladder. Do not, I repeat, Do not try and do something like this all in one sitting, if you get easily tired from doing things such as these you will notice that you'll keep getting tired which leads to getting frustrated. If you have it in your mindset that you can do this without any breaks you'll eventually start going nowhere and become incredibly frustrated. After every model you chop off export it as an obj and fit it on to your model. When you've finished with this you should get a perfect looking model with barely any clipping issues and something that will make you look like the coolest kid on the block. Pat yourself on the back, you did it!
Now that you've got your great looking model you should try and do more with it. Did it the easy way and are experiencing clipping issues and incorrectly sized limbs? Make your own animations for your model put it in a way so that the clipping issues are non-visible. Made a great looking model? Why not make it some gestures to accompany it? Wanna take the immersion of your model one step further? Go ahead and give it some custom sounds! The possibilities are limitless! Have fun!
PS: You can make custom animations with Jetboom's Animation api, find those animations in your data folder of garrysmod, put them in puush and then use a custom animation and make the URL the u r l.