Vertex Modifier Tutorial: Night Elf Lamp Post

This tutorial will be an introduction to box modeling, a technique in which you start with a box and then use various tools to expand and mold it into your final product. Thorough knowledge of selecting, deleting, and transformations is assumed. You should probably have read at least two of the transformation tutorials.
MDL(s) needed: Cube (Included primitive), Cylinder - 6 Sides (Included primitive)

  • Making the post
    • Open Cube.mdl, which is included in the Primitives folder. A primitive, when it comes to modeling, is one of the basic shapes from which it is common to start making a model.
    • Save as something like NELampPost.mdl.
    • Rotate it in the top viewport 45 degrees. It should now appear as three vertical lines in the front and left views as opposed to two.
    • Select the bottom four vertices (labeled 1 in the picture below) and move them slightly down, just in case someone places this on uneven ground.
    • Select the four top ones and move them to the position of the ones labaled two. So that the whole pole tapers down as it gets closer to the end, scale this set down slightly.
    • With those four still selected, activate extrude and drag them out to the position of set 3. Rotate the new set of four so that they are facing slightly forward, again as in the below picture. Scale again.
    • Repeat, extruding set three to set four, rotating, and scaling again.
    • Repeat again to finish the pole, arriving at label 5.
    • Select the four botton vertices and go to Tools->Delete Face. Those faces are not needed since they are in the ground.
  • Making the leaves
    • The leafy sheath around the light itself will be based off a 6-sided cylinder.
    • Go to File->Merge Geoset and choose Cylinder - 6 Sides, the primitive.
    • Scale in the top six vertices, which will become the part that connects with the wood.
    • Extrude the bottom six down and scale them a little, making the end of the leafy part.
    • Next, it has to be made more to look more organic and random. Move all the vertices some random amount to distort the shape some and maybe weld some vertices that are already nearby together.
    • Move and rotate the whole new part to be on the end of the stick, facing a logical direction.
  • Making the light
    • The light will be just a little blob of polygons in the middle of the leafy part.
    • File->Merge Geoset on a new box primitive.
    • Weld, scale, and move vertices until it becomes a nondescript, low-polygon blob. I'm not going to go over that too precisely, since it's simple and mostly hidden.
    • Move it to inside the leaves, just barely visible.
  • If you test now, you should be able to see all the geometry there, although the texture will be white. Make sure everything looks like it's modeled correctly before continuing.
  • Introduction to UV mapping
    • The next thing needed it UV mapping. UV mapping defines which part of the texture goes onto each polygon.
    • This doodad will be UV mapped onto the Anicent Protector texture. You will need to extract it as a JPG in order to use it in the program. To do this, open Wc3 Viewer, browse to find the texture (It's at Buildings\NightElf\AncientProtector\AncientProtector.blp.), and click 'Extract (and convert) BLP file'. Choose to save as a JPG.
    • Go to Tools->UV Mapping. This will bring up a new window that can be used to modify UV maps. On the left is the area where all the coordinates are displayed. On the right are the modal buttons and other tools, much like in the main program.
    • Click 'Load Image' and choose the Ancient Protector Texture that you extracted.
  • UV mapping
    • Close the UV mapper and select the post. Reopen the UV mapper. All the vertices of the post will now be selected in it, too. However, they are all in the corners at this point.
    • Change the dropdown menu that by default says 'Top' to 'Left'.
    • Click the 'Remap' button. You will see the shape of the pole, from the left, stretched out over the texture. It is now in a shape that should be much easier to manipulate.
    • Deactivate transformations on the Y axis by clicking the Y. It will turn gray. Scale the whole thing down until it more closely resembles the shape of the actual pole.
    • Select and move (just like you do in the main program) to make it be in one long , straightish stick. (You'll have to reactivating movement on the Y axis, first.) This way, the grain of the wood on the texture will bend when it's applied to the model.
    • Since the Ancient Protector texture isn't perfect for our needs, we'll have to do the UV mapping in a less-than-perfect way, in this case making the wood grain repeat back and forth over one area.
    • Select the top three layers of vertices and move them all down at once so that the one that was the top layer now lines up with what was the second layer.
    • Move the bottom layer up so it is even with the layer that is now directly above it. The whole idea here is to make the polygons go efficiently back and forth, not wasting much space.
    • Move the whole stick to the up and right, onto the largish area of plain wood.
    • Click 'Save Changes'. Otherwise, all your UV mapping work will be lost. Now close the UV mapper.
    • Select the leafy part and reopen the mapper. Its coordinates will now be selected.
    • Change the dropdown to Left and click 'Remap' again.
    • Scale, move, and rotate the new area onto the beard, as shown here.
    • Lastly, we need to do the little light area. Click 'Save Changes' again, close the mapper, select the light bit, and reopen the mapper.
    • Remap from any angle.
    • Scale it way down to a very small area and move it onto the ancient's eye. Save changes.
  • Changing the texture path
    • Now, we have to make it actually use the ancient's skin. If you were to test now, you would still see it as being entirely white.
    • Close the vertex modifier and open the MDL. Look for the following section. 
      Textures 1 {
	Bitmap {
		Image "Textures\white.blp",
	}
}
    • That Textures\white.blp is the path that it is using. Change that to Buildings\NightElf\AncientProtector\AncientProtector.blp . It should now look like this. 
      Textures 1 {
	Bitmap {
		Image "Buildings\NightElf\AncientProtector\AncientProtector.blp",
	}
}
  • Save, convert to MDX, and you're done.