Hello there guys and gals, I've got a request by our beloved admin to put a tutorial together for how kitbashing works.

Well, I would say let's begin with what kitbashing is.
Kitbashing is mixing parts of existing models together or add custom things to stock models (like a new scope on a rifle)

It's as easy as it sounds, in this tut I will create a weapon kitbash.

Things you'll need:
-XSI compatible with the Pandemic Tool (5.1 recommended)
-3D Object Converter
-An idea

Optional:
:Gimp -Texture editor

Okay, let's start off.
I will make a sniper rifle kitbash for this tutorial, let's say I like the droid's sniper rifle, but the scope thing looks ugly, so want to change it, but there is no rifle which's scope fits the style of the cis sniper rifle, so I will make a new one and use the textures of the cis rifle.
It's easier as it sounds, you will see.


Okay, open 3D Object Converter and browse to the sniper rifle (assets/sides/cis/msh/PC/cis_weap_inf_sniperrifle.msh).




New go to file/save as and select obj. I name it just rifle. Save it and the skin for it on the Desktop.
Now open up XSI and import the rifle.obj there.
Now you see that it points downwards, that's a bug 3D converter has, just select the whole model and flip it by -90 degrees on the X axis.
Okay, now we have it in the position we want it to be. If you want you can assign the stock texture again now, simply by clicking on Material/Phong and in the new window on the plug like icon, then image/new/new from file and browse to the skin.



Now onto removing the scope. Just click on it and it's components either in the explorer window or in one of the other windows. Delete them by pressing del on the keyboard.





Next step will be creating a new scope, and to fit the bulky style of the rifle I will create one of cubes.
So go to Primitive/Polygon Mesh/Cube. A big cube will appear around the model, we don't want it that big, do we? So select the cube, hold down X and scale the cube down until it fits on the rifle and teawk it as you wish. I will just do it like this:




Now we could just leave it as is, but I want it to be more detailed, so I I hit enter when selecting the cube and set new values for it's poly count to fit some kind of monitor in. I can create that effect by moving the poly's points around.



I have marked the poly that will be our screen later on, but it is a bit too small, well then let's make it bigger. In the right tab got to point view and move the points of the monitor more towards the edgepoints. Like this:




Okay, now moving it a bit inside will make it look more realistic, so let's do it. Select all the points again and move them along the Z axis inside the cube.



Okay, now we need to change the front part of the scope, in order to look good I will just make it look like it comes out of the little scopething in fron of it. So I am selceting the individual points of it and a move them so that they connect all to the little pipe.



Okay, if you are satisfied (I am) it's time for texturing.
with the cube selected, in the right tab go to Property/Texture Projection/Unique UVs. A popup will pop up, it's fine, just close it.



Next we need to assign the droid rifle texture to it, so go to Material/Phong again and select the plug, go to image/new/new from file and browse to the cis sniper skin. Now the scope looks weird with a mishmash of texture parts.
To solve this we need to alter the UVs, do this by opening the Texture Editor mode in one of your windows. Now you will see the layout of the new scope's texture, you can now move the points around until you find a good UV layout for it, mine is like this:



Now we are basically done, but we need to set it up to be an actual weapon ingame, so first off go to Primitive/Null. A cross like green thing will appear, that's the Null. select, hit enter and rename it to DummyRoot. Now do it again, but call the new one hp_fire. Move the hp_fire along the barrel of the rifle at the front of the gun, where the muzzle should appear ingame when firing the gun.



Now go to the explorer and select all your parts except DummyRoot and drag 'n drop the under DummyRoot.
Last thing is exporting, so middle mouse DummyRoot and select file/Pandemic Tools/export msh, selcet a filename and destination and export.

That's it, and that's how it looks ingame with glow apllied to the monitor via hex editing:

thanks for posting this

it´ll be use full in the future...

Hope so, it took a while. :P

Anyway, would you like me to post one for unit kitbashes too?

Nice , yes i want to see the unit kitbash 8) .

Darth_Spiderpig wrote:

Anyway, would you like me to post one for unit kitbashes too?

yeah, sure, that'd be great :bounce:

question: this way works with 7.5/mshex No?

Acryptozoo wrote:

question: this way works with 7.5/mshex No?

I am not sure, I have never done anything like this, only exported via xsi directly.

Kitbashing , yes , glow can be done with meshtool .