Thread: The Master Model Guide

This guide will help you lean into the basics of how runescape models work and methods to teach you how to make your own models. This includes basic model creation, animation / rigging, coloring, and information on how to use the tools. Be sure to open each spoiler and read the steps carefully.

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Introducing the tools

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Datmaker and MQO are tools you will be using together often. C# Model Viewer is a tool for viewing higher revision models (718+) which cannot be loaded in datmaker. Below you will find an explanation of each tool, it is HIGHLY recommended you read and understand them.

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Datmaker

Spoiler for Explanation of Datmaker:

Datmaker is responsible for converting .MQO files to .dat, where the new .dat file is a format in which the game can use. Do not attempt to pack in MQO files into your server because the format is not the same. Datmaker mostly deals with 317 revisions but it can load some models up to 718 (with little success). Datmakers key feature also includes the ability to export .dat files to either .MQO or .MQOv2 (which will be explained further). This tool will not read, to my knowledge, files other than dat or MQO. If you are using blender or another professional grade program for models which have .obj, .fbx, .stl, etc.. as the file format then simply load the obj model (or any other file format) in metasequoia and save the file as MQO. Keep in mind that MQO will not support every file type such as .MAX (3DSMAX).
Textures will not be loaded in datmaker so do not attempt to texture your model in MQO OR other programs. You must use plain material colors (discussed further in MQO segment).

Using Datmaker

Datmaker has lots of useful information to show when you enable them. To begin, simply load your MQO or dat file by clicking File -> open (or open folder for more than 1 file) -> click your dat / MQO file(s). Your model should hopefully load up in the viewer. Right click to zoom in and out along with rotating the model side by side. Left click to rotate all around the model. Shift + right click to move your view position. You can also resize / full screen the tool to get a bigger picture. The pictures below will explain a few things about datmaker.







If you wish to export a model from .dat you can do it one of two ways. Datmaker allows you to export to MQO and MQOV2. The standard .MQO will only export the model with NO anim / rig data (no PRI, TSKIN, or VSKINS). MQOV2 on the other hand will give you the anim data attached to the model, if any.

Datmaker’s Anim List and PRI settings

You will notice datmaker will allow you to set the PRI (priority) of the model. Priority helps the game figure out what faces are to be rendered in which order. Custom 317’s often encounter issues where you can see capes through plate bodies, and other strange “see through” occurrences. Datmaker sets the PRI of a model by setting the ENTIRE model to whatever PRI you put in the box (1-10) then clicking “make dat”. Keep in mind actual RS models will have different PRI on different parts of the model. If you set different PRI’s in MQO and then make PRI set to 4 (for example) in datmaker then know you will lose all those changes you made In MQO and datmaker will replace the entire PRI layer with PRI 4. PRI is nasty business so try not to mess with it too much. Often times setting things to 10 PRI will “solve” your issues, temporarily. Do NOT check the “use blank PRI” box. Use the box right underneath to set your PRI number.
Datmaker is also equipped with handy animation options. This allows you to easily animate swords, shields, hats, boots, gloves, and amulets. You will notice there are no platebody, legs, cape, or helmet option. These you must do yourself (explained further in the guide).

Additional Datmaker Information (Problems you may encounter)

• Datmaker is not the perfect tool, you will run into many issues. Here are a few things I’ve encountered during my use of datmaker.
• When loading an entire folder of models, you may run into a model which will cause datmaker to spit an error. Often times the error will keep popping up and you may need to use task manager to end the process.
• Datmakers errors are not very well documented, so the reason for error could be many things. Loading a model with textures or high polycount can make an error.
• Not properly naming your skins (like naming something “TSKIN1:”) will not load in datmaker. Double check your skin names.
• You may have a VSKIN layer which does not have any weights (example: having 3 vskin layers but the final layer has all 0.0 weight values) in which datmaker will not load the model. Get rid of any “waste” VSKIN layers, though this is a very rare occurrence.
• Having too many object layers on your model (obj panel).
• If your layer is not capitalized (VSKIN1 vs vskin1) then datmaker won’t recognize it.
• “contains quads” error is when your model has / is made up of squares. You MUST make your model made up of triangles or simply “triangulate” the model in MQO and re-open in datmaker.
• “contains lines” for when you have a wireframe with no faces on it. Usually this error doesn’t really do anything, so you don’t really have to worry.
• Colour loss / distortion, out of our control and it sucks sometimes

Metasequoia 4 (MQO)

Spoiler for Explanation for MQO:

MQO is what you will be primarily using to make and edit your models for RSPS. Because of its simplicity and tools built around it, this will be the suggested program to use. You can use blender or other 3d modeling programs however you MUST come back to MQO one way or another. MQO is free to use and you will not need the full license to do your rsps work. If you want, you can google MQO license keys and find one for free as I did, but again it is NOT NEEDED.

Basic Setup

Spoiler for Basic Setup:

First thing will be to setup your MQO to help you navigate around the program. Let’s begin by enabling the Modeling (icon) mode. Click the beginner button on the top left and change it to "Modeling (icon)". Then open the command tab to bring up your main tools.



now let’s bring up the object and materials panel. The object panel shows you all of your current objects (or layers) of the model. The material panel will store all of your colours for you to edit or create new ones. When you start you’ll notice these are blank because we don’t have anything created / loaded up yet. Navigate to the top bar where you will see a "panel" button. Click this then have "object panel" and "material panel" checked off by clicking them. You should see 2 new bars open up.

Understanding your model

Spoiler for Understading your model:

At this point we are ready to start doing some editing and creating. Before we go any further, I’ll show you an example of what it all looks like together on an animated / rigged model (platebody) along with critical information you will need to know. The model shown in here is an example of a model when exported as MQOv2 from datmaker (the version with anim data) and loaded into MQO;

- If you don’t know already, you can enable wireframe and vertex points by clicking on the top left bar. The square with 4 points enables / disabled vertex points, the box to the right enables / disables your wireframe, and the black square beside that enables / disables faces.



- Your object panel is now populated with the animation layers mentioned before. “new” will make a new object layer, clone will duplicate the selected layer, Delete will…delete, and prop will allow you to edit the properties of the layer (same concepts apply for materials panel).

- In your object layer you will see a pair of eyes and a box beside them. The eyes you can click to enable or disable a layer (making it invisible). The box beside it will allow you to lock the layer to prevent yourself from making any changes to it. Please make sure you understand this because this concept is required for animation / rigging.

The Model Layer Explained

Spoiler for Model Layers:

Model: This layer will be your first layer. As labelled, this is the basic model layer where you can change all the colour data. The model layer will be the place for you to recolour your models.



PRI: Holds priority colors for the model, this is where you can change the PRI on the model if you so desire. Refer to the picture below for more critical information.



TSKIN: Holds colors (from 0-255) which are used for rigging. This would be the equivalent to jagex naming the faces of each polygon. These colors tell the game (with the help of VSKINS) about which parts of the model is moving which way. Notice the colors in different areas of this plate body. We can see the left and right shoulders are coloured, left and right biceps, left and right hands as well. If you pay close attention in game you can see these parts moving in action, which is why they are colored this way. (note: all platebodies except for rs3 are pretty much done this way)



VSKIN(s): This layer is all about weights on the vertices. VSKINS work in unison with the TSKIN layer and essentially create the bones of the models by averaging the weights on the model per segment and creating joints. On rs models, this layer will have the same colours as the model layer but with the exception of having weights of course. In this example you will see the colours are the same as the TSKIN layer. Why is that? Colours you put on VSKIN layers don’t matter. You will learn in further in the guide why I have the TSKIN colours on the VSKIN layers.



Notice how I click on each coloured area that the weight changes. What is happening here is that all of those “dots” have some sort of number on them (which is called the weight). All of the dots within a colour will have the same weight. Using the picture above as an example, this means every dot in the light blue (right shoulder area) will use 0.21 weight. The dark purple area (left shoulder) will have all the dots inside it using 0.25 weight, so on and so forth. (more on this during rigging tutorial). You will also notice (not shown in the picture) that the dots where 2 colours meet are different as well. Whenever you see areas of 2 colours coming together, the dots along that clashing point are more than likely going to have a different weight so always be careful and triple check your work!

You will sometimes find that models have more than 1 VSKIN, and this means that there are points which exceed 1.00 in value. Each VSKIN layer can only hold 0.0 to 1.00 on any given vertex. Lets assume we had a vertex which was weighted 1.21 (if we enabled “show VSKIN” in datmaker this would be represented as 121) so there would be 2 VSKINS; the first would have the value of 1.0 and the second would be 0.21, which adds up to 1.21.
(notice the head of the model is 121)

Colouring, sizing, and moving the model

Spoiler for More model edits:

To make new colours (materials) you will need to click on the “new” button under the material panel then “prop” (short for properties) on the new material you just created. Notice in the gif how the new material created was called “mat23” after our last material, 22. If you don't have any materials then it would just create “mat1”. You will see a new window pop up and here you can see a colourful orb. Click around in that coloured orb to find the colour you want and the slider underneath will adjust the brightness / intensity of that shade of colour you picked. On the left you’ll see other sliders which we will not use, except for “alpha”. Alpha controls the opacity or the ability to “see through” the model.



Once you create a material you can colour it by either pressing the “m” key or clicking on the material tool on your left bar. Make sure “single face” is selected on the small box that pops up. If you’re recolouring a model then make sure you only have the “model” layer enabled. Remember, this is the layer in which you will do all of your recolours. You MUST NOT change anything else on the model layer except for colours. If you’re wanting to edit an existing colour on the model then simply click the material on the material panel, click “prop” and adjust accordingly. Click and hold down your mouse and drag it over top the area which you want to colour, or single click on the face you want to colour (this takes a while).

If you click “joined faces” on the small pop up when on the materials colouring tool, this will allow you to colour segments of the model instead of single faces. Please note however this only works if the model is split in separate parts, if it's all one connected model then colouring in joined faces mode will most likely colour the entire model.





In order to do some of the other operations, we will need to select the model (or parts of the model we want to edit). To select things I would highly suggest to have the dots and wires enabled. Notice how they are coloured purple. We can “select” a model in different ways, starting with the rope tool (or press G) if we draw a circle around our model then the program will select anything thats inside of it. Notice how the model now turns blue when this happens, this means you’ve selected the parts in blue ( in this case we selected the entire model). You can also click the “select” tool and click on joined faces to select segments of models.





From here (once the model is selected) we can move, rotate, and scale the model. As shown in the images below, you can click and drag the arrows to move the model under the “move” tool, click and drag the squares to scale the model under the “scale” tool, and click and drag the orb to rotate the model under the “rotate” tool.

Creating Models

Spoiler for Creating Models:

This Video demonstrates one of the many ways you can create models. One of the best ways to learn how to make models in MQO is to watch lots of videos of people making things on this program. It doesn't even need to be rsps related. You will pick up on techniques and other skills from watching others make models. In this specific video I created a very simple sword in a short amount of time. This is the "lazy" or beginner method to making things as you are starting out. Most of the things you learn will come from exploring and just messing around with the program. This is not the best method to make create models but for the sake of learning it was the easiest to show you how it works. Its suggested you work from primitive shapes.



Some things to note that are not explained in the video:

- to bring up a background image, click the cog wheel on the top bar, then click the "background image" to check it off and click the wrench to upload the file. ALWAYS WORK FROM TOP DOWN VIEW (birds eye view) to make sure your model is flat.
- when you have something selected on the model, pressing "ctrl + f" will focus your screen to it
- hold middle mouse (scroll wheel click) to drag your screen around
- at the end of the video i didn't properly position the sword for rsps use, you'll need to download the reference rs character model and move the sword into his hand along with sizing it to your liking.

Here are some additional videos created by Ziva to help show alternative method

Rsps Models Discord

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Additional Resources:

Mikan's Inventory Editor: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Ziva's rigging / animation tutorial: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

ReverenDread's cache suite: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Suic's texture packer / editor: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]



Credits:
Ziva, devchaseblade, maximax, splashy, draxaca, displee, shawnguy and the other tool creators!

EDIT:

the guide is not complete but still contains lots of information that may be useful, I will update it along the coming weeks / month.