Creating an Animated Character in 3ds Max

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What you need

If you're interested in importing a custom character that will animate into Mario Kart Wii, you'll need to know some things in 3dsmax first.

1. How to use the Skin Modifier
2. How bones work
3. How parenting works
4. How to scale and position a model
5. How to model a low-poly character (If creating your own)

You'll also need these things:

1. A model you wish to import
2. A model extracted from Mario Kart Wii (to avoid animation errors). You can do this with BrawlBox.
3. 3DS Max
4. The "driver_model.brres" that you wish to edit.

There are a few things to check before you can import your model. Your model should:

1. Have less than 1000 faces, but more than 500.
2. Be the same body 'shape' as the character you're replacing (Chocobo and Yoshi have similar body 'shapes'. Both have two legs and a tail, and stand up in a similar fashion. Replace Mario or Luigi with male humans, and Peach or Daisy with female humans.)
3. Materials and textures should be applied to the model already (since that isn't covered here)

How it's done

Remember to save your work often!

1. Export your MKWii Character from BrawlBox as a .DAE file. Then import it into 3dsmax using the Autodesk Collada importer. The model might not have a skin modifier, but that's okay because...
2. Delete the models (but not the bones)
3. Import (or merge) your new model into the scene.
4. Rotate and scale your model so it fits on the original bone structure. You may need to adjust positions of things (like arms, legs, or the head).
5. Add a Skin modifier to your model(s). Note that if you have eyes, you generally only use the head bone on that model.
6. Add the bones you wish to use. You don't need all of them, but you can't skip any in the hierarchy (Meaning you can't add arm1 and arm3 without adding arm2 as well). However, not all bones need vertices attached to them. Also, make sure the root bone is added, or else BrawlBox will NOT import it. Also note that sometimes, 3dsmax will reset the skin modifier, meaning your work will be gone.
7. Using the "Edit Envelopes" button, select a bone from the list below (on the right side) and select vertices. Under the list, you'll see a "Abs. Effect" box. Make sure you only ever see "0.0" or "1.0" in this box, or else BrawlBox will make a "NodeMix" entry in the MDL0, which seems to cause errors.
8. Test your bone setup by rotating the bones. Make sure to undo any rotations you make.
9. If using 3dsmax 2010, export as an Autodesk DAE file. Otherwise, export as an FBX. You'll need FBX Converter 2010.2 to convert this to a DAE.
10. Import your DAE and your textures into BrawlBox (Select brres name > Edit or Right-click > Import > Texture or Model), making sure three 'Force Float _' settings are checked, and the 'Type' is set to Stage/Item. Note that if it crashes BrawlBox, try making a new brres (File > New > BRRES) and importing your model there, then saving the brres and extracting the new mdl0 from there. It'll usually work then.
11. Set the 'version' of your model to 11. Also set 'Unknown1' to 2 and 'Unknown4' to 257.
12. Make sure your model is named "model" in BrawlBox and save.
13. Also make a model_lod version of your character. This is a non-animated, lower-poly version of the character, used when opponents are viewed from a distance. Make sure it is in the same position as the original, or the character's hands may not be on the handlebars, or they might be inside their vehicle.
14. Note that you can use the same "model" file for every vehicle, but the "model_lod" needs to be in a different pose and position each time.
15. Test in-game, either through a USB Loader, Riivolution, or Dolphin. Note that Dolphin will run things that don't work on the Wii itself, so don't trust it completely.

Examples of Animated Characters

1. Chocobo
2. Black Mage
3. Hammer Brother
4. Tuxie
5. Crash Bandicoot