Creating an object with Anim8or.

Tools -
Before we get started, make sure you have these tools:
• Anim8or (Used to contruct the model)
• N3ds2e & BSP (Used to convert the model)
• A paint program. (Used to skin the model)
• MS-DOS. (Used to run the conversion programs)

Setup -
Now that you have your tools you need to get set up to make the objects.
1.) Create a directory that you want to use to hold your tools and objects.
2.) Place n3ds2e.exe and bsp.exe inside that directory.
        - I would recommend that you not use N:/Thief 2/obj/ as your directory.

Creation -
This is best explained by the manual you can see at the Anim8or website. It's very hard to learn from a tutorial or a manual. The best advice I can give you is to practice. I taught myself how to do modeling with Anim8or in a 3 to 4 month period after Von.Eins released his custom objects.

Texture Mapping -
Texture mapping the skin onto the model is fairly simple but not always easy. Again, practice helps.
1.) Bring up the materials bar from Options -> Materials.
2.) Load the textures you want.
3.) Select the faces you want to change the texture of. (explained in the anim8or manual under face editing)
4.) Click on the texture you want those faces to have and then click 'apply'.
        - The faces you selected will now have that texture.
5.) Click the UV button to enter texture mapping mode.
        - Hold Shift+Mouse 2 and drag to move the texture.
        - Hold Mouse 1 and drag to rotate the texture.
        - Hold Alt+Mouse 2 and drag to scale the texture.
You can find a tutorial here. There are probably more tutorials available if you search for them.
*Textures for Thief must be paletted to 256 colors. For Thief 2 they can be optimized and placed in /obj/txt16, for thief 1 they must be converted to the Thief palette and placed in /obj/txt.

Exporting -
After you have created and texture mapped your model, it's time to export the model and convert it for Thief. To export the model to .3ds format, choose Object from the menu bar in Anim8or and click Export. Save the .3ds file to the directory you created earlier so that it is ready for conversion.

Conversion -
The model needs to be converted from .3ds to .e and then to .bin. BIN files are the format of objects and AIs in Thief.
1.) Open MS-DOS. (command.exe)
2.) Change the directory to the directory of your conversion programs and models that you created earlier.
3.) Use the command 'n3ds2e mymodel.3ds mymodel.e' to convert your model to .e.
         - You can illuminate objects or give them transparencies at this point. Use this tutorial to do so.
4.) Use the command 'bsp mymodel.e mymodel.bin' to convert your model to .bin.

Save -
Your new .bin file will be located in your directory. Copy it or cut it and paste it in your N:/Thief 2/obj/ directory.

Skin -
Place any textures you used for the skin of the object in your N:/Thief 2/obj/txt16 folder (thief 2 only). For Thief 1 make sure your textures are in the Thief palette and put them in N:/Thief 2/obj/txt instead. Also remember that when you convert your skins to 256 colors that the first color in the palette (index 0) is transparent. So if you have a completely black skin with two red eyes and the index 0 color is black, you will only see two red eyes floating around in game mode.

Report questions and problems to phantom@3dactionplanet.com.