I know the world is moving on from SWAT 3, but I can still ask... :)
It seems like the 3D tools of choice for SWAT 3 are 3D Studio Max (a very early version), Milkshape and Worldcraft. Trying to obtain an old copy of 3DS is difficult for obvious reasons, and I really haven't been able to get on with Milkshape at all, so what alternatives are there if I want to make a character or weapon mod?
The reason why I can't get on with Milkshape is because I used to do 3D modelling using Lightwave, and where I find Lightwave ideal for my needs Milkshape is completely unintuitive. I'm hoping I might be able to use something like Blender to import the models from Lightwave (in an old LWO format) and then export them out to something suitable for SWAT 3. Another way I can do this is to import my LWO files into Cinema 4D, then export out a 3DS model from there.
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice please? There are a few submachine guns that I'm interesting in modelling, such as the MAC-10 and TEC-9, and once I've got a handle on doing the weapons I might try a character model or map.
Thanks for that. I had heard that Maya is good - I bypassed the 3DS/Maya route because when I was doing 3D work it was all on OS X and the only options I had were Lightwave and Cinema 4D. I ended up using Lightwave for the modelling and Cinema 4D for rendering and envied all the other people that were using 3DS and V-Ray as they always got better results than I did!
I had a quick look at Blender yesterday and it does have a Milkshape export plugin, so I'm thinking what I might do is still use Lightwave for the modelling, import it into Blender and export it out from there so I can use the SWAT 3 tools. Incidentally, what exactly is the GSM format? Is it an industry-standard file or was it proprietary to 3DS and/or the SWAT 3 engine? ArchiCAD supports .gsm files - is this what they are?
I'm not sure how I'll get on making any new maps so I'll contain my ambitions for the moment - I did get the sample Worldcraft map to build without errors but when I played the map the walls I changed hadn't changed, so I'm guessing it didn't quite build it in the way I expected it to. I know SWAT 3 is old now but it's "ours" in the sense that we have it forever if we want to keep adding new mods and maps - having played some of the user maps there are obviously technical limits that are being run up against, so any major advances are only going to be made by hacking the game engine. I just read an article saying that Visual C++ 6.0 was used during the development - presumably when Sierra imploded the source code was lost or it's on backup tapes in somebody's basement?
presumably when Sierra imploded the source code was lost or it's on backup tapes in somebody's basement?
Activision apparently has the source code still. They just won't release it because they would have to pay a coder to go through the code and look for 3rd party code. Not sure what that they would be concerned about. Swat 4 used GameSpy but Swat 3 used the Won Network which was owned by Sierra if I recall. I don't think there were any 3rd party plugins that were used.
There is a precedent here then if Activision do have the source code (which as you say does seem very likely, as presumably they may have used it to package up the distribution for GOG) because of what happened with Call to Power II, but too much time has probably passed now and SWAT 3 was never an Activision product but just something they inherited/bought.
A shame really. There's obviously no business case in releasing the source code except as a goodwill gesture to the SWAT 3/4 community, and there doesn't seem to be much going on at the new "Sierra" these days to indicate that any more games/reboots will be released.
