Here's a guide to teach you how to easily import a model from any workshop addon, for use with PAC3. Please don't be a douchebagel and use a ridiculously high-filesize model. Anything over 40MB is unacceptable, and will crash the fuck out of other people. Keep in mind people's bandwidth limitations! Most ISP's throttle your bandwidth after a certain point, so fucking with PAC can get wild - not to mention almost any and all hosting site will do the same.
1. Necessary Downloads
a. 7zip, or WinRAR (www.7-zip.org/download.html) (www.win-rar.com/download.html)
2. Preparation
a. Install 7zip or WinRAR
b. Assign .gma files (Garry's Mod Workshop Files) to open up with gmad.exe
I. gmad.exe is located here: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\bin
II. Your .gma's are located where your addons from workshop go: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\garrysmod\addons
III. Right-click on any .gma, and press "Open With" ( )
IV. Click "Look for other app on this PC", or your OS' equivalence ( )
V. Browse to the directory for gmad.exe, located in Step I, and select it. This should assign .gma files to open up with gmad.exe, from now on.
3. Decompiling The Addon
a. Find the workshop file that you want to use, and download it from the workshop, by pressing "subscribe."
b. Navigate to the addons folder, and double click on the .gma file, for it. ( )
c. This will open up gmad.exe, and the addon will start decompiling. It'll drop the new folder for the decompiled addon into your addons folder. ( )
4. Isolating the model and textures
a. You should have a folder that has models, materials, and lua (sometimes), as three sub-directories, in the decompiled folder. ( )
b. Make a new folder, somewhere easily accessible. Name it whatever you please.
c. Take the model you want to use out of the model subdirectory, for the decompiled addon (.mdl, .phy, .vtx, .vvd) (https://i.imgur.com/n6aobkm.png), and drop those files into the new folder that you made.
d. Take the needed textures out of the materials subdirectory in the decompiled addon, (.vtf, .vmt) (https://i.imgur.com/p3g91TL.png), and drop those into the new folder you created.
e. At this point, your new folder should have all the model(s), and texture(s) all piled up into one single folder. Your files should all be together in the same folder. (https://i.imgur.com/cuslduI.png)
5. Creating The Zip
a. Right click on your new folder, with the models and textures in it.
b. Press "add to archive." (https://i.imgur.com/YmctlPb.png)
c. Make sure the file format is set to ".zip" (https://i.imgur.com/s09jNTX.png)
d. Make sure the compression method is set to "store", meaning that it won't compress anything. (https://i.imgur.com/u1rRtXw.png)
e. Press "ok," to create the .zip file.
6. Uploading
a. Use dropbox.com, and upload the file to your dropbox. (Warning: Free dropbox accounts have 20 gigabytes of monthly bandwidth.)
b. Find your uploaded file, and press "Share." (https://i.imgur.com/CR13Ztj.png)
c. Press "Create Link," and then "Copy Link." (https://i.imgur.com/LT70DAm.png)
7. Using PAC With Your Model
a. Open up PAC.
b. Create an "Experimental Model" entity. (https://i.imgur.com/zf0qvEf.png)
c. Paste the URL for your zip file, from your dropbox, into where the model path field is.
d. Set the very end of the URL to say "dl=1," instead of "dl=0."
e. Press enter. This should load your model, into your PAC, in-game.
Other notes:
You're going to need to bone-merge your imported model, in order to get it to "stick" to the skeleton of your base model, such as barney, breen, alyx, or mossman, or another base model. The PAC willl probably still need editing, to get it to look and work correctly.
If you attempt to drag more texture or model files into the zip file you made after you've zipped it up,this will break the zip file itself, and it won't work, and you'll have to re-zip the folder, again.
So, in order to update your pac model zip, you have to modify the folder you made, and then re-zip it, each time.
You're also always going to need an "entity" somewhere in your PAC. This allows you to hide your base model, because the base model itself is only used for it's skeleton, and for nothing else. (https://i.imgur.com/mmUykJu.png)
You also want to make sure that you never add anything under the "entity" (The one that should show up as your character's name.) This is because nesting any PAC parts under that entity will become invisible, when you hide the entity. The only thing you SHOULD be nesting, for the most part, under that entity, are bones. These allow you to directly manipulate the positions of the bones of your PAC character. This is used to do things such as lengthening or shortening the limbs, changing their position, changing your character's posture, or fixing anything that might be broken, on the model itself.
If you don't want to use DropBox to host your PAC parts, you can alternatively use Google Drive, as well. You also may or may not be able to use any file uploading service that allows you to directly "hotlink" to a file (theoretically of course, as I haven't tried this.)
1. Necessary Downloads
a. 7zip, or WinRAR (www.7-zip.org/download.html) (www.win-rar.com/download.html)
2. Preparation
a. Install 7zip or WinRAR
b. Assign .gma files (Garry's Mod Workshop Files) to open up with gmad.exe
I. gmad.exe is located here: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\bin
II. Your .gma's are located where your addons from workshop go: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\garrysmod\addons
III. Right-click on any .gma, and press "Open With" ( )
IV. Click "Look for other app on this PC", or your OS' equivalence ( )
V. Browse to the directory for gmad.exe, located in Step I, and select it. This should assign .gma files to open up with gmad.exe, from now on.
3. Decompiling The Addon
a. Find the workshop file that you want to use, and download it from the workshop, by pressing "subscribe."
b. Navigate to the addons folder, and double click on the .gma file, for it. ( )
c. This will open up gmad.exe, and the addon will start decompiling. It'll drop the new folder for the decompiled addon into your addons folder. ( )
4. Isolating the model and textures
a. You should have a folder that has models, materials, and lua (sometimes), as three sub-directories, in the decompiled folder. ( )
b. Make a new folder, somewhere easily accessible. Name it whatever you please.
c. Take the model you want to use out of the model subdirectory, for the decompiled addon (.mdl, .phy, .vtx, .vvd) (https://i.imgur.com/n6aobkm.png), and drop those files into the new folder that you made.
d. Take the needed textures out of the materials subdirectory in the decompiled addon, (.vtf, .vmt) (https://i.imgur.com/p3g91TL.png), and drop those into the new folder you created.
e. At this point, your new folder should have all the model(s), and texture(s) all piled up into one single folder. Your files should all be together in the same folder. (https://i.imgur.com/cuslduI.png)
5. Creating The Zip
a. Right click on your new folder, with the models and textures in it.
b. Press "add to archive." (https://i.imgur.com/YmctlPb.png)
c. Make sure the file format is set to ".zip" (https://i.imgur.com/s09jNTX.png)
d. Make sure the compression method is set to "store", meaning that it won't compress anything. (https://i.imgur.com/u1rRtXw.png)
e. Press "ok," to create the .zip file.
6. Uploading
a. Use dropbox.com, and upload the file to your dropbox. (Warning: Free dropbox accounts have 20 gigabytes of monthly bandwidth.)
b. Find your uploaded file, and press "Share." (https://i.imgur.com/CR13Ztj.png)
c. Press "Create Link," and then "Copy Link." (https://i.imgur.com/LT70DAm.png)
7. Using PAC With Your Model
a. Open up PAC.
b. Create an "Experimental Model" entity. (https://i.imgur.com/zf0qvEf.png)
c. Paste the URL for your zip file, from your dropbox, into where the model path field is.
d. Set the very end of the URL to say "dl=1," instead of "dl=0."
e. Press enter. This should load your model, into your PAC, in-game.
Other notes:
You're going to need to bone-merge your imported model, in order to get it to "stick" to the skeleton of your base model, such as barney, breen, alyx, or mossman, or another base model. The PAC willl probably still need editing, to get it to look and work correctly.
If you attempt to drag more texture or model files into the zip file you made after you've zipped it up,this will break the zip file itself, and it won't work, and you'll have to re-zip the folder, again.
So, in order to update your pac model zip, you have to modify the folder you made, and then re-zip it, each time.
You're also always going to need an "entity" somewhere in your PAC. This allows you to hide your base model, because the base model itself is only used for it's skeleton, and for nothing else. (https://i.imgur.com/mmUykJu.png)
You also want to make sure that you never add anything under the "entity" (The one that should show up as your character's name.) This is because nesting any PAC parts under that entity will become invisible, when you hide the entity. The only thing you SHOULD be nesting, for the most part, under that entity, are bones. These allow you to directly manipulate the positions of the bones of your PAC character. This is used to do things such as lengthening or shortening the limbs, changing their position, changing your character's posture, or fixing anything that might be broken, on the model itself.
If you don't want to use DropBox to host your PAC parts, you can alternatively use Google Drive, as well. You also may or may not be able to use any file uploading service that allows you to directly "hotlink" to a file (theoretically of course, as I haven't tried this.)