WIP Fixing the dotXSI 3.0 Exporter for 3ds Max...

[minilogoguy18]

Well I personally don't have any real interest in Maya, I'll probably use Softimage forever since it will take MANY years before they implement all the tools they're wanting to port from Softimage to Maya. It's already all been gone over in an interview I read with someone from AD.

[Archangel35757]

Autodesk support has told me that Crosswalk development will likely go the way of Softimage (My hunch is that there will probably only be a Crosswalk 2015 version) ...and that we should migrate to FBX as an intermediate exchange format. So @@Xycaleth (or another coder) will need to get animation support into the FBX2Ghoul2 converter... good thing there is that it could incorporate the existing FBX Viewer that is also embedded in the standalone Autodesk FBX converter.

[Tempust85]

And as I've confirmed, the FBX 2 GLM converter works with models from Maya. So it just needs animation support & reading from a .car file, which is also used by assimilate to generate an animation.cfg and to create any derivative animations from existing animations. Would be so helpful if Raven just gave us the source for carcass......

[Archangel35757]

@@DT85 & @@Xycaleth -- would be nice if it would create the G2 Skin file as well.

[Archangel35757]

So I thought that for the 64-bit plugins I should probably have the progress bar display the "Crosswalk Logo" (since it's powered by the Crosswalk SDK)...

 

 

...instead of the animated dotXSI logo.  So I made the following Animated Crosswalk logo (wish I could get YouTube to loop it):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZWsV8xLhuo&feature=youtu.be

 

What do you think?  Give me some feedback...

[Archangel35757]

I updated the animated Crosswalk logo walk cycle based on comments from @@AshuraDX... (not uploaded though)

[Archangel35757]

Next week I will upload the Max 2012 32/64-bit exporter plugins... sorry for the delay.

[Archangel35757]

Just uploaded the 3ds Max 2012 64-bit dotXSI 3.0 exporter (as Beta R1).  Will try to get the 32-bit version compiled and uploaded in a day or so.  Sorry for the slow progress-- life, work, etc. is bogging me down... keeping me away from my hobbies.

[Archangel35757]

Update: Autodesk technical support has been absolutely no help-- after sending them my Max2012/2013 source code... the tech support Guy won't even return my emails. So...

 

...rather than import the VS2008 Max2012 project files into VS2010, I decided to use the 2013 plugin wizard to create a new empty exporter plugin solution. This readily compiles. So then I began populating my code into it piece-meal and compile as I go... so as to overcome the linking errors. First thing I verified were my export & about dialogs... and they work just fine. It's going well-- fixing the Unicode errors at each incremental compile. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

[Archangel35757]

UPDATE: I GOT THE MAX2013 EXPORTER TO COMPILE!!!!!!

 

I'm going to email it to @@DT85 and get him to beta test it.

[Tempust85]

Check your email, it crashed. Tried in 2014 though.

 

I suggest you grab a trial of 2013 and verify it will export, otherwise it's going to be a long journey to get it to work lol.

[Archangel35757]

I have max 2013 installed... I just don't have time to check it out today... still-- the fact that it compiles is HUGE!!! At least now I can compile a hybrid version and run a debug session to see where it is crashing.

[Archangel35757]

@@DT85 -- Perhaps the reason it's crashing on you is that it is compiled against Crosswalk 2013... which doesn't support Max2014.

 

In the morning I will test it on Max2013... and post my results.

[Tempust85]

That could be quite possible. I'll see if I can grab a 2013 trial.

[AshuraDX]

I use max 2013 anyway so give it to me guys

[Archangel35757]

@@AshuraDX -- Let me test the x64 version.. and if it works then give me a few minutes to compile a 32-bit version. 

 

Nope... No Go.

 

I get an error after the progress bar launches at:  Converting Scene... [Exporting Animation]

[Archangel35757]

The Debugging session shows that it is crashing when it gets to the line of exporting the scene nodes, in method CdotXSIMapper::Export( ) here:

 
//
// Recursively export
//
ExportNode ( l_pRootNode, m_pParser->dotXSITemplate() );

...stepping into the function to follow the rabbit trail. :unsure:

[Archangel35757]

I've isolated where it's crashing... hope to have it resolved very soon.

[Archangel35757]

Update:   Well, I have resolved the function that was causing the initial crashing.  And the Max2013 exporter is now writing out the dotXSI 3.0 file... and the file seems complete (compared to Max2011) and the file does play in the XSI Viewer.  However, it is now crashing somewhere in the code-- post-writing of the dotXSI file... so I still need to do more debugging. 

[Tempust85]

Certainly getting there, good work.

[Archangel35757]

Certainly getting there, good work.

 

Ok... I finally got it to stop crashing.  So I'm sending the 3ds Max 2013 x64 dotXSI exporter for @@DT85 to test out... (I only verified it quickly with his SaberSlamDown animation).  Anyone else who has 3ds Max 2013 x64 and wants to beta test it-- just send me a PM. 

[Tempust85]

Brilliant @@Archangel35757 it works. The animation from Max 2011 & 2014 match exactly. Exported the same way that I do in 2011 - export selected.

[Archangel35757]

Brilliant @@Archangel35757 it works. The animation from Max 2011 & 2014 match exactly. Exported the same way that I do in 2011 - export selected.

Well, it's not too brilliant-- rather a frustrated hack to stop the crashing-- but my bandaid fix (setting the pointer to NULL) results in a memory leak. So I need to keep looking for the root cause of the crashing...

[Tempust85]

Oh

[Archangel35757]

Oh

I'm close to having it fixed. Single file export now appears to work properly... deleting the xsiparser object. However, I've broken batch export-- rather nastily. It appears to go thru all the "motions" and the log says everything was a success-- but no dotXSI files are actually written out... further it corrupts the Max files (greatly incteasing their size) and they will no longer open.