Utility request: Softimage plugins

[eezstreet]

It's a bit beyond my knowledge. If someone like Xycaleth wants to take a stab at it, then by all means. Otherwise, I don't know.

[DT.]

If this OpenGL axis thing is too much of a pain, may need to look at adding MD3 to Xycaleth's FBX2MD3.

[mrwonko]

Automatic splitting of UV seams is something a good importer should handle, just like triangulation and rotation in case of different coordinate systems. It's a pain to have to manually do that.

 

I'm guilty of this myself, my Blender exporter has all kinds of requirements or it won't work, but that doesn't make it any more excusable...

[eezstreet]

Automatic splitting of UV seams is something a good importer should handle, just like triangulation and rotation in case of different coordinate systems. It's a pain to have to manually do that.

 

I'm guilty of this myself, my Blender exporter has all kinds of requirements or it won't work, but that doesn't make it any more excusable...

I suppose you're right. I'm just so over working on this tool, it's been nothing but a big headache navigating through Autodesk's decrepit documentation (most of the resources on there reference stuff which doesn't exist anymore)

[DT.]

It's almost working though. I managed to convert an FBX to MD3, loaded that MD3 up, applied a .skin file and re-exported as MD3. Not sure if it will work ingame (haven't tested) but it works and looks fine in MD3view.

 

Perhaps a different format besides FBX? Heck, we only need vertex animation, not skeletal.

 

 

EDIT:

 

@@minilogoguy18

 

Just made an animated MD3 with Noesis from FBX which loads fine in MD3view. Keeps tags, animation & texture info. Exported the FBX as Y up, then I checked rotate 90 and got the file back to Max's axis so this should work for Mod Tool. 

[minilogoguy18]

So Noesis was able to get the job done this whole time and I never knew it?

[DT.]

Yeah, neither did I. I knew it could export MD3 but I didn't think it actually worked for JKA. It's actually better than the recompiled exporter I released. Oh well, at least now we know.

 

But yeah, I was able to have a skeletal animation that gets converted into vertex animation with noesis. So you should be able to make some MD3's with detailed animation if you wanted.

 

Good ol' Rich.

[eezstreet]

D:

[minilogoguy18]

Makes me wonder if Raven had a tool to do such a thing since you have animated MD3 models in the base game and they just never released it.

 

Would still be bad ass to have a real MD3 exporter from Softimage that even supported vertex animation via plotting so that you could use bones and envelope weights for speed.

[Archangel35757]

@@eezstreet -- is it not a coordinate transformation just like I posted in my "...fixing the dotXSI exporter" thread? Softimage is Y up... so shouldn't be a problem for Softimage. Max is Z up.

[eezstreet]

why even bother at this point if Noesis does the same exact thing.

[Archangel35757]

It's almost working though. I managed to convert an FBX to MD3, loaded that MD3 up, applied a .skin file and re-exported as MD3. Not sure if it will work ingame (haven't tested) but it works and looks fine in MD3view.

 

Perhaps a different format besides FBX? Heck, we only need vertex animation, not skeletal.

 

 

EDIT:

 

@@minilogoguy18

 

Just made an animated MD3 with Noesis from FBX which loads fine in MD3view. Keeps tags, animation & texture info. Exported the FBX as Y up, then I checked rotate 90 and got the file back to Max's axis so this should work for Mod Tool. 

You should post a brief tutorial.

[minilogoguy18]

Well reguardless, I'd like this thread to stay open, I still REALLY want a MD3 import/export add on for Softimage. I want to avoid using 3rd party software to convert files.

[DT.]

At least there is a method XSI Mod Tool & Maya (should work also) users can use. I'll post a proper tutorial sometime in the future, bit busy now with some things.

 

- Export your scene as an FBX. This can have bone driven animation.

- Open this FBX with Noesis.

- Click File>Export and choose MD3 from the droplist.

- If the file is exported from a scene with Y up, check rotate 90.

- Place your MD3 in the proper folder structure (models/blah/blah) so MD3view can read it. 

- Open the MD3 up with MD3view.

- The model will most likely be white, so create yourself a .skin file. Place it with your MD3 and make sure your texture(s) is in there also.

- Load up the .skin file in MD3view, this should slap the texture(s) on.

- Now to save this texture info, export your MD3 as an MD3 overwriting your opened file. You may need to re-open MD3view to see if it worked.