Dragon to XSI/3DS Max

[katanamaru]

I'm excited by all the work done to make animations easier and better with more professional software. I'm hopping that we get even more saber styles to play with now. 

 

I was just wondering if some coder might be willing to make a converter for XSI or 3DS Max that will load animations I've and other people have made with Dragon. I've made a heck of a lot of animations that I'd be willing to clean up but I read in another thread (don't remember which) that I won't be able to import things I've done in Dragon.

 

Or is there a walk around which will let me load my animations that are already merged and in game into XSI/3DMax?

[Archangel35757]

If Dragon saves the animations as a Ghoul2 .gla file, then you can import the .gla into Blender using Mr. Wonko's Blender tools. Once in Blender you can convert it to .FBX and bring it into 3ds Max or Softimage Mod Tool (or just continue to work in Blender).

[tinny]

You can make JA/GLA animations in blender?

[Archangel35757]

You can make JA/GLA animations in blender?

Yes. Look here:

 

http://jkhub.org/files/category/1-utilities/

[katanamaru]

Yay!

[Tempust85]

Just don't try to import all of base JKA's GLA in Blender, it will lock up lol.

[minilogoguy18]

The thing is too now that you'll have to remember is that you'll only get simple bones, you do some fancy snapping work to transfer the animation to the rig which I've done with a base animation otherwise you'll be animating by the bone once in the software.

 

You can really make JA animations in Softimage, 3ds max or blender, Softimage and 3ds max though are the only ones with bipeds to make the animation process easier. JA animations in a professional program is nothing new @@tinny, been possible for as long as the game has been out.

[Archangel35757]

One thing to remember about importing your .gla file into Blender is that (I think) you'll end up with a key on every frame for each bone-- so you may be introducing .gla compression artifacts into the animation due to the .gla half-precision format. My recommendation is, whether in Blender or after you import an FBX file into 3dsMax or Softimage, delete the keys on the bones between major poses so that the "in-betweens" are governed by the controllers. This should remove any .gla compression artifacts.

[Tempust85]

If you want to edit animations in a way that's 100% compatible with JKA's other .xsi source animations, import the .xsi file that contains the animation you want to edit into Mod Tool. Then it's as simple as adding it to the rest of the xsi source animations for JKA and compile with carcass.

 

AFAIK, XSI/Mod Tool will export out a 1:1 copy of the SRT & BASEPOSE data. 3ds Max exports out slight deviations with its SRT & BASEPOSE. Nothing that's really noticeable, but you will have to use the -ignorebasedeviations option with carcass.

[Archangel35757]

 

…AFAIK, XSI/Mod Tool will export out a 1:1 copy of the SRT & BASEPOSE data. 3ds Max exports out slight deviations with its SRT & BASEPOSE. Nothing that's really noticeable, but you will have to use the -ignorebasedeviations option with carcass.

You are mistaken. While the current 3dsMax exporter does have some minor deviations out in the 5th or 6th decimal place... they are insignificant and within the allowed tolerance such that the -ignorebasedeviations switch is not required. (Except in the very beginning before the 1st beta release) in all of my test compiles I have not used it.

[Tempust85]

Well that would explain why I haven't had to use it for my custom skele, I thought it was some pure luck but this is indeed great news!

[minilogoguy18]

My recommnedation would be to import the animation then say use my rig over top of it to recreate it, you'll have a much better end result and WAY more control that way.

[ChalklYne]

How do you import the .xsi of an animation, then convert it to your rig? MOTOR the skeleton_root's?

[Tempust85]

The way I get existing animations onto the biped I animate with in 3ds Max is using Bippy, which converts animated objects into a character studio biped. Neat tool really if you understand how to use it.

[minilogoguy18]

I actually used simple tools to do it, just selecting rig components, snapping them in certain poses at certain points in the animation and keying the rig. There's probably a faster way but since I wasn't too sure about how well a null skeleton to rig transfer would work I did this instead.