WIP Moose showoff

[Boothand]

@@Boothand do you have anything above the skin modifier in the stack? if you do, remove modifiers or move them below the skin modifier. It's the best i can do for now, ideally i would've opened the original max scene and poked around.

 

Nope, there's only a skin modifier.

 

I tried to include as much information as possible in this screenshot. It's one mesh, has "blank" #1 frame, an idle animation and a walking animation, for now. IKs are seperate from hierarchy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know if I could save/export it to something you could open. Can save to max 2010. I have 2013 on my computer too, but I don't know of any file formats to transfer weights, animation and all those vital parts.

[Psyk0Sith]

Try .FBX version 2010 (at the bottom of the export dialog)

[Boothand]

Try .FBX version 2010 (at the bottom of the export dialog)

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58757568/Moose/fbxMoose.FBX

[Psyk0Sith]

I'm not sure why it wouldnt compile with the root.xsi you sent, i was having a 4599 error code, but a simple export from the FBX file went further from the start.

First problem you had was too many bones influencing some of the verts, this can be easily fixed by changing the bone affect limit under the advanced parameters rollout of the skin modifier, ALWAYS change this to 4 whenever you start skinning.

Second problem is the high poly count. 2010 triangles (max is 2000) and 1361 verts (max is 1000) i fixed the poly limit by detaching the antlers, you still get too many verts because of the body but it'll compile and work fine. Finally the third and probably the worst, is your bones have been mirrored improperly and the pivot points are pretty much all screwed up on the left side once in modview. His right side appears ok. When you mirror bones, use the mirror tool under character > Bone Tools. You might be able to manually fix the pivot points of each left side bone but i'd prefer to redo the rig from scratch since you can snap them onto the old ones and match them perfectly (not the left side tho! ).

Check your PM's for the mangled space moose.

[Pande]

Ok I can't resist.

 

[Boothand]

Thanks a lot for your time!

 

Okay, so what I need to do:

 

• Bone affect limit to 4.
• Detach antlers.
• Mirror bones (bone tools) over to the left side and use the method Archangel talked about to get back the animations and weights when replacing the old bones?

I'm hoping I won't have to do too much work to re-do weights and animations, although I expect it to have some consequences, as I seem to remember the left and right bones weren't really mirrored for some reason. The time between the bone rig and the weighting was about over a year apart.

[Psyk0Sith]

Yup that's what you need to do. You could leave the right side bones in place and mirror them over correctly, that should work instead of redoing *everything* but you'll have to redo the anims and probably weights unfortunately. Archangel's method might work but if vertex order changes by detaching the antlers it's not guaranteed. Also you can easily mirror your weights with the skin modifier, just rig one side correctly and mirror.

[Boothand]

Yup that's what you need to do. You could leave the right side bones in place and mirror them over correctly, that should work instead of redoing *everything* but you'll have to redo the anims and probably weights unfortunately. Archangel's method might work but if vertex order changes by detaching the antlers it's not guaranteed. Also you can easily mirror your weights with the skin modifier, just rig one side correctly and mirror.

 

Cool.

 

Couldn't I mirror the bones and avoid redoing animations and weights by detaching the antlers as the last thing I do?

[Archangel35757]

You have to mirror the bones like psyk0 said... but you could first try to save out your animations as XAF files and reapply them after you have fixed the skeleton.

[Psyk0Sith]

It doesn't hurt to try the XAF but my guess is they won't match the new pivot points of the new bones and end up all screwy or not work at all. Mirroring bones and keeping animations is impossible from what i've read.

Oh and when i said right side i meant the moose's right side, if that wasn't clear...you'll see what i mean if you load the .glm in modview.

[Archangel35757]

He can try to do retargeted animation which allows him to input offsets IIRC.