GAT-12 Skipray Blastboat

[Ramikad]

So, I decided to try something new and attempted to get in-game a Skipray Blastboat I modelled from scratch - you can thank the Trilogy of Thrawn for that.

It partially works. I can spawn it in-game, it flies, the animations "work", it fires... but it suffers from a strange glitch which renders it completely distorted, but just from certain points of view.

I'll let the screenshots talk, wireframe view for better understanding of the model geometry (nevermind the test textures and projected UVmapping):

 

Here's what it's supposed to look like, and what it looks like on certain angles:

 

 

 

And this is what happens when I rotate the camera at certain angles or hop on board:

 

 

 

 

 

Another view of what it looks like if I stand completely still close to it:

 

 

 

 

 

And here's what happens when I crouch at the very same spot:

 

 

 

 

 

I can't figure out what's wrong with it. I used Blender to rig it to a modified version of the X-Wing skeleton. All the meshes seem to be correctly weighed to the proper bones, and in Blender itself I can pose it correctly. The hierarchy seems set up fine. But I must be missing something.

Any ideas what the problem might be?

[AshuraDX]

Did you make custom Animations or are you trieing to use the xwing animations from jka?

[minilogoguy18]

It's the bones, you should be making your own for something that insanely simple.

 

Either that or the model's local transforms aren't zeroed out.

 

Turn off the wire frame, it really isn't going to help, if anything it's making it harder to see.

[Ramikad]

Turns out I must've messed something up with the skeleton. Thanks for the heads up guys!

[Langerd]

@@Ramikad AAAAaa.. sry i had some problems with the internet lately D:

Check in the modview how everything is going, When exporting the glm file You can change paths of the skeleton. If skeleton is new the name is not a problem.. If You copied the x-wing skeleton and put it in the other folder and called it diffrently.. There is the stupid path in the gla file... And even if Your skeleton is in the other folder than original and it is renamed -it uses the original file instead.. To fix this supid thing you just need to download hex editor and change the path.


How animations works in the modview?

[Ramikad]

@@Ramikad AAAAaa.. sry i had some problems with the internet lately D:

 

Check in the modview how everything is going, When exporting the glm file You can change paths of the skeleton. If skeleton is new the name is not a problem.. If You copied the x-wing skeleton and put it in the other folder and called it diffrently.. There is the stupid path in the gla file... And even if Your skeleton is in the other folder than original and it is renamed -it uses the original file instead.. To fix this supid thing you just need to download hex editor and change the path.

 

 

How animations works in the modview?

 

This time I tried rigging it to the TIE Fighter single-bone skeleton first, which worked out fine. Then I tried adding specific bones to that skeleton for the landing gears animations and the rotating S-Foils on the rear, and rigged accordingly, but at that point the model in-game is screwed. It really puzzles me that the model animates fine in Blender, it animates fine in ModView, but is distorted in-game, and even then just sometimes at specific views.

 

So there must be something wrong with either the additions to the skeleton or while exporting the .gla. But I examined the exported .gla, checked out the paths set in both the .gla and the .glm themselves, and at a first sight I couldn't find anything "improper" compared to what the base vehicle models paths look like.

[Langerd]

This time I tried rigging it to the TIE Fighter single-bone skeleton first, which worked out fine. Then I tried adding specific bones to that skeleton for the landing gears animations and the rotating S-Foils on the rear, and rigged accordingly, but at that point the model in-game is screwed. It really puzzles me that the model animates fine in Blender, it animates fine in ModView, but is distorted in-game, and even then just sometimes at specific views.

 

So there must be something wrong with either the additions to the skeleton or while exporting the .gla. But I examined the exported .gla, checked out the paths set in both the .gla and the .glm themselves, and at a first sight I couldn't find anything "improper" compared to what the base vehicle models paths look like.

But You checked it in the gla file ? with Hex editor?

 

You can also share the model to us to check everything

 

 

[minilogoguy18]

Well if the hierarchy isn't correct and the transform pivots of all meshes (excluding tags) aren't at 0,0,0 in global space you'll get skewing. Also, if you move bones that are animated that causes issues as well. It's going to be hard since while I can export anything like this 1st try with no issues I'm not using Blender.

[ZanderNao]

Wow, that's quite the quirk! I hope it gets worked out because I adore new vehicles for Jedi Academy. Thanks for taking this challenge on!

It would be interesting to see a few pictures without the wireframe images as well to get a better sense at what's going on.

[Ramikad]

But You checked it in the gla file ? with Hex editor?

 

You can also share the model to us to check everything

 

I checked with a hex editor, and basically the skeleton .gla reads "models/players/skipray/skipray", while the model reads "models/players/skipray/model" (the model itself), followed by "models/players/skipray/skipray" (the .gla file). Compared to the other vehicles, it is pretty much the same.

 

Well if the hierarchy isn't correct and the transform pivots of all meshes (excluding tags) aren't at 0,0,0 in global space you'll get skewing. Also, if you move bones that are animated that causes issues as well. It's going to be hard since while I can export anything like this 1st try with no issues I'm not using Blender.

 

The model hierarchy should be pretty much okay. I have the typical model_root_0, as well as skeleton_root, both parented to scene_root, both with their own hierarchy. The transforms are also cleared, so I doubt that's the problem. I tried exporting the model rigged to a TIE Fighter skeleton, completely unchanged except for the new name, and that also caused the problem. So the issue has to do with the skeleton.

It's strange to me that if I try re-importing the model back in Blender, along with its skeleton, it looks and works perfectly. Same as ModView.

Also, I should point out that the tags in-game aren't distorted, they are exactly where they're supposed to be and "mostly" they fire in the right direction, except sometimes, at certain angles, they shoot elsewhere.

 

Here's the model (.glm, .gla and .blend), if you guys want to check it out:

http://en.file-upload.net/download-11850121/skipray.zip.html

 

Some screenshots, no wireframe.

How it looks like at certain angles:

 

 

 

How it looks like when I enter it:

 

 

 

As you can see here the muzzle tags are at the correct locations:

 

 

[Langerd]

@minilogoguy18 might be right. Show us the hierarchy in Blender and also .. open the blender and import the model WITH animations and check how it looks. Sometimes animation in the program are diffrent after exporting the model

[Ramikad]

@minilogoguy18 might be right. Show us the hierarchy in Blender and also .. open the blender and import the model WITH animations and check how it looks. Sometimes animation in the program are diffrent after exporting the model

 

So far it has no animations, I just filled it with a few empty frames. But even still, reimporting the model it looks the same as it was before exporting it.

Anyway, here's the hierarchy:

 

 

 

[minilogoguy18]

All meshes and tags should be child to a node named "mesh_root" which is child to model_root. The hierarchy isn't right.

 

The blender hierarchy makes no sense, it doesn't look right compared to SI/MAX/Maya.

[Ramikad]

All meshes and tags should be child to a node named "mesh_root" which is child to model_root. The hierarchy isn't right.

 

The blender hierarchy makes no sense, it doesn't look right compared to SI/MAX/Maya.

 

In Blender the hierarchy works like that. Check out the X-Wing, for example:

 

 

 

 

Moreover, if the hierarchy of vehicle and humanoid meshes is more or less the same, that shouldn't be the problem, since humanoids work fine with that hierarchy.

[minilogoguy18]

Well then either your mesh's transform pivot's are not at 0,0,0 like they should be or you've moved the bones, one or the other.

[Ramikad]

Well then either your mesh's transform pivot's are not at 0,0,0 like they should be or you've moved the bones, one or the other.

 

Perhaps the latter... but how am I making a new skeleton by not moving the bones?

[minilogoguy18]

If you make a new skeleton of course you can move them, I was saying this in terms of you using the X-Wing skeleton. Just like when you make a player model if you use a skeleton from another NPC you cannot re-position it from the root pose or you'll get transform errors.

 

You just don't wanna move anything after setting key frames.