Help with Assimilate/Carcass

[DarthJava]

*sigh* tired of beating my head on a brick wall with this one lol 

 

Sorry if this is such a long post!

 

I am trying my hand at making a new swoop for JK3.

I've never made a vehicle before (successfully), and was following the old tutorial by Duncan https://jkhub.org/tutorials/article/189-duncans-vehicle-tutorial/

(as closely as I could with all the typo's and grammar issues) 

 

I've hit a few road blocks along the way and have gotten over them, but I am stuck on Assimilate and Carcass... 

It will seem like everything is going fine then I get the "error: 1 message"

 

I use 3ds Max 9 (and yes have found an .xsi exporter that is the correct version, 3.0 to be exact) also have MilkShape 3D 1.8.5 that also exports .xsi (this seems to work better?)

When I use the .xsi from Max, assimilate tells me it's a "bad xsi" (even though it's the 3.0 version??) the .xsi from MilkShape doesn't give me that error.

 

I've set up the file path correctly I assume.

 

 

My preferences are set up correctly again I assume, but then again, from what I've heard or seen it wouldn't surprise me if it isn't.

 

After I run the build I get this...

 

 

...and then this... 

 

 

I've searched accross the web for answers, and it feels like I've tried them all or they're not quite my situation. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated!  

Oh, and I run on Win 7 OS if that makes any difference.

[Archangel35757]

Where did you get your dotXSI exporter? Post a pic of your dotXSI exporter settings.

 

You should be using this exporter (verified working properly):

 

https://jkhub.org/files/file/2612-3ds-max-9-dotxsi-30-exporter-3264-bit/

 

Also, you are using an obsolete version of Assimilate and Carcass. You need to download the latest Assimilate and Carcass v2.2 from our Utilities file section.

[minilogoguy18]

I want to see your model.car settings, you know, after you do File>Add files then double click on the root.xsi file in assimilate to bring up the properties. You may have a field unchecked like "Make it's own skeleton" which must be checked and the path must be set beneath it but judging by the cmd prompt it looks OK.

 

If you follow Duncan's tutorial to the T you should have no problem, it just doesn't cover animated vehicles but that's not much more work really. I followed this same tutorial to get my first vehicle in game many years ago with no problems. Might wanna go over some of the steps again.

[DarthJava]

And I did get the Assimilate and Carcass from jkhub, though I might re-download it just to see...

 

Definitely made sure "make it's own skeleton" was checked. I have followed the tutorial to a T but now I'm starting to think it is the xsi exporter plugin. I'll have to look into why it's not working. 

 

Yep... just figured out my plugin was actually a 2.0... 

 

So now when I build it says "bolt_driver has no weights", but that I can figure out I think 

Yep... exceeds 1000 verts LOL! Oh well.

 

You guys answered my question and for that you have my undying gratitude!!! Thanks a million!

[Archangel35757]

Where did you get that "bad" dotXSI exporter plugin? And your screenshots showed you were using carcass 2.1. Use Carcass 2.2.

[DarthJava]

from here http://www.maxplugins.de/max9.php?search=xsi&sort=Author

 

And that would probably help too, but it's actually working for me now.

 

There was a trick from a forum with a similar problem that said to open the root.xsi with notepad and it would tell you the version right at the top.

When I did it would show "xsi 0300txt 0032" which was apparently compatible with assimilate, but the version of the actual xsi exporter was 2.0 

[Archangel35757]

There are three dotXSI exporters on that page you linked.  The Blake Robinson and Autodesk Crosswalk plugins WILL NOT work correctly with Carcass.  The Crosswalk exporter generates a dotXSI 6.0 file (and Carcass v2.2 only supports valid dotXSI 1.1, 1.3, 3.0 and 3.5 file formats).  If I recall correctly, the Blake Robinson exporter will generate a dotXSI 1.3 file specific to the Battlezone2 game (is this the one you are referring to where you say it generates a "xsi 0200txt 0032" file (meaning a dotXSI 2.0 file)?  That Pandemic-based exporter is not compatible with this game engine.

 

The CORRECT plugin is the one there submitted by me (dotXSI 3.0 Exporter v1.9)-- it is the exact same plugin as hosted in the JKHub Utilities section I linked you to earlier.

 

 

The "dotXSI 3.0" v1.9 exporter is the plugin you have to use (if you want your stuff to work).  Now, please post a picture of your export dialog settings that you used... I just want to check how you set the options.

[DarthJava]

I used the Blake Robinson, which yes, I figured out didn't work but I would try it. Had I known it was here at JKHub the whole time... lol 

 

This is what I do when I export now.

 

[DT.]

No need to check animation if you're not making animations. While it won't affect compiling against an existing animation set, it does give unnecessary file bloat to your .xsi.

[Archangel35757]

@@DT85 - I'm pretty sure even the root pose (root.xsi) needs to export frame 0 and 1, even if things are not moving the objects are still keyed in the root pose, so that's two frames of animation... right? Unless you're referring to exporting a static mesh for the purposes of baking a normal map?

 

What some people forget to do is change the length of the animation time configuration from the default 100 to 2 or whatever the actual frame length is.

[Psyk0Sith]

I always leave animation unchecked for characters and leave time frame 0-100. Frame 0 is what's needed. For vehicles it's different when animatons are present of course, simple flying ships don't require animation from what i remember.

[DarthJava]

Depends on what you wanna do I think. If I have/want animations then I would assume you'd check animations, if not then don't.

 

For some reason if I un-checked animations assimilate would yell at me   but I got my vehicle in game and working. Looks like crap since I didn't really put time into the modeling/texturing.

 

I mainly just wanted to see the process first hand so I could do it again, maybe next time I'll try a simple "idle" animation