Xycaleth

Another update in the process of being approved. I've updated the FBX SDK I'm using and added more information to the error messages.

At least let me iron out the remaining bugs, @@DT85

Basically any sever mods except for JA++ and OpenJK (as in the game DLL) were unaffected.

Just tried this , it wont create a glm for , ito pens closes and basically does nothing

I tried runnint it via cmd and the drag&drop method , both didn't work

so I guess it has to be the .fbx got any ideas what it might be ?

 

Edit : probably adding error messages would be a good idea

I have an error message for every possible exit from the program, so I'm not sure what's happening in your case. When you run it via command line, does it exit with no message at all? It might be that you need the VC++ 2012 Redistributable.

I'm trying to get it to work with an exported .fbx (binary ver. 2014 with up axis z-up) from 3ds max 2014 x64, but all I get is this:

D:\base\models\players\_humanoid>fbx2ghoul2 -anim _humanoid.gla xizor.fbx

Converting xizor.fbx to GLM.
Using _humanoid.gla for skeleton.
Failed to create GLM file model.glm.

D:\base\models\players\_humanoid>

The _humanoid.gla file is in the same folder. What am I doing wrong?

Can you describe how your Max scene is organised? I've assumed a lot about how the scene is laid out, so it might be your scene is organized differently from how the program currently wants it :/

I still need to go through the details but it'll be useful if you and maybe a few other modellers can discuss with me how you want the general workflow to go. I'll start up a little private convo today or tomorrow when I have time.

@@DT85 Yep! (See addition below...)

Edit: by multiple animations do you mean from multiple FBX files, each containing its own animation?

Awesome work at always @@DT85

@@Xycaleth 

Amazing work man VERY cool stuff. This will be used over and over for a very long time. I plan on using it for my mod. Awesome work man and thank you!

Thanks! There's still more to come soon, so you'll be able to create custom GLA skeletons

@@DT85 Bug is now fixed. Expect the latest version to be in the files section some time soon

How did you run it?

You need to either drag and drop a .fbx model on to the exe, or run it from command line (for the moment). But it has just occurred to me that when you drag and drop, you won't see the error messages that show up in the little window that pops up if there are any errors.

Awesome, thanks

I was looking at the file submission rules, but they seem to be geared solely towards game modifications. For files such as utilities which tend to be separate programs, what are the rules for the read me file? Obviously the authors, licenses, copyrights and the like remain the same, but the given read me file template doesn't really fit.

Making GLM files more accessible was my plan with this, and was why I chose to go with FBX

Btw, has anyone tried converting their FBX file without triangulating the polygons yet? I'd be interested to see how well it works compared to a pre-triangulated model.

As far as I can tell, where the UVW seams meet, the positions and normals are identical for the duplicated vertex, so in-game, you won't notice a split. It goes back to what I said earlier in the topic:

Just because a vertex gets duplicated doesn't mean it has to be different. If you have duplicate vertices with matching normals and texture coordinates then you won't be able to see where they meet 

@@Xycaleth

 

Both of my importers for GLM still have the mesh breaks along the UVW seams.

Are you checking if there are seams by importing the GLM into 3DS max? Usually seams won't appear in your modeling program, but get created by the exporter (i.e. export to XSI or FBX). From what I can guess, it's then up to the importer to remove these seams.

To anyone who tries the latest version out: are there still problems along the UVW seams?

So it looks like the problem with the broken animations was due to me not being able to count to 3. But this problem is now fixed

Download link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/874909/fbx2ghoul2.zip

There are now no known problems with the converter, but I want to tidy up and optimize the code a bit more before submitting it to the files section

My next plan for this converter is to have it extracting the animation data from the FBX file and then export it as a .GLA file. Once that's done, there's a few tricks I want to try which include potential minor rendering speed improvements, and reduced jitter in exported animations.

Okay! New version of the converter is available. Same address as before: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/874909/fbx2ghoul2.zip

This update fixes the normals, as well as some vertex weighting issues. I also added model triangulation, which hasn't been tested, but I'm pretty confident will work. It turned out to be pretty easy to add. As a result, triangulating the model upon exporting the FBX file is now optional

The problem described here still exists - I'm still investigating the cause of the problem.

For now the model does need to be triangulated but I wouldn't be opposed to removing this requirement at a later date

Yay, I got it working. For some reason I was getting duplicates of all the vertices, which is why the vertex count was super high. I'll upload a new version of the converter some time today. I still need to fix a bug with the weightings!

Ohai. Welcome to the Hub

I think I remember you (or at least your name) as an ex-JKG dev?

All you need for admining is the kick and ban commands

Thanks

I couldn't find any smoothing group information in the FBX file. @@DT85 I think there's an option to export smoothing groups into the FBX file in Max?

Strange. Carcass must be doing something different. I'm taking the vertex data from the FBX file, removing duplicates and then writing that to the GLM file, so I don't see how I have such a high vertex count.

What warnings do you get? And does the wireframe in ModView look identical to the one in your modeling program?

I don't think physics engines even existed back when JKA was made. But you're right, JKA doesn't use a third party physics engine so any additional physics like better ragdoll would have to be coded up by someone. I'm interested in having a go, but I have a long list of things that need doing first.