Cerez

Yep, but it's also a problem with the skeleton's design. The JKA skeleton is a standard looking skeleton, but the animations the characters are doing are like almost full 360 arm-swinging, so they really should have implemented a circular joint design, or something that allows for that sort of twist in the shoulder. Then again, I've never really noticed this until I started rigging. I always thought it was just a small bug in the animation when I paused the game awkwardly at certain times. Most of the action is too fast-paced to really notice it. I've made my peace with it, now. I can't change how the game works... I'll figure out some way to cover it up a little with carefully positioned textures. What a lot of good JKA modelers do is cover up the shoulder joints with cloth mesh on top, so that you can't actually see the deforming joints. Also, it's not so obvious if your model has thicker arms (like Kyle).

Hahaha, don't be so dramatic, @@minilogoguy18. Of course Max 5 has a weight painting tool. It has all the basic necessities to get the job done -- all of the core functionality of 3DS Max. It's just missing some of the luxury tools and features that the newer versions have that make the workflow easier. I did have a look at a few helpful video tutorials -- I think yours included -- but I'm not satisfied with how my shoulder weighting attempts are turning out, and now, after getting my weights matching as close to Raven's as possible, I've realised why... Have a look at this beauty! The only consolation these models have is a matching texture on the arms and torso, so that the shoulder mutations are not so obvious. Unfortunately, in my case, I don't have that luxury... It's just bad model design for animation in the original game. The best thing I can do is to carefully fine-tune the weight on each vertex and try and get it looking as close to less mutated as possible... So it comes down to whether it's looking bad or disastrous, and I'm trying to get it as close to bad as possible, hahaha...

Yessss! Here we go! Version 2.68 of Blender has no problem importing GLMs using @@mrwonko's plugin with all weight settings and individual vertex point weight information visible (you can see it on the right side there, in the Properties panel). That's as good a reference as one can get! Now I'm ready and armed to tackle those shoulders properly. B) Thanks everyone.

Update: After installing Blender and setting up @@mrwonko's plugins, I was able to get a good look at the eyelid topology on Jan: As you can see, the model needs to preferably have formed eyelids with eyelashes, which are then weighted gradually to the eye bones, like a regular joint, as @@minilogoguy18 has said. Hopefully this information will help someone else wondering this same question.

It's a long story... but now that I've come more than halfway through the project with version 5, I don't want to switch to something different. It'll throw me off the task at hand. I will update Max after this project. An update: after some tinkering and setting up, I was able to get Raven's GLMs to load with weights in Blender (thanks, @@mrwonko). Version 2.64 of Blender (surprisingly) doesn't support viewing exact weight values on individual vertexes (something that even ancient Max 5 can do), but at least it gives a visual idea of how the weights are distributed across the mesh for the individual bones. Version 2.68 and upward added vertex weight viewing and editing, though I've yet to see if @@mrwonko's GLM import plugin works with a newer version of Blender... Stay tuned.

I'm weighting using vertex selection. I have very few polys to work with for each joint, so it's very finicky to get the balance right. I see that even the Raven team has had problems with deforming the joints on their models properly. It was a poor choice to design the models and assign/control the skeleton this way on their part... If they were planning on arms swinging behind and over the head, they should have elaborated on those shoulder joint designs. Either way, is what it is... gotta work with it. Thanks @@Psyk0Sith, but I can't open this in Max 5. Where are these Raven XSI model source files, @@Archangel35757? I was only able to find animation sources, which are just that: skeleton animations without any mesh and weights.

Great! Thanks @@Ramikad and @@Circa! I'll download Blender then, and see if I can figure this thing out...

Can someone confirm this?

It's just that there are so few polys to work with, and the JKA skeleton is merciless with the arm movements. It's extremely hard to find a balance that works. This is the third time I've started from scratch, and I just can't get the shoulders to behave... :/

How do I import Raven's models (GLMs) with weighting information preserved? My 3DS Max plugin imports the GLMs successfully, but there are no weights showing on the imported model's mesh. I really need to have a look at an original rig from Raven for reference. I'm having a real hard time with getting the shoulders to deform properly...

You're not?! Then what are you doing here?? Out! Out!!!

This popped into my mind today, while working on my model: So who's up for marching up and down the square with me?

That sounds interesting. Would it kill Darth Malak in one shot?

Fair enough. To me Linux is always best for work, anyway. I have Windows 8.1 running on a partition and I'm scared to update it because every time I do, one of my classic games loses something important that it requires to function properly. And the OS management is horrible in Windows. For example, ever noticed how some icons show badly or show as the wrong icon? That's because Windows caches all icons, and it often triggers some sort of bug that mixes the icons up. Now, how do you empty the cache? Take a wild guess. You need to quit Windows Explorer from the Task Manager, and then run a series of commands in the Command Prompt to delete the cache files, then restart your computer. That's real user friendly. Hurray for Windows. XD

I'm not following. Windows 7 is a little more backwards compatible than Windows 8, and is less prone to breaking necessary libraries for programs. Mac OS X is a pain in the ass, don't get me started... Ironically Windows XP is still in many ways best for development and running all sorts of games. Win 7 has some workspace features which make it a little more convenient for work, and is more up to date, so you can run all of today's programs on it.

Some of JKA's animations are really strange. The way they treat the human body is really unnatural (upper spine split in half, etc.)...

Yes, that's what I'm doing. With clothing it gets difficult. Sometimes you have to weigh it to a different bone than what would be logical, so that it will deform well and stay clear of clipping...

I've managed to solve my problem using some trial and error. If you have tight clothes to match to the model -- and they need to be a separate mesh -- make sure you give them a few points distance from the body mesh (even if they are meant to be tight-fit on the body), as well as weighting them closely similar to the body parts underneath. JKA needs some room for deforming the mesh so that the meshes don't overlap. You have to count with the bone to vertex points distance/relationship. If you don't distance the clothes mesh too much, they still look close-fit, but you eliminate most of the overlaps. It's a very fine balance; it takes much trial and error. And you can move mesh vertexes even after they have been weighted. Just don't add or remove any. Of course that still means that I'm getting some clipping happening at the front of the legs, but I guess some clipping in the models is just unavoidable in JKA, especially where the arms and legs join the body. It's a bit annoying, to be honest. After so much work on getting a model to look right, JKA takes it and squishes it into shapes and positions you'd rather not see your model in... XD

Hahaha, you can't just fudge something that changes the game's design. We do a lot of great modding here, but no-one can make miracles happen. As I said, it's possible to achieve this, but all players involved will need to receive the change. The game's original code doesn't allow for loading any skin that isn't default_ into the MP character selection screen. I know of no workaround to circumvent this. That's how the game was programmed.

I've just checked, and 3DS Max 5 doesn't have the Skin Wrap modifier. I only have the Skin Tools interface to work with. To be clear, all that you're doing with the Skin Wrap modifier is transferring the current weight settings from the body to the clothing, right @@AshuraDX? Then you're tweaking that to make sure that the distance the two meshes are from the bone does not cause overlaps/clips when the model bends, right? I'm asking because I already have the same weights on the clothing mesh, but with extreme model bends, such as the movement of the legs, the two meshes still end up overlapping, no matter how much I assign the weight to the leg bone on my clothing mesh. The bends are just too extreme to keep them from clipping.

That won't work. If it's not icon_default, or icon_red/icon_blue, respectively, the default UI in MP will not show it as a selectable character. You can't change how the game works without applying a patch or a mod to it. If you do, you need to distribute the mod/patch to all players who you want affected by the change. The most that the base game allows is for you to select any model/skin you like using the command line interface. I presume your question comes after seeing this accomplished in JA+. JA+ is a client-side mod that all players who play JA+ have installed in their game directory. This is why they are able to accomplish the MP UI change necessary to display all the skins of characters -- not just default_. The game's code looks for default_. You can't change that without making changes to the code. You are going against the original design of the game in its programming...

This is a mod showcase and discussion thread, people. Please keep hidden easter eggs commentary to a new thread on KOTOR... I can't believe no-one else here has created a mod for KOTOR. Everyone's modding for JK, but not for KOTOR? Come on, that can't be true!

Seeing as I'm not alone in this, it's safe to say that Mac OS X, or its apps, are doing that bad a job at memory management... P.S. My spellchecker says "optimize" is not a valid word. I've had to teach my spellchecker a lot of words. You should, too. If you are into casual activities (web browsing, email reading, simple writing, simple office stuff), Windows 8 and 10 are okay. But if you are into developing stuff, programming, running advanced games, running old classics, really customising your computer to your liking, then Windows 8 and 10 are quite frankly a nightmare. Anything that's not in their app stores is a real pain to get to work with these new releases of Windows. It's the same situation on the new Mac OS X. On the Mac they even have a lockout system that initially prevents you from using any software that you haven't installed from their App Store. I've had many of my old games just stop working recently on Windows 8.1 due to a "recommended" system update. Yeah, thanks but no thanks...

Thanks @@AshuraDX! I didn't know about the skinwrap modifier. I hope this old version of 3DS Max has it. I've already weighted that section of the body, so I'll give this a shot. And thanks everyone for the great advices.