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.

I drew 2 different tags with the same angles but different centers and different numbering. Both had the same axis in modview it's all about the edges.

My axis comparison was from Softimage to GLM, showing what matches what. I didn't know that Max and GLM were the same, it's odd considering they used a Softimage format, you would think they would match.

@@Archangel35757 like I keep saying, you gotta forget about transforms on tags, they mean nothing, you can alter the tags transforms any way you want in SI/Max/Max/Maya/Blender but as long as the tag is the same in terms of edges it will always have the same axis in ModView/game. Also, my tag axis match exactly with the base AT-ST in ModView which is why I'm leaning away from this being a tag related issue. You also seem to not know my workflow, I do not export a root.XSI and then each animation separately then compile them into 1 file with Assimilate. I found out a long time ago that it was unneccesarry. All I do is export a root.XSI file and just manually write out my animation.cfg file to define all the sequences and it works just fine. The only real advantage I see to exporting each sequence separately is so that Assimilate will write the animation.cfg file automatically which to me isn't worth all that extra work. I'm doing it how Rich is saying to do it with FBX, 1 file, compile then just manually write an animation.cfg file. I also knew about that IK was possible with MDX but for simplicity I just kept things FK that was being driven by a IK shadow rig, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more control. Anyone who is animating the skeleton that the game is using is a fuckin dummy and I'll tell it to their face in front of their own mama. Not a single project I've done has a single keyframe on anything that is going to the game, it's all plotting, the devils magic. I would very much like to talk to Rich about a lot of things as far as animation, not to toot my own horn or anything but I've done a lot more than anyone in this area. Most people are using very primitive ways of doing this like dragon and just animating a simple FK skeleton into a simple pose. I'd like to split a lot of this into a new topic because this also interests me, like say starting with post #43. I also just fired up the game (JK2) and watched the base AT-ST, it of course behaves the same BUT it floats above the ground a bit where mine I messed with the offset in Assimilate to get it to sit on the floor, maybe the tags are beneath the ground causing the flipped behavior? EDIT Holy fuckin shit, @@Archangel35757 you were right all along with the foot bones, it is their transforms that control it BUT it does not change the tag transforms which means that the tags are just simply to compute collision but the bone controls how the feet interact with the uneven terrain. I totally missed this because even though I tried it before I was rushing since I was compiling files over and over again mainly messing with tags I didn't copy over the GLA file to the PK3, only the GLM. I also couldn't just match the transforms with the base model that I have imported into the scene because as you know the parent bones affect the children so it was just some trial and error but doing this has shown me the relative axis from Softimage to GLM/GLA. To get proper working feet in ModView your axis should be as follows... +Z=UP +Y=LEFT +X=FORWARD Translating that from Softimage to MDX it would be... Softimage MDX +Y +Z +X +X +Z -Y These are LOCAL transforms, NOT GLOBAL. (Doubt anyone other than you will care since only you know SI->Max transforms) It's finally fixed, I'll have to update the file tonight. I still wanna get some more threads like this started, like the things that many don't know about Assimilate/Carcass. Despite some thinking it can be replaced with noesis for now it's still useful and it would be great if some more functionality was added to it.

What's the point of resetting the transforms of the tags? The local transforms mean nothing when it comes to the game handling the axis of the tag, it's all about the edges. Of course the bolt_r_foot parent's are correct, it's the foot mesh itself which we all know must be 0,0,0 which it is. I've done everything suggested in this thread and nothing has change anything, even flipping the normals of the tag. While in ModView it does change the axis of the tag it doesn't however alter how it interacts with the terrain, seems to only act as simple collision. Like I said, it may not even be tag related but something else, but I just don't know what. I kinda figured the PCJ stuff out through testing my _humanoid rig a while back as well as other models that had custom skeletons. Entering certain bones into the PCJ list preserves the hierarchy, otherwise all the bones will just child to model_root in ModView with no real hierarchy. I do want to know how to access the help in carcass, never knew how to do it because I need to know what the "$flatten" command does, been using it blindly without knowing it's purpose. I think what Xycaleth means is that unlike in modeling software where transforms change based on parent child relation they do not in the MDX format. You probably only need to preserve hierarchy structure in certain things that use UPPER and LOWER blending. You say the motion bone is needed? The base AT-ST only has it in the XSI files, not in the GLM.

I'm starting to think that it's something else, I've changed the tags all around and there is no effect even though in Modview the axis have changed. I unchecked the "keep Motion bone" box in ModView and it seems to change it but the animations get all skewed so I think I need to look at either moving the Motion bone off the floor or removing it without skewing the animations and it may solve this. Well tried that, didn't work and for whatever reason removing the Motion bone completely messes everything up even though it isn't a parent to anything. @@Archangel35757, could you possibly dig around the code and maybe shed some light on some things? I need to know what the "$flatten" command does in the PCJ list in Assimilate does What is the perpose of the "Motion" bone I at least know that the PCJ list does something as far as preserving parent/child relationships with bones, without using it the skeleton has no hierarchy and all the bones will just be child to skeleton_root.

It's hard sometimes to find the will to want to make a model of something that has already been ported. You have to 1 up the original which can be tough since it has to be more than just accurate but more detailed. You may spend all that time making it for no one to even want to download it.

Yeah I'm having a hard time finding the files I need and ripping them from the game and I really don't wanna record it from the game because that never turns out very good due to other sounds and background music playing.

My pivot is the same, the pivot doesn't mean anything, I've changed it so many times with no change in pivot in ModView. The edges seem to be all that matter. My tag matches the base model.

@@Archangel35757 I tried both things you're suggesting and neither worked. My ordering wasn't "right" originally and so I redrew the polygon so that it would be the way you say is right, it changed nothing. I also made the transforms of the foot bone match the bolt, no change either.

I have no idea what that means, all I've found that is concrete is that local transforms mean nothing and vertex order mean nothing. +Z is the backside of the polygon just so there is no confusion.

Tags control dismemberment, not bones or animations. You also of course have to split the model and make caps for dismemberment to work right.

I'll try but none of the player tags have the same local transforms (pivot) so I don't think it would make a difference. EDIT: @@Psyk0Sith no go, doesn't make sense especially when my tags match the base ones, might be something else.

I did that before I even started this thread, didn't do a thing. The axis for both my AT-ST and the base one are identical in ModView.

Vertex numbering doesn't count for anything, drew a new tag so that the numbering would match yours and it didn't change a thing. I'm starting to feel like this is something that cannot be fixed. I mean, I could get rid of the "Motion" bone which seems to make the feet no longer react to the angle of the terrain but it's gonna mean a overhaul of some things. Also, @@Archangel35757 the bone transforms don't matter either, I tried that already. Who knows why exactly JK2 and JA have super odd transforms for their bones, only the person who worked on the games animations would be able to answer that probably.

No negative scaling. The transform gizmo in Softimage was only modified to represent what I was seeing in ModView and MD3View, like I keep saying, the transform values in Softimage or any software seem to not matter at all, it's like they get their info from the vertex ordering of the polygon itself as tags origins don't match between SI and ModView. I'm going to test this soon by exporting 2 tags in 1 scene that have different local values to see what their values are in GLM format. @@AshuraDX

It's code related and client side so in MP everyone, including the server, would have to have the same exe for it to work

Well the odd thing is that I'm using the base AT-ST tags and still have a problem. I've got another idea which has to do with the model needing it's origin adjusted before compile which MAY have something to do with the reversed behavior but we'll see.

No, the feet aren't behaving properly with the terrain, see the pic. I want to know HOW XYZ are determined by both formats, it seems that the local transforms in Softimage don't really matter.

Well the thing that I was wondering is that does the game even take into account the local transforms of the tag in any 3d software to determine its axis? It doesn't seem as if the game uses the local transforms of the tag at all but rather use the vertex ordering, edge information and which way the normals face to determine its axis. It's funny how the bone jitter that was talked about a while back is mentioned in the games code as a known problem. There's an image of exactly what I was talking about, doesn't seem to make sense but as far as I know it's a tag problem but I used the tags from the base AT-ST so I'm pretty confused. Looks like I'll have to release a version 2. *sigh*

I tried mirroring it with no success, I thought the *r_foot and *l_foot controlled how the feet interact with the maps terrain but maybe I'm wrong and only act as collision? I could try rotating the bones around and re-weighing the feet, should be quick since none of the bones have any actual animation on them. I still wanna know more about tags though since I want to be able to create them with confidence that they'll work every time without having to import a base model and deleting everything but the tags so that I can use them for my models. For a character model it's no big deal because my skeleton file has all the tags where they need to be and moving them only happens in rare instances when you have a odd model. I'm dealing with mostly custom stuff that has it's own skeleton and animation set. I can't just import tags and be done with it.

I'm kinda having some issues with tags and it's leading me to want to know more about how they actually work. I want to know how the game uses the angles of the tags and the vertex order to determine how they behave. On my AT-ST there is an issue that I can't seem to fix. The feet roll in the opposite direction when on a slope rather than rolling 45° along the Z axis it tends to roll -45°Z. I'm wondering if the origins in any modeling software even matter or if it's solely done using it's angles which is how I thought they worked. @@eezstreet @@DT85 @@ensiform @@mrwonko @@Archangel35757 I'm kinda looking for someone who knows the game code and can answer exactly how the game handles tags. I'm also aware that tags in MD3 files axis are different than bolts in GLM files even though they're the same thing but named differently based on how the model is processed. I'm also needing to know because I'm making a script in Softimage that will add bolt/tags to the Get>Primative>Polygon Mesh menu to quickly make tags and I want them drawn correctly.

They honestly don't have any rights to anything, it's just a respect thing. If you want anything from MB2 just download it and pull what you want from it, its so easy.

LOL!

Oh man, that Lambda, I'll have to release mine to replace the base one.