Archangel35757

@@DT85 -- but there's nothing special in exporter for Max2013/2014... it's all the same. Latest change was that in the game data template for the shader file. Can you go back and check max 8?

The feet don't look right-- too much "heel"

Maybe you could write a standalone EXE patch routine that takes as input the Carcass GLM file and a text file containing the smoothing group data (this data could be in the dotXSI file itself-- to avoid having to export another file?) and run the patch on the GLM... just a thought.

Yeah, I agree... @@DT85 verified the XSI format is fine. It seems that it breaks during the Carcass-to-Ghoul2 conversion. I really wish Raven would release the Carcass source code. For now it seems the process will be: 1. Export your model and animation to dotXSI. 2. Convert to Ghoul2 using Carcass. 3. Re-export your model root pose to FBX. 4. Convert FBX to GLM using @@Xycaleth's converter. 5. Replace the GLM with the fixed one. Does that seem about right?

Are the textures in the same folder as the model in question? Sometimes converters expect textures to be in same directory for ease of coding...

Someone already has-- checkout the latest version of Noesis from Rich Whitehouse at www.richwhitehouse.com Should do that and much more!

Wait, this view perspective is the standard root pose isn't it? How about posting this view angle for the stances in question to see what the feet look like?

From that perspective maybe this is due to the direction of specular highlights on the top of the feet... maybe swap the spec direction?

Yes, I know this is how they originally look... I'm just saying the feet look dicked up in those poses-- like the left and right feet are swapped, no? Wouldn't you agree? And should we not fix this?

Is it just me... or doesn't it look like the toes on both feet are opposite what they should be (right is left; left is right-- or maybe the entire foot)? Looks like the tarsal bones have been rotated improperly in those stances... I've noticed this before-- maybe we should investigate & fix them?

Working on the head mesh... hopefully I'll have something to show soon. I've also mapped all of the FacePoser phoneme ID's to their respective International Phonetic Alphabet font symbol... so I can map the identified IPA phonemes from PRAAT to FacePoser values.

So what information is there in the Ghoul2 format that could be used to fix these seams within the renderer? How would it distinguish between what should be hard edges and what should be smoothed?

Could someone modify the lava Shader to do a proper second stage so that the deeper crack areas glow brighter? So it's not a uniformly applied glow across entire Shader (as it is currently)? Also, @@DT85 & @@Xycaleth -- regarding UV seams... are these UV seams smooth/blended as desired in 3dsMax and then broken along seams by Ghoul2 or what? Could the renderer code reapply smoothing based on smoothing groups? Are these UV seams present/apparent in the XSIViewer?

It still rains in the desert sometimes, no?

Ok... so I found my answer-- when viewed from the front, the ears are as long as the distance from the top of the eyes to the bottom of the nose (ref. "Drawing the Head & Figure" by Jack Hamm). So I just need to tweak it a little more...

I could not find any good reference images for Angela Harry to give me a solid front and side views. I have zero experience with ZBrush... I did just buy 3D-Coat... (but I still have zero sculpting experience...) but I prefer to model a good low poly model first-- which I could then take that into 3D-Coat and try to sculpt more details. But does my upwards shift of her ear in the sideview look natural? Both of these reference images are on her website gallery.

Yes, I noticed that her head was ever so slightly tilted to her right... but when I rotated it to get the inside corners of her eyes to be level... the nose look tilted the other way... nobody is perfectly symmetrical... I do have headshot pics from various angles that I can use to check the 3D progress of the head mesh. Besides, in the front image... I plan to mirror the right side of her over to the left so it will be symmetric.

Ok... so I've decided to use Mandy Amano ( http://www.mandyamano.com/Welcome.html ) as the reference model for the new Hi-def Jan Ors head model... The only issue I'm having in setting up my reference templates is that this is the best side profile picture I could find... and I had to scale it up to match the front view... but I'm having a bit of trouble getting things aligned. It all seems to scale well-- except for the ear. In the above photo, I copied the ear to a new layer and shifted it up to a more reasonable match. What do you guys think? Does it look alright? @@Psyk0Sith & @@DT85 -- any further suggestions?

Yeah, we certainly do need more coders... where would we go to recruit more of them?

@@Xycaleth -- I humbly request rend2 normal mapping be incorporated into the ModView C++ source code so that we can pre-visualize normal mapping on Ghoul2 characters and vehicles (from within ModView)... I suppose the same request could be made for the MD3View C++ source code as well. Pretty Please...

ok... I finally got my replacement PSU from EVGA today... installed... back in business. I've imported the Jan Ors .glm model. I will attempt to make a hi-poly version of her head and use her for my part of the Lip Sync GLA effort.

@@DT85 would need to make a debug build of the rend2.dll to run the debugger in Visual Studio... correct?

@@Xycaleth -- what Shader model version is required to be supported by the graphics card now?

Thanks to @@ensiform (and @@eezstreet) I have a working C++ function that parses the phoneme data UTF-8 text file... now I just need to restructure my code so that it stores the phoneme data (phoneme, startTime, endTime) in a struct rather than vector containers. I've currently been downloading/reading papers on phonemes/visemes/facial expressions, etc. Based on the IPA phonetic alphabet... the phoneme string could actually consist of one or more characters depending upon vowel/consonant accent marks and diacritics. So the next function needs to take the phoneme and map it to a viseme (possibly an enum) which would then put/key a stored viseme facial pose on the animation timeline. Additional facial expressions/emotions would be handled separately.