Archangel35757

Aren't surface sprites used in EFX files? Will surface sprites be incorporated in the new renderer, or is there a better replacement?

@@Xycaleth -- is that from Nibbler?

All I'm saying is that it's hard to judge improvements when you're using a shitty shader-- you can only polish a terd so much!

But your glow effect appears to be uniform across the entire lava texture, no? There needs to be something in the Shader that only allows the cracks to glow... IMO.

I think I prefer the rend2 pics... however, they're still missing something-- and it could just be the lava shader itself needs improvement. Lava is quite complicated and has different looks based on many factors (just google images of lava flows). For example: In terms of the glowing-- I think the glowing should emmenate more from the cracks that show deeper into the lava and not so much where the top is cooling and darkened... it certainly is not a uniform effect... which leads me to believe the shader itself should be tweaked. No?

What bolt will you use to put the player in the shark's mouth during a shark attack?

Swimmers beware! Swim at your own peril!

New PSU is on it's way... in the meantime I've been researching and playing with various speech analysis tools. For example: The bottom row shows the phoneme breakdown. These will be exported to a text file and mapped to visemes in the character rig lipsync GUI.

My power supply unit has died on my PC... so my rigging will be delayed until I get a replacement PSU.

I can have the 3dsMax facial rig GUI generate the text files you need (once the user is satisfied with the facial animation & lip-syncing)... but for those that don't have/use 3dsMax it would be nice if the MODView code was modified to incorporate this open source SAPI lip-sync tool (for audio analysis & visemes placement): http://www.annosoft.com/sapi_lipsync/docs/ And also have MODView generate these text files as well.

Getting the bone transforms on a particular frame would also apply to individual facial motions like eyebrow (left, right, or both) raise etc. in addition to an entire premade facial animation (I.e., joy, sadness, anger, etc.) That way people can experiment...

So to get a 50% Anger I think you'd just grab the bone transforms on the frame that equates to 50% of the anger expression animation... wouldn't that be easier/more accurate? Likewise take a frame at some percentage of another facial expression to blend with 50% anger. Getting the bone transforms would also apply to individual facial motions like eyebrow raise etc. in addition to a premade entire facial animation (I.e., joy, sadness, anger, etc.). Edit: I get what you're saying with 100% static expressions...

Well, in your defense he did say Max 2011...

I would recommend that you uninstall Crosswalk 3.3 (since it doesn't work for Max2014) and then download and install the dotXSI exporter for Max 2013 x64... read the instructions.

Every dotXSI exporter I have uploaded includes the necessary XSI or Crosswalk DLL. The readme file also provides installation instructions. You should NOT have to install Crosswalk itself. Read the included instructions again. From your error screenshot above it appears you are trying to install the wrong version of the exporter into 3dsMax 2014. Please confirm the version of 3dsMax you are trying to use.

Did you put the crosswalk DLL (included in the zip file) in your main 3dsMax2011 installation folder (where all the other dll files are located)?

@@eezstreet -- one of the questions I have is... how will you determine the amplitude of a given expression? For example, let's say I create a "joy" animation that goes from a neutral face to 100% expression of Joy. But what if you only want to stop at 25% or 50% and then blend to another expression? How will intermediate expressions be handled?

Having two bones in the corner of the mouth, in my opinion, will better keep the mouth from pinching-- while there may be only one control object that influences both of them... The nosetip bone I believe is there to correct/fix the nose tip if need be... we'll see. Put your finger on tip of your nose and pucker/purse your lips. Also try moving your mouth from side-to-side. The nose-tip does flex a little. Also, what is wrong with their bone placement? It seems pretty good to me... based on what I've been researching on facial expressions...

These markers represent all the facial bones in the JO skeleton : The gray markers represent the effectors ( _eff ) at the end of the eyebrows and lips' bone chains. I'm thinking of renaming those gray markers and use them as additional bones.

@@Psyk0Sith and @@DT85 -- when I go back to fix Max 6 thru Max 2011 plugins for the "filename spaces" issue... I'm thinking of making a couple of changes to carry thru all versions in their final compilation and release... ...which are: Rather than require the Material Editor name to be the relative path to the texture file. Implement an export option that specifies part of path to ignore and get the remaining texture path. @@DT85 -- Didn't you do something like this in the MD3 exporters? Add a code snippet to delete the empty file when the user aborts/cancels the export process from the Progress Bar.Can you guys think of any other desirable changes?

Hmm... why is the backside of the model so dark in your fixed image? I think the lit version of the backside of the player (Jan shown) is better... (but yeah, the rim lighting in your later post/pic needs tweaking).

Update: The 32-bit version of the 3ds Max 2013 dotXSI 3.0 Exporter (v1.8 Beta) has been submitted to the Utilities section and it awaiting approval. 3ds Max 2013 is the last version to support 32-bit. In the coming months I will compile a version for 3ds Max 2015 x64. So I would recommend keeping your 2014 (or under...) version installed... If you're using these dotXSI plugins-- how about some reviews/ratings? Feedback is always welcome...

@@eezstreet -- yes, but the eyelids need to blink ( maybe they should be part of the face)... and the eyes must be separate from them for various expressions. I dont think the face needs to be as dense as shown in your post. I'll stay within the limits.

The eyes, eyelids, "mouth/mouth cavity", and tongue will be separate objects... the face will also be a separate object (from the head). We'll see how it goes.

Now that I have finished the 3ds Max 2013 dotXSI 3.0 exporter... I will be starting my facial rig to work in collaboration with your lipsync demo. If you don't mind... I will just use this thread to document my facial rig progress.