Archangel35757

I will probably need to re-read what you wrote... but in essence don't we already have a split skeleton in the GLA-- it's already broken down into bone hierarchy subgroups: FACE, TORSO, LEGS, BOTH (meaning torso and legs). Facial animations only play on the facial bones, while the torso or body (I.e., BOTH) can be playing other anims, no? So wouldn't it be the same as creating all of the viseme animations and adding them to the current GLA as: FACE_ah, FACE_xx, etc.? Likewise you could make gesture animations that only target the TORSO, etc. So, couldn't we script different combos on the different groups?

Exactly -- Not sure what your plan is... guess we won't be finding out anytime soon; but I plan to use all of the facial bones that are there in the skeleton I uploaded. They should be more than sufficient -- unless one wants additional detail for the tongue for some of the phoneme/viseme combinations. My rig will store a library of visemes to choose from/play for the phonemes when the voice audio is analyzed. I was planning to export these as additional facial animations to be merged with the GLA. I hope what I'm planning can fit in with your plan as well.

Count me in with regards to better lip-synching and rigging... I intend (once I get finished with the Max2013/2014 dotXSI exporter) to get back to my advanced character rig setup in 3ds Max... and my plan is to use ALL of the facial bones (JO/JA/SoF2) that are there in the released skeleton-- maybe add a few more for the tongue as well. I also found some lip-synching code that might interest you. I was also thinking we need to add in more facial animations to the .GLA for all (or the most common set) of the phonemes/visemes.

Smoothing Groups is 3dsMax nomenclature (perhaps other 3D software too)-- the dotXSI exporter dialog says it ignores smoothing groups when exporting vertex normals. I thought Carcass ignored smoothing group info anyway... or made it's own smoothing groups when converting to Ghoul2, no?

Because that is what the exporter option says when you select Vertex as the Normals type. @@DT85 -- Did you ever try the "Remap UVs" option?

The per-vertex normals option ignores smoothing groups... does that matter?

I'm not too sure if the dotXSI format directly supports normal mapping... as far as the dotXSI 3.0 Exporter that I've been re-developing based on the original Softimage Co. open source code... their original FAQ states the exporter code supports the following features: ...and in my code changes I have added exporting of procedural animations (i.e., constraints). Perhaps @@minilogoguy18 or @@Corto would be kind enough to try and export out a simple Softimage model containing normal mapping and export out as dotXSI 3.0 and send me the file (or post it) to look at.

I've isolated where it's crashing... hope to have it resolved very soon.

The Debugging session shows that it is crashing when it gets to the line of exporting the scene nodes, in method CdotXSIMapper::Export( ) here: // // Recursively export // ExportNode ( l_pRootNode, m_pParser->dotXSITemplate() );...stepping into the function to follow the rabbit trail. :unsure:

@@AshuraDX -- Let me test the x64 version.. and if it works then give me a few minutes to compile a 32-bit version. Nope... No Go. I get an error after the progress bar launches at: Converting Scene... [Exporting Animation]

@@DT85 -- Perhaps the reason it's crashing on you is that it is compiled against Crosswalk 2013... which doesn't support Max2014. In the morning I will test it on Max2013... and post my results.

What makes you think the tangent space in the Carcass GLM file is bad? Is the GLM file different from Blender or FBX Converter? I agree the renderer would be best solution.

I have max 2013 installed... I just don't have time to check it out today... still-- the fact that it compiles is HUGE!!! At least now I can compile a hybrid version and run a debug session to see where it is crashing.

UPDATE: I GOT THE MAX2013 EXPORTER TO COMPILE!!!!!! I'm going to email it to @@DT85 and get him to beta test it.

IIRC, Basically it's another texture with an alpha channel that you could blend with your main texture using a shader blending function.

Update: Autodesk technical support has been absolutely no help-- after sending them my Max2012/2013 source code... the tech support Guy won't even return my emails. So... ...rather than import the VS2008 Max2012 project files into VS2010, I decided to use the 2013 plugin wizard to create a new empty exporter plugin solution. This readily compiles. So then I began populating my code into it piece-meal and compile as I go... so as to overcome the linking errors. First thing I verified were my export & about dialogs... and they work just fine. It's going well-- fixing the Unicode errors at each incremental compile. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

@@Xycaleth -- Yes! Please fix the Ghoul2 tangent space calculations for normal mapping. @@Psyk0Sith, @@DT85 -- In regards to UV seams, couldn't you create a second UV texture map in Map Channel #2, and then select only the polygons bordering the offending seams and create another texture to be used in a Shader blending function? I've seen this done before in a UVW tutorial.

But is the normal map for your Ghoul2 character "clean" ? Or does it contain artifacts from its creation using whatever modeling app?

@@DT85-- So is it that there are artifacts created inside of 3dsMax when you do a render-to-texture for the normal map, and you have to clean up those artifacts in Max? Or are you saying you have a clean normal map that is messed up in the game engine? Would you post a screenshot of your normal map?

So does anyone have this on their ToDo list? Regarding seams -- @@Psyk0Sith, I thought UV seams were always visible on game characters... and that's why all the UVW training States to try and hide the seams at material transitions on the character-- e.g. belts, pants waistline, etc., no? is there a blend function that could be used in the Shader to diminish these seam issues?

So normal maps are working for animated Ghoul2 creature/player models? @@DT85 -- can you provide a quick rundown on what the bugs/issues are? @@Xycaleth -- I disagree… normal and specular maps (textures) are unique to a creature/character/vehicle model. The normal/specular maps must be created for each Ghoul2 character skin. Perhaps you're talking about the rendering engine that uses those unique texture maps.

Why could better flight sim code not be incorporated into the engine much the same way Rend2 has?

Where in the roadmap do we stand in regards to normal maps for Ghoul2 character/creature/vehicle models in Rend2??? IMHO this is the biggest change we modellers want. My second would be better vehicle/flight dynamics-- there a quite a few simple open source flight Sims out there that could make that aspect of the game much better.

When will normal maps be completely implemented for Ghoul2 animated models in SP/MP engines???

Talking of baking details from hi- to low-poly... are normal maps working for vehicles/G2 characters??? If not, when is this targeted for inclusion into rend2?