Archangel35757

@@DT85 -- the way the "Remove helper bones (CS Biped)" works is... It checks the node if ( (type == max bone node && is biped class ID) || (contains string "Bip") ) ...so you could add a "Bip" prefix on your JO bone nulls and use that method to get rid of them... or just do "Export Selected"

The field-of-view, or the 1st-person camera settings, appear to be elongating the AK-47. I'm sure it's just a matter of tweaking the settings.

Well, that's just how the Softimage programmers made it... they did the same with the importer-- where they create an XSISceneRoot when you import a dotXSI. It's a lot more complicated to remove than it seems. Export Selected does work... BUT, it will always put a root node on top-- that's why I added a feature to allow you to rename it as "model_root". I plan to leave that aspect of their original code alone. But in my advanced character rig I plan to use "export selected" because I will have a Character Assembly Node at the root of my hierarchy, and I don't want extraneous bits in my dotXSI output, and the exporter will put the "model_root" node on top still. Not sure, I've never tried it... perhaps @@DT85 could help. EDITED the first part of my response.

@@Omicron -- if you're a student you can get a full 3-year license of any Autodesk product at Autodesk Student Community... just register with a student email address. You can download recent past versions there as well

Adding new animatons ( not simply replacing animations-- as done in the past ) requires you to recompile the GLA or yes, use GLAmerge... but you still then have to do a coding mod to get your new animations to play in-game, no?

@@eezstreet -- so could your angelscript be used to append new character animations without having to recompile the entire original GLA? Example given: create a new standalone GLA called: "cockpit.GLA" and this new GLA obviously contains all related cockpit interaction anims... then when required, the game would look for this anim in the add-on GLA when needed? I think something like this (while preserving original GLA file) would greatly decrease complexity for the Artist to add new anims.

@@DT85 -- I really need to chat with you... also, I fixed the "Export Selected" feature (again... for the final time) so now only selected objects get exported ( my last fix only did this for geometry or bones-- so I removed the check by node type so that all nodes go thru the "isSelected" check. Also, I figured out why I was getting the offset when re-importing the dotXSI... it seems that the importer shifts the animation back down to Frame 0 so I had to select all the keys and shift them back to Frame 1. So can you get on MSN shortly? Thanks.

The plugin code looks only at Frame 0 for basepose transforms. I can change this to get the skinpose transforms that are stored in the node when you either apply the Skin Modifier or (if no skin) alternatively set the skinpose under the Character tools-- and I do agree with @@minilogoguy18 that this is a better design... and I can still use "Frame 0" as a last check fallback for the case when there's no skin modifier, or they failed to set the skinpose-- and make this clear in the user instructions.

With all due respect, when it comes to this 3dsMax dotXSI exporter source code, and your thinking I've personalized it too much-- you don't know what you're talking about. My motto has always been to deviate as little as possible from the original source code-- to fix only what is broken. However, it had a number of issues and shortcomings that needed to be fixed. Some only being discovered during beta testing. The changes I've made were necessary for it to function properly... and create a valid dotXSI 3.0 file. The only personalization is the new "About" dialog. Remember-- the Softimage Company wrote this plugin. They didn't include writing out the basepose templates-- which was one of the things needing to be fixed (among many others) to make a valid file for Carcass. But your point is taken about "Frame 0", where I based that solution on other Max exporters, and I had already stated that I was considering changing the code to remove this restriction. 3dsMax is not Softimage... and the code was written as a Max plugin, by Softimage programmers, using the XSIFTK. And CustomPSets are a Softimage dotXSI export feature... which Raven used to contain the necessary data to automatically create a .Skin file-- which has also been fixed now-- I didn't even delete their bits of Max3 code #defines that are still in there.

May add a release date...

Feedback?

But ModView shows the root animation as two frames... @@minilogoguy18 uses two frames... I'll experiment after work today. @@DT85 -- delete the position constraint and try using a link constraint on your rhang_tag_bone to your rhand bone... this should eliminate its jiggering.

Well, that's good to hear. A few more questions to @@DT85 and @@minilogoguy18 regarding basepose in animations... Correct me where I go wrong, but... I thought the Basepose is two keyed frames in the root pose; and that Frame 0 and Frame 1 were suppose to be the keyed root pose... so then your animation would actually start on Frame 2, no? @@minilogoguy18 -- I get what you're saying about you having these two frames on -2 and -1, my exporter expects the root pose to be on Frame 0 (I may look into eliminating this requirement)... and when you export to dotXSI, you should export from Frame 1 to End, yeah? So for the two cases ( [1] compile new skeleton with Carcass, [2] merging a single anim with GLAmerge ) should the root pose be retained in the first frame of the dotXSI? Or is the workflow different for these two cases? Please elaborate in your responses. Thanks!

@@DT85 -- In your 3ds Max scene file, when I link a free Camera to your rhand bone and hide your jittery JO nulls, etc., leaving only the Game Nulls... and play the animation so I can see the motion of the hand/finger bones in a relative frame of reference-- the only jitter I see is your rhang_tag_bone (because you have it position constrained to the jittery, imported JO null). Around frames 30 to 45 there is some un-natural motion in your finger and thumb bones... (but this is in your original scene) as shown in this preview (recorded at 10 FPS to make it easier to compare): http://youtu.be/Qj3oFcgimeY Now, when I export your Nulls using my dotXSI exporter, and re-import it back into 3ds Max 8 using the Softimage Max6 dotXSI Importer... one of the issues here, is that the Softimage Importer fails to do a proper coordinate transformation back to the 3ds Max coordinate system-- even though the nulls appear to be in the proper 3D space and animate correctly... the nulls retain their XSI coordinate frame of reference (incorrectly oriented by a 90 deg rotation in the X-axis). But likewise linking a Camera to the rhand bone and playing this file in 3ds Max still appears to match your original scene... as shown in this preview (recorded at 10 FPS to make it easier to compare): http://youtu.be/JR18g3NufDI So if you agree with this comparison, I don't think the new dotXSI Exporter is adding jitter to animations. However, I did discover two anomalies, while attempting to do an "Export Selected" with your scene. I had only the Game Nulls selected, but it exported out the JO Nulls as well. Thinking this might be related to the checkbox for "Export unsupported objects to Nulls", when I unchecked this box and tried to export out your game nulls, it only exported out the skeleton_root and model_root. So I need to investigate these two issues. Another thing I found is that when I try to merge the exported dotXSI file back into your original scene the entire Null skeleton had a slight bias offset in position-- I'm thinking this is likely related to re-importing the file using the borked dotXSI importer.

@@DT85 -- I'm studying your scene... would be nice if we could chat on MSN

But in the animation you sent me... you don't have the root pose on frame zero-- unless I'm zoning out?

@@DT85 -- I wonder if this has anything to do with the Frame 0 not being the root pose-- like the exporter is expecting. I thought the first two frames of every animation were suppose to be the root pose, no? Now that I'm more comfortable with the source code and SDK's... I can change this "Frame 0" expectation and just get the SkinPose TM... if necessary. EDIT: However, I read this in the Dragon User Guide, which seems to support my earlier statement: This evening I'll insert the root pose on frame 0/1 and re-export to see what happens.

So this is just a quick look... I hid everything but the character's right hand that is slamming the lightsaber down on the table. I then aligned a camera to the right hand bone and moved it away on its local axis so as to see the hand nulls. The camera is linked with the right hand and so the animation plays in a "fixed" frame of reference. http://youtu.be/ICdxGwRUuFM I take it these jittery white nulls are the ones imported from JO GLA -> Noesis -> FBX -> 3ds Max, is that correct? I'll have to study this more tomorrow.

@@DT85-- is your filename the exact same name of the animation in the animation.cfg sequences?

@@DT85 -- Thanks! File downloaded. I'll take a look at it tomorrow...

Perhaps this is a little better for you Comic Sans haters I didn't crop it out evenly... but you get the picture.

Save out one the of the animations from your imported FBX file, where you find the jitter most noticeable when you convert it back to GLA. You can save it out as a .XAF and select the pertinent frames... and send it to me please. Converting to GLA will always result in a loss of accuracy.

Yes... on the words: "Exporter for" It's the Photoshop font that best matches the Softimage|XSI font. Is there a problem?

Well, the fewer the conversions the better... but the main issue is starting with a half-precision format (GLA) already having compression artifacts, and converting it back to a single-precision format (FBX). I'm not quite sure what @@DT85 is trying to do... seems like he's wanting to recover all of the JO animations??? Maybe @@eezstreet or someone close to Raven guys could get them to release the dotXSI animations for JO (there's dozens of JO specific anims that were not released) and also the SOF2 anims??? I wonder... since Motionbuilder has tools for cleaning up MoCap data, if you could use it to first clean up/smooth the Noesis FBX data FCurves???

So this is the design I made, using the respective logos, that will go into the new "About" dialog: Any comments or suggestions?