Archangel35757

And how/what are you using to verify your dotXSI output??? Regardless, I'm sure there's no issue with Softimage/Mod Tool output... since they made the dotXSI format

Did you not see my earlier post about the successful .Skin file creation? It imports into ModTool as well... but if you are working natively in Mod Tool, Then all you have to do is add a custom property onto your mesh nodes-- called "Game" then add a parameter to that called "Shader" and the value is the relative texture path. Do characters use .Shader files?

@@minilogoguy18 -- do bones in Softimage have a default material assigned to them when they're created? Bones in 3dsMax do not... but the dotXSI exporter gives them a global default material (which I could modify/eliminate if necessary).

Sorry, couldn't help myself with the title... it's a well known song in the South (American by birth... Southern by the grace of God ) Song link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dem_Bones Ok... so @@DT85 suspects that the dotXSI exporter is contributing to "dem jittery bones" -- so I want this thread to document this investigation. This is what I plan to look into starting this weekend.

Update: Ok... so I have the XSI_CustomPSet template now exporting out correctly ( I was misinterpreting the template... but finally I saw the light! :blink: ). Here's the new template output for the hips mesh: XSI_CustomPSet hips.Game { "NODE", 1, "Shader","Text","models/players/jedi_malak/body.tga", }Much thanks to @@DT85 for finding the missing template that was causing the .skin file to fail being written! In my test file I deleted the caps... but here is the resulting model_default.skin file: It's a straightforward matter now to add a check to see if the mesh is hidden at the time of export... and if so, replace the relative texture path with the *off flag. A note on how to properly use this new feature: In order for Carcass.exe to properly make a .skin file, you must now name your Material Editor slots with the relative path to your texture (e.g., models/players/jedi_malak/body.tga ), instead of the typical "xx - Default" name that 3ds Max gives it. Thanks to everyone for their patience. There are a couple of other things I want to investigate this weekend, but I should have updated plugins submitted to the utilities section soon.

So you're volunteering then?

Update: So I have the XSI_CustomPSet template being written out... but I'm having a problem getting the data populated into it... should have been straightforward-- not sure what I'm doing wrong. * * * SI_Visibility { 1, } SI_GlobalMaterial { "models/players/jedi_malak/body.tga", "NODE", } XSI_CustomPSet hips.Game { "NODE", 0, } * * *

The JO and JA root files use the following for SI_GlobalMaterial: SI_GlobalMaterial { "ISIS2_Maquette_kyle_MeshPose", "INHERITED", } ...whereas the current dotXSI code has: SI_GlobalMaterial { "Scene_Root", "NODE", } I think I'll change it from "Scene_Root" to "Scene_Default" -- any other suggestions?

I'm not liking the idea of using the material editor slot name for the relative texture path... but it's the simplest... I may look into something else... In the JO root.xsi files the SI_Material template is named the mesh object name, e.g.: SI_Material Davinci_Male01_TrueBones.hips //(LOD 0) SI_Material Davinci_Male01_TrueBones.hips_1 //(LOD 1), etc. But in my exporter the SI_Material matches the 3ds Max Material Editor slot name (and I kind of like this...) In the JO root.xsi file the SI_Texture2D template uses the mesh object name as well... (I'm fine with doing the same here...) ...but because you can assign different materials from different folders-- like the caps texture coming from the stormtrooper folder... I don't see a better way than by using the Material Editor slot to name the relative path.

@@Psyk0Sith, @@DT85, @@eezstreet -- ok, so I'm looking at the dotXSI exporter code, .skin files for JO_Kyle, JA_Luke, and JA_jedi_hm... and it shouldn't be a problem to add the necessary custom game data in the XSI_CustomPSet template that is used by Carcass.exe to generate the .skin file. However, in my implementation I have a couple of choices, as I see it, on how to code it and so I'd like to take your opinions under consideration. For JO_Kyle and JA_Luke, It seems the model_default.skin file only lists the mesh objects for the default skin (yes, that makes sense)... but in the JA_jedi_hm skin file (because there are so many different outfits/meshes) they appear to list ALL mesh objects and simply use the *off flag to turn off these surfaces in the default .skin file. It seems to me that Carcass can only create one skin file (model_default)... but to make manual editing easier, I think it would be best to modify the dotXSI exporter code so that it follows the jedi_hm example-- listing all surfaces and using the *off as necessary. The outline for how I would code this is as follows: For each mesh object, check if it has "bolt" in it's name, or has no material assigned (i.e., = undefined) and if so skip/do nothing, else Create the XSI_CustomPSet template for the mesh object (using mesh name and applied texture name**[see below] ) If the mesh object is hidden (i.e., not visible in the scene) at time of exporting, then append the *off flag to the text string.In this way, all mesh objects with materials will be written to the .skin file (like the jedi_hm) and should allow for easier manual editing later. **Regarding the material name... it seems the simplest solution for this would be to name the 3ds Max Material Editor slot with the relative path. For example: models/players/kyle/kyle_torso.tga and use that for the XSI_CustomPSet parameter value... what say you all?

Maybe not for a single mesh character... but if you want to have several skins with miscellaneous meshes ( think jedi_hm) that will require various .skin files then that seems a bit tedious-- especially if you already have the meshes on different layers in 3dsMax already.

@@DT85, so when you have a model like my Darth Maul and Cyber Maul that will definitely need .skin *off'ing...is there no automatic tool to do this? Wouldn't the model_default.skin file have everything turned on, and thus require manual editing??? Seems like it might be simpler to write a Maxscript file that generates all of your .skin files by using mesh & layer info, no?

ok... digging around, I found this on the Void from Hapslash regarding .surf files: But then I found @@Inyri 's webpage with this mod: http://www.inyri.info/mods/jaskins/rodian/ ... which shows you how to use .SURF files in JKA-- so now I'm confused! :unsure:

Well, Assimilate/Carcass creates the .Skin file... do they create .Surf files? I'm sure there is a tool to do so...

@@DT85 -- so you compared Kyle's root.xsi with a new root.xsi? I'll look into it. Thanks. This is just a custom info template it can be added without any other modifications. What about .surf files??? How are these generated? Is there a Raven tool for .surf files?

You can find almost all of these tools in the SoF2 SDKs and ST:EF2 SDK.

@@eezstreet Yes, it is very confusing... no wait, that's ConfusED, right? Please stay.

@@Psyk0Sith, @@DT85 and everybody else-- why is it not creating the .SKIN file? Is it something to do with the SI_Texture2D template names for the textures themselves within the dotXSI file? The current dotXSI exporter gives you the option of full file path or just the texture file name... does it need to be a relative path??? E.g.-- models/players/jedi_malak/*.tga It had to have worked as some point in the past, no?

This is the contents of a .CAR text file: This is only the input to Carcass... which actually compiles the .xsi (or .ase) files. At least that's how it seems to me... Carcass doesn't need Assimilate (...given someone intimately familiar with Carcass commands that could write the above manually... yeah, right ) ...and this is the Carcass command input to build the Ghoul2 model:

@@eezstreet -- then what exactly does Carcass.exe do???

We don't have the carcass code... like @@DT85 said... Carcass can only process .XSI and .ASE files... so adding other formats to Assimilate seems pointless-- except for adding FBX and @@Xycaleth 's converter under the Hood alongside Carcass.

Everything can do .FBX... it's become a defacto interchange format.

All I want is to figure out why the .skin file isn't being written. The new dotXSI 3.0 exporters work fine for 3dsMax... and I should have it compiled for all the latest 3dsMax versions soon. If .ASE files can be compiled by Carcass (like they use to be...)-- I haven't tried this yet. But the .ASK file carcass asks for is just a renamed .ASE... (from looking at ST:EF2 .ASK files). @@Xycaleth could add his FBX->Ghoul2 converter under the "Assimilate Hood" and sit next to Carcass.exe

@@eezstreet-- no, we don't want to mess with the dotXSI format. It would be nice to get the .ASE format working again.

I downloaded @@DT85 's Assimilate submission that fixed the automatic alphabetization of anim files... and I cleaned up 5 or so pre-existing warnings having to do with sign/unsigned mismatches... I.e., using int as For Loop counter and comparing it to vector .size() property. I fixed them by changing from int to size_t, etc. I need to commit those changes to GitHub.