Archangel35757

@@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.

@@eezstreet -- yes, Assimilate is a GUI that wraps carcass... and sets everything up for carcass via the model.car file. But it could be that carcass is looking for texture file information in the dotXSI files... or Assimilate prepares this information. I'm not sure what information is written to the binary .carpet file or which app creates it. This binary file is written to a folder called "ravenlocal" in my root C:\ drive.

@@therfiles -- alternatively download the 3ds max 5 trial from the link I provided in the ROFF exporter thread. Then install the plugin for 3ds max 5 and follow the tutorial verbatim.

I posted an old, but good, ROFF tutorial in my WIP thread on making the ROFF2 Exporter in Coding and Scripting section... feel free to pull it out, expound on it, and add it to the tutorials section. @SzicoVII is suppose to be making a test map to help me beta test my new ROFF2 exporter to check that everything works (especially sounds/EFX).

All of that is set correctly in Assimilate. It generates the "model_default.skin" file-- however, it is empty ( 0 Kb ). It doesn't write the content. This is the mystery I'm trying to solve.

No... it's not possible to make plugins for GMAX because Autodesk never released SDK for it (you had to pay a handsome sum to get it). You can however, make MAXSCRIPT-based tools for GMAX.

What tools/plugins are they missing? (I'm not volunteering… just curious).

@@DT85, @@Psyk0Sith -- Ok... so I have the skeleton compiling with Carcass and creating the .GLM/.GLA. Assimilate can separately write out the animation config files. When I check to make a G2 .skin file... it only generate a blank file. I'm wondering where the .skin file failure occurs-- whether it's something missing or bad within the dotXSI file ( ...like texture paths??? We can have absolute, full paths or just the texture filename and extension ( ...the JKA files seem to be the latter type) ). Any ideas??? :unsure:

You can create ROFF files using Mr. Wonko's tools in Blender. However his scripts don't support playing sounds or efx yet... (maybe he will add those features soon). Hey, and Blender is free! Or like @@Circa said... download the 3dsMax educational version. Which is a 3 year license-- no limitations.

Due to lack of interest in this, and my ROFF2 exporter... I vote NO. If I knew how to close this poll or lock the thread... I would.

Alias you say??? I have demo's and learning editions of Alias Motionbuilder and Alias Studio on my 3D World magazine CD collection... let me load these up and check this .ASK format to see if they support it.

That must be a holdover from the older game tools... maybe can find some info in ST:EF, ST:Voy, or SoF2 tools about a .ASK file??? Probably just running down a rabbit hole.

Is there a NO ASK switch? Found this in code: TK_AS_CONVERTMDX_NOASK $aseanimconvertmdx_noask

Wouldn't the corresponding version of Carcass.exe that goes with the ST:Voyager SDK already support .ASE since it's supported by that version of Assimilate??? I've not tried those versions-- or the version that came with SoF2???

Well, assimilate shows .ase file type. Maybe you have to build it with Assimilate?

I'm not sure what the best course of action is... if anything. I was just thinking of recompiling Assimilate to add ROOT as enumerated, to eliminate "BAD:ROOT" warning (meaning it's not listed in anims.h). Edit: Also, some anim enumerated names have been recycled with all new/different animation... so that'd conflict with JO.

No, scores & scores were removed... do a side-by-side comparison using Notepad++. But I'm not sure if I should combine or not.