Archangel35757

So here's the color scheme on the bone skeleton: The purple bones are JA unique bones (i.e., the rtail and ltail bones).The yellow bones are the JO unique bones.The cyan bones are common to both JO-JA skeletons.The pink bones are the motion and hang/hand tag bones.Any other color-scheme suggestions? ...I also fixed the visual discontinuities in the spine bones.

Looking at your first ref pic... the teeth seem to be a bit small and too thin. But it looks great. Keep up the good work.

@Eezstreetand others -- try 1024x768.

Any new on this? I noticed in the …\gamesource\anims.h file, they comment above the death anims that they mention being MD3, no?

Ok... so I have the Max6 bone skeleton sorted out and compiling a new root.xsi along with some original Raven dotXSI animations. Next week I'll upload it to the utilities section. For now you can skin/weight your mesh just fine to the exiting bone skeletons... since it doesn't require making a new root.xsi file. I know @@DT85 is adding some new bones so I want to chat with him first.

The bolt is linked to mesh_root and your mesh to stupidtriangle. I'm sure it shows up in the viewer you just have to zoom out. Change to simple interaction mode.

@@Boothand -- do your dotXSI root and animations play properly in the new XSI Viewer tool I uploaded to the Utilities file section?

@@Boothand -- do you need the equivalent of "Stupid Triangle Off" for vehicles like you do in characters?

3dsMax has an invisible Scene Root that exists.... remember the infamous "MaxSceneRoot" node the legacy exporter creates? It was just easier to have the code rename this offending node to "model_root"... actually now the new exporter gives the user the option to name it anything-- which may be useful for other game engines that use dotXSI... but may have different root name requirements.

Yes get rid of those two objects: XSISceneRoot & B:modelRoot. See the Carcass Error Guide: 42.) XSI Import failed, code = 4599 This error happened because the skin modifier is not on top, if you have set UV mapping coordinates on top of the skin modifier, move them down under the skin modifier. It is strongly recommended to UV map before you rig, collapse the stack so it's empty and then apply the skin modifier. ONLY the skin modifier should remain (on top).

@@Boothand-- IK doesn't belong in bone hierarchy; and controls shouldn't be either. They should remain separate (tie them to your bones using constraints. Yes, you need to unparent mesh_root & skeleton_root... and delete any model_root you created. The exporter creates the model_root and parents them automatically. You can animate with IK or procedural controllers/constraints and it will properly export your animation.

Hmmm... he looks a little too happy-- like he wants to play fetch .

@@Boothand -- What version of Max are you using? Yes, there's a flaw in the Max9+ betaR1 versions that may cause a crash ( for some people ), but it creates the file... it happens after the file is written and the plugin is closing. You must not have a model_root node in your scene because the exporter creates it. Just un-parent skeleton_root and mesh_root and delete your model_root... that's just the way the plugin works. I'm trying to get the final-release plugin finished and uploaded ASAP.

Ok... just to let everyone know. A number of 3ds Max bone skeletons floating around out there... have had bones that were accidently moved. As a result, if you try and compile a new root.xsi to combine with existing Raven dotXSI animations, Carcass will complain and report the offending bones that have bad BASEPOSE transforms. This is why @@DT85 was saying that he had to use the compile switch: -ignorebaseposedeviations ...in order to get his new root.xsi to compile. I have been in the process for a quite awhile, of building a complete, complex (yet user friendly) character rig for the Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy skeletons. I used my validated skeleton to compile a new root.xsi, using the new dotXSI 3.0 Exporter. On my first Carcass compile attempt, Carcass reported that only the "leye" and "reye" bones had bad BASEPOSE transforms... so I fixed this (...but in Max9) and recompiled and everything worked perfectly! No need for any -ignorebaseposedeviations switch. Problem is ... I want this skeleton available to others back to version Max6... so yesterday and today, I have been re-validating my bone skeleton in the 3ds Max 6 trial software. Later tonight I will do the Carcass compiling to verify the skeleton is validated as good. When I'm finished, I plan to upload this validated 3ds Max bone skeleton to the Utilities section so 3ds Max users can use this one for skinning their character meshes. Stay tuned...

In addition to Blender... 3ds Max 5 (and up) and Softimage (and Softimage Mod Tool) also allow you to create new characters/creatures-- as well as their animations... these programs also work for the Humanoid character-- and making of new Humanoid animations. Recently (thanks to @@Xycaleth) Maya has been added into the mix-- at least for compiling static characters against the existing Ghoul2 GLA animation file... using his new FBX->to->GLM standalone converter tool.

@@AshuraDX -- how are you running it? By dropping a file on it? Or a .bat file? Or are you trying to double-click the executable?

Ok... so I've been reverse-engineering the dotXSI exporter code and have the dotXSI Importer project compiling-- well beyond the initial wizard created project. However most of the functions need to be converted to "import" from "export" functions... and many can be deleted because they're not applicable.

Thanks, but please don't Rename the zip files to 1.82... the version is 1.8

@@Xycaleth -- this converter is a huge success! I hope it brings Maya modellers into the community. As well as good news for Max 2013 & 2014 users. Did Raven ever release the specs for Ghoul2 format?

Why does it seem like his right elbow is missing?

Ok... with my new "Export Selected" code... you must NOT have any control objects embedded directly into your the Bone Hierarchy... still waiting on @@AshuraDX (or anyone) to explain the naming method that will cause Carcass to skip an object during Ghoul2 conversion. Furthermore, you cannot export-Select a partial bone chain... e.g., if your foot bones are linked to your calf bones then you cannot export-Select just your foot bones-- it will mess up the animation... When doing a partial bone skeleton export, you must include all the bones in a chain, back to the beginning chain root bone... so if you construct your hiearchy properly this means you could export just the spine, or either arm, or either leg, etc. as long as you export that entire bone chain. So with these changes... I think I'll call "Export Selected" fixed.

Yeah, I guess that's the safe approach... I was thinking of hidden mesh objects only... but if they hide the controls and controls are embedded in the bone hierarchy then it'd jumble up the bones to omit hidden controls in the hiearchy. I could make it so that only hidden mesh objects don't get exported when doing a full export... in case you have "junk" mesh objects in the scene. But then they should probably clean those out, no?

Currently the exporter always does a "Plot Animation" on all nodes getting exported-- doesn't just export out keys for fancy controllers... it samples the animation frame-by-frame and creates a key on every frame for each object being exported-- whether it is directly animated or controlled by other fancy controllers/constraints.