Archangel35757

Hey Michael!, you are a tenacious man (also credits to DT), i thought you would've given up by now

 

i use 9 x64 and 2010 x64.

Well, I did give up for a couple of years... but I'm determined to get this fixed. Just this one last issue is giving me fits... there are not any real tutorials on coding with the XSIFTK. So I'm struggling to grasp some of its principles. Maybe I'll breakdown and write Dominic LaFlamme an email.

I'm still working to fix the orientation of the model_root pivot relative to the skeleton and mesh. I've also added some error trapping to cat h if the user leaves the new "Scene Root Name" option blank. Also added this to the original "Max Action" text field.

 

What versions of 3dsMax are being used?

...What about mouth bones? (those seemed a bit lacking to me) I was looking into some stuff for JK2 also for more defined facial animations.

 

 

...Only the mouth bones that were in the original xsi source files are there now, I haven't added any actual *new* bones. There's not much point in adding many more bones for the face, seeing as the engine is still lacking visually with bad lighting and wouldn't really see the difference except in a very few lighting positions.

 

 

I agree with eezstreet... there are 32 facials bones (just counted them now in the 3ds Max skeleton)... and while it is true that the action animations use fewer facial bones because they're not needed for action/fighting... I strongly believe that ALL 32 facial bones (and any other missing bones...) need to be in the baseline root.xsi recompile.  That way for action animations... people can only weight their mesh to the lesser facial bones only in the original released .xsi files-- but they can make a separate cutscene cinematic character where the face is weighted to all 32 facial bones using a complete root.xsi-- thus allowing for greater facial animation details and a much greater cinematic cutscene improvement... this is what I plan and was hoping to collaborate on with you.

Well, this is my first post here... and it's been a few years since I was active on the older JK2/JKA forums... ( I still have several models to finish! Hah!) A couple of years ago DT and I tried to fix the exporter but could not get the BASEPOSE transforms exported correctly... so we gave up, I took a C++ class... time went by (2 years!), my C++ skills got very rusty... but I decided to knock the rust off and get this exporter fixed-- so I tracked DT down and we started up again.

 

So hopefully this WIP thread is going to be good news to those of you out there that have 3ds Max and desire to make new animations (...and NOT just compile a model). As you may or may not know, the Softimage|XSI exporter for 3ds Max 6 (which also works for v7, v8) is broken and doesn't export out a valid .xsi file that carcass.exe would compile. There were a number of issues (which have now been fixed):

• The Scene Root Node was exported as "MAXSceneRoot" and the game expects the root node to be "model_root" -- FIXED!
• Not only is the name of the scene root fixed, but today (and yes, it took me awhile because my C++ skills are quite rusty!) I added a text field called "Scene Root" where you can enter any root name you desire (useful for other game mods or anyone that has different scene root name requirements) -- Bonus Fix!!!
• We finally have the BASEPOSE transforms being exported correctly -- FIXED!
• The export dialog window that pops up does not have an easy cancel button (it did have a keyboard ESC feature-- but it's not obvious it exists) so today I got a Cancel button implemented -- Bonus Fix!!!
• The orientation of the root node (model_root) is the one last issue we need to fix. The softimage code orients it 90 degrees out-of-phase with the skeleton in transforming from 3ds Max to the XSI coordinate system. I feel confident we'll have this solved shortly.
• DT has been helping me solve the BASEPOSE transform and model_root issue (two heads are better than one, right?), and he has been working solo on compiling a version of our changes for 3ds Max 2011... we're hopeful we can get it to work for later versions of 3ds Max but the priorities are for Max 6, 7, 8, and 9 (I have the SDK for Max 9 but don't have it installed).
• DT has been testing out the Max6 compiled plugin and has verified that is also supports Character Studio Biped (not that you'd want to use the Biped directly... but I guess one could if they took the time to make the Biped match the JKA bones exactly-- easier to just link the Nulls to the Biped IMO). Thankfully the last version Softimage released (v1.7) added "Export Selected" support and that's a huge deal.
• DT also verified that the plugin output also works properly with the GLAmerge tool (which isn't affected by the model_root orientation issue)

So we'll keep you posted on our progress... are there any Max users still out there???