Archangel35757

@@Pande: The dotXSI exporter for 3dsMax works in all aspects for JK/JA. I've never used Blender and never will. To each his own... but like Minilogo said-- this thread is for 3dsMax.

Great! Thanks.

So if you have multiple nodes in your scene that you want to export out as ROF, it generates a ROF file for each object-- which makes since. So you could do like I say, for example, and bind Dummy Nodes to the legs of an AT-AT Walker (or whatever...) and export out the ROFs for a walk-cycle... then you could build the legs from brush objects and use these ROFs to drive the walk-cycle. Wouldn't this allow the player (either on foot or flying a T-47) to be able to run/fly under or between the brush object legs??? Since they wouldn't have collision bounding boxes like models??? I'm going to need the assistance of a proficient mapper and scripter to help me beta test this ROFF exporter-- I don't have time to learn everything (mapping, scripting, etc. :wacko: ) ...so do I have any volunteers?

So from what I've gathered by studying the available ROFF source code... is that there are two versions: 1 and 2. ROFFs also have a Note Track feature... however, only Version 2 supports Note Tracks-- thus I will only make a ROFF2 exporter. There are at least two types of Note Tracks that can be embedded in the ROF file that the game code makes use of: (1) effects and (2) sounds. There doesn't appear to be a max number on these Note Tracks... and so, if I'm reading the code correclty, for each frame of animation you can play both effects and sounds. So I imagine one could use these to add more realism to a brush/model entity's scripted animation... say engine glow, or trailing fire and smoke with debris chunks while playing appropriate sounds... any effects or sound FX really. ***I think*** you could even have them cease for any number of frames you want... (i.e., have a sputtering engine or something). I'm certainly going to have to study the ROFF system deeper to figure out how these are added... I suspect I could use the Note Track that exists in 3ds Max that would allow me to make any kind of notes I want on any frame... so I just need to specify the "effect" or "sound" in accordance with the mapping/scripting manuals-- now I just need to go find where that is...

In looking at the source code pertaining to ROFFs... they currently have a hard-coded limit of 32 in a Level.

And the increased CPU cost for Ghoul2 collision detection is prohibitive??? Can't remember having just looked at the code but I think there is an artificial cap on the number of ROFFs permitted as well. :/

Perhaps @@mrwonko can answer this question better... but I imagine it would be less processor load to use this scripted animation on non-bone brush models and misc_models than ghoul2 models. Plus I believe there is a limit in how many Ghoul2 models can be visible at a time.

In my opinion, without a ROF animation you are severely limited in what "entity animation" you can script... and not drive yourself crazy. Complex 3D non-linear paths are what makes a ROF shine... and it is implemented via scripting. See the SoF2 Mapping Documentation for the best explanations and Icarus manual.

Yes... through scripting.

First I would like to ask this sub-forum admin to create additional topic tags relevant to tools development, like: "Plugin" or "Plugin WIP", etc. or tags for the specific 3D modeling package the plugin is for: "3dsMax Plugin", "Maya Plugin", "Softimage Add-On" etc. Because currently the only tag is "JK2." Secondly, I would ask that there be a sub-forum under coding for "Tools Development" and move this thread under it. So, with the Beta(R1) dotXSI exporter out and continuing beta testing (seems pretty quiet out there), and before I get back to creating a controls rig for the 3ds Max Humanoid Skeleton, I thought I would try to re-create the ROFF exporter for 3ds Max 6+ (as the only working version was for 3ds Max 5). I've read Mr. Wonko's blog about his recreating the ROFF exporter for Blender (kudos to him for that); and I have his scripts, as well as the ROFF header file from the JKA source code release. So hopefully I'll be able to pull this off. So for those of you who don't know... what is a ROFF??? It stands for Rotation Origin File Format with an extension of ( .ROF ). A ROF contains position and rotation data for very complex trajectories and paths, animated using a 3D modeling program for either one or multiple objects, and exported as a binary file. More specifically it constains delta positions and delta rotations from the previous frame of animation. It enables/allows for scripting very complex world object animations of brushes/models. How? You create a brush entity, which must be square or rectangular and apply the origin shader to it. The origin point is the exact center of the origin brush and the center of rotation. You then export this origin brush out of GtkRadiant and into your modeling program (making sure you are using consistent units) to get the initial position and orientation of the origin brush entity. Then animate whatever complex trajectory you want in your modeling program and export this trajectory out as a .ROF. When included in scripting, the game uses this .ROF file to play the animation in-game. A ROF in the hands of a knowledgable scripter could probably pull off some amazing things... and not just your ordinary fly-by. Think of this as like "motion-capture" data for brush models (that could even be grouped with misc_model entities) or baking in motion data from Physics simulations. Or what if you tagged the bone joints of the AT-AT Walker's legs with these origin brushes and then exported out a walk cycle? Mo-Cap for brushes! Allowing you to maybe have better interaction with the models and pull of a Luke Skywalker AT-AT take down... who knows. Perhaps ROFFs are being heavily used once again since Mr. Wonko's Blender scripts were released... but I'd like to be able to create these files from my favorite 3D modeling program. So back to the point of this thread... I don't know how long it will take, but I'm hopeful I can pull this off as my knowledge of the 3ds Max SDK grows. I'll post updates here...

I wholeheartedly agree with you! Actually, this guy (Hugo Apellido) at maxplugins.de here: <http://maxplugins.de/max2011.php?search=Hugo Apellido&sort=Author> has generated newer versions of .map exporters, .bsp level importers, .GLM importers, and .MD3 importers/exporters for a number of versions of 3ds Max up to R2011. However, he's missing some critical ones for Max 6, 7, 8. I've tried to contact him but haven't gotten any response. If anyone knows how to contact this guy please let me know. One of the plugins that is still missing for 3ds Max is the ROFF exporter that allows you to generate custom complex paths for scripted map object animations (i.e., vehicle flight paths, etc.). I plan to build a ROFF exporter soon. I also want to fix the broken dotXSI importer...

Good News! I've traced the root cause of the problem for the "broken animations" ( ...like @@AshuraDX and I were experiencing). In the code they do a test on all objects to see if it is animated, and if this test returns "true" then they export the fCurves (i.e., Animation Data)... however, those objects that are animated indirectly using Constraints or IK Chains will fail this test; and as a result are omitted during the animation export phase. :blink: I've fixed this issue... and have tested it out on a few things. I also verified that I am able to compile a model with carcass.exe and play it in ModView. Hopefully there aren't any more bugs... I'll be releasing new beta versions for everyone to continue beta testing phase. Thanks!

Well it appears the original code has issues when an object uses procedural type controllers or constraints... hopefully I can have it fixed soon. Until the code is fixed, if you should run into this issue, the workaround is to export-select your skeleton & mesh objects and bake out the animation to an FBX file. Re-import this baked FBX file and then do a scene export to dotXSI.

Years ago Tinny modified the jamp code using the GHOUL2 Hit/Collision detection to allow me to fly the T-47 vehicle under an AT-AT... now if I only had that grappling hook (tow cable) code, and Phsyics, to make a workable harpoon and bring it down! My apologies for getting off topic from Mini's original post... perhaps this discussion should be moved elsewhere.

I get that... but out of curiosity then, why do the Raven released dotXSI animations not include the root pose on Frame 0? Does it really need to be in there for Carcass? Or is carcass happy as long as you include a root.xsi file of the basepose when compiling multiple files into a .GLA? or is it needed for GLAmerge only?

Yes, the plugin code uses a method called PlotSRTAnimation-- it functions in theory as you describe... no baking required.

@@AshuraDX First off, Frame 0 must be your root pose (i.e., neutral pose where you add the skin modifier and weight your mesh objects to the bones). The exporter expects this basepose to be Frame 0. Every animation must have the root pose on Frame 0... perhaps @@DT85 or @@Psyk0Sith can expound more on the reason for this... Also, it's good practive to Freeze Transforms on your Control Objects before you start connecting them up to the hierarchy so that you can easily get back to zero after doing any animations (Refer to 3ds Max documentation and rigging tutorials for freezing transforms). Still something going on with plugin... but not having the root pose on Frame 0 is a contributing factor.

Thanks for your XSI screenshots... The plugin code should have automatically handled the constraints... I'll need to dig into the code and see what's going on... I'm thankful to have you guys beta testing it to find issues like this.

Nice! Are you using the new 3dsMax dotXSI v1.8 Beta exporter to get this in-game?

"Export Selected" still has Softimage's original flaws... it is high on the list of things to fix. If you run into this issue then the only workaround (though I've not tested it... but should work) would be to save out your selection as an XML Animation File. Load back up this file and export to dotXSI. Please report if you run into this and explain what the offending object is, how you're using it and how it's tied into your hierarchy.

Thanks! FYI... 3ds Max 9 plugins usually work in 3ds Max 2008. The 32-bit plugin will only work with 32-bit Max 9 (and 32-bit Max 2008), and the 64-bit plugin will only work with 64-bit Max 9 (and 64-bit Max 2008). So if anyone has, or knows of someone with, 3ds Max 2008-- please give this plugin a try and post your results with it!

Hmm... my file submission to the Utilities section is still pending approval.

What version of 3ds Max are you using? Also, to all those following this thread... does anyone see any benifit to changing the default projectName: "3ds Max Scene", in the file info section, to something useful? And it would only be useful if you look at the dotXSI file in a text editor or XSI Dump v1.3...

Crosswalk 2.6 has those 3.0 templates as well... I'll try and do a clean compile against 2.6 rather than include the paths to the XSIFTK 3.6.3 headers, etc. If that fails then I'll try 5.0. It also looks like in SDK 5.0 they give you all files you need to recompile the Crosswalk plugin, no?

So using the later Crosswalk plugins... when you select the filename to save as .xsi it doesn't give you a drop-down list for dotXSI versions?