It is 100% the bone you're using to do the rotation. The bone is skewering the mesh. I don't know why it's doing that, something to do with how M3's store bone data. If you make a new bone through create->systems->bones and align the new bone to the middle of the mesh then reskin the mesh to the bone, all your rotations will work properly. Blizzard do the same thing usually, which is probably why their bones don't distort the mesh on export. Your bones can't be skewed it looks like. It's stuffing up the transforms.
I dont get it...
Can you just make short video of you creating simple models as this one ?
Also, I think you are using different controllers.
So you are telling me that I should create new bone, resking it. And what then ? Re-animate that new bone ? Oo
EDIT: I actually baked that bone, and now it works fine. But still...
When exporting, what are pose frames ? Bindpose and Base, what is that for ?
HOW CAN I SET ANIMATION BACKSWING ? Wc3 Editor had that, if (walk)animations is played too slow or too fast, there you can change that.
EDIT2: I uploaded map, just test. Now just watch that model standing there for minute or two. It will change direction of rotation for short time and then it will go back to normal rotation. Strange...
EDIT3: I finally got it working. Still I will investigate what causes so much errors with your tool. I might know what is causing some problems... will talk more on this tomorrow, gotta go on work now.
Map: Link Removed: http://www.mediafire.com/?mygnmeznvmz
EDIT4: Can you give me list of attachment names ?
So, before model plays any animation he looks the bind pose and from that pose plays animation or ? Is bind pose used for transition ? Or its irrelevant ?
Just thought I'd share this for other users, I don't know if it's a bug of the plug in or that's just how it's supposed to be, but you can't make a sequence the same range of another one.
For example, I was animating a... duck >.> so I wanted the stand animation and walk animation to be the same (obviously a wings flying one) so I thought that setting each sequence the same start time and same end time would work but it didn't :P
I ended up duplicating the keys and giving them different frames and not the same ones in the m3 sequences plug in
Hrm, yes I can see why that wouldn't work knowing how the exporter functions. I never thought of people wanting to duplicate animations like that. I should be able to provide support for it.
At the moment I'm in the middle of a big update for the importer/exporter. I'm very unhappy with the old system of doing things, such as how you're forced to have meshes jammed together in a final mesh with a single skin only. In the next update, every object in the scene can function as a bone and submeshes can be seperate editable meshes altogether. This means you can apply seperate skins to a mesh and it will still export fine. Meshes don't even need skins and a bone will be created for them. Instead of using multimaterials to split a mesh into submeshes, you'll actually be able to have seperate meshes. It should clear up alot of issues and make the plugin a bit more user friendly. I'm noticing some serious short comings with 3ds Max which I never knew existed. Merging two skinned meshes together for instance is a task that will drive you crazy. There's no simple solution, which is stupid, because I could design a plugin that could do it pretty easily.
The new importer/exported *should* provide decal support too. I figured out how decals are done, M3's actually have multiple UV channels used to map textures to a mesh. This can be done in 3ds max too, but I'm having trouble implementing the support properly. It should be available in the new update though.
EDIT:
Ok, I was making this for someone, playing with rotations there also.
As you can notice, zoom in, and watch carefully. It seems like its randomly scaling. Somehow, I think that reason for that is rotation.
Stand animations is from 10 - 90. Each 10 frames is key that rotates bone for 45 degs.
Problem ? Do you want the scene ?
Also feature that would allow us 90+ degs of rotation would be cool. :(
What i did was...... I took the zealot model, erased the head, brought in the head from the zealot portrait, optimized it a bit through deleteing parts and welding vertices so it would'nt be so heavy, then i put it together with the body, erased the skin modifier of the body, collapsed both the head and the body, re-rigged the whole thing to the same bone perfectly, and i'd like to test it out. It looks nice and all the animations work, but when i try to export it i get this error.
Export failed!
Unknown property: "parent" in undefined
Sit tight, I'll be releasing a big new update shortly. Probably 2 or so days and most of the problems with exporting should be gone (I hope!). For your problem, you've added a skin modifier to the mesh? Make sure you add all the bone objects to the skin modifier. All the bones must be 'bone' type too. Next update this won't be necessary, you can use any object, but for v1.3 all the objects need to be bones in the skin modifier.
How did you go about importing and exporting those Warcraft III models into Starcraft II cleanly, if I might ask? (The ones in the video in the news post.) Don't let my question delay your update, that update sounds amazing, just curious. :3
How did you go about importing and exporting those Warcraft III models into Starcraft II cleanly, if I might ask? (The ones in the video in the news post.) Don't let my question delay your update, that update sounds amazing, just curious. :3
he used profet's blizzimporter and reskinned the models.
he used profet's blizzimporter and reskinned the models.
Informative. Does that mean Max 5 is needed? Why oh why aren't there any functional importers for anything higher? ;.; If that's the case, then that's the case, and I'll just have to work with it. ^_^
Actually, I updated the code from the very old importer/exporter designed for 3ds max before profet's blizzimporter, it was made by Philip Laing in 2002 (it's the impexpmdx.ms script you may have seen around). Many thanks to him for providing the basis of the code, it reads in the format really well. It took a bit of adjustment but the models are able to be imported nicely with his script, especially because it adds skins and submeshes just as I plan to support with the next M3 plugin update. I'm going to further improve the script when I get a chance so that you can check an 'Import with M3 settings' box and it'll import the MDX using the sc2 definitions I've provided, such as the custom materials and the animations. Basically you should be able to import the model into max and export it straight back out as an M3 with only minor adjustments. The bitmaps will need to be converted as MDX uses blp's, but that's up to the user to convert their maps.
The script runs on my version of 3ds Max 2010 and I imagine will run on any version of max, including those above 3ds Max 5. So far most models read in properly, but some animations won't look right because it's ignoring the tangents when I import. More info on that importer once I'm done with the next update.
but no i didn't add any bones that arn't bones to the skin modifier. I made sure that only bones were added, even varified with the original rigged zealot to make sure that everything was the same.
But hey, im glad to hear that an update is coming that might fix the problem. Thank You! ur awesome!
You are allowed to have mesh and bones ONLY on the scene.
NiN is doing great work for the community. I hope Blizz wont turn their back on mappers.
We could even donate to NiN for his great work. This tool can compete with pro plug-ins.
I personally, appreciate his hard work and dedication to the community.
EDIT: What about particles ?
We cant xport any particles right now ? Will we be able to create particles trough particle system like super spray or we will have to use some blizz "shit" like in art tools ? :))) I dont mean "shit" in a bad way.
You are allowed to have mesh and bones ONLY on the scene.
NiN is doing great work for the community. I hope Blizz wont turn their back on mappers. We could even donate to NiN for his great work. This tool can compete with pro plug-ins.
I personally, appreciate his hard work and dedication to the community.
EDIT: What about particles ? We cant xport any particles right now ? Will we be able to create particles trough particle system like super spray or we will have to use some blizz "shit" like in art tools ? :))) I dont mean "shit" in a bad way.
OMG thank you! i was able to export it after deleting all the non-bone stuff. I got it into the game and it looks and works great. Theres one problem though. See i replaced this new zealot model with the old one to use it as my default zealot. It works fine except he has no ponytail. Now the ponytail isn't part of the mesh so i figured once its ingame the ponytail would attach itself to the head because its a separate model. This didn't happen though, so if anyone knows why the ponytail wouldn't show up(maybe the nonbonestuff that was deleted) please let me know. Thanks again
What were those "non-bone" parts used for ?
It can be either if tails wasnt part of mesh, or if some of your "non-bone" part was used to animate it, so now its screwed.
You will have less problems n next version of this tool.
BTW, what about maya guyz ? NiN ? Nothing ? 0 points ?
I prefer max, but lots of people use maya.
NiN, can I(or you) write some kind of document that would ship with the tool when you DL it ? Including all features and tutorials how to use this tool ?
Do you mean the non-mesh dreadlocks, like on the standard Zealot unit model? (Same effect on the back of the Corruptors.) I believe the exporter doesn't currently support those.
The pony tail is a ribbon effect for the zealot. Particles/Ribbons/Lights will be supported in the future. In answer to your question tigerija, particles will be an extension of one of 3ds max's particle objects, with extra settings for everything M3 particles support (similar to how materials work at the moment). So yes it'll be blizz 'shit' kind of thing, a custom particle object. The same will apply to ribbons/lights.
I plan on doing some tutorials once the plugins reach a state I'm happy with. The new update is very close to being released and I may put up some quick tutorials on how to use it then. As for maya, I'm not sure. There's a standard format called COLLADA out there that would act as a nice intermediate format between the editors. My C programming is very weak but I might look into making something like a COLLADA->M3 converter so people aren't forced to use 3ds Max. However there are alot of extra settings in M3's and really any game model format that Maya and 3ds Max need to be told explicitly to export, such as whether to use team colour in the material alpha and animation settings that I can't see being saved in COLLADA from the other modelling programs. So there's an inherent problem with converting from other programs.
I've designed the 3ds Max plugins to be integrated with 3ds Max custom UI's to save settings that are important to how an M3 renders in-game. So while it's possible to have geometry and possibly even animated geometry converted from COLLADA->M3, I don't foresee how the extra settings could be manipulated through maya or any other modelling program unless someone provides 3rd party support. The only way I think this would be possible is to develop a kind of M3 tweaker program that can alter that data specifically independent of the modelling programs. So you'd save it as COLLADA, convert from COLLADA->M3 then use the program to change M3 dependent settings such as team colour, animation moveSpeed, extra particle settings, etc. That is a bit out of my league though. I'd love to be able to create something like Magos created with his Warcraft III Model Editor if I was capable ><
Ohh, I'm assuming that by "supported in the future" you don't mean in your next release.
Oh well, at least i can rest knowing that i didn't do something horribly wrong. I spent a good while trying to figure out what i had messed up on lol.
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@tigerija: Go
It is 100% the bone you're using to do the rotation. The bone is skewering the mesh. I don't know why it's doing that, something to do with how M3's store bone data. If you make a new bone through create->systems->bones and align the new bone to the middle of the mesh then reskin the mesh to the bone, all your rotations will work properly. Blizzard do the same thing usually, which is probably why their bones don't distort the mesh on export. Your bones can't be skewed it looks like. It's stuffing up the transforms.
I dont get it...
Can you just make short video of you creating simple models as this one ?
Also, I think you are using different controllers.
So you are telling me that I should create new bone, resking it. And what then ? Re-animate that new bone ? Oo
EDIT: I actually baked that bone, and now it works fine. But still...
When exporting, what are pose frames ? Bindpose and Base, what is that for ?
HOW CAN I SET ANIMATION BACKSWING ? Wc3 Editor had that, if (walk)animations is played too slow or too fast, there you can change that.
EDIT2: I uploaded map, just test. Now just watch that model standing there for minute or two. It will change direction of rotation for short time and then it will go back to normal rotation. Strange...
EDIT3: I finally got it working. Still I will investigate what causes so much errors with your tool. I might know what is causing some problems... will talk more on this tomorrow, gotta go on work now. Map: Link Removed: http://www.mediafire.com/?mygnmeznvmz
EDIT4: Can you give me list of attachment names ?
So, before model plays any animation he looks the bind pose and from that pose plays animation or ? Is bind pose used for transition ? Or its irrelevant ?
Just thought I'd share this for other users, I don't know if it's a bug of the plug in or that's just how it's supposed to be, but you can't make a sequence the same range of another one.
For example, I was animating a... duck >.> so I wanted the stand animation and walk animation to be the same (obviously a wings flying one) so I thought that setting each sequence the same start time and same end time would work but it didn't :P
I ended up duplicating the keys and giving them different frames and not the same ones in the m3 sequences plug in
@xcorbo: Go
Hrm, yes I can see why that wouldn't work knowing how the exporter functions. I never thought of people wanting to duplicate animations like that. I should be able to provide support for it.
@tigerija: Go
At the moment I'm in the middle of a big update for the importer/exporter. I'm very unhappy with the old system of doing things, such as how you're forced to have meshes jammed together in a final mesh with a single skin only. In the next update, every object in the scene can function as a bone and submeshes can be seperate editable meshes altogether. This means you can apply seperate skins to a mesh and it will still export fine. Meshes don't even need skins and a bone will be created for them. Instead of using multimaterials to split a mesh into submeshes, you'll actually be able to have seperate meshes. It should clear up alot of issues and make the plugin a bit more user friendly. I'm noticing some serious short comings with 3ds Max which I never knew existed. Merging two skinned meshes together for instance is a task that will drive you crazy. There's no simple solution, which is stupid, because I could design a plugin that could do it pretty easily.
The new importer/exported *should* provide decal support too. I figured out how decals are done, M3's actually have multiple UV channels used to map textures to a mesh. This can be done in 3ds max too, but I'm having trouble implementing the support properly. It should be available in the new update though.
Take your time.
BTW, SC2 uses 1 mesh for their models or more ?
EDIT: Ok, I was making this for someone, playing with rotations there also. As you can notice, zoom in, and watch carefully. It seems like its randomly scaling. Somehow, I think that reason for that is rotation. Stand animations is from 10 - 90. Each 10 frames is key that rotates bone for 45 degs.
Problem ? Do you want the scene ? Also feature that would allow us 90+ degs of rotation would be cool. :(
Can i get some help please?
What i did was...... I took the zealot model, erased the head, brought in the head from the zealot portrait, optimized it a bit through deleteing parts and welding vertices so it would'nt be so heavy, then i put it together with the body, erased the skin modifier of the body, collapsed both the head and the body, re-rigged the whole thing to the same bone perfectly, and i'd like to test it out. It looks nice and all the animations work, but when i try to export it i get this error.
Export failed!
Unknown property: "parent" in undefinedplz help
heres a pic
its probbly coz you connected bones onto your rigg(that arent bones). Did you ?
@pzea469: Go
Sit tight, I'll be releasing a big new update shortly. Probably 2 or so days and most of the problems with exporting should be gone (I hope!). For your problem, you've added a skin modifier to the mesh? Make sure you add all the bone objects to the skin modifier. All the bones must be 'bone' type too. Next update this won't be necessary, you can use any object, but for v1.3 all the objects need to be bones in the skin modifier.
How did you go about importing and exporting those Warcraft III models into Starcraft II cleanly, if I might ask? (The ones in the video in the news post.) Don't let my question delay your update, that update sounds amazing, just curious. :3
he used profet's blizzimporter and reskinned the models.
Informative. Does that mean Max 5 is needed? Why oh why aren't there any functional importers for anything higher? ;.; If that's the case, then that's the case, and I'll just have to work with it. ^_^
@BlinkHawk: Go
Actually, I updated the code from the very old importer/exporter designed for 3ds max before profet's blizzimporter, it was made by Philip Laing in 2002 (it's the impexpmdx.ms script you may have seen around). Many thanks to him for providing the basis of the code, it reads in the format really well. It took a bit of adjustment but the models are able to be imported nicely with his script, especially because it adds skins and submeshes just as I plan to support with the next M3 plugin update. I'm going to further improve the script when I get a chance so that you can check an 'Import with M3 settings' box and it'll import the MDX using the sc2 definitions I've provided, such as the custom materials and the animations. Basically you should be able to import the model into max and export it straight back out as an M3 with only minor adjustments. The bitmaps will need to be converted as MDX uses blp's, but that's up to the user to convert their maps.
The script runs on my version of 3ds Max 2010 and I imagine will run on any version of max, including those above 3ds Max 5. So far most models read in properly, but some animations won't look right because it's ignoring the tangents when I import. More info on that importer once I'm done with the next update.
@NiNtoxicated01: Go
Say what now? Holy crap I love you. *hugs tightly*
thanks for all the help!
but no i didn't add any bones that arn't bones to the skin modifier. I made sure that only bones were added, even varified with the original rigged zealot to make sure that everything was the same.
But hey, im glad to hear that an update is coming that might fix the problem. Thank You! ur awesome!
You are allowed to have mesh and bones ONLY on the scene.
NiN is doing great work for the community. I hope Blizz wont turn their back on mappers. We could even donate to NiN for his great work. This tool can compete with pro plug-ins.
I personally, appreciate his hard work and dedication to the community.
EDIT: What about particles ? We cant xport any particles right now ? Will we be able to create particles trough particle system like super spray or we will have to use some blizz "shit" like in art tools ? :))) I dont mean "shit" in a bad way.
OMG thank you! i was able to export it after deleting all the non-bone stuff. I got it into the game and it looks and works great. Theres one problem though. See i replaced this new zealot model with the old one to use it as my default zealot. It works fine except he has no ponytail. Now the ponytail isn't part of the mesh so i figured once its ingame the ponytail would attach itself to the head because its a separate model. This didn't happen though, so if anyone knows why the ponytail wouldn't show up(maybe the nonbonestuff that was deleted) please let me know. Thanks again
What were those "non-bone" parts used for ? It can be either if tails wasnt part of mesh, or if some of your "non-bone" part was used to animate it, so now its screwed. You will have less problems n next version of this tool.
BTW, what about maya guyz ? NiN ? Nothing ? 0 points ? I prefer max, but lots of people use maya.
NiN, can I(or you) write some kind of document that would ship with the tool when you DL it ? Including all features and tutorials how to use this tool ?
@pzea469: Go
Do you mean the non-mesh dreadlocks, like on the standard Zealot unit model? (Same effect on the back of the Corruptors.) I believe the exporter doesn't currently support those.
@pzea469: Go
The pony tail is a ribbon effect for the zealot. Particles/Ribbons/Lights will be supported in the future. In answer to your question tigerija, particles will be an extension of one of 3ds max's particle objects, with extra settings for everything M3 particles support (similar to how materials work at the moment). So yes it'll be blizz 'shit' kind of thing, a custom particle object. The same will apply to ribbons/lights.
@tigerija: Go
I plan on doing some tutorials once the plugins reach a state I'm happy with. The new update is very close to being released and I may put up some quick tutorials on how to use it then. As for maya, I'm not sure. There's a standard format called COLLADA out there that would act as a nice intermediate format between the editors. My C programming is very weak but I might look into making something like a COLLADA->M3 converter so people aren't forced to use 3ds Max. However there are alot of extra settings in M3's and really any game model format that Maya and 3ds Max need to be told explicitly to export, such as whether to use team colour in the material alpha and animation settings that I can't see being saved in COLLADA from the other modelling programs. So there's an inherent problem with converting from other programs.
I've designed the 3ds Max plugins to be integrated with 3ds Max custom UI's to save settings that are important to how an M3 renders in-game. So while it's possible to have geometry and possibly even animated geometry converted from COLLADA->M3, I don't foresee how the extra settings could be manipulated through maya or any other modelling program unless someone provides 3rd party support. The only way I think this would be possible is to develop a kind of M3 tweaker program that can alter that data specifically independent of the modelling programs. So you'd save it as COLLADA, convert from COLLADA->M3 then use the program to change M3 dependent settings such as team colour, animation moveSpeed, extra particle settings, etc. That is a bit out of my league though. I'd love to be able to create something like Magos created with his Warcraft III Model Editor if I was capable ><
Ohh, I'm assuming that by "supported in the future" you don't mean in your next release. Oh well, at least i can rest knowing that i didn't do something horribly wrong. I spent a good while trying to figure out what i had messed up on lol.