Wijitmaker

Ok, a few things. You can use an export of dude_4 for both the mesh and the animation file in your actor xml file. The engine will only reference the mesh data when loading the mesh from the .dae file - and when doing the animation, it will only reference the animation data stored in the .dae. So you can actually used an animated mesh for your mesh. The other thing is the skeleton. I would imagine that exporting the rig from blender will require a new skeleton. This file will need to be appended: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/skeletons/biped.xml Note there is 2 basic versions of biped - one for max (line 58 - 115) and one for xsi (line 117 - 186). There will probably need to be one created for blender that names the rigging bones correctly per the blender file. The difference could be as subtle as duplicating the structure of max one and just renaming the root. Lines 1- 56 in the file define the skeleton and will never change. The other blocks are basically translators for the various 3d software programs to define equivalent bone names. Edit: I see your comments about prop points... was there no prop points in dude 4? I thought I brought those over (might they perhaps be hidden in blender? It shouldn't be to difficult to recreate new prop points or import them into blender and re-attach them with appropriate parent/child relationships.)

Per our PM conversation. This is basically how you would set it up with the prop points. celt_sb_animated.zip

Wow, you guys have been busy since the last time I looked at the forums. Nice work. FYI, I never had any luck using the default .dae file export out of 3ds Max. Back in the day (2006 - when most models and all animations were from 3ds Max for 0 A.D.) we always instructed people to export the .dae file from Max using ColladaMax. Pyrogenesis didn't like the native .dae export. So we used the plugin, which did work. I'm not sure if blender might have issues with the native 3ds Max .dae export as well? Last time we made a run at this - I thought we were super close to getting this to work. I successfully got the rig into Blender and I thought it would work, but I'm not familiar enough with Blender to know how the export animation works. Check that out here. Enrique didn't have any luck with the file. http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15552&p=245561 I think it has a really simple test animation applied to it too.

FYI it looks like OpenCollada supports up to version 2010 of 3ds Max when I look here. Maybe compatable with 2013? https://github.com/KhronosGroup/OpenCOLLADA/tree/master/COLLADAMax Have you guys tried this? Or perhaps contacting the developers? http://sourceforge.net/projects/colladablender/

Here is the 3dsmax export plugin source code you guys were asking for. pmdexp.zip

Have you guys ever looked into Eadweard Muybridge's works? I found them very helpful in the past. Here is a book I bought in the past: http://books.google.com/books?id=uVbrtU0rCVsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Eadweard+Muybridge&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MrQUU7OlAsjcoATjtoLYDw&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Eadweard%20Muybridge&f=false

Great thanks, I'll check it out. I want to compare the .dae file max default exporter exports vs. the 3rd party colladamax plugin's .dae. Maybe there is something different in the .dae xml file structure.

hmm odd error. Would you mind posting your .dae file?

How about exporting a .dae from 3dsmax and replacing an existing .dae in the game. Then loading it up in the game to see if you get any errors? Using the ox cart as an example.

I can point you to more 3dmax youtube tutorials and videos. I think I even have a dvd somewhere (or used too). I'd like to get you to successfully export a .dae file. Why don't you try exporting a .dae from that ox cart max file I sent you and try to replace the chariot file again. Let see what breaks Enrique would like to try exporting a humanoid .dae file as well. I think you could help us with that If we can get the ox cart working. Lets try this next. How is your documentation of all this going? EDIT: Nevermind - you and Enrique are already on it!

Looking good! I'd love to see some more variety of main menu scenes

I'll check out your file later, but here is a video tut about setting up hierarchies in max: Props don't have to be made out of dummy helpers, they could be made out of geometry (like a box). I just preferred using helpers because you could filter out your selection criteria. Sometimes I would want to only select geometry or only select helpers. If my prop was a geometry type, I couldn't discriminate between the two.

Good! So to define objects as props by the game engine, you just need to name them prop-_____. You could used bones or geometry or helpers. I like helpers. Do you see helpers here? This is where they used to be. Ignore the right side of this image: I usually use the point type because you can turn on x,y,z vectors to help visualize it's orientation. For manually assigning vertexes to a "bone" what you do using the skin modifier is pretty well defined here: http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/files/GUID-0D847E14-366A-4629-A87A-D24CAF591226.htm Select the box that says "Vertices" at the top of the select menu: Select the name of the bone in the bone list. Then assign a value of 1.0 in the Abs. Effect box under weight properties. Usually I use envelopes for weighting vertexes in organic objects. But, for mechanical ridged animation, this is how it has worked for me in the past.

Alrighty, give this a try. I think that old file I linked you to was nothing worth your attention. It includes a before and an after. OX_Cart.zip

Ah, would you mind exporting the ox cart as a .obj file and then zipping it up with a texture? I'll just use that for a template for you.

The later is a great model. The first... hmm maybe this is not the file I thought it was. I'll need to open up Max and check that file out.

Always glad to help when I can - consulting is the easy part. You guys are doing the hard work these days, developing! It is amazing to see the vision I and a few other founders set for the project 13 years ago still in motion. So thank you Erik, and everyone else who has picked up where others have left off - successfully passing the torch.

I have a sneaky suspicion that something there is hidden geometry. Right click and unhide all. Then delete anything else that isn't reliant. The only thing you really want is the chariot body and the left and right wheels for geometry. There is also going to be some helper objects that define "prop points". I'm not sure if you are familiar with those or not. You'll need to keep those, and keep whatever the bone structure is - I forget if it was a bone, or a box, or a helper (Its been close to a decade since I made that file ). If you should post a screenshot of your screen and maybe a screenshot of the list of objects you see if you go to the menu and "select by name". That would be helpful for me in assisting to troubleshoot.

Yeah, it doesn't like your skeleton. It looks like the big skeleton file has been split up into separate files and now lives here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/skeletons/chariot.xml The engine doesn't like your model because the skeleton doesn't match the model. Which could be because the bones aren't named correctly in Max. Check the object names. It could also be plain missing... When you export the .dae actively select the objects (meshes, bones, helpers, etc) you want to exported and try "export selected" vs. just "export" which will do the whole scene. You don't want all the other junk in the file exported.

Ok cool it worked The missing .dle file could be found here: The bip and graphic files live in the art repository - but you don't need those. You could get some of these from the game's texture folder. which lives here: ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/textures (it should like this - if you have access - http://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/textures ) (BTW, as your learning, document it here: trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/ArtDesignDocument) Check out the simple bone structure in the file and the modifiers to get a feel for it. Like I say, try exporting a .dae and replacing ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/art/animation/mechanical/chariot_run.dae See if it works in the map editor or actor editor.

Might be good to document this on the wiki rather than the forum too? Keep up the good work agentx

Before Blender became so prevalent, 3DS Max was the tool that exported the majority of models and animations until around 2006-2007. It should still be possible, in fact many original .max file are available in the artist's SVN repository if you would like to view those. It sounds like you need general information of how to do rigging, not specifically how to get 3ds models and animations into the game? There are numerous resources for the former, and I'm one of the few resources for the later. So if you ask me specific questions I'll do my best to answer them. I'll subscribe to this thread and try to keep up with answering ASAP. Like blender - the goal is to output a .dae file. The method behind the output could vary. For example you could use the character studio feature of 3ds Max for your bones structure or you could use your own custom bone objects. You could use the skin or the physique modifiers for interpolating the mesh and assigning weights to each vertex. So right off the bat you have two options. I haven't exported to .dae in years and I think I was using 3ds Max R7 at the time with a open source freeware plugin called ColladaMax. This was because the default .dae exporter from max at the time was doing a poor job and the .dae file outputted weren't recognized by the engine at the time. The first step I would try if I were you would be to try and simply export one of the old models with the new version of max and it's .dae plugin and see if it breaks. Here is one you can play with. I think there is some very basic animation in it using a few bones (helpers) and a skin modifier. chariot.zip

Aye, when animations were created... units were not supposed to destroy buildings. Instead they would capture them.

Nice work, animals are tricky. I'd love to see a run animation too. (in case run and stamina are ever reimplemented into the game)

Could you describe your specific problems? Maybe I could be of assistance.