Flux on 7/5/2008 at 20:26

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http://images.bittersense.com/customai1.jpg

Well, that's my poor skinless manga thingy, who thinks he is a pagan.:p Though I managed to import it to skeletal browser, assigned animations and saw him attacking me in-game, at the moment I have more questions than answers, so please bear with me.

Ok, I managed the extract a skeletal rig out of one psa(maleskirt). After a chaotic trials involving collada, smd, fbx formats, it came in one piece in 3dsmax but almost all bone names missing. Then, after checking with the skeletal browser in t3ed, I renamed *most* of the bone names correctly and applied physique modifier. Bone names are important, otherwise animations won't work. I didn't bother much of envelope fixing for now. Important thing here is before you attach node, make sure bone name M1 is selected. I think this is the equivalent of bip01 bone, that controls the entire mesh.

I ignored all the errors/warning during actorX export, since they are about incorrect vertex influences. (all physique meshes box has to be ticked, not sure about cull unused dummies at the moment.)

Then running the skeletal browser, it generated the necessary files. To my surprise, assigning the existing animations was easy:right click, add animation.

Finally, added a pagan, changed the skeletal tag to "customai" psk name. If you try, be sure not to switch to flesh mode, since it won't have any skins, editor will crash.

Now the questions:

1) How do I assign a skin to this mesh? By unwrapping it correctly, take one for body one for the head from t3_character matlib and assign in the add skin box in actorX? I'm unsure if this will work or not, besides, I don't know much about unwrapping a full mesh.

2) What does overlay editor do in the skeletal browser?

3) True meaning and function of each dummy, especially the ones around face??? I'm pretty sure my poor custom ai at the moment won't have lip-sync or other facial animations, it was a mess up there, I didn't get much out of it.

4)Hp bones are for the ai attachments and m named bones are for motions, right? If, yes then how the hell or why should I adjust envelopes for hp bones? As you can see in the picture it doesn't hold the sword correctly.

Well, I guess it's worth to keep on experimenting, in case someone wants to try the rig, (http://images.bittersense.com/tds_ai_rig2.rar) here it is. If you don't see the bones make sure everything is checked under link display, which is under display.

Flux on 7/5/2008 at 22:04

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Well, last time he said, "please be patient", so I am:)

Currently, I'm curious about how my rig works, if someone will test it. If more people can use and test it, then it will be very easy to import custom enemy ai. Almost all guards, hammers and pagan uses the same rig and set of animations.

Abru on 11/5/2008 at 14:22

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There are no bones in your scene. There’s only Hierarchy of dummy objects.:)


Yes. This will work if you do it properly.



I think you can use the "Overlay editor" to combine, mix animations. Although I never use this tool.:)



You really don't need to know "true meaning and function of each dummy", unless you plan to make totally custom creature (custom skeleton, animations, mesh... e.g. (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114088) my Burrick).



Here is almost everything you need to know:

(http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/SkeletalSetup) Preparing a Character for use with the Unreal Skeletal Animation System
(http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorXMaxTutorial) How to export animations using ActorX and Max

If you are new to rigging and character development, you should first check the documentation that ships with 3ds max.



He is working hard on Demo and FM ;)

Judith on 11/5/2008 at 17:09

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Good. :cool: Can't wait! I've just finished redesigning my map, time to finish just one location and focus on gameplay/flow :)

Judith on 11/5/2008 at 17:55

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Nope, still The Cabal :) After that I'm into something completely different, probably CCC1 redesign and then a sequel (finaly).