So many work arounds! Your head must be spinning! Robert the robot's idea with the braces is good, but much more complex than one may think. If your meshes aren't laid out in the corect order in terms of the hierarchy from the beginning, trying to figure out Brace placement would be a nightmare. You'd end up having to move whole chunks of data around... It's possible, but very difficult. And to do it every time you create a new model...
Again, based on budget and quality, Blender is my suggestion (or a custom conversion script/app for anim8or). You can still create your model in anim8or and then link it up in blender. Or if you can get past the fear, model the whole thing in Blender. But let's crawl before we run.
Download Blender. Start Blender.
These instructions are based on Blender 2.48 :
1. In the upper left part of the screen, left click on
File >
Load Factory Settings
Left Click on
Erase All
This way I know what you'll be looking at
2. The cube in the middle should be pink. If it isn't, Right Click on it. Press
X and accept erasing the cube. We just want to start with a blank slate.
3. In the lower left of the screen there should be another menu.
Left Click on
View > Front This will set the 3d view to front view.
4. Left Click on
File > Import > 3D Studio (3ds)
A file open dialog will appear. Click on the .. icon to move up a folder. Click on the Up/down arrow at the top left under the P to list all of your harddrives. Text in White are folders. Black text are files.
Single Click your selections.
5. Find your 3ds file you built in animator. Left click on it and it's name should appear in the title box. Click on the button labled
Import 3Ds. A small dialog should open with a box that reads
Size Constraint 10. Left Click on the word Constraint.
10.0000 should highlight in red. Change the value by typing in
0.0 and press ENTER. Click on the
OK Button and your model should load into Blender.
6. Press
SHIFT+C (shift and the C key at the same time) That will center your view and bring the model into view.
7. If everything has gone according to plan, you should see your model with all of the limbs highlighted in pink. Tap the A key until nothing is highlighted (nothing is selected). Press the
Z key to switch to
Wire Frame shading
8. Just like we've been experiencing all along, the pivots of the limbs will all be at 0,0,0. We want them pivoting at joints. So let's get to it!
Right click on any limb. It should become selected.
An axis will appear where the pivot for that limb is located. It will have a blue arrow and a red arrow. I find this a little bit distracting, so I'll tell you how to turn it off. Below the 3d grid, there should be a little hand button next to a triangle. The hand button should be recessed if the the big axis is appearing on screen. Left click the hand and the button will become unselected and the axis should disappear.
Now we can see the pivot point more clearly. It is the pink dot.
9. First, let's center the pivot relative to the limb. On the menu at the buttom of the 3d view window, left click on
Object > Transform > Center New That should move the pivot to the center of the limb relative to it's own vertices.
10. You'll notice that there is what looks like a crosshair roughly centered in the middle of the screen. This is the 3d cursor. We are going to place the 3d cursor at the position on the limb that we want to become the new pivot. Left click on the limb where you want to place the pivot.
The crosshair (3d cursor) should have jumped to that position. Since we are in Front view, the cursor may look like it's positioned correctly, but we want to be sure it is correct in the other 2 dimensions.
11. Left Click on
View > Top to switch to Top view and look to see if the 3d cursor is still centered where you want the pivot to be. If not, left click to place it where you want in this view.
12. Left Click on
View > Side and take a look at the 3d cursor position. Line it up however you want. If you need to zoom in or out to get a better view, Tap the
+ or - keys on the numeric keypad. If you don't have a numeric keypad, then hold
ALT+CTRL+Left Mouse Button and move the mouse.
Tap the
C key to center the view at the 3d cursor. Press SHIFT+C to center the entire view and model - but if you use SHIFT+C, the 3d cursor will jump to 0,0,0 .
When you are done setting the cursor position, Return to the front view.
13. Now, with the 3d cursor positioned on the limb where you want it, Left Click
Object > Transform > Center Cursor. The pink pivot dot should have moved to the 3d cursor. The pivot for the limb is now set.
Do the same thing for the rest of limbs, repeat steps 9-13 positioning the 3d cursor to whereever you want the pivot to be.
14. To test a pivot, while a single limb is selected, press the
R key to go into rotation editing. Move the mouse around and you should see the limb rotate around the pivot. Press
ESC to exit this mode without hitting any other keys so we do not inadvertently commit to a rotation we don't want.
Linking up the hierarchy
Now that the pivots are set, the goal was to link up the limb hierarchy. This is very easy.
1. Tap the A key until nothing is selected.
2. Right click on a child limb,
hold the SHIFT key and Right Click on the Parent limb to that child. The child will be highlighted purple, the parent should be highlighted pink.
3. Press
CTRL+P and left click on
Make Parent to confirm.
4. Tap the
A key until everything is deselected, then link two more limbs. Only do 2 at a time. And remember, a parent limb can also be a child. An arm for example would follow this set up in general:
select hand
shift select fore arm
ctrl p and the fore arm is the parent
Press A to deselect everything
select forearm
shift select upper arm
ctrl p and the upper arm becomes the parent
press a etc.
Continue until you link up the entire heirarchy.
5. After the hierarchy is created, We want to export the model to Direct X format. Tap the
A key until all the limbs are selected. Click on
File > Export > Direct X
6. Make sure the
Swap zy button is pressed. Make sure the
Flip z button is NOT pressed.
6a Click on the
recalc no. button
7. Click on the
Export All button and save the file with the x extension to the same directory as your original (make sure the textures are in the same directory as well)
Enjoy your day.
