Greetings all, there has been allot of problems with freebies and such when it comes to character models dropping halfway through floors since the last update. There is a perfectly good reason for this. It all has to do with the first placed bone. Not nessecarily the first bone attatched to the model but the first bone placed on the model. If just about any TGC .x character model is opened in Fragmotion, you will find a set of bones not connected to the accual skeleton at all. In fact some may even think "Hey why do I even need these bones? They don't affect animation. " and you know it's true . It has nothing to do with animation at all, but eraseing them will cause the first bone on the list to be 'Bip01' wich is located right below the 'Pelvis' bone. Making any sense so far? Pelvis being about the halfway point? Some of the original skeletons we recieved (for milkshapers at least) had a corruption of the placement of these first groups of bones where some were off to the left, and some were far above the head, and more commonly right at the same spot 'Bip01' was. Sadly at the time it didn't matter that much where these bones were as long as the feet were at 0 height. The first bone or 'root' bone most times in TGC models labled 'body' , being at 0 height is a common practice/ necessity in many engines. It wasn't till the upgrade that it became a necessity. So for future releases of freebies and packs, ect., I highly suggest that the 'root' bone method be used. Placeing it at 0,0,0 on the x,y,z coordinates is a sure winner.
OK The fix. This fix works for models done in milkshape so far. Unfortunately I do not have experience with the other modelers so I am not sure of a fix for them. The milkshape fix accually requires Milkshape3d as well as Fragmotion. Here is a step by step fix for models attatched to the corrupt version of the TGC skeleton.
1.Import the .x into fragmotion.
2.Locate the bonelist by scrolling the mid left box downward.
3 Click on the first bone listed-it will be highlighted on the model in red.
4.Look in the upper right box- the details of the bone are listed. Click on Y,(not Rotate Y). A box with '...' appears, Click it and the positioning details will be revealed.
5.Cange all the position coordinates to 0 then press ok.Notice the highlighted bone has now moved.
6. Just for good mesure click on 'Anim-1' in the upper left box and play the animation to make sure all is still well.
7. Export the model as an .ms3d file.(Do not export as a .x in Fragmotion)
8. Open the .ms3d in Milkshape3d and export as a .x useing the JT exporter in the normal fashion.
I hope this helped those having trouble with the "halfway sunk" model problem. If I find more info I will post. Thanks
