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3 Dimensional Chat / 3ds max 9 getting a character ready for DBP?

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Zeerun
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Posted: 14th Jul 2007 05:14
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hi,
i have a character created in 3ds max, its rigged to a biped using skin modifier and has several layers of colthing that were created using garment maker and simmed with the cloth modifier, all is animated with a simple test animation.
I would like to ask what would be needed to get this character in a darkbasic program, would the skin modifier be adequate when exporting it with panda, or will i need to do more work to my model before its ready, at the moment i have the "body" rigged to te biped and have converted the cloth objects to a editable mesh and assigned them to the main bone in the biped by throwing a skin modifier on it, as im not able to access my darkbasic for a few days yet and insight would be appreciated.

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Roxas
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Posted: 14th Jul 2007 14:30
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You just need right settings to panda export. That it will work right on dbpro.. Also dbpro needs good weighting and rig so end results may not be same as in max render window


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Manic
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Posted: 14th Jul 2007 16:04
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panda doesn't work properly with the skin modifier, you have to use physique. There's the kW exporter that does work for skin, but as far as i know it's only available for max 8.

All those generated objects could be a bit poly heavy too.

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Zeerun
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Posted: 14th Jul 2007 17:01 Edited at: 14th Jul 2007 17:02
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Thanks for the feedback, I'll check out the kW exporter, luckily i have access to both max 8 and 9
and yes it is high poly at the moment, (without refinement its currently looking at just <15,000 polys but itll easily be refined as once the clothes are on I can delete most of the flesh underneath which is worth 5k on its own,
thanks for the help I'll give it a shot ^_^

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hessiess
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Posted: 14th Jul 2007 17:27
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as long as your comp is good, there should be no problems with high poly in realtime. next gen game carictors are about 10k+ polys

learn blender, you will never regret it.

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Zeerun
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Posted: 15th Jul 2007 20:55 Edited at: 15th Jul 2007 21:25
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Well i tried kW exporter, however as i had to use max 8 to export it (there was a max 9 version but it wasn't very stable and crashed every time i tried it) i had to transport it from max 9 using 3ds and point cache 2, it moved in the viewport but it wouldn't play in DBP have i missed something?
~edit~
seeing as my models still a WIP I'll revert all my cloth back to splines and put them into max 8 after re-rigging my character with all weighting properly, (i threw a biped in and skinned model to it and ended up with something that looked more like a piece of art than a man ) then carry on working in max 8.
Infact Im thinking of putting 9 back on the shelf til theres more support for it, ~sighs~ vista all over again

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vorconan
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Posted: 16th Jul 2007 19:34
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Quote: "next gen game carictors are about 10k+ polys"


Maybe just a bit more like 500k or 1000k


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Manic
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Posted: 16th Jul 2007 20:16
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no, 10K is the high end of next gen. You'd spend that much on maybe a street fighter character, where there's only going to be 2 on screen at a time.

1/2 to a million polys is just silly, it's not like you'd actually get any benefit in game

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Zeerun
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Posted: 17th Jul 2007 01:45
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ouch! i dont plan on goin that high, i thought this guy was a bit extreme,
at 5k its a bit high for a simple enemy, so my game target might slip from "medium" spec computers to "high,"

but im having exporting it using kW Exporter, everytime i try i get this error:
Error saving .X file: 0x8876038f (D3DXFERR_BADFILE)
.\exportmain.cpp:1759: file->CreateSaveObject(name, D3DXF_FILESAVE_TOFILE, fileformat, save)

Export Module Failure

tho if i try a smaller file name to save as it just pops up saying its crashed then Export Module Failure again, is this caused by the filename/location or is it a model error?

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Math89
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Posted: 17th Jul 2007 12:39
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If I remember correctly, updating to the last directx may fix some problems with kW.
One more thing : you can't export in binary format, db won't recognize it ("can't load the model at line ..."), that's why I find this exporter useless :\.
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Manic
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Posted: 17th Jul 2007 13:55
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just export ascii instead Math89, you can always convert it to DBO later.

Zeerun: It can be a pain in the arse to get working.

I'm guessing you have used the skin modifier.

you need to select all objects, then go to export selected. All the objects must be connected somehow on the heirarchy.

you want to export normals, tangents, skinning, bones, material and on animation you need to create just 1 animation set, from the beginning to the end of all the animation. the .x format allows for named animations within the file, but DBP doesn't, so you have to save it all as one.

I can't really be more helpful, as I'm at work at the moment, so I can't just take a screenshot of my settings. You can either wait until i get home so i can post my settings properly and have another crack at it, or either upload the model here or email it to me, and i'll have a crack at exporting it and let you know what i had to do to make it work.

Manic

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Zeerun
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Posted: 17th Jul 2007 17:39
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well the enemy is only 1 object, i got it to export with panda, u tried both skin and physique (not sure what im doing with that fully tho) and i got it all displayed in DBP the cloth stayed rigid in its default pose and the bones moved correctly, it is possible to export cloth like this isn't it? i've seen examples of clothed characters in several games spiderman3, and counter strike source, so it must be possible, is there anyway i can make DBP read the point cache data maybe?

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Manic
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Posted: 17th Jul 2007 22:27 Edited at: 17th Jul 2007 22:28
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here's my settings;



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rolfy
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Posted: 18th Jul 2007 02:14
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Panda works fine with the skin modifier,dont think I would use the physique modifier to animate and export a simple door which would only require one bone.
As for your cloth simulation,whether you have used reactor or the cloth plug in,its vertex animation provided by collision,which isn't exported by Panda.
Your figure and clothing are best to be one object using the skin modifier,capes and so on would require additional bones

A couple of examples of cloth simulation:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=98465&b=3
One for production and one for games development,the latter uses several additional bones for secondary movement.

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Zeerun
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Posted: 18th Jul 2007 02:34 Edited at: 18th Jul 2007 02:36
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Manic: thanks for the settings!

rolfy: are you saying i should give up on my (plug-in) created cloth? as, tho i can see it as a very useful work around, thanks
but i would have liked the original
i guess it just means a lot more works and a LOT of bones (tho am i limited to an amount of these bones, be it DBP or Panda)

I think personally i will simulate the cloth,
clone an inanimate "locally simmed" version of the cloth,
stick a hell of a lot of bones on it,
then match the object to cloth as close as i can without an excessive poly count by manilpulating these bones.

Yes alot of work but im hoping my game wil be worth the effort
I'll be posting a WIP soon (i hope) so keep an eye out

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rolfy
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Posted: 18th Jul 2007 02:54 Edited at: 18th Jul 2007 03:01
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I dont know if you will be limited by the amount of bones,there are around 114 in the butcher example,also this was for FPSC,I am not sure what you could do in DBP.
It all depends on what you are trying to animate,if you expect to export something like the collision simulation of the robe on the skeleton,I think this would be impossible.
BTW,if you are using the Max biped with additional bones you should export your scene to .fbx,thanks to Bond1 for this info,import this back into Max then export to .x

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Zeerun
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Posted: 18th Jul 2007 03:14
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I will be sticking to clothed humanoids however they will still be wearing flowing and complicated clothing if i can.

Tho i dissagree that recreating my example would be impossible,
if i were to asses how many flows and fold are created alltogether i could create a number of bones for each one and assign verts accordingly, altho the process might end up closer to rotoscoping (if that term applies) it is possible and with the pre simmed cloth as a base shape i wouldnt have to work out the movements of these folds and collisions manually

As i currently have a LOT of free time on my hands i might even consider asssigning a bone to every vert, or maybe something like every 5 verts

Obviously i would like an easy answer but i would still do it the hard way

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rolfy
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Posted: 18th Jul 2007 04:18 Edited at: 18th Jul 2007 04:22
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Quote: "Tho i dissagree that recreating my example would be impossible"

Sorry i didn't mean to say that what you are trying to do would be impossible,since I hadn't noticed the image you posted above,my bad,I believe your wraith could in fact be done without too high a bone count.
I meant the example I gave would be impossible,mainly due to the high polycount required.

Good luck with this one and post your results.

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Zeerun
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Posted: 18th Jul 2007 04:37
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lol sorry my bad i misread your post with the impossibility,
infact i really should try sleeping if i want to pass my theory in 6 hours ^_^

but tomorrow or, later today i'll recreate the wraith and post a vid of both simmed and boned versions even though i wont be using it in my game,
my game btw is going to be... well lets just say a wiimote (thanks to glovepie) meets a lightsaber, which is why ive been up so late when i really need sleep as ive just got the saber controllable to how i want it, expect a WIP and Download posted tomorrow

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