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3 Dimensional Chat / Anyone using Maya?

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entomophobiac
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Posted: 24th Aug 2007 10:31
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Just want to know if anyone is using Maya to make models, and more importantly: animations, for DBP?

I've been having tons of trouble exporting .X files from Maya 7 as soon as they've contained animation data, so I'm thinking of changing the cycle by using MilkShape or something else as a conversion platform, as it can import .fbx and other formats that Maya 7 can actually HANDLE to export...

Anyone using Maya with DBP? Any version of Maya?

What tools do you use? What exporter? What formats?

Does TGC have their own nifty .DBO exporter?
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Butter fingers
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Posted: 24th Aug 2007 13:23
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Hey dude,

I have used maya for a long time, in conjuntion with DBpro and FPSC.

Unfortunately, the DirectX SDK exporter is a total bitch when it comes to animation.

I currently model and UV map all my models in Maya, then export as OBJ, import into milkshape, rig and animate.

I would much prefer to rig and animate in Maya, but Milkshape FBX will not support IK handles and stuff like that, so there really is little point.

I know this is going to be annoying for you, but I used Maya 6.5 and had only a few glitches getting animated .x files to export. It was only when I upgraded to 7 that I started getting serious problems.

Anything I can help with, I'd be happy to. I spent a long time tearing my hair out over Maya, with no-one to help me.

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entomophobiac
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Posted: 24th Aug 2007 14:24
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Truly, anything that you can come up with would be brilliant -- I was basically trashing my keyboard in frustration yesterday

I have access to real copies of most Maya versions up to the most recent ones and would really need any kind of tips that means I can get animations from Maya into DBP. I'm intending to buy the Enhanced Animation pack for better animation, meaning that as long as I can get the animations from Maya into a format that DBP can read I can also make a tool to make better use of EnAn's animation format.

Removing IKs is one thing -- do you have more tips on the same line -- or any tips at all?
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Raven
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Posted: 24th Aug 2007 14:57
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What is more irritating is that not only were previous versions of Maya better for Dx Exporting, but they bloody stopped support altogether for the latest version.

Currently for Maya 8.5 I use CVXporter (community developed), plus I'm updating the DBOExporter I made for TGC a few years ago.
Will post it up when I'm done (although someone else will need to compile for older versions of Maya) need to finish it for this weekend anyway.

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entomophobiac
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Posted: 24th Aug 2007 15:21
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Wonderful!

Exactly what I need, really. Why work with .X when you use it in DBP, I mean? No point.

Animation support included, I hope?

And how is work going on your xInput plugin?
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Raven
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Posted: 24th Aug 2007 17:01
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yeah it supports animations and shaders, basically everything dbo format does.as i said though going to have to compile with previous versions of the api, and finish off the exporter dialog for it.

as for xinput i should probably release the version i'm using heh
current build has full support for everything that xinput does, including audio support through the new xaudio2 system.

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entomophobiac
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Posted: 24th Aug 2007 18:56
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Nice... I really think you should release this, yes

As for Maya, I think I could get my hands on a copy of 8.5 with a little nagging. But if you have access to the Maya 7 API that would speed things up on my end.

Beginning to get my hopes up
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unitech
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Posted: 16th Sep 2007 06:53 Edited at: 16th Sep 2007 06:54
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hey Raven, you use CVXporter with luck? I have to export to polytrans just to get a good export from maya 8.5... I have been able to use CVXporter with unchecking binomals, tangents, and adjacencies to get my mesh over but having troubles with textures. For the life of me I can not get animations to work in GDK. I see them in the viewer but not GDK. If it didn't take 15 minutes to do a 50 frame animation set I could test more. What do you find works and how successful are you?
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Raven
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Posted: 16th Sep 2007 12:28
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Yeah, I've had some quite successful results exporting using it.
Something you have to remember about exporting the animations though is if you're using IK (this is for both the dxsdk one and cvx) you have to snapshot them once you've finished.

Otherwise it exports a combination of animation formats that dbp bless it just doesn't recognise. I'll post more about doing it later when I have slightly more time.

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unitech
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Posted: 16th Sep 2007 18:37 Edited at: 16th Sep 2007 20:12
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thx Raven, ill tried that out. I did get a snapshot of each post but also exported that way. No animation, but all poses on one frame.

Just a side question, Ever run in to an issue with this exporter were it crashes on a polly setting? I have this mesh I imported from 3ds and even if I delete all but one polly it crashes, but deleting that last polly allows it to export? Just wondering if you ran in to this.

ps. do you have a sdk built with 8.5 libs?
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Raven
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Posted: 18th Sep 2007 13:38
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Snapshots are also called XForm, depends on what version of Maya you have. forgot to mention that

btw which SDK are you on about?
If you're talking about the DirectX SDK Exporter, I currently don't have it; they stripped it from the August 2007 and will no longer support it.

Anyone who has older SDKs (as i'm not installing them just for the exporter lol) then could you send me the DirectX Exporter for Maya so I can compile it for 8.5; as it is much better than CVXporter particularly for animation exporting as I don't have set anything before hand and I can combine PhysX settings too.

Just for note, you can get the PhsyX plug-in called Nima at feelingsoftware.com
Requires registration, plus the PhysX Runtime; but lets you create PhysX (DarkPhysics) compatible models, animate with physics, plus provide you with a real-time system you can play with to get physics based animations right.

I'm using it at the moment to fake some nice physics effects for FPSCreator character animations.

Quote: "Just a side question, Ever run in to an issue with this exporter were it crashes on a polly setting? I have this mesh I imported from 3ds and even if I delete all but one polly it crashes, but deleting that last polly allows it to export? Just wondering if you ran in to this."


Can't say I have, probably a bug in the tool.

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unitech
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Posted: 18th Sep 2007 19:42 Edited at: 18th Sep 2007 20:10
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Yes that is the exporter i speak of. And yes its gone now. Some have rebuilt it for 8 but nothing for 8.5 yet. Ill look for the old exporter.

I read that DarkPhysics does not work with GDK?
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Raven
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Posted: 18th Sep 2007 20:20
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if it doesn't then sod it, just use PhysX API directly.

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unitech
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Posted: 18th Sep 2007 21:20
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Hmm, I wonder if the API will work with GDK though being GDK uses all ID's and what not. I may have a look at that don't put much faith in it.
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Raven
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Posted: 19th Sep 2007 15:21
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PhysX API is pretty self-contained really, so you would have to integrate the object updating (which is fairly simple) apart from that you're using it kinda mutually exclusive from dbp itself.

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unitech
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Posted: 19th Sep 2007 16:08 Edited at: 19th Sep 2007 16:18
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I guess I see it hard saying this "SC_SetupComplexObject( m_ship_00.getID( ),1,1 );" where 1 is an ID of an object.. In PhysX , GDK uses this with no other option. I don't see this SDK intagrating with the ID system. but having a physics engine would be rather nice. So Ill give it a try .

BTW: I solved my export troubles. I had bad UV data coming from max, I just re applied the planer and presto.
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Raven
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 13:29
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Max, why infect you system with that CAD-based crap?
As for the ID system, you don't need to use it; just create a linker class that updates the Rotation, Position, Scale from the PhysX object.

That's probably all TGC has done, I'd be quite surprised if they actually altered the core of the Basic3D to integrate PhysX that tightly.

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unitech
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 18:58
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I had used a borrowed 3ds file, I'm with you I would not touch max unless I had to...

Thats an idea. Ill still give it a go.
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The crazy
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Posted: 20th Sep 2007 19:00
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Raven, I use the CVXporter for maya 8.5 and I've had nothing but troubles. I can once in awhile export a working animated model but when I gave it to someone working on it for TGC Heroes, things would totally screw up with glue object to limb commands. Would this have anything to do with IK and if so, how would I go about doing this snapshot thing?

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unitech
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Posted: 21st Sep 2007 05:32 Edited at: 21st Sep 2007 05:33
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I don't think this exporter supports bones and TGC uses bones as limbs . So you could remove, glue rotate a limb if you exported with bone info. At least that how I understand it.

As far as I know this snapshot will take a snapshot of mesh at every frame and copy it to the others. So all frames show every pose. But I just don't see how that will help. Maybe Raven can expand a bit.
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Raven
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Posted: 24th Sep 2007 08:44
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When I get back from work tonight, will see about explaining the process a bit more. This said, the Microsoft DirectX Exporter was always much easier to work with as it XFormed and exported in a correct rather than hacked together xformat.

Still hoping someone will upload the exporter from the sdk, as I really would like to sort it out for Maya 8.5/2008.

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unitech
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Posted: 25th Sep 2007 02:56
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Ill do this is a personal favorer Raven Just need time my self to check the "places" I know I can get it from.
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unitech
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Posted: 25th Sep 2007 03:05 Edited at: 11th Oct 2007 15:20
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Ok looky here??

http://spawnlinux.dyndns.org/tmp/maya/

This is on my server so if its a dead link just get with me.

recompile some of these and we may be in luck..

update: ran in to this also? SuperX Studios has built one for maya 8.

http://www.superxstudios.com/private/D3DMaya8Exporter.zip

going to try it. Guessing it wont run on 8.5 ..

update:: it did in fact fail to load.
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Raven
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Posted: 25th Sep 2007 06:54
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often there is no reason that plug-ins don't load simply on the basis they're version locked; sometimes changing the version number will solve the issue.

well anyways, been a long long long day. will check this out tonight.

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unitech
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Posted: 25th Sep 2007 18:57 Edited at: 26th Sep 2007 06:46
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I suspected that and had no luck finding the version in the plugin. If you can in fact pull that off i'd be grateful.
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unitech
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Posted: 11th Oct 2007 15:19
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Raven, ever have any luck?
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entomophobiac
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 11:49
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I think this is something TGC should look into supporting. Either by supporting Raven or by trying to make their own exporter.

Though Maya might be industry standard, I guess there are few hobby game makers that use it, though. But supporting it is always a good idea!
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Raven
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Posted: 16th Oct 2007 16:10
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aye some luck but development has slowed down due to longer and longer work days atm

could've done something over the weekend but took the rare oppertunity to actually play rather than dev ^_^
hopefully i'll get back to this soon

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unitech
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Posted: 24th Oct 2007 14:41
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Quote: "I think this is something TGC should look into supporting. Either by supporting Raven or by trying to make their own exporter.

Though Maya might be industry standard, I guess there are few hobby game makers that use it, though. But supporting it is always a good idea!"
- Ya its the support, hence the reason MS stopped releasing it with DX, they knew it was a pain to support. And X is there own format.

Good to here it Raven, hope to see something soon.
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toglia
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Posted: 26th Oct 2007 08:34
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Hello, awesome comunity!

Well, I'm trying to step in the world of game developing. I have intermediate c++ experience and I have worked with Maya as a personal hobby for a few years, but I'm like a week new to directx.

These few days I have read a bunch of forums cause there seems to be a lack of oficial and developing standards in this area.

Since I have recently upgraded the Maya to 8.5 I faced everyones problem not having the SDK exporter. What I have done so far is to export a simple model with the CVXporter 1.02 and import it in a C++ directx9 application.

My mext goal right now is to animate my models, for this I would like to hear some advices as to how I should do it, since I cant use IK handles, where is this xform transformation located? and which directx functions are made to play my animations, that would be awesome.

I have not exported huge models with the CVXporter 1.02 but all I have done with it has worked properly, like UV Maps, textures, etc. When will I start gettings problems as I read in this thread?

What about these exporters like:
Deep Exploration, Polytrans, are they good? which will get rid of everybodies headeachs?

Does anybody know about any good material or tutorial about working with animations of .x models in c++ or c#?

What do game daveloping companies really do with this issue, dont they use Maya or 3dMax to make there models and animations? Why isnt there any oficial exporter around?

Raven you have another folower here too.

Hope to keep the talk forward.

Thanks to all in advance.
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toglia
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Posted: 26th Oct 2007 08:36
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intermediate
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unitech
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Posted: 5th Dec 2007 17:32 Edited at: 5th Dec 2007 17:35
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I really hate these forums some time.. Your posts didnt show on my end as your last updated. Ok here s what I have ..


CVXporter works for non animation. but ya animation are not happening. I have used polly trans and tried to convert every type I could to get animation to work. I have not have any luck. I dont have PT for maya, just the stand alone.


Raven, is the best shot we have in hope to make this work. I have totally abandon GDK because he is caught up in other works. Shame, but we all have our own lives


As you see above you must do something with snapshotting to get CVXporter animations working. what? I dont know..

Quote: "Does anybody know about any good material or tutorial about working with animations of .x models in c++ or c#?"
- animation in x are dependent in the game engine not c++. For the most part X is a pain in the butt. Most people using blender or milk shape seem to have luck. Us Maya guys no so, go figure.

the argument is why not use the free cheep modelers, but it takes a Maya guy to understand "why". Once your used to using something so great you dont want to switch. And no one wants to convert to 3 platform just to export a simple animation.

So far our only hope is if some one can recompile the dx-exporter for maya, for verion 8.5. Raven was my last hope but I never heard back from him...
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The crazy
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Posted: 5th Dec 2007 17:48
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raven, how do you do that ik freezing thing or whatever that you were talking about?

[href]www.savethegrunts.org[/href]
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chadmv
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Posted: 21st Jan 2008 07:21
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Hello, I'm Chad, the creator of cvxporter. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about using cvxporter. Currently, version 1.2 is the latest version, released on Jan. 6.

Since it is written in Python, it will only work on Maya 8.5 and above. The benefit of Python though is that I'll never have to recompile it for future versions of Maya. Also, you are able to view the full source of the exporter.

I've been able to export every model sent to me successfully and view animations in the directx viewer with version 1.2 of cvxporter. For skinning it basically exports the joint transformation each frame so it doesn't matter if it's IK or not. Also Export Selected really only exports what is selected. So if you have a skinned model and just select the geometry, it won't be animated since the joints weren't selected also. The easiest is to do an Export All.
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