I've been trying the Blender 2.5 version of am_body_4_anim and I have two questions about using this just for a pose. 1. which keyframe type on the Insert keyframe menu is most appropriate and 2. when I try to export any .smd I've made changes to as a Source Engine (.smd, .vta) I keep getting the same error...Source only supports 128 bones. I'm able to export one unchanged so I know I'm making a mistake somewhere but I can't figure out what it could be. Any help with this is appreciated.

1. Location/rotation
2. Are you sure its an error, and not a warning?

Thank you for answer.

Updated Blender rigs.

"Source only supports 128 bones" is a warning. I think it means that a
game engine called "source" only uses 128 bones, and since ts3 uses
a different engine it's not a problem. Can anyone verify or debunk this?

Thanks for the new blender stuff, cmo. How long does it take you to
do one of those? They sure make it a lot easier to check for clipping.

.smd is a text-based file, look in the output.

Mesher and Wes did all the work. I just converted them to Blender.

By the way ... cmomoney, could you describe the pipeline that you are using to convert the ms3d files to blender ?

It would be a great help to us, not so skilled on blender !

Sure. I'm just exporting it as a reference .smd with vertex weights from Milkshape. Then just importing as smd into Blender.

Wes,

SMD Exporter by Prall:
http://mitglied.multimania.de/prallvamp/

Extract to:
WXP: C:\Documents & Settings\[Username]\My Documents\maya\scripts
W7: C:\Users\[username]\Documents\maya\scripts

Tested working with: Maya 2008/Maya 2009/Maya 2010 x 64

Process:

Starting with a new rig:
Milkshape3D
1. Export “am_body_4_anim” to Half Life SMD and name something like “am_body_4_anim.smd”
a. The new “am_body_4_anim_20110504” isn’t bound to verts properly??
Maya
2. File > Import SMD > “am_body_4_anim.smd”
3. Wait… .. a long time.
4. Import as “World>ZUP”
5. Animate your scene.
6. Export
a. File > Export SMD
i. Main - Disabled all options except: Export Sequence SMDs
ii. Path Settings – SMD/QCExport: You must type the full path with extension.
iii. Sequences – Give your sequence a name, set the start/end frames then click save.
iv. Click Full Compile
7. Save your SMD in Maya as a MB or MA depending on what you want. This will save you from having to wait the long time to reimport the original SMD every time.
8. Import your SMD back into Milkshape3D to ensure it’s oriented and plays correctly.


The only problem I had was that any animations I made involving the pelvis do not work on males or females, this may be a problem with the rig, but I have not yet tested the new 20110504 rigs.

SMD is very poor at mesh transferal. I know our choices are limited, but SMD breaks the whole mesh into individual triangles with individual vertices.

Thanks for the reply, I was interested in what you were doing. I downloaded the package from prall's site. While it says Maya 4 to 8, it is a MEL script, so if needed I might adapt it for later versions. I have Maya 7 here, and 2009, 2011 and 2912, but mostly I use 2011 now.

I wrote a Maya<->MilkShape plug-in for Maya, but due to a poor design decision I found I was only exporting the joints that have skin weights. While I know now what to do to fix that, it means ripping a lot of code out, so I decided maybe a good SMD exporter tailored for animation might be easier, as I would not have to have MilkShape in the pipeline every time I exported an animation. I'm not far away from finishing that now.

During the process, though, I got a good rig into Maya with all the joints and skin weights. As this progresses, I may share that should I get worthwhile results. I haven't yet exported anything to the game, but I am moving along. I did have nice results from adding FBIK to the standard Sims 3 rigging, and I feel that once I get the export framework exporting correctly that this will be a much more versatile and easier to manage method of Animation.

<* Wes *>

I'm trying to setup IKs and constraints right now and its quite a headache, the rig refuses to handle IK properly. It maybe a sizing issue as I've noticed all my handles are twice the size of what they should be.

A cleaner version of this SMD exporter would be nice, though I can certainly deal with it. Anything to remove Milkshape from the equation is the optimal choice here. At least for us pros
Its already a blessing that I can get a complex animation into the game in under 10 minutes.

Sims 3 models are in meters. Maya is normally centimeters. I was importing the rig as centimeters (*100). Maybe trying Meters in your preferences will help.

If you imported the newer adult rig, either the recent one I did or any of the ones Mesher did, there is a nuance to the rig setup. Spine0 is not a child of Pelvis, and Pelvis is not the root of the body. The joint b__Root_bind__ is the one that you need to label as Root for FBIK instead of Pelvis. Here, Maya 2011 it would just crash when I tried to set Pelvis to be the Root.

Everything else is as it would seem to be from the docs file, b__L_Thigh__ is the Left Hip, b__L_Clavicle__ is the Left Collar, and so on.

With that I got the Full Body IK working properly.

<* Wes *>

Cosmas, I agree, it's great that the SMD exporter offers the flexibility to use a variety of software. I've been using Milkshape mainly but I plan to try Maya (I'm no pro just a machinima director and novice animator/reverse engineer who likes learning new things and experimenting). I like the fact can get an animation done very quickly by using the IK chains, although I don't get a visual representation of this when using Milkshape. I've tried both methods, learving the IK chains intact and removing them using the grid in S3PE but I find the first method much more preferable.

Wes, strangely enough when removing the IK chains and testing this method, I found the Root Bind was what moved the sim in relation to the world. I can only go by observation though as I need to learn the tech behind it so apologies if my observations aren't really that useful, or I'm stating the obvious

I've made quite a few more custom animations and a video to show them in action. I'm still learning though, and I didn't have enough frames to use for some of the more complex animations I attempted, so some are not exactly smooth. Maybe I should split the more complex animations so I have more frames to play with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH0P1jiuAtI

My original rig was organized slightly differently than Mesher's is. He did the research, I just added more on top by creating a way to transfer the skin weights between meshes with different skeletons.

A skeleton is a joint hierarchy, a tree of nodes. One node exists that is the root, ultimately everything is attached to that and when it is moved, everything underneath it moves. In Mesher's rig, b__ROOT__ is that boss of bosses. Connected to it are the b__ROOT_bind__ and the b__ROOT_export. To "bind" is attached the rest of the skeleton, to "export" are attached all of the "IK Chains".

A mesh is attached to the joints by way of skin weights, a set of assignments and percentage values for every vertex. When done correctly the rendering engine, game or MilkShape or Maya can reconstruct the polygons in new positions based on changes in the joint positions. This is Forward Kinematics, and the base of the animation magic. The animation itself ultimately is nothing but a set of angles and movements that when reconstructed on the identical framework will recreate the original pose.

The "reconstructed on the identical framework" part is the kicker, though. A lot of the previous poor results come from the identical part not being quite identical enough.

As far as the IK Chains, Inverse Kinematics is a way of adding additional controllers (or effectors) that are linked to certain joints (a chain) by software. Ultimately, when the controller is moved the software calculates the required joint movements and creates the movement needed to get the foot (for instance) to move to where the controller is at.

So on joints that are part of an IK chain, you really would not want to have both FK and IK at the same time. So the IK chain deletion allows just the FK to animate the legs without the IK joints (which were left sitting in one place) attempting to move them back to the bind pose. That is the problem solved by deleting them.

When I have talked about using FBIK in Maya, that is the Full Body IK solution that is in Maya. It gets implemented by adding certain fixed names to the joints as labels, and then activating it. This is like adding a set of controls on top of the skeleton, where you can grab a hand and pull it, and once the arm gets past its normal range of motion the spine and hips get rotated, just as if someone grabbed another person's arm and started dragging them... hence the Full Body moniker.

In the end, you would 'bake', or permanently transfer, the IK to the joints, and that is what you would export to the game. At that point, the animation is the same as what could have been created with patience (and talent) solely using the techniques you have learned so far in MilkShape.

It certainly looks like you have found something you like well. I like your work, although the flips you made are more stylized movie motions than realistic gymnastic maneuvers.

For your next learning assignment, google up 'rotoscoping' and read about that. Then google the "12 Principles of Animation" and read that. I am sure both topics are covered on the wikipedia, as well as other places, and I think they will help you now to take your work to the next level.

<* Wes *>

You know I would LOVE YOU forever if you'd share that in a 2011 FBX. Standardized rigs would be good for everyone in general.

I don't know about love and all that, but I am happy to share it. However, it is not a final work, but I would be interested in seeing anything neat you did with it.

I don't know that everything for FBIK will transfer in .FBX format. I was not satisfied with the file, but I included it, along with the .ma file I made it from. The basic rigging/skinning seemed to be intact in the .fbx file, but it lost the soft edges and the FBIK no longer works.

You are welcome to use it any way you want. The mesh is a game asset, all I did was some conversion from the MilkShape version I posted previously.

<* Wes *>

Thanks Wes. The ma you provided won't be usable for anyone under 2011, that's why I suggested FBX, its the only format I can think of that would maintain most all of the core information. Unless you made a version for all versions of Maya, which I doubt you'd have the patience for. I was able to resoften the normals after running a Cleanup so somewhere you have an ngon.

Really I just wanted to see how you handled the foot bones, from what I've tested in game, the only ones that really need to animate with the model are the R_footWorld, so I constrained those. Driven keys will probably work best for the hands and face.

The constraints seem to be one of the items that gets lost when transferring to FBX. I can't say I've tried everything, heck, no mortal user would know everything packed in there, but I have never seemed to get constraints to transfer out... at one point in time I was trying to work with some Max guys on a project, I could get a rigged model and pretty handles exported, but the constraints that tied the handles to the joints went missing in the process, rendering them useless.

The basic rig, skin weights and such should be usable. It looked like you might have to rip out the FBIK and remake it, though. I had only three point constraints set, the footworlds each to the respective feet, and the world offset to the root bind. Later, I think maybe I needed a parent constraint, because the point constraint would only handle the positions, not the rotations.

Anyway, if you ever get a pretty picture to show, or better yet an .avi/.mov, please share it.

<* Wes *>

Wes, did you manually edit the script to scale your mesh? I still can't get the scaling correct, if I set my Maya values as Meters then import the SMD everything reverts back to centimeters.

Thanks Wes for taking the time to explain I like the concept of FBIK because of the reasons you mentioned. It's so easy to over rotate a joint, and FBIK can stop this from happening. Not to mention it's far quicker to make smooth, natural animations. I looked up rotoscoping and the animation principles. Very interesting stuff. I was thinking for my more natural animations to use actual human motion footage as a guideline. The animations I've made so far are for a specific scene which is I admit very OTT stylized actions, one of my animations is called the Matrix. I plan to make more natural animations too though. I also plan to upload them once they are of a level suitable for public release.

I found something very useful when doing a quick test. I assumed the number of frames could not be altered. I tried changing the animation from 155 to 300 frames in Milkshape, then added a simple animation using the new frames and it worked. The game played it without any problems. I was finding I was having to squash the animations in too few frames so they were not as fluid as I wanted. I'm curious, what is the max number of frames the latest version on Animtool can handle?

I also plan to try out the Maya Mesh and rigfile you made. I'll have to learn my way around Maya first though. Thanks for doing this

Yes, I did, now that you mention it. I will make a version for you soon that retains the original scale, without the FBIK, so you can experiment with the Prall exporter. I don't think I will be releasing the MilkShape importer/exporter anytime soon (and not for Maya 8 without someone giving me the Maya 8 libs and include files from their installation folder) because I have a major issue in the exporter that will require some parts to be rewritten.

I did get an SMD export working, although my tests so far have just been into MilkShape. It still needs tweaking, as it spits out completely standard SMD files with Z-up, and the AnimTool expects Y-up (because it has a correction built in to modify that).

Although maybe it would be better to set a configuration option in the AnimTool for either.

<* Wes *>

EDIT: I attached the unscaled and unmodified version in FBX format. The very first thing you will need to do is turn the joints display off to see the mesh. But it is skinned and rigged and seems to be a good starting point.

12,500. A bit over 7 minutes.

While SMD works OK as an intermediate file format, because there are tools around that work with it for multiple programs, it is very different from the CLIP files in how the data is organized. So in the middle of the conversion process every frame for every joint (including all empty slots) has to be in memory before it can be reorganized and written in the different order. Sort of like a spreadsheet, where everything comes in row-by-row, and has to be written column-by-column... in the middle you need everything before you can complete the reordering.

<* Wes *>

That's great that the Animtool will manage far longer animations.

Regarding the Maya base, I tried it out, it's awesome, I like the set up and how quick and smooth and easy it is to set up decent animations. However I had the weird scaling problem too I managed to make a new animation, found how to bake it and overwrote an smd (I always export the same animation). In game though the mesh looked exploded, as if it was really big. Strangely, it looked like the animation was playing, although I couldn't see it properly as the sim looked so odd. I tried rescaling but that didn't work. I don't know enough about Maya (I don't even know my way fully around the interface) so I may have done something wrong.