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elbarLink to postposted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:52 am

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ok nice to see the site back up hope you have all your problems sorted out

has anyone been able to export animations that look right
the rotation on some bones seem to be really off (or just not suported??)

are you going to be impementing some of the ik controls like
ex. l_foot _ikpole and l_foot_ikctr

as it seems to me they are the key frames used in game for walking and such
even haveing the keyframes exported with a dummie object would help a bundle thanks in advance for any info
quaxiLink to postposted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:59 am
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When you export a Animation, make yure you did check the "Correct" CheckBox next to the export/import Buttons. This should solve some odd Angles.

Since Milkshape does not support IK, SimPe does not export it. I know that this is a limitation. Maybe the Animation Tool Miche is working on can handle IK (it's based on smd Files with a static auskel Model as far as I know). It's definetly is worth a try.

However, you should be able to create walking animations even without the IK, by simply moving all Bones. This is quite some work, but for the Moment it is the best SimPE can offer.

Oh, and Pinhead did find some auskel corrections you need to make after importing a Mesh back into SimPE, which are not coverd by the "correct" CheckBox. Maybe he will share his knowledeg again with us (I don't want to copy his Posting from the QA myself!) :)
jkesselsLink to postposted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 6:04 pm

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I have the same problem, exporting to Milkshape does not work. The rotations/translations are incorrect. I have tried everything I could think of, nothing works. The problem is there with or without the "correct joint definition", for standard and University, for Objects00 and Sims00 animations, for Milkshape and obj file formats. Has *anyone* used the export function succesfully?

By the way, the export can only find the "auskel", none of the others.

p.s. I am using SimPE v0.46c and MilkShape 3D v1.7.4.
quaxiLink to postposted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 12:07 am
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It sure was used sucesfully. But as said many times, it's not a easy thing (yet). You have to know how to work around stuff in order to use it :D

SimPe Will find any Joint set, as long as it is stored in the same package as the ANIM, or is available in the FileTable SimPE uses.

The best aproach is to export a Animation, remove all keyframes and recreate the Animation from Scratch.
This works in many cases. If it does not, you need to find the Joint that behavse odd (i.e. rotates wrong), and manually correct the Keyframes in the Frame Editor.
jkesselsLink to postposted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:25 am

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Thanks for your reply, Quaxi, it's appreciated.

"quaxi" wrote:
You have to know how to work around stuff in order to use it :D



Can you tell me more? I have scanned this forum, and just about all of Modthesims2, but haven't found any pertinent information. I have tried for days and days, but cannot get an exact replica in Milkshape of a body animation. Some bones animate correctly, others are way off. I have tried to manually change the .TXT file, change numbers, swap numbers, move lines up/down, and more, but nothing works. I have even looked in the SimPE sources because I was hoping to tell you exactly where the bug is, but I'm not that good with OOP and to me the code is a totally incomprehensible spaghetti disaster. It has left me with a vast respect of all the work you guys are putting into SimPE, though.

"quaxi" wrote:
SimPe Will find any Joint set, as long as it is stored in the same package as the ANIM, or is available in the FileTable SimPE uses.



Again, can you tell me more? For example, I start SimPE, open "Sims3D\Sims00.package", click "Name Map", click an Animation Resource of which the name does not begin with "a", and click "export". A box pops up with the message "Unable to find model file for ....". In the SimPE settings the FileTable looks complete and correct to me (13 directories listed). What do I have to do to get SimPE to find the models?
quaxiLink to postposted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 1:54 pm
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You have to clone a Object with OW first, and the export the Animations from that Cloned object. That way the CRES and ANIM are within the same package, and SimPE can find the Bone definition.

The faulty exported ANIMs are not a Bug of SimPE. It is just that we probably still miss one important Piece on how to calculate the Transformation Values. Pinhead did find correction Values for some Joint by experimenting with the technique I described above. (Export ANIM, clean Animation in milkshape, Recreate an Animation, see how it is in the Game and manually correct the KeyFrames in the SimPE Frame Editor)
jkesselsLink to postposted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:41 pm

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"quaxi" wrote:
That way the CRES and ANIM are within the same package, and SimPE can find the Bone definition.



Thanks for the tip and I have tried that, but the problem remains. SimPE will only export animations that use "auskel", none of the others. I have even tried adding the bone definition myself (for example "cuSkel_cres"), by first extracting it from "Sims06.package" and then adding it to the clone, but still the same error message.

By the way, the error message says it cannot find "cuskel", am I correct in assuming it's "cuSkel_cres" it cannot find? In the SimPE sources I see that the same message can occur if it cannot find the GMDC. I don't know which GMDC though, the error message doesn't say.

"quaxi" wrote:
It is just that we probably still miss one important Piece on how to calculate the Transformation Values.



OK, I can accept that it's not finished and will try to find out what corrections the animations need. I was working on the assumption that it was me, because the news on the SimPE website says "The ObjectWorkshop will now pull ANIM resources correct". But I see it's not me, it's because the export function is not quite finished yet. Hum.
quaxiLink to postposted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 7:22 pm
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"jkessels" wrote:
"The ObjectWorkshop will now pull ANIM resources correct".



OW has nothing to do with exporting Animations. OW, is used to collect the ANIM Resources and put them into a Clone. That is a whole diffrent Aspect of SimPE.

And finding the defining CRES is a bit more complicatet than just assuming that the name is cuskel_cres.
SimPE is basically scanning the Scenegraph backwards (Which GMND refersto the GMDC, Which SHPE refers to that GMND, which CRES refers to that SHPE). So the Package must contain the complete Scenegraph.

However, as with everything that is new, I would suggest to start simple, to learn who it is done. Character Animations are not that simple, especially since they are based on IK-Rules, which is nor supported by Milkshape.


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