3DS Max Import/Export plugin

[Cuchulainn]

Cool!!

Yeah, no animations just multiple bones. The Bone Helm and the Short Sword are 2 I remember for sure if you want'd to see what I mean.

Thanks again,

Cuchulainn.

[Cujo]

I'm currious - would it be posable to make a japanese style bow - take a normal bow and strech the top half longer by 1/3 aprox?

[Leksey]

It seems bow contains animations... May be when I will add support of multiple bones and some work in HEX. This can be done.

[Cujo]

thanks for that, I thought it might but wasn't sure.

[Leksey]

Some fixes made to plugin:
Added option "Apply node transform" in export options dialog.(by default is checked)

@Cuchulainn : This will solve problems with models scale and rotation of model.

[Cuchulainn]

Tested it out, works perfect.

Rotation, scale, and relative position all export.

Thanks Again!!

Cuchulainn.

[Cuchulainn]

Hey Leksey,

I have some more details on the texture issues. The Ambient value is always showing up in-game as black. I've had off and on problems with various parts of my models showing up as black, and had assumed that the black portion was un-textured. With my latest model 3/4 of it is black in-game. I accidently loaded the Tutorial last night which is set inside with torches as lighting, and the entire model looked perfect, albeit with a slightly orange hue from the torches. When I loaded an outside scene though the model went back to being mostly black. Once I figured out my issue was ambient light I tried a few things none of which has worked so far.

I added lights to the scene.

I unlocked the Ambient value in the material editor and tried setting it to a much lighter grey. I also tried loading the same bitmap as Difuse.

I turned on Self Illuminate both with a colour and with just a value of 100.

If there is any more info I can provide, or something else I should try, just let me know.

Cuchulainn.

[Leksey]

In SKM file format there is no places for ambient or diffuse colors.... For now as I said plugin doesn't support materials export. So may be ambient color can be set manually in ".mdf" file (it is human-readable text file), i am not sure. I viewed a lot of .mdf files and it seems their support a lot of keywords, not only "Textured".For example "Color" can be ...but i am not sure what this color field mean. So If you will play with ToEE .mdf files you can figure out something...

[Cuchulainn]

OK, I'll play around and see what I can figure out.

Cuchulainn.

[Agetian]

OK, I sent all the information I know to Leksey so he can go on working with animations. He told me he'll try to dig things further this weekend.

@ Leksey: I was digging some more data on the keyframes, and here's what I found out:

First of all, the first two 32-bit floats that come before the keyframes are the maximum scale and maximum offset, both divided by 32767, so it's like this:

float max_scale/32767;
float max_offset/32767;

After this, we have our first block of data which is related to bones, and its format is like this, I suppose:

16bit base bone ID
16bit scale X
16bit scale Y
16bit scale Z
16bit orient X
16bit orient Y
16bit orient Z
16bit orient fourth component
16bit offset X
16bit offset Y
16bit offset Z

After the bones block is over, we have a 16-bit "-2" signalling that it's the end of the bones block.

Now, we have the keyframes block, which is as I told you, except the fact that I might have messed up with the size of the data inside. Let me know if you were able to find something out.

It *seems* like one keyframe might have multiple sets of scale/orient/offset specified under certain circumstances, but I'm not sure if this ever happens in original game files and I'm also not sure how you can guess whether it does have multiple sets or not. For now, ignore this comment unless you come to a file which has large block of data after the frame number (larger than the one normally there).

Also, in the beginning of each keyframe header, there's a 16bit frame number followed by 16bit value which seems to store *both* the base bone ID AND the keyframe flags, in the format:

(base_bone_ID << 4) | (keyframe_flags << 1) | 1

So basically, if you have base_bone_ID equal to 10 and keyframe_flags equal to 3, the value you're getting from the file is ((10<<4) | (3 << 1) | 1), which equals a 16-bit 167.

I don't know why exactly it's done in this way, but this is the way I assume you should read that value. Try it out if nothing else works.

Hope this helps.
- Agetian

[Agetian]

OK, so, a clarification here. The formula I wrote above, which is:
(base_bone_ID << 4) | (keyframe_flags << 1) | 1

Stores a single 16-bit value in the form:

CCCCCCCCCCCCBBBA

Where:
C = bits for bone index (values 0-4095)
B = bits for keyframe flags (values 0-7)
A = bit 0 which is always 1 as long as the frame is used.

- Agetian

[Cuchulainn]

Nice to see this still progressing (rubs hands gleefully). I'll certainly be happy to help with testing when (not if) it gets that far.

@Agetian: Very cool your finding the time for this, with this being your insanely busy time and all.

@Leksey: Very much looking forward to animations!! No great surprise but aparently the problems I was having with the skm plugin, were just user error. I have a theory what I did wrong, once I confirm it I'll post details for anyone else that has the problem.

Cuchulainn.

Edit-- Never did figure out what caused this problem but it hasn't happened again with any other models.

[Agetian]

Originally Posted by Cuchulainn

@Agetian: Very cool your finding the time for this, with this being your insanely busy time and all.

Yeah, I've just changed my priorities for a while. Unfortunately, since I'm that busy right now, I can't do a lot of things at the same time (e.g. ToEEWB and file format specs), so I decided to switch over to finding things about the SKM and SKA file formats so that Leksey can write a full-blown plugin (while he's still at it, that is )

- Agetian

[Shiningted]

Ummm does this mean someone can make me a horse? (U know what I mean...) Lamia body + modded leucrotta head perhaps?

Or a decent cat model? Cat models are desperately needed, from simple alley toms and familiars to upsized panthers, jaguars etc. Add some tentacle and wa-la, displacer beasts.

Btw, I do believe we just shattered the final frontier of ToEE modding I should go on honeymoon more often

[Leksey]

@Shiningted :
We can' make a horse or a cat .
Now we can add just simple one bone models without animation. I am working on that, but have not many free time to do it ( work, study and I caught a chill )

But for now I think I have enough info on how to create difficult models with animations.. so will try to complete this plugin...

[Agetian]

Originally Posted by Leksey

But for now I think I have enough info on how to create difficult models with animations.. so will try to complete this plugin...

Hey, this is great! If you have any further questions or something's hindering your progress, let me know (PM, e-mail, ICQ, etc.), I'll try to help. Looking forward to seeing your plugin finished some day, good luck!

- Agetian

[Cuchulainn]

I've got some more details on the wierd shadows that show up on some models, so I thought I'd post them incase someone else runs into this.

The dark areas are completely independant of the texture or UVW map, they are somehow imbedded in the model itself.

Any element of your model based on a cylinder will have the bottom ring of faces partialy obscured in shadow. A workaround is to create an extra section at the bottom of the cylinder that is so small you cant see it in game. For example an axe handle only requires one section hight wise, but this would leave the botton half of the handle obscured. If you made it two equal sections verticaly the bottom quarter would be obscured. However if you make it two sections verticaly one of witch is 99% of the hight, with the other comprising the bottom 1%, the dark areas aren't large enough to see.

Any element of your model that tapers to infinity can (but won't always) create wierd shadow effects. For example a single edged sword or axe head that has a face at the spine, but tapers to a single set of vertices along the cutting edge. A workaround is to keep both sets of vertices and the face between then along you cutting edge, but scale it so small as to be invisible. So in cross section instead of V you have \_/.

If anyone else is playing around with this and having problems feel free to post a question or PM me, I'll be happy to share anything I've managed to figure out.

Cuchulainn.

[Cuchulainn]

Hey Leksey,

I know you're busy, but I saw your post that you are working on the viewer again, so I thought I'd post a couple of requests for you to consider.

You had said before that it might be possible to allow import/export of meshes with more than one bone as long as they don't contain animation. If it is feasable and you can find the time, that would be awesome! It would sure make working on armor a whole lot easier.

The SKA file you posted works awesome, but I was wondering if it would be possible for you to post another one without the idle animation. Or better yet with the slight movements when back and forth, but without the periodic calls to flip in a circle etc. When trying to add different weapons i'll try out the available strike animations untill I find one that works, but often the periodic flipping around of the weapon looks very out of place.

I certainly understand if you don't have time, what you've done already has been VERY helpful, just hoping as this would make it that much more usefull.

Of course if you need any beta testing/feedback on any works in progress just let me know, I'll be happy to help.

Cuchulainn.

[Leksey]

@Cuchulainn: Right about time - unlucky university examination, problems on job.....

For now know all structures that .ska uses and how to read them, but still have a problems with their meanings. I added animation loading in Viewer - for simple objects such as Chests,Well and so on all worked fine. But for more complex such as monster their look terrible during aniation.... Don't know for now how to fix this...
On 3ds max import/exports : I will try to make bones export, but not sure import will work. I have not found any working example on bone import for not 3ds maxs formats.
Also as I said I still not understand all data related to bones/animations clearly, so may be a problems...
I think I will have some time at February to work on plugin. I really want to complete it.

Don't sure I undertand what you mean - to remove "idle" animation. It is present in all models and in most is just empty.

[Shiningted]

Leksey - if you can VIEW simple animations, does this mean you can mod them?

[Leksey]

Yes.
But only by using HEX editor - for now. It will be impossible for human to mod it through it...
Will try to add this to 3ds max plugin in february...

[maggit]

Well, you have to start with something, don't you?
I think that it's great news. Today chests, tomorrow
VampiricPup's monsters!

[Cuchulainn]

Hey Leksey,

If the next version comes out sometime in Feb. I'll be thrilled. Certainly didn't mean to sound like I was rushing you.

Originally Posted by Leksey

Don't sure I undertand what you mean - to remove "idle" animation. It is present in all models and in most is just empty.

Probably didn't explain it very well. When your PC is standing around idle whatever weapon he's holding moves back and forth slightly (which is great), but when he's been standing there for a while he flips the weapon around. That's the part I was trying to avoid, I couldn't find any reference in the text files to these idle animations, since the SKA file handles animation I was assuming it came from there. I may be totally wrong though.

I did notice when I cracked open the SKA you gave us it had a reference to "idle animation" I was hoping a SKA without that call (that didn't crash the game) might get around that problem.

Cuchulainn.

[maggit]

I think there is something like a flip animation Cuch
I saw this reference in one of the text files... Don't
remember in which though... :/

--------------------------------------------------------
Look for the word fiddle...That's all that I can remember.

[Cuchulainn]

Originally Posted by maggit

I think there is something like a flip animation Cuch
I saw this reference in one of the text files... Don't
remember in which though... :/

--------------------------------------------------------
Look for the word fiddle...That's all that I can remember.

Yeah, Ted was sure he'd seen it somewhere too. I've browsed through virtually every file in teh dats, and a search for any file in the dats containg the text string "fiddle" returns only dialogue and spell files. I'll keep looking.

Cuchulainn.

[Shiningted]

Are you refering to the fidgets? Just looking at Elmo's, a few seem to use the idle animations

animation "greatsword_greatsword_combatfidget" "greatsword_greatsword_combatidle.mae"

albeit they don't loop, but otherwise they seem to have their own (which also don't loop).

animation "crossbow_crossbow_fidget" "crossbow_crossbow_fidget.mae"

The idle animations are all otherwise looping, so maybe just remove that loop element will stop them or make them less prevalent.

animation "sword_shield_idle" "sword_sword_idle.mae"
{
loopable
}

[Cuchulainn]

Good idea. But I can't seem to actualy effect the animations. I've tried altering the weaponname.txt file that appears to call the anims 6 ways from Sunday, and it never has any effect in-game.

Hang on you said looking at Elmo's, maybe the Player's txt file overrides the weapons? I'll try it.

Thanks,

Cuchulainn.

[Shiningted]

Yeah, I'd be looking at the PC .txt files. Not that all the models seem to have them

[Leksey]

As I found vampiricpuppy and Cuchulainn discussed one problem with exporting texture coordinates.
So I think problem can be in following(not actually in exporter but in poor skm format):
In ToEE skm format for each vertex should be only one texture coordinates part : u and v.
Max allow for one vertex have multiple texture coordinates - an array of pairs.
So when you assign more then one texture coordinate for one vertex exported will be only first.
All ToEE models have one texture coordinate pair for each vertex. It is common practice to make games work more fast, but more job for moddelers

[Cuchulainn]

Originally Posted by Leksey

So when you assign more then one texture coordinate for one vertex exported will be only first.

Nice to have that confirmed. I had picked up on it but wasn't sure what was causing it. It does limit the modder to some of Max's more basic mapping options, but it's certainly still doable.

Once I'm more comfortable with it, I might throw up a tutorial on how to texture map in Max so it's SKM compatible.

Cuchulainn