Starting off from scratch with a new model

[Thor the Bassis]

I've made a model in max and compiled it and...

... it goes all skewed. What are the compulsory bones and stuff needed for starting a model. Could this also be an Xform problem? Whenever I reset Xform it all skews up (but different to when its compiled). I'm trying to make a vehicle that can be driven.

 

Will I have to start over?

 

Can someone point me towards a vehicle skeleton that just needs to be applied to a model as I can easily get this to work.

[Inyri]

You don't need to apply a default skeleton for vehicles, as there is no such thing. This tutorial is a great resource.

[Thor the Bassis]

OK this is an old one but...

 

How do I get It to not give me the flaming cubic scale key error?

 

I've changed my regional settings and I've done everything everyone else has said (keyboard settings and stuff) and then I've exported the model and then it still wont compile?

 

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[Psyk0Sith]

If remember correctly you need to replace the , with a . in the decimal (or something similar) section, then re-export your model.

[Thor the Bassis]

Ye I've tried all sorts of things in the decimal place and it still wont work? I'm using XP and max 7?

[Psyk0Sith]

Here are my "number tab" settings for win2k:

 

Starting with decimal:

.

2

.

123.456.789

-

-1.1

0.7

,

inches <--- measure system, i guess that one is important too! .

[Thor the Bassis]

I have all the above settings apart from the inches which I think is called US on XP (its either US or Metric and its not metric). I also have just about everything in max and the regional settings set to US and it still thinks It has cubic scale keys. Is there an easy way to convert the file from metric to imperial setting?

 

Also I think the problem is only with the animations as I've done my own simple animations as none of the glas have the animations I want. I can assimilate it when I use another gla but not when I have it on its own with animations in the XSI.

[Psyk0Sith]

Hmm i guess i havent found the real cause. At one point i also had to switch keyboard to english because my regional settings are in french...apart from that i'm not sure what the solution is.

[Thor the Bassis]

I fixed it. There was some residual animations outside of the time period from a while ago and this must have just confused carcass.

 

Now I've got a massive problem with all the stuff moving after i've exported. Can you tell me where the Xform goes in the modifier stack and what exactly it does cause I make the heirachy and then weight it and then it all changes from what I see.

[Psyk0Sith]

If the mesh has been weighted, move it under the skin modifier, but reset xform has a tendency to mess things up.

 

Reset xform is used to fix normals (on objects that have been mirrored), sometimes scaling or whatever transforms that were not done in sub-object mode will mess some of the mesh properties.

[Thor the Bassis]

Ye I found that making the skeleton heirachy simpler helped with the problem. It all works now and the animations are in the frames in Mod View but the animations don't show up in the game. How do I tell the game which parts of the animation are for which actions? Again thanks for all the help.

 

EDIT

Now i've got it all working but I get an error message - "animation BOTH_RUN1 is outside the range in animations.cfg" or words to that effect. This is in the drop down thing in the game (where you start maps and stuff in). It's stopping the model from moving but it can turn and I can now pilot the vehicle which is cool.

[Psyk0Sith]

Havent messed around vehicles for a while...it's possible there is a limit on number of frames per sequence.

[Thor the Bassis]

Dont think so theres only 15 (or so) frames on each sequence. Could be too small for the movement sequence - all it does is move up and down slightly - its an MTT from Episode I and so just floats and moves. The enums are based on the atst xsi files in the raven animation pack

 

EDIT

I feel rather stupid. Because the MTT hovers the scene root, model root, skeleton root etc were under the model and stuck in the floor so the model wouldn't move. I dont think the animations are working though coz the turrets don't move? The enums are right though but I think the gla might be a bit small- its only a few Kbytes.

 

Also the texture doesn't appear it just has the 'black with white lines' texture that means it cant find the texture. However, the other atst ive put in the level (which is an enemy one) has got the texture?

[Psyk0Sith]

I'll have to check my AT-TE, it's been so long i dont remember everything exactly.

 

For a turret to move (by the player), the bones need to be named something like "head" "torso" etc and at compile time carcass needs to hierarchy the bones together (parent/child).

 

Enums need to be modified to fit your own gla unless they are timed exactly like the atst.

[Thor the Bassis]

Hmm... could you send me your atte (in xsi or max format if possible) or refresh your link from your signiature. The xsi would be really useful (begging on knees) and I promise i'll only use it for reference. Its really confusing because most people have got errors in carcass when they use their own animations and they don't work but mine shows in mod view and everything. I've basically changed all the files in the atst folder. I've made a new anim.cfg file and all.

 

I can use my own skeleton for this can't I? It must be possible coz thats wot they do that for all the non humanoids.

[LightNinja]

Actually the bone which will move the turret must be named thoracic, the others can be named as you want.

[Thor the Bassis]

I'm doing a droideka model using the humanoid animations (with modifications) and was wondering how I can get it to use two weapons at once, one in each hand, like some people have done with pistols? This model should work just like the normal npc when i've finished but i've got a lot of animating to do .

 

Also the vehicles i've been doing previously are added as npc_vehicles in radiant but dont work properly as they just rotate around in game. This is exactly like if you spawn a atst as a vehicle in the game using the drop down menu (or how it does it on my game). If anyone knows how to fix this...

 

EDIT

have had an idea about the dual weapons. As the anims are modable could I have a bone (like one of the fingers - droidekas dont have fingers) which is in the right hand and a child of the r_hang_tag bone. Then i'll weight the bolt_r_hand tag to this bone. This bone is then free to fly between the two hands in the animations. If I can then get the gun to not appear in the model (surfoff in the npc?) then it will appear as if the lasers come from one arm and then the other arm when it fires. If anyone know how to get the gun to not appear without losing the firing effect? Or would this throw me back into coding without a singleplayer code (which I cannot do) .