GMAX BZII Modeling Tutorials needed on BZII modeling forum.

[Zax]

Nice bump. Mr. Twosh I can't believe you had that many issues with it. BZcommand had a max tutorial for ANYTHING bz2 related, including (and especially) animations. They seem fickle at first, because they are, but once you figure out the order of operation you can start cutting out things that don't effect animation exportation like relinking after every change.

Getting a 32x32 terrain plate was probably the easiest part of that one factory (though mine was 64x32) all you do is make a plane of any size, type in 32 for each measurement. Get pivot to center, transform type in movement and set to 0 0 0. You probably know all this by now since the last posting, though, but I figure I'll just leave it here for completeness sake.

Some animations I would not even go near in notepad are off-world-pivot rotations or movements. Anything that does not rotate about a 90 degree pivot seems very difficult to animate, and I will tell you for sure once I export something I am working on currently with about 50 degree pivots or so.

[MrTwosheds]

Did things the wrong way round you see... learned how to make bz2 xsi, then learnt max. Already quite proficient in the techniques of making animations without highly complex programs to make things more confusing than they actually are.
Rotations are a bit tricky, but figuring out how they actually work helped a lot.

I would not even go near in notepad are off-world-pivot rotations or movements.

err... in xsi things rotate about the point 0,0,0, if you want it to rotate about another point you attach it to an hp_ and rotate that instead, all fairly straight forward really.

[Josiah]

...
err... in xsi things rotate about the point 0,0,0, if you want it to rotate about another point you attach it to an hp_ and rotate that instead, all fairly straight forward really.

really? then how would you go about making this:

Code: Select all

		SI_AnimationKey {
			0;
			6;
			0; 4; 0.993455, -0.006459, 0.086916, -0.073826;;,
			1; 4; 0.816899, -0.042507, 0.571999, -0.060706;;,
			2; 4; -0.421456, 0.067165, -0.903816, 0.031320;;,
			3; 4; 0.086916, 0.073826, -0.993455, -0.006459;;,
			4; 4; 0.571999, 0.060706, -0.816899, -0.042507;;,
			5; 4; 0.903816, 0.031320, -0.421456, -0.067165;;;

		}

into this?

Code: Select all

SI_AnimationKey {
 0;
 4;
 0; 4; 1.000000, 0.000000, -0.100000, 0.000000;;,
 1; 4; 0.500000, 0.100000, 0.000000, 0.866025;;,
 2; 4; 0.500000, -0.100000, 0.000000, -0.866025;;,
 3; 4; 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.100000, -0.866025;;;

 }

or similar "simple" anim code?

[MrTwosheds]

Rotations are not simple, all I can tell from looking at that in text, is that it is probably rotating on 2 axis, one is probably a full rotation and another rotates stops and goes back.
I would go about making it, by typing and then viewing it in 3dex, tweaking until it did what I want it to. But really most of the time animations do not need to be complex multi axis rotations. The one big problem with the manual technique is feet. Feet attached to animated shins and thighs are quite impossible to get reliably flat on the ground.
My best animation so far, is a crab pilot, skin animated, 6 legs, 2 claws, movable mouth and eyes...and no feet

[Zax]

But really most of the time animations do not need to be complex multi axis rotations.

Tell that to quite possibly any modern video game animator in the industry. Daleks are quite rigid in their movement so you can get away with it. Anything even slightly organic needs to have some interesting twists in it. The tweak method on something like that? Yikes, call me in 20 years when you're done. I agree walkers are difficult, especially to make them not fall into the trap of "everything MUST rotate on some multiple of 90." Mechwarrior series did this quite well, but bounding torsos and horizontal shake is difficult to replicate. Props to them.

Post-report: In fact, you could ask any animator in the industry. He would think about it for 10 seconds, then say "find a mocap studio."

[Nielk1]

I may ask Raxx to look into this for the Anim8or XSI exporter script. Anim8or, refers to a vertex as a point. These can be referenced in the export script itself and used in the file output to SI XSI ASCII text format. I don't know how it all works, but Raxx's seems to have a good working knowledge of how Anim8or does things with model data used by the software. However, I would imagine that Anim8or can do vertex animations via the key frame recorder that it supports. I'll have to search the Anim8or forum posts to see if anyone has ask a similar question on the issue.

From what I can tell all modeling software that work directly in polygons use vertex numbers and then faces as a series of vertexes. So in other words, that is how they ALL work.

Vertex animations in this case are basically the vertex #, the weight (from 0.0 to 1.0), and what object it is attached to. If the weight is 0.5, when the object (bone) moves 10 units, the vertex moves 5 units in the same direction.

The only reason max doesn't export vertex animations for BZ2 is because I have been too busy to set it up.

[MrTwosheds]

Tell that to quite possibly any modern video game animator in the industry.

I'm not though, I'm telling a bunch folk who like to mod a 12 year old game. I used a 2 axis full rotation for my power generator core and that's about it. Most rotations for arms legs, flaps etc are all less than 60 degrees and for skin animations big rotations just fold the polys up on to each other and look ugly. If I had the right tools, the old softimage.xsi, I would use that, but I don't.
If someone can get 3dsmax to export skin anims to xsi I would use that too. For now I animate low poly models as best I can and if I can just cutnpaste one animation from model to model I do that because it really is much easier than fooling about in 3dsmax.
Tweak, load and look, repeat until happy. Then make variations of the original for the other actions that model uses.
Today I have been animating the Claws for the Dalek engineer, 4 fingers on each claw, one bone for the wrist one for each finger, Figure out the vertex numbers and make envelops, a small rotation to move one... takes a few minutes to get the right direction.
SI_AnimationKey {
0;
3;
1; 4; 1, -0.001, 0.001, 0;;,
30; 4; 1, -0.05, 0.05, 0.0;;,
60; 4; 1, -0.1, 0.1, 0.0;;;
Copynpaste to all the others, move signs about to change directions, load in bz2 to see what it looks like, tweak, when happy
copy paste all bones & anims for the other arm, rename stuff, load and test etc etc.
Not quite finished yet.

[Zax]

Animation anim-rightengine {
{frm-rightengine}
SI_AnimationKey {
0;
3;
1; 4; 0.962250, 0.084186, -0.022558, 0.257834;;,
2; 4; 0.951251, 0.167731, -0.044943, 0.254887;;,
3; 4; 0.921220, 0.290459, -0.077828, 0.246840;;;

That is the engine of something I said I was going to make for years and finally did. Some of those could easily be trimmed nicely, but risk having holes since it is so whack.

I promise you, if somebody in the room with you stopped for 5 minutes to show you autokey and how it worked, you would never go back. Click part, move slider to however long you want it, hit autokey, rotate part, hit autokey again, DONE. Brings a tear to my eye the efficiency of it all. Exporting is not nearly as complicated as it used to be, or some of the steps were superfluous.

More power to you if notepad is your choice. That's what you're productive in and that is all we can ask of ourselves.

[Josiah]

*shakes Z's hand* FINALLY! someone else who knows how to use autokey....

[MrTwosheds]

It took me 30 secs, to paste it into an xsi and find out that it creates a movement almost exactly like the one I posted.
Max is great for creating animations, notepad is great for saving you the bother of doing this twice.

[MrTwosheds]

So I set up 4 animations on a scav, exported xsi and ended up with only 1 animation and 4 headers. Anyone got any Idea mysteriously named option or inexplicably hidden function will make Max 7, export the other 3 as well?

[Zax]

So I set up 4 animations on a scav, exported xsi and ended up with only 1 animation and 4 headers. Anyone got any Idea mysteriously named option or inexplicably hidden function will make Max 7, export the other 3 as well?

Yes. Select all the parts. Go the the something tab (where edit mesh is) click the last one, the UTILITIES. Click collapse. Collapse MULTIPLE OBJECTS, then collapse MODIFIER STACK RESULT. Try export again, rejoice.




^ make sure multiple objects are selected.

[MrTwosheds]

Didn't work.
What am I supposed to be collapsing in the modifier stack, there is nothing in it.

[Zax]

Didn't work.
What am I supposed to be collapsing in the modifier stack, there is nothing in it.

??

See those are just the things we go through to export from Max. Your problem could be anywhere from the animation itself to something else.

Follow these steps
http://www.bzcommand.com/forum/index.php?topic=64.0

You can skip the TCB parts since it is usually defaulted to that.

[MrTwosheds]

Got all that, model is animated, 4 different parts, arm, sink plunger, eyestalk and scrap arm.
Animations all play in Max. but exporting gives me

AnimationSet {
Animation anim-turret_x_1 {
{frm-turret_x_1}
}
Animation anim-turret_x {
{frm-turret_x}
}
Animation anim-sucker2 {
{frm-sucker2}
}
Animation anim-eyestalk {
{frm-eyestalk}
SI_AnimationKey {
0;
5;
0; 4; 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000;;,
15; 4; 0.990023, -0.107154, 0.090970, -0.009846;;,
30; 4; 0.985158, -0.171648, 0.000000, -0.000000;;,
45; 4; 0.987298, -0.097860, -0.124549, 0.012415;;,
60; 4; 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000;;;

}

}

}
Only one of them.