Skinned Modeling.txt

[SUB-0]

Skinned Modeling
Modeling
Try to build models at the same scale that they will be used at in game (1 unit = 1 meter).
This may not be practical for models animated by bones in Soft since bones are a fixed size.
Models can be rescaled when they are loaded in the meshviewer to produce a god file.


In Soft the skin mesh should be the root of the bone hierarchy.
This isn't possible in Max. In Max the bone hierarchy should be free floating, the exporter will attach it to the mesh.


Any Soft control nodes should be in their own separate hierarchy.
The root's origin should coincide with the modeling package's global origin.
Directly below the center of the model at ground level.


Mixings skins and sub objects should be avoided if possible.
If absolutely necessary, sub objects should be slotted into the joint hierarchy.


Keep the number of bones to a minimum and give them descriptive names.
i.e. spine0, spine1, shoulderR, upperarmR, lowerarmR, handR, etc.


The bones act like the sub objects of a hierarchy, so the same naming convention rules apply.
CP- for control points, HP- for hard points
i.e. add '_chunk' to the name of a joint that should be the root of an automatically created chunk


Regards SUB-0

[Nielk1]

The best way to simulate bone connections in MAX is simply by using only rotation on the parent 'bone' to do all movements. However moving bones around freely might be more useful in certain (many for me) cases. One can manually add the envelopes to an XSI with notepad using the MeshEdit controller in Max to get the correct Vertex #s or the Skin controller's Weight Table to get the vertex # and bone weight.