XSI Cinematic physics tut - My bricks morphed into a baloon!

[Jimmy422]

I posted this here because nobody would answer it in the tutorial thread.

I've gotten to the part where it tells how to prepare the object for source, and i've got a problem.

Here's the tutorial so far:

Preparing For Source

But this animation isn't ready for the source engine yet, once you're happy with your results go back to the "edit simulation properties" window and press "lock cache"



Now you should go into the scene explorer (alt+8) and select all your cubes one more time. After that press "1" on your keyboard to put you in the modeling layout and scroll down to "poly. Mesh" under "create" then select "merge".

A window should pop up, and you should drag the "tolerance" slider to the left then click the "delete" button. (I'm serious)




Now drag the timeline slider around. UH OH! the bricks aren't moving anymore, but the bones still are.


Now we have to find a way to connect the polygons to these bones. Well first you'll want to delete your "attractor" and your "gravity" because nothing is being simulated anymore, so they're just taking up space. then you'll want to click on your newly formed mesh and press "2" on your keyboard to go to the animation layout.

Select your wall model, then Under "deform" click on "envelope" then click "set envelope"


A box should pop up about making the envelope a local operator, select yes (don't worry about figuring out what it does) then click and drag a box over all of your bones and right click.

There, now it should all be enveloped. Click the play button and see if everything is alright.

When i click play i see this:


or in wireframe



It's morphed into a balloon, instead of keeping single bricks, and i can't figure out why, but something tells me it's to do when i merged it into one object. But i also know that merging the object is required for importing to source, so i dunno what do do. The tutorial talks about having 1 or 2 bricks messed up in a different way, but it doesn't say what to do for this

Any ideas?

[TicTac]

Are you sure that you gotta morph to one object to export to source? Also, have you simulated it BEFORE morphing it? (I don't use XSI anymore, sorry if I'm not helping)

[Jimmy422]

Are you sure that you gotta morph to one object to export to source? Also, have you simulated it BEFORE morphing it? (I don't use XSI anymore, sorry if I'm not helping)

It says "object not found" if you don't, and i have simulated it before i merged it.

[Mr. Happy]

You didn't accidentally hit the blend checkbox when merging the objects?

[Jimmy422]

You didn't accidentally hit the blend checkbox when merging the objects?

Nope.

[Jimmy422]

I just redid the whole thing with less bricks and it's still the same. I don't understand this...

[no00dylan]

still looks cool though. hmm... I used to use XSI but I cant quite remember everything.

[stoopdapoop]

Oh snap. I got your PM, but I'll reply here.

Here's an expermimental fix. I've never had a problem like that but I think this should work.


MINI TUT TIME!:

Cache and lock you simulation like mentioned in the tutorial But instead of merging the mesh, what I want you to do is select all the bricks



Then click on this



Then click and drag over all your bones



Right click and play the animation, after you right click it might lock up for a couple of seconds, this is normal. Play the animation, make sure all is working as it should. Then make sure to merge all the bricks into one mesh, but this time click.



before you click "delete"



then tell me how it works.

[Jimmy422]

Oh snap. I got your PM, but I'll reply here.

Here's an expermimental fix. I've never had a problem like that but I think this should work.


MINI TUT TIME!:

Cache and lock you simulation like mentioned in the tutorial But instead of merging the mesh, what I want you to do is select all the bricks



Then click on this



Then click and drag over all your bones



Right click and play the animation, after you right click it might lock up for a couple of seconds, this is normal. Play the animation, make sure all is working as it should. Then make sure to merge all the bricks into one mesh, but this time click.



before you click "delete"



then tell me how it works.

Nope. Still the same. Although after i did the envelope it had some weird yellow boxes shooting out from everywhere.

How about i upload the scene and you take a look?
http://thesmc.co.cc/wallexplode.zip

File goes in
C:\Softimage\XSI_6.01_Mod_Tool\Addons\ModTool_Database\Scenes

[stoopdapoop]

damn, I might as well rewrite the whole thing D:

But basically your bricks are too close together in the first frame (the points at the edges of your bricks are litterally in the same points in space), in my tutorial example there's a little bit of space between them right when the simulation starts, and they all fall together.

So what I need you to do is go to a later frame where most of the bricks are separated, like frame 50 in your simulation and then envelope the polygons to the mesh. I'm at school right now and I tried it on my laptop and it worked fine. and NOW you should get "some stretching" as you've hoped for.

This is the kind of feedback I need if anyone else is having problems, or having success let me know.

[Jimmy422]

-Or not-

[Jimmy422]

Oh hell, now it yells at me saying i have too many bones.

ERROR: Too many bones used in model, used 241, max 128

Yet i have only 120. What am i supposed to do now?