[XSI] *solved* Skeletal animation transforms on export

[Duke Nukem]

Hi,
well i got a last problem i cant encounter with success and i hope you guys have a solution to kill this error in no time and forever.

ok, here is the problem:
i create a single mesh, envelope bones to it, painting the weight map, animate it, export it, letting it become compiled and then i pop up the model browser and when i start the animations, parts of the mesh are not on their original positions anymore.

here is how i built the mesh and the bones:


those are the two that changing their transforms:


the problem is the bone_right_2 and the bone_left_2. they are transforming on export and i dont know why.
i freezed the weightmap and the mesh has been freezed in its transforms before i added bones to it, so i guiess thats not the problem. when i look at the model without letting it do animations, everything is correct. only when i start the animations, it gets into the positions as shown below.



if it helps finding a solution, heres the qc:

Code: Select all

$modelname keka/animation_test2/anitest2.mdl
$cdmaterials keka/animation test 2/
$body studio "anitest2_ref.smd"
$sequence idle "anitest2_ref.smd" loop fps 1
$sequence move1 "anitest2_move1.smd" loop fps 60
$sequence move2 "anitest2_move2.smd" loop fps 60


thank you for your help
duke

[RotatorSplint]

Two ideas:

1 - When enveloping your meshes to the bones, make sure you've gone into the Transform sub-menu on the right-hand side and selected "Freeze All Transforms" for each mesh. For some bizarre reason, XSI will simply enter "1" for all scale options and "0" for all translation and rotation options, instead of just freezing them where they are. If this turns out to be the problem, all that needs to be changed is the reference .SMD, as the animation .SMD's don't contain any UV or mesh data and can be left as they are.

2 - I remember encountering a bizarre issue when I first began making view model replacements for Half-Life 2, wherein meshes would become misplaced or distorted when I had moved the bones to which the meshes were rigged in the reference .SMD -after- they had already been enveloped. The solution was to envelope the completed model to the bones and export that -as it was-, then take care of positioning the rig as I needed in only the animation .SMD's.

Hope that was helpful. =)

[Duke Nukem]

Hi rotator,
thank you for your tips. now:
to the first: the mesh is alright, in the model viewer it shows me that it is the bones that are moving. i tried to find a plausible value how much to move the bones (in this case) upwards, but i couldnt find any. so i began working on your second tip:
there is no change in the effect. i got the same error.
thx for your help, man.

[Duke Nukem]

ok, finally got this working. the problem is the hierarchy of the bones. when you create a bone, the hierachy is this one:

the bone and the effector are parented to the root.
but to get animations compiled correctly as you want them into source, you have to set this hierarchy:

the effector is parented to the bone and the bone is parented to the root.

the best is to manage the hierarchy of the bones before parenting or rigging more bones or meshes to the bone.