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Animation linkage problems

by Haris Rizopoulos · in Artist Corner · 07/17/2005 (5:55 am) · 8 replies

Hi everybody

Let me make it clear from the very beginning that I am a complete beginner in Torque and Showtool and all that, so ifmy questions seem silly, please be lenient! :-)

I have managed to export a shape with a biped attached to it by means of the skin modifier. I am trying to animate it now, and if I embed the animation in the dts file it works fine. However, when i try to export a dsq and link the two files with a script, things don't go as planned. The dsq file presumably exports ok (no error messages come up), but i can't see any threads in the thread control in showtool.

I believe the problem must be in the cs file. I did exactly what the tutorial said i should do (obviously I changed the names of the files), but the animation does not load in the showtool.

Any suggestions would be very welcome indeed!

Haris
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Torque Owner Jeff Gran
#1
07/17/2005 (6:10 am)
When you get the "nothing happens" when loading a dsq in the showtool Pro, it's usually because there's a missing node in the base shape. Since nothing is moving in the base shape when you export, the exporter culls out bones and other nodes that it thinks are useless because they (1) don't have any skin weighting info and (2) they aren't animated. This is probably what's happening. After trying to load up the dsq in TSTP, hit the ~ key to bring up the console, and look through the red type for where it says which node is missing. Add that node to a .cfg file under AlwaysExport:, put it in the same directory as your model, and re-export the dts. That should fix it. (unless there is more than one node missing, in which case.... lather, rinse, repeat).

Hope that helps.

Haris Rizopoulos
#2
07/17/2005 (7:04 am)
Do you always need a cfg file? I thought that if you uncheck the "collapse transforms" parameter, all nodes would be exported. That is apparently not the case, is it?

Torque Owner Magnus Blikstad
#3
07/17/2005 (7:13 am)
The exporter always remove any nodes it finds "useless". So, yes. You pretty much always need a cfg.

Haris Rizopoulos
#4
07/17/2005 (8:16 am)
Well, I opened the console, and I found out that I got a lot of "DEObject::getThreadSequence:Thread Index out of range" or something similar (like pauseCurrentThread, setCurrentThread etc)... What do those errors mean?

Just to make sure I correctly included the nodes that cfg file:
I put the names of the biped parts under "always export" (i.e. Bip01 L Hand, Bip01 L Finger*, etc - the animation is on the arms). Is this correct?

Torque Owner Jeff Gran
#5
07/17/2005 (3:22 pm)
A picture is worth a thousand words....

jboy.menlofarms.net/stuff/nodemismatch.jpg
jboy.menlofarms.net/stuff/cfgfile.jpg

Haris Rizopoulos
#6
07/18/2005 (4:33 am)
A picture is indeed worth a thousand words! What I've been trying to say, though, is that in my case no "sequence node" errors (like the one circled) are listed, only the rest of them (those that start with DEObject). Oh, and I have included all relevant nodes under the always export list. Any ideas?

Torque Owner Jeff Gran
#7
07/18/2005 (4:43 am)
Are you trying to load it up by using the "load dts and cs" button? Have you tried just loading the dts with the dts button and then the dsq with the dsq button? I have noticed that if you're trying to load the dts and cs, it can't find dsq files that have spaces in the path name (which is usually the case, since /Program Files and /My Documents both have spaces in them). It's an odd quirk of the TSTP... that could be the problem.

Haris Rizopoulos
#8
07/18/2005 (5:23 am)
I have been trying to load it with the "load dts and cs" button, but I followed your advice. Now there are no spaces in the file path, but it still won't do it. How can u get the console to save all the info in a text file? I noticed the text not selectable. I could post the entire file so you could have a look if you want.