Vehicle Brake Light Animation
by Ron Nelson · in Artist Corner · 07/14/2007 (10:18 pm) · 15 replies
I am trying to set up the same system as was done on the Brave Tree Car pack for the IFL brakelights, so far with little success.
First, I have set up my IFL sequence and mapped it to my polys and all went well there. The IFL sequence is named "brakelight" and so is the material.
In the the tutorial for the exporter it said that was enough, it isn't you need to have a sequence called "brakelight". So I made a sequence using the Dark Industries DTS exporter for 3DS Max. On my first attempt I made the mistake of having the cycle sequnce box checked and when it was shown in the game it just sat there and looped the IFL. I took that check box off and it did nothing.
I have checked this in Show Tool and the Brave Tree car shows a brakelight sequence and it plays and make the tail lights "light".
Mine has a brakelight sequence but does nothing when you play the sequence.
Could someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
First, I have set up my IFL sequence and mapped it to my polys and all went well there. The IFL sequence is named "brakelight" and so is the material.
In the the tutorial for the exporter it said that was enough, it isn't you need to have a sequence called "brakelight". So I made a sequence using the Dark Industries DTS exporter for 3DS Max. On my first attempt I made the mistake of having the cycle sequnce box checked and when it was shown in the game it just sat there and looped the IFL. I took that check box off and it did nothing.
I have checked this in Show Tool and the Brave Tree car shows a brakelight sequence and it plays and make the tail lights "light".
Mine has a brakelight sequence but does nothing when you play the sequence.
Could someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
#2
07/15/2007 (4:15 pm)
I'm in the same boat as you, We were working on a racing game and tried to do IFL's at the last minute with no luck. We got the IFL's to work in 3d max, but we couldn't understand how to properly export them. I tried looking at the rally car pack, but the way they do it is to mount an object to give it a light up effect.
#3
This is the section in my dump file that pertains to the IFL and sequence export:
07/15/2007 (4:35 pm)
Well let me put all of this out there to see if someone can point out my mistake and perhaps we can all learn from it.This is the section in my dump file that pertains to the IFL and sequence export:
Adding 1 ifl materials... Adding ifl material "C:\Game Development\My 3d Objects Gto 07082007\brakelight.ifl". Adding 1 sequences... Adding sequence 0 named "sequence_brakelight" One-shot sequence. Enabled animation: VT I , Forced animation: Duration = 0.03333, secPerFrame = 0.03333, # frames = 2 Sequence includes 0 nodes, 0 objects, and 1 ifl materials 0 rotations, 0 translations, 0 scales
#4
07/15/2007 (6:40 pm)
I checked the dump file from the brave tree car pack and found... Adding 1 ifl materials... Adding ifl material "D:\Dev\torqueHead\example\fps\data\shapes\car\brakelight.ifl". Adding 0 sequences... Optimizing meshes...and then at the end I found...
Sequences: Material list: material #0: "carskin". material #1: "brakelight.ifl". Place holder for ifl. material #2: "glass". Translucent.So does this mean an IFL isn't a sequence??
#5
@Britt - I have no idea the TDN documents say to just add the IFL and it will do the rest, obviously that is not so.
07/15/2007 (6:45 pm)
Yeah and I know it says up there in my dump file that the name is "sequence_brakelight", but it does export as just "brakelight". @Britt - I have no idea the TDN documents say to just add the IFL and it will do the rest, obviously that is not so.
#6
07/15/2007 (11:32 pm)
It makes me mad, I can load up the Brave Tree pack all day in 3d max and export it and it works fine in Torque. I just don't know what I missing.
#7
07/16/2007 (12:30 am)
Also found this...Quote:
Note that the engine is currently set to prepend a "skins/" directory to ifl resource names (your programmer will need to change this or else you will need to work around this).
#8
07/16/2007 (12:47 pm)
Seriously I know someone out there has done this and I would just like to know what little step I missed. I realize it has to be my fault, I just don't know why.
#9
07/16/2007 (1:14 pm)
Seriously I know someone out there has done this and I would just like to know what little step I missed. I realize it has to be my fault, I just don't know why.
#10
UNFORTUNATELY!!!! It still doesn't work.
Please someone throw me a friggin bone here.
07/16/2007 (2:24 pm)
Well I used Ultimate Unwrap to load the animation and saw I had a few settings different from the car pack dts to mine. These are the settings I used:UNFORTUNATELY!!!! It still doesn't work.
Please someone throw me a friggin bone here.
#11
Additionally, the old TGE docs really need to be updated because it mentions setting up a sequence helper based of of a help object named General DTS Objects, which doesn't exist as far as I can see. Or the plugin has issues.
Again I would just like to know what I am missing here, obviously others have gotten this to work.
07/16/2007 (11:39 pm)
Ok this is really odd. I even did a quick test with a console log entry to see if the engine was detecting the sequence "brakelight" it sure is. So..... what I am getting here is that for some reason the sequence is not making the IFL work.Additionally, the old TGE docs really need to be updated because it mentions setting up a sequence helper based of of a help object named General DTS Objects, which doesn't exist as far as I can see. Or the plugin has issues.
Again I would just like to know what I am missing here, obviously others have gotten this to work.
#12
I have been using the helpers that you mention - mine shows up (helpers drop down, under General DTS Objects), and it creates all the tracks in the track view. I think those are required for the IFL to export. Also, your begin and end keys for the sequence track must match exactly the number of frames in the IFL. Otherwise, it will export the sequence and not the IFL. THe show tool is useful for confirming the IFL was exported along with the sequence.
Anyway, FWIW, this technique works for me. THe next challenge is how to get multiple IFLs to work on a single mesh...still working on that, not sure its even possible.
07/17/2007 (9:32 am)
Ron, I never got the sequence manager to do much of anything. I used it to create a new sequence, and set the start and end frames to correspond to my IFL. But, when I go into the track view dope sheet, your supposed to see the sequence object with children that include the sequnce begin/end, blend reference, and triggers. The silly plugin does not generate any of those tracks (maybe there is a way to do manually). I have been using the helpers that you mention - mine shows up (helpers drop down, under General DTS Objects), and it creates all the tracks in the track view. I think those are required for the IFL to export. Also, your begin and end keys for the sequence track must match exactly the number of frames in the IFL. Otherwise, it will export the sequence and not the IFL. THe show tool is useful for confirming the IFL was exported along with the sequence.
Anyway, FWIW, this technique works for me. THe next challenge is how to get multiple IFLs to work on a single mesh...still working on that, not sure its even possible.
#13
07/17/2007 (10:11 am)
Yeah let me know if you figure that one out.
#14
Max2DTSPLUS - No worky.
Max2DTSPRO - No Worky.
Max2DTS - Works using the helper sequence as outlined in the doucments found here:
www.garagegames.com/docs/tge/general/ch08s03.php
Apparently this doesn't work at all with the newer sequencing system for the pro and plus versions of the exporters. The old plain one does the trick.
07/17/2007 (11:15 am)
OK I gotta come right out and say this, the solution to this is ultra-retarded. Max2DTSPLUS - No worky.
Max2DTSPRO - No Worky.
Max2DTS - Works using the helper sequence as outlined in the doucments found here:
www.garagegames.com/docs/tge/general/ch08s03.php
Apparently this doesn't work at all with the newer sequencing system for the pro and plus versions of the exporters. The old plain one does the trick.
#15
Over on this thread:
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=35635
07/17/2007 (12:24 pm)
Hey Ron, I figured out multiple IFLs for a single mesh - it works!Over on this thread:
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=35635
Torque 3D Owner Ron Nelson