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Maya NPC animation exportation problem

by Denise Bacher · in Artist Corner · 07/18/2007 (10:26 am) · 3 replies

I'm having problems exporting my skeletal/bone animations for my NPC as a separate dsq file. I have no problem exporting just the model in a dts file, and I can the animation to work when I export it in the dts. But when I try to export the animation as a separate dsq file I can't get it to play or show up in Show Tool. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've tried a couple of different things. I've tried exporting the model with the bones in place, without the bones there. Nothing seems to work. I've included a link to a zip file that has the cfg file I'm using, as well as two versions of dts files and a dsq file I've exported, and two Maya ASCII files one with animations and one with out. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The sooner I can get this issue resolved the better. (Don't mind the crappy walk cycle, I didn't spend anytime putting it together. Strictly for testing purposes :) )

http://virtualcellproject.vrac.iastate.edu/wiki/images/9/97/NPC.zip

Thanks,
Denise Bacher
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Torque Owner Denise Bacher
#1
07/19/2007 (7:31 am)
To add some clarification of what I've been doing and trying. I created my character rig and used a smooth bind for the skin, and made sure that no vertex could have more than 3 influences. My problem comes when I try to export the model and the animation sequences separately. I don't have any trouble exporting the model. And when I export the animation sequences, I don't get any errors in the dump file, and the sequence is 19kb, which leads me to believe that there is something there. But when I try to use the Show Tool to check the sequence it doesn't show up in the sequence list.

I've looked at multiple tutorials and how to's and still can't figure it out. To the best of my understanding the way to do this is to smooth bind the skin and set the weights and add the model to the export hierarchy. You then remove the mesh from the hierarchy, and put in the skeleton structure in the hierarchy. You then animate the sequence, set up the sequence node and export. That the mesh isn't needed for the animation sequences when using a skeleton.

We're trying to make a make the IGF deadline, and the sooner we can get this figured out, the better. Please help.

Denise

Torque 3D Owner Affectworks
#2
07/29/2007 (1:08 pm)
I am not sure what to tell you, Denise...

I downloaded your zip file and looked at your dts and cfg files and they all work fine for me. I load the .dts file first and then the dsq and the walk animation shows up fine and plays fine.

And you are correct in assuming that the mesh is not needed inside the hierarchy when you export animations. The exporter is only interested in bone positions.

I couldn't open your maya files because they had an error in them (or I use a lower version of Maya than you do).

It seems you are doing everything correct, though, because it's working fine on this end of the internet.

Fredrik S

Torque Owner Magnus Blikstad
#3
07/29/2007 (2:13 pm)
If the DSQs seem to not load in showtool make sure you check the console (in showtool that is, press the ~ key on your keyboard). It should tell you why it didn't load the sequence. The most common reason is that some bone ended up in the DSQ that doesn't exist in the DTS.