only parts of 3d model visible after export

#1 Make sure all the groups of your model don't have numbers at the end of the name. The exporter may think those are LOD's and they won't be visible. If not that, then good luck. :)

#2 ahh it was a LOD problem, 4 parts were numbered at the end and it apparently messed up the rest of it. thanks so much!

#3 hmm now that all the parts are showing up, the animations in torque showtool are only showing certain parts moving and when i load the model into the game, only those parts show up and they are untextured as well.

all the vertices are assigned to a part on the skeleton and the model moves perfectly fine when i run the animations in milkshape. export animations is checked and the skeleton plays them in showtool, just only certain parts of the model move with it.


this is getting rather confusing since i'm doing the same thing for this model that i did for the simpler ones. all the same export options are being checked.

#4 ok, i did some testing with a single cylinder to see what exactly is going on with my model. i tried making a simple three part skeleton and attaching the top 1/3 of the cylinder to one joint, the middle to another and the bottom to the last. when i tried to animate them, it did the same thing as my model. it shows the animations working perfectly in milkshape, but when i export it as a dts, showtool only animates the skeleton while the model just sits there.


i tried regrouping the faces for the 3 sections of the cylinder and the animation stayed the same in milkshape, but in showtool the pieces moved, but were no longer connected so the faces just opened to show the inside of the model. i went back and tried welding the vertexes together while keeping the faces in groups, but then nothing moved on the model again after i exported it.


i'm at a loss, can you only animate things on a model that are completely separate from each other? i would really appreciate some feedback on this. after spending so much time making this i'm getting rather frustrated since i'm only going in circles on my own trying to figure this out.

#5 i've just tried updating ms3d and the exporter and still nada. i even tried taking a model that came with a tutorial and exporting it and the exact same thing happened with it. only the skeleton moved for animations.


it seems like some weird bug or something since i know for a fact this other model i tried exporting works in the tutorial i have.

i've uploaded the dts, texture and ms3d files into a rar file here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RW44OGZ2


if anyone can take a look at it and give me some clues, i'd be most appreciative

#6 Hi Eric,

Before you updated, what version of Milkshape were you using? In versions of Milkshape prior to 1.7.7, only a single bone-per-vertex was supported (implicit weight of 1.0).

The ms2dtsExporterPlus is based on the latest milkshape SDK, which supports up to 4 bones per vertex. The SDK returns weights of all 0.0 for your model (which you would see in the dump.html file generated during export). This is why your meshes don't appear to be animated.

I was not able to reproduce your simple cylinder test => most likely because I am using the latest version of Milkshape which explicitly sets the weights to 1.0, rather than old versions of milkshape which only set the bone index (there was no 'weight' in the old milkshape files since it was always 1.0 if a bone was attached to a vertex).

What I'm thinking is this:

1. This model was created in a version of milkshape prior to 1.7.7, and as such it only stores the bone indices and not the weights (which are implicitly 1.0). When it is exported using the current ms2dtsExporterPlus (which uses the new SDK) all weights are read as 0.0.

2. When you tried your simple cylinder test, you were also using an old version of milkshape, so got the same outcome (zero weights).

3. When you updated milkshape, you discovered a bug in the milkshape SDK => namely, that the weights for old models are read as 0.0 when they should be 1.0.

I tried out a simple workaround for the SDK problem (just set weights to 1.0 for verts that are attached to a single bone with weight==0.0), and your model now exports and plays animations normally. The new version is (as always) available here.

#7 ahh i see, thank you for investigating this for me :)

i've never dealt with vertex weights, however, and I'm not entirely sure how to reproduce your workaround. being not entirely dumb, i have at least figured out that you must mean this new thing in the joints tab that i didn't see in my earlier version that says vertex weights ;)

when i select vertexes associated with any of the joins and click the show button, it has their weight at 100. should i just select all the vertexes and set their weight to 1? i didn't see anything in the help file about it so i'm not too sure what to do here haha.


i'll keep messing with it and see if i can figure it out tho

#8 @Eric - my workaround was in the ms2dtsExporterPlus. My previous post contains a link to the latest version. If you use this one you can export your model and it will work just fine without changing anything in milkshape.

#9 gotcha, thank you so much!