Torque Game Engine DocumentationVersion 1.3.x
| Torque Game Engine Documentation Version 1.3.x |
In this section we will be discussing how to export a player model for use in the Torque Game Engine. This chapter assumes familiarity with 3D Studio Max, and does not discuss the techniques required for building a character. Any character that is well constructed for animation, and fairly well optimized should work quite nicely in Torque. There are many good character modeling references out there. I suggest "Modeling a Character in 3DSMAX" by Paul Steed.
Here is an example file of a completed character model. Both the model (player.max) and the skin (player.png) are located in the documentation file pack.
Figure 4-1
Make sure that your unit scale is correct (see General Information in the beginning of the Documentation) and that the character is facing forward (looking down the positive Y axis). If you go to Front view in 3DSMAX, you should be looking at the characters backside.
Procedure 8.13. Preparing a Character for Export
Create your bounding box. As above make sure it is aligned correctly (create it in either the top, perspective, or user view). The bounding box must completely enclose the character.
Check the mesh for holes and double faces. I do this by using the STL check modifier, the use of which is covered in your 3DSMAX documentation. This will allow you to see if the mesh has any holes or double faces. If it does, fix them before hooking up the mesh to the bone system.
Make sure your mesh transforms are clean. If you have scaled the shape or used mirroring any portion of the mesh during construction, reset the transform. The best way to do this is by using the "Box Trick" the section called “Resetting Transforms: "The Box Trick"”.
Create the Dummy Objects and Markers that the Exporter needs. You do not need to do this on the example character, as it has already been done for you.
There is a foolproof way to reset the transform of a mesh in 3DSMAX. Most of the built in methods for resetting the transform are not as clean doing 'The box trick". When you have moved, rotated, or scaled your model you will need to use this trick to cleanse its transform information.
This method is preferred over the reset x-form function in MAX. Reset x-form does it's work by sticking a modifier in the 3DSMAX modifier stack. This adds additional data that must be interpreted by 3DSMAX in order to output the correct data, and it is not always correct or accurate. It works, but it has proved problematic in the past on certain shapes.
Procedure 8.14. The "Box Trick"
Create a simple box shape.
Align this box with the origin of the bounding box.
Convert the box to an editable mesh.
With the box selected, go into the modifier panel and click the "attach" button. Select your character mesh to be attached to the box. The character should now be a part of Box01.
We don't want this extra box geometry hanging around, Choose "Select by Element" select the box shape and delete it.
Rename your character mesh so that it conforms to the export parameters (detail number, etc.)
Your character mesh has a brand new transform, identical to that of the box when it was attached.
Create a skeleton for the character and add any necessary nodes that are required for the game. The DTS exporter does not require that anything exist in the scene (except a bounding box). In this example, a Character Studio Biped is used for the skeleton, but you can use 3DSMAX bones, boxes, dummies, or whatever.
Biped is not required to work with the Torque engine. In fact, for many advanced animation techniques, biped is not the optimal tool for character animation. Torque does work fine with Biped, however, and it is a good starting point for inexperienced animators.
The game (take for example the demo) may require your character to have certain nodes contained in the shape in order to function properly. These usually consist of camera and eye nodes, mount points for weapons, etc...
If you are just starting out with characters for the Torque Engine, it is advisable that you use the default player skeleton. The naming convention and structure of the skeleton is visible in the following image.
Figure 4-2
The bones that are not included in the schematic (they were omitted to fit the image on one screen). They follow the default Biped naming convention.
The Torque Game Engine supports a variety of animation techniques, to provide maximum flexibility. This section discusses these techniques and the tools available in 3D Studio Max to create the animations.
The exporter and the game engine support both morphing meshes and real time skin deformation. To get the most out of both types, one must understand the differences between the two.
Real time deformation uses the node transforms (a skeleton) to drive the deformation of the mesh vertices in the engine. The vertices of your mesh are assigned weights to the skeletal nodes and the transforms of the skeletal nodes then deform the mesh. These deformations are calculate in real time.
It is very efficient, the files are smaller, and it is flexible as it allows for animation (and direct manipulation) of the skeleton to deform the mesh. This flexibility is what drives some of the most useful animation features of the Torque Game Engine.
Morph meshes do not use nodes to drive the animation. In the 3D Studio Max scene, you may be using bones, x-forms, or linked x-forms to animate the mesh, but the end result is different.
In morph animations, the location of every vertex in the mesh is saved off for every frame (and every detail level) and the position of each vertex is updated on every frame. Morph animations are not as efficient of flexible as real time skeletal deformation.
It is advisable to use skeletal animation rather than morph animation in all but the most special of circumstances.
Several options exist for creating skin-based deformations in Max.
Physique is not supported for real time deformation. If you use physique, it will be exported as a "Morph" animation. It will take a snapshot of the position of the mesh at every frame for all of the animations. Real-time deformation will not be taking place, which means it will not work with the default animations, blend animations will not work, and the transitions will not work. This also makes the files HUGE. It has to take a snapshot of every vertex (including the vertices of all the detail levels) for every frame of the animation.
Physique is not recommended for skinning characters for use in Torque. Physique is not supported for real-time deformation and animation exported using physique will be exported as morph meshes.
Deformable meshes (skeletal animations) are supported in the game. The mesh will deform in real time based on the movement of an internal skeleton. To use this feature, the object must be set up using the Skin Modifier in 3D Studio Max.
3D Studio Max 3 requires a special version of the skin modifier called Com_skin. The installation of this modifier is not required for any version of 3D Studio Max above 3.
To use ComSkin you must install two plugins: skin.dlm and MAXComponents.dll, both of which are available in the documentation file pack.
Procedure 8.15. Installing Com_skin (3D Studio Max 3 only)
Quit all 3dsmax sessions.
Create a folder called 'old' in your 3dsmax3\stdplugs directory.
Move bonesDef.dlm into this directory.
Copy file skin.dlm into your 3dsmax3\plugins directory.
Copy file MaxComponents.dll into your 3dsmax3\ directory
Register the dll manually by calling: "regsvr32 MAXComponents.dll" from the command line.
Restart 3DSMAX. Skin objects from before will work just the same except they should now be called "Com Skin" objects.
Some people have had problems running com_skin without certain .dlls that come with MSVC++. If you can't register MAXComponents, this is most likely the problem.
Objects that have the skin modifier applied to them are recognized by the exporter as skin objects. They should be unlinked and floating in the scene (they do not have to be a part of the shape subtree).
The deformation gizmos in 3DSMAX 4 (part of the skin modifier) are not supported.
Before you begin, make sure that the mesh to be skinned is not linked to anything. If it is linked to the start of the hierarchy, you will get an additional transform introduced into the shape and it will behave incorrectly.
Get you character and skeleton aligned and apply the skin modifier.
The skin modifier is covered in detail in the 3D Studio Max documentation. Use those documents for information about how to set up your envelopes and otherwise control the weighting of the skin. This section outlines some Torque-specific tips.
Just about anything can be used as a bone, but certain objects like space warps, lights, and cameras, and Biped footsteps do not always work (they won't be considered bones on export).
You don't need to include all the bones in the skinlist. Include only the bones necessary to make the deformation work. Be particular about what you add. This is especially true when using Biped
Although there is a button to remove bones from the skinlist, don't get in the habit of using it. It will remove it from the display, but it may confuse the exporter. Adding the bone back in won't solve the problems that removing the bone caused, the only solution is to delete the modifier and redo the skinning.
This is a limitation of 3DSMAX 3. Deleting bones usually works in 3DSMAX 4, but it is a good habit not to delete bones from the skinlist.
After the shape is all linked up, the bounding box to the hip (or BIP node) of the character. Later on, when we get into animation, it will be important that this is done. Go into the Hierarchy panel and turn off the X and Z inheritance for the bounding box. Turn off the rotation inheritance as well, as shown in figure 4-3.
Figure 4-3
The bounding box will now follow the shape as it animates forward, but will not inherit the Z (up and down) and X (side to side) motion. The inherit X should be turned back on for animations that require the character to move sideways (strafe or sidestep animations).
You can use MultiRes to generate the detail levels for your deformable mesh objects. When we first tried it in 3DSMAX 3, it didn't work. It resulted in an instant crash of 3DSMAX. So, the way it works is that you have to make a copy of the mesh in the exact same position as the skinned mesh. One copy contains the weighting information, the other contains the MultiRes information.
What you will need to do is clone the skinned object (using Tools>Snapshot) at frame 0 in your 3DSMAX scene. Choose single, with mesh output. The exporter uses frame 0 as the reference frame for comparison of the vertex positions so it can reconstruct the shape.
Figure 4-4
Don't use edit>clone to make a new shape. If you do so, the mesh will be in the initial position that object was in before it was skinned and put in the root position. The 'skinned' mesh and the MultiRes mesh must be in the EXACT same position (all the vertices must be in the exact same place) or it will not export properly.
This will give you and editable mesh in the exact same position as the skinned mesh. Rename this mesh MultiRes::your_shape_name and then link it to the skinned mesh. Apply a MultiRes modifier and hit the generate button.
Adding multires to a skinned mesh will cause you to have two copies of your shape in the scene. One with the skin modifier and one with the MultiRes modifier. If you change either object you'll have to "synch" them up again (i.e., repeat the procedure we just went through).
The meshes must be in EXACTLY the same position or it will not work properly! It will export, but in the engine it will look like a big spiky ball of polygons.
You can use the 'AdjustLODs' script to generate the values in the shapes User Properties using the method covered in Section I: Mutires. the section called “Using the MultiRes Plugin for Level of Detail”
Shapes made using MultiRes in 3D Studio Max 3 will generate a "Missing OSM" (Missing Object Space Modifier) warning when you open them in 3D Studio Max 4. To solve this problem, delete the "Missing OSM" from the top of the modifier stack of the objects that generate this error and add a new MultiRes modifier to the object (don't forget to hit the generate button).
3D Studio Max 4 won't crash if you put a Multires modifier on top of a deformable mesh (skin) object, but you still have to make the clone or the exporter will not recognize it.
In order to use the multires modifier in Max 5, you will need to copy the Max 4 multires modifier plugin into your Max 5 plugins directory. Alternately, you can create levels of detail by hand.
Export it as a DTS. (Choose Export>Whole Shape in the Exporter Utility). Name it appropriately. If you are going the be putting this shape in as a player, it will simplify things if you name the shape player.DTS. Make sure you rename the default player shape to player.DTS.old so you don't overwrite it.
If it exports, then the mesh shape is okay and not corrupt in any way, and you can move onto the .CFG file to tune the shape and include what is necessary for it to work with the animations.
A DSQ file, or sequence animation, will not load into a shape if it has nodes that are not in the base (DTS)shape. This is the #1 reason why shapes mysteriously stop working in the game when they get re-exported. The exporter discards what it thinks are useless nodes. These include nodes without meshes, and nodes that are not animating. In the base DTS shape file, there are usually a lot of 'useless' nodes. These same nodes may be animated in a DSQ shape file, and the exporter will not consider them to be so useless and include them during export, resulting in DSQ with a node that does not exist in the DTS.
In order to make sure they get exported in the base DTS shape, you should use a .CFG file to make sure all the needed nodes are included in the shape.
When you export a shape the exporter looks for a file with a .CFG extension in the directory that the shape is in when it exports the shape. I like to rename them to match the shape. In your text editor, it makes it easier to deal with. When we get into animation, you might have several .CFG files open at once, and it is hard to keep track of what you are doing if all of them are named DTSscene.CFG. In the example below, the file is named player.CFG.
Make sure that there is only one file with a .CFG extension in the export folder. Usually it is a good idea to set up a separate directory for each shape.
We have included an example of a scene .CFG script in the documentation file pack named player.cfg
Names of nodes are put into one of 3 lists (the always export list, the never export list, or the never animate list). Which list depends on which of the 3 keywords occurred most recently in the file (if none of them have, the name is put on the always export list). Names can include wildcards (*).
You should put all the skeletal nodes that are going to be animated in the 'Always Export' list.
Here is the config file that I am using for my latest character. It is a single mesh, skinned character using the default Torque character animations.
AlwaysExport: eye cam mount0 //mount1 //jetnozzle0 NeverExport: Bip01 Bip01 L Finger* Bip01 R Finger* Dummy* Bip01 L Toe* Bip01 R Toe* start01 mountpoint DELETE* //Ski0 //Ski1 Light0 Light1 //Mount1 //Mount2
You can comment out lines of the .CFG by using "//". In this example, I am culling out nodes that are not animated in the DSQ files, and are not necessary for the shape to function. The more nodes that you can cull out, the smaller and more efficient the shape will be.
On the Always export list, certain nodes that usually would get discarded (non-animating dummies and nodes without meshes are included). This is important to prevent bones and nodes that you are using from being automatically culled during export.
You can also achieve the same results in the DTS shape file by exporting it with 'collapse transforms' option disabled. This is not considered to be a good practice, as you should be using the .CFG files to control your node structure, but it works as it ensures that ALL the nodes in the shape are included in the DTS file.
Now that you have a .CFG file, and it is set up properly with all the relevant nodes on the list, and all extraneous shapes and nodes (Lights, reference shapes, etc...) culled out by putting them on the 'Never Export" list, you are ready for exporting the finished model. Export it as above.
You should now have a nearly finished DTS shape. It will work in the show tool, but it may not function properly in the game yet.
Character setup is complex and can be confusing at first. Errors occur which seem at first inexplicable. Below are a few of the common methods of dealing with DTS export errors.
Whenever the exporter attempts to create a shape, it logs its progress using a file called dump.dmp. This is a plain text file that is generated in directory you select for export.
It is a good idea to get into the habit of checking your dump.dmp files to make sure that the nodes you think are exporting are exporting. Look at the bottom of the file for the Shape Hierarchy, it tells you everything you need to know. Looking at the dump file is also useful for tracking down problems in the shape when it is failing to export, often times allowing you to track down the individual mesh, bone, or vertex causing the problem.
UnMessDTS is not necessary with all versions of the Max Exporter and is included here mostly as legacy support. You should only use it if your shape appears inexplicably garbled when you view it in game.
The T2Autodetail scheme introduced at the end of Tribes 2 does not work with deformable meshes. In order to get them to function properly in the game, you must turn off the new detailing scheme. Unfortunately, the last code drop GarageGames received from the Tribes 2 team happened before the switches introduced into the exporter to accomplish this got into the source.
Some versions of Max2DTS still include this information when exporting.
There is a little utility called UnMessDTS that reverts the shapes back to the 'old' way of doing things, and they then work fine in the game engine.
The unMessDTS.exe utility is included in the documentation file pack.
Procedure 8.16. Using UnMessDTS
In the command line, navigate to the directory where UnMessDTS is stored.
Type in the following, using your file's name for input.DTS, and any name you want for output.DTS.
unmessDTS input.DTS output.DTS
output.DTS should now be a fully functioning and optimized shape and should be ready to move onto animation.
