T3D 1.2 Animation problem [Solved]
by Roland Stralberg · in Torque 3D Professional · 03/22/2012 (12:37 am) · 8 replies
I have a little problem with my animated character.
Shows a character rigged and animated in Modo 601, exported to Collada and imported to T3D. The character is one body mesh and the hair another mesh as a child mesh of the body. As seen from the video the hair comes up at the wrong place. I don't know if this is a Modo or T3D issue or if I have missed some important detail when either modeling in Modo or importing to T3D.
Does anyone have some tips on how to solve the problem?
Thanks.
Shows a character rigged and animated in Modo 601, exported to Collada and imported to T3D. The character is one body mesh and the hair another mesh as a child mesh of the body. As seen from the video the hair comes up at the wrong place. I don't know if this is a Modo or T3D issue or if I have missed some important detail when either modeling in Modo or importing to T3D.
Does anyone have some tips on how to solve the problem?
Thanks.
#2
Looks like you've got a rotation on the mesh. It should be at origin 0,0,0 but looks like you've got it at 0,90,0 or something.
Issue I've had a few times in Blender when creating a mesh from a non-overhead view and it adds in the rotation for the view and then this only comes to light when Torque reads the DAE file and applies the rotation to the mesh.
03/22/2012 (5:55 am)
As Rex says:Looks like you've got a rotation on the mesh. It should be at origin 0,0,0 but looks like you've got it at 0,90,0 or something.
Issue I've had a few times in Blender when creating a mesh from a non-overhead view and it adds in the rotation for the view and then this only comes to light when Torque reads the DAE file and applies the rotation to the mesh.
#3
At the very least, coordinates should be an editable parameter, on the fly.....
From that image provided, there is both a rotation and position offset happening; why.....hmm.....I really think a small tweak to weights might fix it quickly.
Or, it's a bizarre keyframe on that node to cause it?? The figure on the left seems 'okay' with regards to the hair. A rogue keyframing on the hair's node?....could be. That's why I like CFG files and culling the nodes that don't get animated from DSQ files, or putting them in the 'Do Not Animate' list to keep this sort of thing from occurring. If this happens when the sequence is applied[please give a tad more data on what steps were taken], it's bogus keyframe data on the node, which can be cleaned up at the Source level of the art....
03/22/2012 (6:12 am)
Gah, if Blender does that to a mesh....MEH to Blender! That is dorky, same thing for nodes.....they should[imho] have their parent's coordinates or all be at world's, when generate; regardless of 'view'.At the very least, coordinates should be an editable parameter, on the fly.....
From that image provided, there is both a rotation and position offset happening; why.....hmm.....I really think a small tweak to weights might fix it quickly.
Or, it's a bizarre keyframe on that node to cause it?? The figure on the left seems 'okay' with regards to the hair. A rogue keyframing on the hair's node?....could be. That's why I like CFG files and culling the nodes that don't get animated from DSQ files, or putting them in the 'Do Not Animate' list to keep this sort of thing from occurring. If this happens when the sequence is applied[please give a tad more data on what steps were taken], it's bogus keyframe data on the node, which can be cleaned up at the Source level of the art....
#4
The problem in my previous video was not an issue either in Modo or in T3D. The girls hair had its pivot point at the center (feets of girl) when modeled. Correcting the pivot point of the hair was the simple solution
03/22/2012 (2:18 pm)
Thanks guys for your input.The problem in my previous video was not an issue either in Modo or in T3D. The girls hair had its pivot point at the center (feets of girl) when modeled. Correcting the pivot point of the hair was the simple solution
#5
04/06/2012 (10:17 am)
Hi Roland, I'm currently using Modo for our animation workflow but I'm having issues with getting the mesh into torque animated with the skeleton. Do you mind me asking how you set it up in modo. I have a mesh with skeleton heat bound but when bringing it into torque I get animation on the nodes and skeleton but the mesh stays static. How do you set up your rigged animation to work in torque? I'm probably missing a simple thing here but moods animation stuff is still all quite new....thanks
#6
1. Create model
2. Add Skeleton
3. Be sure that you have your model in 'un-subdivided' mode.
4. Select joint hierarchy
5. Select mesh
6. Be sure to be in Setup mode
7. Click Bind and Heat (the other works also but heat is nice)
8. Create you animation as usual in Modo
9. Select joints and mesh
10. Export as DAE
11. In T3D just import the DAE. It should work with just defaults.
If you still got problems I might do a short video on it, but try this first.
04/07/2012 (8:47 am)
Here my steps to make it work. 1. Create model
2. Add Skeleton
3. Be sure that you have your model in 'un-subdivided' mode.
4. Select joint hierarchy
5. Select mesh
6. Be sure to be in Setup mode
7. Click Bind and Heat (the other works also but heat is nice)
8. Create you animation as usual in Modo
9. Select joints and mesh
10. Export as DAE
11. In T3D just import the DAE. It should work with just defaults.
If you still got problems I might do a short video on it, but try this first.
#7
04/08/2012 (3:32 pm)
Thanks fella - got it working nicely now. Appreciated! 
#8
04/08/2012 (6:05 pm)
Quote:Gah, if Blender does that to a mesh....MEH to Blender!This would happen to any modeling program if the meshes "up" axis is not aligned to the what the export code thinks is "up". That is why there is a setting in the DAE file to let the importer such as T3D know which axis is "up". This has nothing to do with the modeling program. It is more of an ability of the user to know he now needs to rotate his model to align with the proper axis.
Torque Owner Rex
BrokeAss Games
Not knowing this art platform[Modo] and how it sets up a DAE, must be something goofy MODO does that the Collada Loader doesn't understand...??
Try giving the hair geometry[or any displaced geometry] more than one single node for influence and see what happens.
Also, try sending a version of your DAE to GG for evaluation, as that particular flavour may not have been accounted for; something I was very worried about when I saw how many different flavours of DAE there are, by the different platforms. Even Max's version of DAE seemed to change from Max build to Max build....
Good luck!
PS: does the offset happen with the arms at side animation, or all the time??