FreshLook

I set the name of root bone to "test" and the animation works, although I have tested it again to be sure and the toolset crashes often.

Could you try your new animation without renaming the skeleton and overriding the vanilla animation? This way we can discard if the problem is about the newly named skeleton. I will try creating a new appearance with his own skeleton and animation to see if it works and if there is something special I haven't taken into account. ---- EDIT: I have tried it and it worked. First I worked with the skeleton alone to ensure it was in resting pose: Converted P_HHF_skel.gr2 to FBX and imported it into Blender. Renamed the skeleton from P_HHF_skel to P_AHF_skel. I also renamed the root bone from P_HHF_skel to P_AHF_skel. Exported to FBX. Converted the FBX to NWN2. Renamed the output skeleton to P_AHF_skel.gr2.Then I worked with the animation: Converted P_HHF_skel.gr2 and P_HHF_UnA_run.gr2 to FBX and imported it into Blender. Renamed the skeleton and the root bone again. Modified the animation. Exported to FBX. Converted the FBX to NWN2. Renamed the output animation to P_AHF_UnA_run.gr2 (ignore the output skeleton).Finally: Copied P_AHF_skel.gr2 and P_AHF_UnA_run.gr2 to the override folder. Created a new appearance exactly like the Human one but with head and body skeleton P_AH?_skel.

Are you using Automatic Bone Orientation when importing the FBX? What Primary Bone Axis are you using when exporting to FBX? No, as per your instructions I no longer use Automatic Bone Orientation on import. My NWN2 export setting has.. Z Axis for Primary Bone Axis. The result is: https://imgur.com/a/lN7w8 The hips rotate correctly, the legs are totally messed up, one more than the other....? (I didn't even touch those joints for the keyframes, and my hands / arms T-Pose, even though the rig shows them behind the back) This is the standard P_HHF_Skel (Renamed root node to something else) and a standard Human Mesh already painted to those joints. Every time I export things get slightly more weird.. Since you didn't use automatic bone orientation on import, you probably used Y axis as the primary bone axis (if you didn't change it), so when exporting use Y axis too. The bone axis should be consistent between import and export (unless you know what you are doing). Note that the wiki no longer says to use Z axis as the primary bone axis when exporting. Okay I did that, It looks a little better but still deforms. Now it's the other foot that is messed up - Arms still don't respect the animation. A quick guide or 101 tutorial would help a lot I think. I already was thinking about writing a tutorial because there are things that aren't obvious. Could you explain in more detail what you are trying to do? Why did you rename the root node of the skeleton? Could you send me the Blender file with the new animation? I will try the same thing and will write a tutorial and catch bugs if any.

Are you using Automatic Bone Orientation when importing the FBX? What Primary Bone Axis are you using when exporting to FBX? No, as per your instructions I no longer use Automatic Bone Orientation on import. My NWN2 export setting has.. Z Axis for Primary Bone Axis. The result is: https://imgur.com/a/lN7w8 The hips rotate correctly, the legs are totally messed up, one more than the other....? (I didn't even touch those joints for the keyframes, and my hands / arms T-Pose, even though the rig shows them behind the back) This is the standard P_HHF_Skel (Renamed root node to something else) and a standard Human Mesh already painted to those joints. Every time I export things get slightly more weird.. Since you didn't use automatic bone orientation on import, you probably used Y axis as the primary bone axis (if you didn't change it), so when exporting use Y axis too. The bone axis should be consistent between import and export (unless you know what you are doing). Note that the wiki no longer says to use Z axis as the primary bone axis when exporting.

Are you using Automatic Bone Orientation when importing the FBX? What Primary Bone Axis are you using when exporting to FBX?

I have released version 0.2 which supports converting FBX skeleton to GR2. https://github.com/Arbos/nwn2mdk/releases Playing around with it. Thanks for making those changes. It seems like the First Frame of the Animation (Pose?) is being exported as the skeleton as opposed to the actual skeleton I imported. Did I Mess Something Up? 1) I Click Drag: Skel + MDB + Animation onto converter 2) Rename Skel, Do Update My Keyframes 3) (Looks good in blender, export and convert) 4) Reopen Skel in 3DS and it's no longer in T-Pose but using the first frame of my exporter.. Hrmm I did rename the Pose + Skel the same.. maybe that's the issue, I'll try renaming the animation to _una_idle or something and report back. -- EDIT: For some reason my renamed Skeleton never exports.. it's just taking the first frame of the animation for my Skel creation. Did I do something wrong? I have tested it and I think what's happening. It seems that Blender exports the skeleton to the FBX as it's posed at the current frame. I have explored the export options and I see nothing. I don't know if Blender is supposed to work this way. The only solution I see is when you want to export a skeleton to FBX make sure it's in its default pose. Just before exporting to FBX from Blender try this: Switch to pose mode. Select all bones with A key. ALT R to reset all rotations. ALT G to reset all translations. ALT S to reset all scales. Export to FBX. As you haven't modified any keyframe, change to another frame and come back to see it's posed as before reseting.

I have released version 0.2 which supports converting FBX skeleton to GR2. https://github.com/Arbos/nwn2mdk/releases

Now that I have implemented FBX skeleton to GR2 I have tried to animate a placeable and I got it. I have animated PLC_MC_TyrBanner: Created a skeleton in Blender named same as the model. Created a single bone named same as the model. Animated the bone in Blender. Exported to FBX and converted to GR2, generating a skeleton file and an animation file. I renamed the GR2 files: PLC_MC_TyrBanner.gr2 for the skeleton and PLC_MC_TyrBanner_idle.gr2 for the animation. Edited placeables.2da. It's very near to being possible to create new animated creatures too, I need to implement collision spheres and some other features, but I think that the biggest and hardest parts are done.

When importing a FBX skeleton into Blender, it's better not to check the option Automatic Bone Orientation. What this option does is to automatically change bone orientations so they look more naturally connected. This option is useful because FBX skeletons are joint-based while Blender skeletons are bone based. The problem with this option is that if the bones are reoriented then the imported skeleton is not the same as the original one. So, when animating this reoriented skeleton, in fact you are not animating the original one. By setting the Primary Bone Axis to Z Axis when exporting a FBX animation from Blender it seemed that worked right but further tests show some problems. In the end, when importing a FBX into Blender it's better not to use Automatic Bone Orientation but use the default bone axis and when exporting a FBX from Blender use the default bone axis too. The imported skeleton will not look as nice but will be faithful to the original one. New skeletons can be created as nice as you want. I'm already testing FBX skeleton to GR2.

I have tested this: the column NWN2_Skeleton within placeables.2da for the placeable RuralBWindmill2 is PLC_BR_WINDML2. I have overrided PLC_BR_WINDML2.gr2 with an empty GR2 and the result is that the placeable is not animated anymore. So I guess animated placeables need a skeleton. I have examined PLC_BR_WINDML2.gr2 and It has three bones: PLC_BR_WINDML2: named same as the main modelPLC_BR_WINDML2_01: named same as the first attached modelPLC_BR_WINDML2_02: named same as the second attached modelI guess what Exportron does under the hood when exporting a skeleton as a model is to create a bone for each model. So when my tool supports converting FBX skeleton to GR2 I think it should be possible to create animated placeables by manually creating a skeleton with a bone for each part (no rigging needed) and creating animation for this skeleton, although it would be more tedious that Exportron.

I think animated placeables have a GR2 skeleton and can play GR2 animations. The tool is generic about converting FBX skeletons/animations to GR2, so I think it will work.

Hey thanks for the quick reply! Feature Request: When I export the FBX back to .GR2, the _anim.GR2 file has my filepath in the header of the file. Can we put something else there? I don't want my file path to be stored in animations I distribute online. It outputs like: [0x00] FBX [0x00] NWN2 MDK 0.1 [0x00] [0x00] [0x00] [0x00] [Filepath] [0x00] [AnimationName] -- I think I resolved the other issue. But now I am unsure how to properly name / export skel's from 3DS to get them to work properly. *mumble grumble* I just wanted to mimic the way vanilla GR2 were exported, but I understand the privacy issue. Is it okay if it would just export filename+extension (like P_HHM_xx.fbx)?

I tested converting P_HHM_UnA_run.gr2 to FBX and back to GR2 and NWN2 plays it fine. What skeleton and animation have you tested so I can test it also? FBX importing/exporting doesn't reset to origin, it just imports/exports positions as they are. About your feature request: I really didn't understand it. Is it about GR2 animations storing file paths? (e.g. N:\Art\Characters\Animations\P_HHM_animation\idle\P_HHM_idle.max)

Maybe you can't run .cmd files? Could you try running a test .cmd file?

Nice! I'm glad it worked. You can get the wolf animation as in the video by dragging C_Wolf_CL_Body01.MDB + c_wolf_skel.GR2 + c_wolf_Una_run.gr2 to nw2fbx-dragdrop.cmd, which will convert all into one FBX. That log entry means it's exporting animation named N:\Art\Characters\Animations\P_HHM_animation\idle\P_HHM_idle.max. This is because the animation contained in the GR2 has this name. Maybe the log isn't very clear.

I have released version 0.1.1 built in release mode and with static linking. You can download it here: https://github.com/Arbos/nwn2mdk/releases I think the false virus warning could be because of the executable being built in debug mode.

What message did show the anti-virus? I suspect why most people aren't able to get it working. I build the binaries in debug mode and with dynamic linking, so it will not work if you don't have Visual Studio 2017 installed. I'm going to build it in releasing mode and with static linking. Sorry, this is the first time I distribute binaries built with Visual Studio.

Yes, the hashtag comments a line. The output files are placed in the same folder that the dragged files. You could drag c_wolf.mdb from any folder. Since you placed c_wolf.mdb in the mdk folder, the output files should be in the mdk folder. When you dragged it to nw2fbx-dragdrop.cmd, did a console window open for a moment or did absolutely nothing hapen? Could you execute this from the command line? > nw2fbx c_wolf.mdb Thanks for trying the tool.

I have released version 0.1 (includes binaries). You can download it here: https://github.com/Arbos/nwn2mdk/releases I have written minimal documentation at the wiki: https://github.com/Arbos/nwn2mdk/wiki The features implemented in this version are the checked ones listed here: https://github.com/Arbos/nwn2mdk/issues/1 The remaining biggest feature to implement is FBX skeleton to GR2 skeleton.

I keep it in mind. I'll release binaries for Windows 7 and up, I hope nobody uses XP or Vista. I'll have to write a tool tutorial, too.

I need some days to tie up loose ends. It's looking good so far.

Sorry for not being able to compile the project. At some point I will have to write compilation instructions. I'm testing the conversion from FBX animation to GR2 animation and fixing the bugs I find. I hope to release binaries this week or the next. Conversion from FBX skeleton to GR2 skeleton will follow.

Because of the way FBX works, I'll stick with the second behavior then. Thanks for the replies.

When dragging multiple files onto a console app, each file name is passed as an argument. So, dragging 6 files results in calling the app with 6 arguments. When converting MDB/GR2 to FBX I see two possible behaviors of the tool: Convert each file to FBX: the result is one FBX for each input file. Convert all files together to a single FBX: the result is just one FBX that contains all input files.Which of the two behaviors would you expect? Currently the tool behaves as the second one and there is a reason for this: in order for a mesh to be linked to a skeleton and a skeleton to be linked to an animation they must be stored in the same FBX. NWN2 can link meshes to skeletons and skeletons to animations that are stored in different files, but FBX doesn't work that way. Because a single FBX can contain meshes, skeletons and animations, when converting a FBX to MDB/GR2 the tool can generate as many MDB/GR2 as the FBX contains.

I will investigate about dragging multiple files. I did the custom run animation when I was investigating the GR2 format. I have the experimental code I did back then and now I'm working on adding this capability to the tool.