Skree000 Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 i dont see why not, when you export simply make sure its not exporting animations, then anything in the time-slider will be ignored as well as bone positions. All it should ever export (so long as you select the right export options) is the mesh and its skin modifier containing the weight data. one of my preferred (and arguably the industry standard) rigging procedures is to import a motion capture calibration file, which contains a mocap animation of an actor wearing the suit doing every imagineable stretch,bend and limb movement in a wide assortment of positions. this allows people who are rigging characters access to a ton of extreme poses which test the limits of the rig, which is exactly what you want when weighting vertices. If the players body can only bend over so far, slide along the time slider so the body is bent that way, then weight the vertexes in the deformation areas accordingly so it looks right in that pose. Then, slide your time slider along to another pose of extreme deformation, and do the same. Once you have gone thru the entire calibration anim, your character should be fully rigged. Motion capture files; directly recorded from the equipment are not in any kind of useable format, they must be cleaned up and exported. usually the Mocap software has postprocessing and cleanup packages inwhich you can cleanup the data, since its usually very dirty and unuseable unless processed. Exported to a format max/blender/maya can recognize) ive done a few before and have a pretty sizeable library of mocap anims ive cleaned up. Only problem is, with Fallout and Oblivion, we dont use the regular biped, we use a custom rig based on it, so the bone names are all different. Biped animations can be reconfigured to conform to custom rigs, its just alot of work, and ive never really done it. sorry gotta get back to work (still at work hehe) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throttlekitty Posted June 26, 2009 Share Posted June 26, 2009 Great tips, thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaysus Posted June 26, 2009 Author Share Posted June 26, 2009 mmmh, maybe write a script which checks the object names and renames them accordingly? would be kinda cool... btw is there a nice software which can convert mocaps back and forth between different formats? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted June 26, 2009 Share Posted June 26, 2009 Errm... is it just me or is the left forearm of the Fallout 3 skeleton actually shorter than the right? o_O Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skree000 Posted June 26, 2009 Share Posted June 26, 2009 3dsmax can import and export different kinds of animations, it has a built in Character Studio. (used to be sep. app.) been tooling around with the niftools tut on skinning w/ dismember parts, once i get that up and running ill write up a latest updated tutorial with new pics. The niftools tutorial is good but theres some mistakes i mean to correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 Man, setting up the target .nif for your model is a pita. I've had trouble finding a model that corresponded well in bone structure to my own, so I've decided to attempt customizing the bone list rather than doing it the "easy" way (ie. making my own model conform to a vanilla model and directly copy/pasting it). I guess it's what Skree considered "Step 4" in his pic-tutorial, but it's still doing my head in. Edit: Or maybe I just misunderstood something. Bleh, I really need to concentrate a bit on what I'm actually doing, I think my mind is everywhere else but at the task at hand. Edit2: I just realised that instead of messing around with the bone structure for the target .nif, it seems you can just copy the NiSkinInstance (or BSDismemberInstance if you have implemented that on your model) branch from your source model to the target model, and simply select this imported branch as the NiSkinInstance the NiTriShape you are overwriting points at - simply input the reference number of the imported branch under the "Skin Instance" entry in the NiTriShape's details rollout. This basically saves you all the trouble of juggling existing bones (in case the bones of the target model doesn't match your model) and allows you complete freedom as to what bones you use in your rig. So instead of a dozen steps, you need five steps: 1. Copy/paste the NiTriShapeData entry from target to source model. 2. Copy the NiSkinInstance/BSDismemberInstance from the target to source model. 3. In the NiTriShape details block, change the value of the Skin Instance to the number given to your newly imported NiSkinInstance/BSDismemberInstance. 4. Sanitize your model by removing the old NiSkinInstance/BSDismemberInstance branch (which shouldl have become disassociated with any NiTriShape block). 5. Save. This is probably what was meant with the "cut and paste" method Jaysus pointed out, but that phrasing didn't help me out a whole lot - so hopefully this somewhat more explicit description will help those modders that are as dense as I. I'd love if someone could test this method out and post their results, because so far I haven't had any troubles with it but it might not work with other people's work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skree000 Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Baelkin i have to give you props for helping me figure out that shortcut! Wouldnt have thought of that til you said it, i was wondering but too afraid that i might mess something up, but now its all easy street and candies ;) Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Napalm42 Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 How owuld you go about creating an armor all by yourself? im not retexuring a vanilla armor, im creating a whole new one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted August 22, 2009 Share Posted August 22, 2009 How owuld you go about creating an armor all by yourself? im not retexuring a vanilla armor, im creating a whole new one You make a model in a 3d editor, skin and UV it, export it as a .nif and follow the instructions here on how to make the armour work in-game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeVolsung Posted February 15, 2010 Share Posted February 15, 2010 The skeletton link is broken :/ (No file exists with that ID.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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