3D Studio Max - Exporter "Animation" not allowed

[RoundSparrow]

I am working with a 3DS Max file I purchased - it has animation I can play in Max fine...

But the Ogre exporter has the Animation section all greyed out.

I'm a complete novice with 3DS... any suggestions on how to get the exporter to recognize there is animation in this file?

Thanks.

[RyanN]

its proberly just a 3ds keyframe animation, does it have bones?

[semicolon]

Hi RoundSparrow,

You question is pretty wide for me to spot the solution. Well there are some cases below the you may wanna check out:

1. Please make sure you are selecting the mesh with biped/bone skinning. Otherwise the exporter won't know which one you want to export.

2. You need to have only one root bone for the skinned mesh.

Please insert some more specific information. So I can help you some more.

Semicolon

[RoundSparrow]

Yha, I really am an idiot nube. So I appreciate your help, I mean it

semicolon: Do you mind if we work out just sending you the mesh... so you can explain to me what the heck I've got and how it relates to ogre Send me a PM with email and we can go offline.

If it matters, I'm not beyond paying you for your time. Training for me

[RoundSparrow]

its proberly just a 3ds keyframe animation, does it have bones?

Yep, has bones (quadraped). Ok, my novice mistake Seems I had to right click on the object and "unhide all" and "Unfreeze all" and now the Ogre Exporter has an option for animation. But when I try to export... it errors.

"- Runtime error: Exceed the vertex countSkin:Skin"

says this line of ogreSkeletonLib_meshfns.ms:

vertexWeightCount = skinOps.getVertexWeightCount sk vertexIndex ;

Thanks.

[Pirate]

I am also a very experienced max user, and I run alot of max scripts. But I am also having problems with the max exporters, the octopus one and the other.
So what I do is i just don't use them, instead I import the file into milkshape3d and use the milkshape ogre plugin to export the mesh and skeleton, it works perfect. and its easy to setup and lable the animations by using a text file. I have no complaints about the milkshape3d ogre plugin, it gets the job done everytime. (although I hate milkshape with a passion)

[psyclonist]

Pirate: Can you elaborate on the problems you have with Octopus? We fixed quite a few problems recently, some of them being quite severe. A list of changes can be found here.

-psy

[RoundSparrow]

I tried the latest Octopus exporter... it too crashes. It complains of "exceeded the vertex countSkin:skin" on line:

vwcount = skinOps.getVertexWeightCount sk a ;


Now my bones have weight in this model reviewing how it was constructed. Is this a problem for Ogre?

[psyclonist]

Can you provide us with a sample scene so that we can replicate the problem?

-psy

[RyanN]

it might be too complex as in have to many bones affecting the verts of the model.

[semicolon]

Hi RoundSparrow:

So sorry for late reply. Please use this e-mail to send me the file you want me to help.

S_somkeat<AT>hotmail.com (For spammers, please show your mercy to my e-mail.)

OK... As I've always said, I am more than willing to help any 3DSMAX users. (Since right now That's all I know.) So please yell me name when you need help.

There some more cases where you cannot export your skinned mesh with biped/bone animation. Such problems like you cannot have more that 4 links assigned per weighted vertex. Or something like you cannot export the link with prefix _Nub when you use biped for your animation.

Anyway, please send your file, if you don't mind. So I can tell which part is troubled.

Semicolon

[psyclonist]

semicolon: If you spot a way where the maxscript-based exporters can be improved, please don't hesitate to shout it our way!

-psy

[semicolon]

Hi psyclonist:

Hehehe I may not know everything but I have seen many complaints about using MAXScript-based exporter. Right now there are only 2 main exporter for Orge that has been released. One is Octopus exporter which is pretty great with wide and strong features to export. The other one is Orge tool set that has been improved a lot so far from the original version. Many bugs got fixed. Plus it has more features to export more complex mesh added.

For using MAXScript, most users will need to know precise information on how to install it. Especially the way which folder should be put into where.

Anyway, for some constraints of exporting to Orge that might need to be noticed are as follow. Please refer this to the Orge tool MAX exporter.

1. You should have only mesh in your scene to be exported. Not even help if you hide the other meshes. Because the exporter will export to .mesh file which is single mesh object. Not scene object which you have more than one pivot point.

2. In case using Bone, you should not have more than 4 links assigned per weighted vertex. As from the Orge document, the link with the least weight will be discarded from affecting the vertex. But not sure if the exporter will allow this or not.

3. The other case is if you use Biped for your animation. You should not add your bip with suffix "_Nub" to skin list. (Sorry, I wrote prefix in the above post.) The exporter will not realize this object as usual bone. (However this rule may not apply to the latest Orge tool. Please test this by yourself.)

4. The latest version of Orge tool allows you to use non-bone object as bone like primitive objects, or helpers. This option is helpful for the bone that you don't want it to have bone length locked up. Say you want to use bone to simulate ficial morph target. Using bone object will make you animate harder and not flexible enough.

5. For your biped/bone structure, you should have only bone root per animated mesh. If you have more than one root bones, you can add another bone and parented those to this bone.

For my solution, I always assign weight to vertex without using envelope to skin my animated mesh. This way can prevent you from having over-link-limit weighted vertex. And also be more concious way than using envelope. Well this is just my opinion. You may have your best way in your mind.

I hope these may help you for your animation. Any other problems can be raised for discussion. I really want to hear from you guys it those are correct or argued in some extra cases or not?

Semicolon

[RoundSparrow]

ok, I emailed you the mesh. I appreciate the personal assistance.

[semicolon]

Hi again,

Hmm... I really forget to add this for exporting animation for Orge. Right now Orge does not support IK animation, only FK animation allowed. That means you cannot use IK solver for any bone chain in your animation. And you must have Position and Rotation keyframe for every single bone that you want to export for animation. Otherwise, even if you could export it, you won't see any movement for the bone.

Thank you for sending me the file. This is my volunteer to help any 3DSMAX user. No need for any compensation or reward. What I found from RoundSparrow's file is most part of the animation are from Spline IK and IK solvers. This is not to export anything for animation, as I explained above.

Additionally, once I got the file, I first check the bone structure in schemetic view. And it showed that the bone structure does not have one bone root. Then it may be another point to notice for solving the problems.

So my suggestion for now would be that you need to remove all the IK solvers from your animation and add the keyframes directly to bones. And you need to have the other root bone parented to another root bone. Or you create another bone as root bone and link all the other root bones to this one. This will help to create single root bone for the animation. Anyway I will try to fix and export the mesh with animation and send back to you later.

By the way, If any 3DSMAX author could help, please allow to add keyframe to mesh without using bone for some simple animation. I don't know if this will be possible or not. But This may help to improve somewhat FPS by reducing complex animation with bone/biped.

Semicolon

[psyclonist]

By the way, If any 3DSMAX author could help, please allow to add keyframe to mesh without using bone for some simple animation. I don't know if this will be possible or not. But This may help to improve somewhat FPS by reducing complex animation with bone/biped.

Planned.

-psy

[RoundSparrow]

I've started a WiKi page to better organize the information regarding working with the exporter.

http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Ex ... DStudioMax

More edits/cleanup/addition to come.

[semicolon]

Hi there:

The following are some points that I have found to be careful of:

1. There are more than one root bone. Please create another bone and link all the other root bones to this bone.

2. Pivot point of the mesh is not in the right direction. To prevent somewhat being confused of coordinate conversion from 3DSMAX to Orge, please reset the object coordiates according to the 3DSMAX world coordinates. When you export the mesh, Use the option flip Y/Z to convert the coordinates to Orge.

3. Mesh is not at the center of the universe. This may cause the position in Orge may be distorted. Translate the object to the origin first and reset X-form to clean up the transformation.

4. Some vertices are not welded even if they stick together. This point is for some mesh to be used with Stencil shadow. Closed mesh is required to help drawing the shadow correctly.

5. Mesh is too big. Using 10 units = 1 meter may be more proper. Since this is not so apparenly critacal for someone, please consider it subjectively. My reason for this is because the unit counts in Orge world are relative from Height map, Terrain layer map, Light map, and some other stuff. If I use too big mesh, the maps need to be big consequently to create the world for the mesh. Pixel maps always has problem with "pixelete" So this is my purpose to keep the mesh as small as I could. (Maybe too long non-sense reason.)

Before exporting the file please install the Orge tool first because I use Orge material on the mesh. Please wipe the older version of the exporter before installing the new one.

What I did on the horse file are as follow:

1. I checked the schemetic view to see the overview of the file structure.

2. The bone structure has many parts built with IK solvers. And most keyframes are on the solvers. Then I removed all the bones since I don't normally use IK solver to export animation. Actually we had some discussion about baking IK to FK before. And the latest Orge tool has that option as well. However from my experience the result is not stable. Some times with simple structure, it works fine. Then I just don't use that option for now.

3. I first fixed the mesh by welding any vertices that stick together. This is to prevent any double face which is not good for exporting.

4. Scale the mesh down to the proportion of 10 unit equal to 1 meter. This is not critical to change. It's your choice. Then Z-axis the horse is about "2 meters" height with 20 units.

5. Center Pivot point to the horse. Under the Hierarchy panel, there are options concerning this purpose.

6. Move the Horse to the origin. Easily done with typing "0" to all translation axis.

7. Reset X-form using the box trick. Create a box and attach the horse to this. After that remove the box from the horse. Then I get the new coordinates.

8. Create some easy bone structure. I animate only the horse's leg. To demo exporting horse animation with the appropriate bone structure.

That's all for the 3DSMAX preparation for Orge export. From the following lines are the steps to export and to check off the options: (Assuming that you have the latest Orge tool already installed in your 3DSMAX.)

1. Select the horse mesh and click the Orge exporter. The exporter will add the selected mesh automatically.

2. Input the name and the path for the output file. The exporter will add the extension for you. No need to add it again.

3. Under "Option" panel is concerning with "OrgeXMLConverter.exe" This file is from official Orge tool site. Please be noticed that all the options under this panel are to call the converter.exe. So it's critical to set the "OrgeScript.ini" correctly to get the options to work.

4. Under "Mesh" panel, you should see "Export Mesh" option is checked off. If you have other export settings like UV sets or Vertex color, Add that as your choice. (The latest Orge Exporter is cool!!)


5. Under "Animation" panel, check off "Export Skeleton" and "Export non-bones object" Then add animation name with the Frame range. This options is new and helpful for someone who wants to animate all the animation into one single file. You can export the animation as separated and packed into one skeleton file. Tip: default Length (in seconds) may be too long. This cause the exported animation to be too slow to play. Reduce the number to about 0.5 to 1.0 to be more matched with the animation speed in 3DSMAX.

6. Under "Material" panel, check off "Export Material" is to export material fiel for you. Orge use the fiel to know the mesh's material properties. This option needs you to use Orge material for the mesh. Otherwise you cannot export material properties correctly.

7. Using "convert XML file after export" will help you convert the file after export (as it already said) This is because the exporter will export the file into XML format. And that is not bad because you can trace what you really export to Orge mesh or skeleton file.

8. Hit "Export!", you will get the file. View the result in OrgeMeshViewer. Very great tool. Tada...

That's pretty much all. There are some details that I might not add. But not so important. Anyway, any questions are very welcome.

Regards
Semicolon

P.S. The horse file was sent to RoundSparrow. I don't know if I have permission to distribut the file non-commercially or not. So please do not request the file from me.

[semicolon]

Hi again:

I really forget again. Some little steps about using box trick to get the new coordinates for an object.

Reset X-Form using the Box trick:

1. Hit Box object. You will see the Box creation panel.

2. Enter the size. Any size that you want. It doesn't matter. However bigger than your mesh to be reset is easier for later clean-up.

3. Create the box by hitting the "Create" from the Box creation panel. The box created will be at the center of the universe.

4. Covert the box into mesh object.

5. While selecting the box, attach the mesh to it.

6. Under "Element" panel, select the box and delete it.

7. Your mesh is now reborn as a new object. Name it as being reborn. (The mesh has the box name that you just deleted.)

By the way, there are another way to clean up transformation using X-form modifier. However I've heard that this way does not work perfectly for some situation. My guess is about Pivot point which is not easy to reset to its origin. Then it's your choice to choose any ways for your working style.

Thanks,
Semicolon

[McSwan]

All I do to reset the xform is select all objects in scene,
then goto hierachy,
Click on reset pivot, tranform and scale buttons.

Have you tried exporting animations using the octopus scene exporter?

[OliverWPZ]

I am also a very experienced max user, and I run alot of max scripts. But I am also having problems with the max exporters, the octopus one and the other.
So what I do is i just don't use them, instead I import the file into milkshape3d and use the milkshape ogre plugin to export the mesh and skeleton, it works perfect. and its easy to setup and lable the animations by using a text file. I have no complaints about the milkshape3d ogre plugin, it gets the job done everytime. (although I hate milkshape with a passion)

I used milkshape3d too,its really easy.But there is something wrong when the model really goes around. In the mesh ,the model walks down when it goes around.Have you ever met this problem?
help ! thx!

[RoundSparrow]

P.S. The horse file was sent to RoundSparrow. I don't know if I have permission to distribut the file non-commercially or not. So please do not request the file from me.

I can not share this Horse file either. I have recieved a few requests.... it is licensed model and can not be distributed. My advice is look at places like Turbosquid.

[nevarim]

is it again in development?

Neva

[nevarim]

you are a 3d modeler that work in daz?