New Maya exporter - please test

skullfire · Post by **skullfire** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:26 pm

dorvo wrote:Well that seriously sucks.
I really don't want to have to learn another modeling package. Gah!

is there really a big difference from Maya 6.0 to MayaPLE?

dorvo · Post by **dorvo** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:50 pm

No, there's no difference in what you can do that I've found. The restrictions for MayaPLE are that exporters apparently don't work, you can't save as anything but a .MP file format, and rendering produces a watermark over the image (this one is the biggest piss off; nothing says, "This is great artwork!" better than a huge watermark covering the friggin image!).

machinimist · Post by **machinimist** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 11:33 pm

there is a way to do exporters for maya PLE with mel.

you can create a gui and output all needed data into a textfield. the string size for textfields isn't limited (maybe they have forgotten to set a limit or maybe they don't care).

the user can copy and paste the content of the textfield into a textfile then and process that further. works great!

dagoose · Post by **dagoose** » Wed May 04, 2005 9:59 pm

hi peoples,

I have some trouble exporting my maya6.5 char anims.
If I look at some static mesh in the ogreMeshViewer everything is fine.
First I rigged my tringulated char with final rig 1.4 (some scripts 4 rigging automation).
Trying to load this animations, the OgreMeshViewer crashes.
maybe it has to do with the setup, I just can't figure it out what's wrong.
here is the maya6.5 file if you want to look at it.

http://groovenoise.exelive.net/flash/le ... Rigged.rar

So I made a char rig by hand, and exportet it and it worked with some weired polystreches.
so I removed the headanimation (just deleted it in the graph editor) and exportet again.
now the OgreMeshViewer crashes again. arrghh what am I doing wrong plz help me.
here is also the file with the manually rigged character

http://groovenoise.exelive.net/flash/le ... Rigged.rar

thx a lot

probably you guys could post me some tips for what I really have to look for when rigging a character for the fileViewer.
If I get all the workarounds collected I'm also willing to write a small tut.

Rixeh · Post by **Rixeh** » Wed May 11, 2005 9:56 pm

Here's what I've come up with so far...

A mesh needs to be bound to 1 skeleton only. Maya exporter will combine all the meshes together into one when you export to XML. If there are seperate pieces of a mesh attached to seperate skeletons (not of the same hierarchy), Ogre chokes and crashes.

Combine all your joints into 1 skeleton hierarchy. Add a few 'backbones', even if you're rigging a vehicle. Smooth bind the entire mesh to that skeleton (you can adjust weighting so that only the joints that *should* be affecting movement actually are).

Remember, no IK. You need to bake the IK into the skeleton as a sequence. (Create animation keys, bake, then export). FinalRig is an awesome script except it spits out a completely-IK rig. No good for ogre.

The extra step of triangulating your mesh is a real pain in the ass IMO, since the earlier 6.5 exporter didn't require you to do this.

Ezahnin · Post by **Ezahnin** » Wed May 11, 2005 11:39 pm

Does the OGREmaya exporter convert IK animations to FK.. im assuming I read it correctly that OGRE only handles FK or has there been a change recently??

Sorry if the question is juvenile, im very new to Ogre, very new to Maya, and somewhat new to animations <smiles>..

Rixeh · Post by **Rixeh** » Thu May 12, 2005 12:13 am

Not that I know of, gotta bake it manually. Sinbad's XSI exporter does this for you, but ogre doesn't do Ik at all.

bisco · Post by **bisco** » Thu May 12, 2005 12:29 am

Well, actually there is no need for baking. The exporter sets currentTime to each keyframe in sequence and just reads out the position matrix for every joint at each frame. Basically it does an automatic baking....
You can use whatever you want, in the end the exporter will go look for that matrix no matter what you use. There might be problems with grouped joints though.... Still have to test a bit

Rixeh · Post by **Rixeh** » Thu May 12, 2005 1:26 am

bisco · Post by **bisco** » Thu May 12, 2005 12:29 pm

I was talking about the new Maya exporter, just in case we are talking about different things

tu5ka · Post by **tu5ka** » Thu May 19, 2005 2:51 pm

We had allready non-triangulated, skinned characters which were exported with the old exporter (ogreExport.mll). Now i tried exporting with the new exporter (ogreExporter.mll) and managed to get one character exported by triangulating the mesh and then under animation toolbar >> Skin/edtit smooth skin/delete non-skining history.

...ill do further testing.

tu5ka · Post by **tu5ka** » Thu May 19, 2005 2:55 pm

tu5ka wrote:...ill do further testing.

well... still i only get it to work with baked animations.

tu5ka · Post by **tu5ka** » Thu May 19, 2005 3:49 pm

...and skeletons that is only skinned to one mesh works with delete non-skinning history. This is a Maya problem though, not an exporter problem. Guess i'll have to reskin some characters.

bisco · Post by **bisco** » Sat May 21, 2005 1:12 pm

Hey everyone,
a new version of the exporter should soon be available on the site.
ogreExporter_6.5d and ogreExporter_6.0d.
6.0 version will come along shortly due to minor API changes.

Improvements:
- no need to delete history
- non-hierarchical skeletons supported
- constrained skeletons supported
- possibility to export in object space (static objects only at the moment, there are some problems with the skeletons still)

Please try it and let me know

bisco

bisco · Post by **bisco** » Sat May 21, 2005 4:44 pm

@dagoose: with the new version of the exporter I succeeded exporting your character both in the manual and in the script-rigged version. Hope it works fine for you now...

bisco · Post by **bisco** » Sat May 21, 2005 4:46 pm

b.t.w., in previous post I meant "5.0" version will come along shortly

Post by **sinbad** » Sat May 21, 2005 5:04 pm

Downloads for Maya 6.0 and 6.5 are updated, thanks bisco.

Rixeh · Post by **Rixeh** » Sat May 21, 2005 8:36 pm

bisco wrote: Improvements:
- no need to delete history
- non-hierarchical skeletons supported

Excellent! I kept forgetting to delete history before binding...

Non-hierarchy bones are great too, when I was doing vehicles I had to do a full skeleton including backbone..

Nice one!

tu5ka · Post by **tu5ka** » Mon May 23, 2005 10:34 am

Great! Now i won't have to re-skin

Thanks!

tu5ka · Post by **tu5ka** » Wed May 25, 2005 8:18 pm

is it possible to export skeletons with animations but without the mesh?

im about to do some copy/paste in to my main skeleton.xml- file and add some new animations to it, but i cant get the animated skelleton export properly, all i get is an .skeleton.xml-file with empty tags.

I get Command is not undoable in Command Feedback.

bisco · Post by **bisco** » Thu May 26, 2005 1:22 am

Well it's possible but you'll have to select the mesh which is linked to the desired skeleton, then uncheck the option export mesh and check only the export skeleton and animations options.

The problem is that right now skeletons are accessed through the skinCluster connected to the selected meshes.

If you think it would be useful I could add the option to export selected skeletons even if they're not connected to any mesh...

The "command is not undoable" message is normal, you get it also with succesful exports. Don't know why, it started showing only recently

tu5ka · Post by **tu5ka** » Thu May 26, 2005 9:36 am

Ahh.. ok! I guess i shouldn't have deleted the mesh from the scene.

No, it's not necessary for me to have suchs functionality, iv'e got files with meshes, so it should work just fine. Thanks for your help!

joi · Post by **joi** » Tue May 31, 2005 2:33 pm

hello, does any one have a clue why my exported meshes are looking like this ?

both maya 6.0 and 6.5 exporters are looking the same... help me

i really need this solved quickly

thanks in advance

joe

bisco · Post by **bisco** » Tue May 31, 2005 3:08 pm

looks like the meshes are not triangulated,
right now you have to triangulate everything before exporting, I'm working to include the auto-triangulation from the old plug-in, but right now I'm sorry you'll have to triangulate it yourself.
B.t.w. right now only one material per mesh (work in progress to support per-face materials too

)

joi · Post by **joi** » Tue May 31, 2005 8:03 pm

Yeah, it was a triangulate problem... after the triangulate everything worked fine!

Thanks! Will keep you posted if i find any glitches...