X2XSI problems

[OvermindDL1]

I may actually be getting a little time soon, so I was planning to go through some more B3D tutorials (mostly animations and such) and work on my exporter some more.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Hey Jam, the X format saved by TS 3.2 sucks for BZ2ME. Save your models as either COB or ASC and try using 3DEX 1.5; it's free and I have the download link if you need it. I started using TS myself and the results are pretty good so far. PS: in case you haven't already read one of my previous posts about resetting the pivots to 0 it will prevent your models from appearing wrongly in BZII.

To reset it to 0 on the main toobar on the bottom of the main viewport hover your mouse over the icons showing the 3 axes. If you click it it will expand to show the other icons associated with it.

One is for moving the axes to the center of the object and the other is for actually resetting the pivots to zero and is labeled, normalize rotation.

A handy little helper to keep displayed in the workspace is the object info window; right click the big white arrow and it'll popup in the main viewport. The popup window is useful for entering in values for the XYZ coordinates of the selected object including object rotation information.

A simple test can be done by creating a cube object, rotating the X axes to say 90 degrees, then using the above steps to reset the X axes back to 0 again; basically, you'll see the value change from 90 to 0 in the X value box of the object info window.

Resetting the pivots to 0 is needed otherwise your models and props may not not appear correctly in BZII. As soon as I have time I'll put together a simple TS tutorial for you to make a simple Sabre Tank. Their really fairly simple to make and the exercise will help you get familiar with the editing controls of TS.

[TheJamsh]

ar har... sorry i havent been around for a while... real life is being a little cruel...

i shall look into thees

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

TS, is proving to be somewhat of a pain in the you know what, but I do have something interesting to report about saving models created in TS 3.2 as ASC (3d Studio). At first in 3DEX 1.5 the model appeared sitting on it's tail pointing straight up. When I converted it to X the same orientation was repeated in the resulting X file. Strangely, in TS the model appears parallel with the grid as I originally constructed it. What I did to correct the ASC file to make it appear the same way in 3DEX was to to rotate the model in TS 90 degrees so that it now appeared on it's tail in TS. Then I moved the axes to the center of the model; basically 2 objects glued together one as a child to the other. Then I used the normalize rotation tool to reset the pivots again, and saved as ASC. To my surprise the model now appeared correctly, and the same applied to he ASC to X converted file too. Then I opened the X file in BZ2ME to check the axes orientation and sure enough everything checked out okay.

Hey JAM, saving as ASC in TS and following the steps described above appears to be the best way to use TS to make models and props for the game. I'll do some more tests to see how good the conversion from X to XSI in BZ2ME works in game.

Here's a screeny of my test model in both TS and 3DEX showing the results


So you could make the model, attach everything, texture it, then afterwards rotate it 90 degrees, move the axes to the center of the model, normalize the rotation, and then save the model as ASC. Then in 3DEX convert it to X, and open it in BZ2ME add the HP's if you didn't do it in TS and save it as XSI. Edit the ODF file you want to use and try it out in the BZII map editor. Sounds reasonable enough I guess. I'll have to try it out to see if their are any apparent bugs, but what the heck at least I'd be able to make a higher poly model then with GSL. Here goes nothing! LOL

[Zero Angel]

How many network cards do you have attached to your machine?

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I have only an ethernet hub and a USB file transfer cable that simulates a network card primarily for getting files from my old laptop to my desktop.

[mrtwosheds]

I create models on their tail pointing up. when I first save my models as .3ds, they appear pointing up in 3dex, but once converted to .x or .xsi they appear orientated the correct way in both 3dex and bz2.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I wonder if this is the way 3DS files are saved by default? I see the same results in 3DEX when saving as ASC out of TS 3.2. Which is good as both TheJamsh and myself are currently using TS to make models for BZII. I'm also using GSL still as it saves directly to X for easy opening into BZ2ME and out to XSI for the game. Both GSL and TS work together almost seamlessly as both support COB and SCN files interchangeably. GSL, appears to be a newer version then TS 3.2 with dates of 1997 and 1999. I'm going to more or less switch to TS for most future models and props and still use GSL for UV mapping and unwrapping as it has a simple to use UVW utility that exports to BMP format for making nice custom skins both from and to model texture maps. It supports face painting which are useful for color outlining poly sections that can be easily broken into simple shapes for exporting to a paint program. Separating the map and positioning it for the model painter much like the maps I've seen in common use already by other modelers creating skins for their ships. Hopefully, OM or some other person will get a decent XSI modeling utility working so that we can all start making some cool animated models too. 

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Apparently, X2XSI does write a readable animationset entry that 3DEX doesn't flag as an unsupported like the one added by BZ2ME with the edit frame thingy in it's options dialog. I wonder if it could be used to convert an animated X file to XSI, or has this already been attempted with negative results? I may try it just to see for myself.

PS: It also seems to handle the textures better too as in bz2me I seem to always have to go in to the edit material thingy and check the texture box to get it to appear on my model. x2xsi, already has the box checked when the file is loaded.

I'll try a simple animation in GSL, save as X, and convert it with x2xsi to see what happens. BNG crosses his fingers and says a wee prayer for the gods to be kind to him.

[mrtwosheds]

Even if it gets it wrong , see if the data is there.

[Avatar]

*slap*

About all that X2XSI does is write a new header...  it'll have the same info as the .X file...

-Av-

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

X2XSI also behaves differently between win xp and win me as does GSL between the 2 different os's. On win me the X files from GSL animate in 3DEX just fine, but on win xp there's no animation visible even though the play controls in 3DEX appear to function without error. What's even stranger yet is that X2XSI yields a runtime 53 file not found error under win me, but none when run under win xp. Why?

[mrtwosheds]

About all that X2XSI does is write a new header...  it'll have the same info as the .X file...

so which modeling programs can animate in .x?

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

GSL 1.5, 3DEX 1.5, and X2XSI, are the same under both OS's. How they are handled by each OS is the difference. I accessed the same models across my LAN (USB file transfer cable) and the non animated x files apparently are the ones that were generated by GSL on the XP OS. However, on the ME OS installed GSL animate just fine when saved the same exact way as X files. I double checked the GSL settings under both installs and they are the same, so it does not make any sense to me other then perhaps the operating differences between the older ME verses the newer XP. Sorry to confuse anyone but I don't how else to put it. Anyways, X2XSI converts fine to XSI from X under XP, but yields an error under ME. It makes me wonder if X2XSI came out after ME, or maybe my ME install lacks some dependency that XP has for which X2XSI needs to perform it's task of converting X fies to XSI? Don't really know for sure. So any animation testing that I do will have to use the XP installed X2XSI. However, I can still access the animated X files on my ME system and convert them to XSI to see how they fare in terms of what you ask about the data thing.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I converted an animated X file to XSI with X2XSI, and the data under the Animationset appears identical numerically. How would I test it in the map editor? Should I use a generic terrain ODF file? I more or less just want to check this out first before attempting to make an actual animated unit with an appropriate ODF for something more complex.