Messages

Hmm, the hp's are getting an an extra frame added called axis1-whatever for each hp which essentially are flat 2 sided triangles. Maybe I'll remake them in TS into 3 sided triangles and resave as COB again...OMG my head is spinning, but here goes nutin' honey! Roger that MTS will try that next.

As you can see from this screen grab the model looks distorted yet the weapon hardpoints are all there, functional, and appear to fire in the forward direction as well. The model was saved as a COB ASCII text file. In 3DEX 1.5.5 the model appears fine, but when I save it as XSI the model appears on it's nose afterwords. It seems to fly well and the eyepoint looks straight ahead when I fly the thing. When I apply a presave transformation in 1.5.5 the the model geometry goes to hell quite literally. Any ueful suggestions would certainly earn my most esteemed respect and admiration...what I'm asking is Rudolf with your nose so bright won't you guide my sleigh tonite...sincerely Santa Claus.

I've been testing COB model files for conversion to XSI using version 1.5.5. exporter. The models appear pointed downward when converted from COB to XSI; the same is true when the model spawns in BZII. 3DEX, has an option panel where transformations can be manaully set prior to converting between formats. I enabled one setting to rotate the X axis 90 degrees to correct for the XSI exporter outputing the model pointing downward by default. The resulting model looks fine in 3DEX, but in game...boy does the model look totally wierd. All the parts are pointing ever which way rather then all being oriented properly. The default XSI models look fine in game except that they point downward, but when I apply a presave option to rotate the model X parameter 90 degree every model part is pointed in many different directions. Does that mean that every part of the model needs the X plane set to 90 degrees? Tanks are cool...BNG.

I generally satisfied with the XSI files created by the 1.5.5 3dex XSI exporter using X model files out of TS7.6. I now have a way to do BZII animated models with relatative ease. I still have to manually edit BZII depend object names in Notepad, but aside from that my models do work in BZII with animation.

I'm testing the COB exporter out of TS, but the resulting models are not converting well at all; the models are all messed up when viewed from within the game. The HP's work, but the pivot points on every part look horrible. I don't really know why as they look fine in 3dex? The process also requires that models be constructed from bottom to top (pointing up like a misslie on a launch pad) in the workspace when using the COB exporter in TS; otherwise they convert upside down when converted to XSI. What I'm testing now are the pre-save options in 3dex that allow the X Y Z values to be preset prior to converting COB to XSI to overcome the issue described above. I've already set the X value to 90 degrees and the resulting XSI model appears correctly oriented, but in game it looks like a mess. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I might try adjusting to get things right? Tanks, BNG. 

As I recall Renegade was modable with a GMAX gamepack too. Never, really figured out how to use it, but the game has some intensely cool models like the Stealth tank and the games own version of the Savenger. Now that I'm figuring out how to make animated models I may make my own version of the mammoth

Just as a simple update I used all three copied from the ivsout ODF. Then I made several animations with TS7.6 and converted all of them to X, and then to XSI with the XSI converter used by 3DEX 1.5.5. The animations work fine now with the exception of the flame_1__h part; still need to flip them both 180 to point downward.

...and here I thought you meant the C&C Renegade Mammoth, a 4 tracked behemoth with rockets and heavy armor. Must be a BZI model right? Were there any BZI models that made there way into BZII. As I recall some Mods like COW used quite a few. Was animation used in BZI? Don't really know too much about the origin that started it all. The mammoth looks like a early tank design I made when I first started making models with GSL; crude but gets the job done just fine.

I guess that would need to be reset to 180 degrees and yes the X model was converted using the 1.5.5 XSI converter. I think I messed it up last time because I added spaces after the hp names; which somehow screwed up the texture read thingy. I may try saving COB out of TS7.6 as COB is native TS format which 1.5.5 also reads both binary and text, and it does not add any extra characters to the object names in the parts list of the model. Plus I'm still getting used to keyframing which is a bit tricky for me now. BNG.

I think what I'm going to try now is using the TS COB exporter with animation as it does not appear to add anything to the parts names like the X exporter does. Then convert the COB to XSI via 1.5.5 and see what happens. TS also exports 3DS and ASC. Should be simple enough to do as the models already prepared in the workspace now...vish me luck fellers. BNG.

The 3DS, ASC didn't work with 3DEX, but I am making some progress with the COB format. Unfortunately, the model needs to be rotated up 90 on the models butt and the pivots reset to 0 0 0 again. More to come as I continue to unravel alternatives.

I did some testing with other export formats out of TS with 3DS, ASC, and COB, but done seem to do very well at all. The X exporter appears to be the best way to get animations to 3DEX 1.5.5 for exportation via it's XSI exporter. The remaining drawback is that the X file still needs some editing magic in a text editor to remove some extra characters the TS X exporter adds, namely a -number that if not removed makes BZII hp's and other related parts like __h non working. I get rid of them by doing a global replace in Notepad to create a space after the affected part name. Then after saving the X file again it's ready to be converted to XSI using the 1.5.5. XSI exporter.

What really surprizes me is that BZII can actually read a texture file with the TextureFilename = entry as apposed to the traditional SI_Texture2D typically found in a standard BZII style XSI model file within the actual 1.5.5 produced XSI model file. No doubt probably due to BZII supposed compatibility with the X format? Anyways, for those wishing to make some animated models for BZII (that don't already have another method) can keep in touch with me so that I can teach them the basics of modeling with TS7.6 and the other processes I use to make both static and animated BZII XSI models.

3DEX 1.5.5 is freely available at Dutch Boy's  http://www.dutch-boy.com/, but the program requires a key generator to unlock the the XSI exporter which I forget where I got it from, so you'd have to do a web search for  it.

I was able to avoid using Threed altogether. What worked for me was using 3dex 1.5.5 and TS 7.6. I made animation files for forword, reverse, and neutral from a single copied model. I also added the animation entries from the ivscout to my Talon variant ODF, and converted the X file models to XSI using the XSI exporter in 3dex 1.5.5. To my total surprize the model actually was using the animations in game. None of the hardpoints work yet as I need to edit them in notepad to delete some extra characters that the TS X exporter adds by default. What really shocked me is that the texture I applied also appeared on the model as well; in the past it never appeared which I thought was due to 3dex not renaming TextureFilename to SI_Texture2D.

What I need to check out now is doing more animations.

Hoorah, I finally got a model into BZII that uses the illusive animation thingy. How did I do it? The models were created in Truespace 7.6. 4 models were copied from a single model and renamed to include 1 each with 00, sn, sf, and sr. Each model was keyframed seperately in the same TS workspace. Then each were saved in the X format. Afterwords, each was converted using 3dex 1.5.5. with the XSI exporter to my addon folder. I had to borrow the animation section from the ivscout and paste it in my modified Talon ODF as it did not include this part. I've included a zip file for anyone wanting to try out the model in BZII.

Please note that while the model works in game it has no weapon hard points as I still need to manually edit the hp_names to get them to be recognized by BZII; this oddity caused by the TS X exporter adding -number at the end of the hp_whatever name. However, it is pilotable and the original texture is applied as well; apparently, BZII can read a texture entry using TextureFilename =.
<iframe title ="Preview" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" frameborder="0" style="width:98px;height:115px;padding:0;background-color:#fcfcfc;" src="http://cid-380832c976843acb.skydrive.live.com/embedicon.aspx/Public/Ivmark00.zip"></iframe>

As I mentioned every 3d modeler uses it own version for animating bones, joints and geometry that is pysically connected together. TS and B3d are no exception as well as Max and other popular modeling packages. The issue if further complicated by BZII exclusive using of a now outdated XSI format. I guess that's why I was wondering if some work could be done prior to release of the next beta to somewhat update BZII abiltity to read a newer version of XSI text based model files, so us modeling igits can make some animated XSI files to proper way rather then trying make stuff using the old format for which there generally doesn't appear to be any usable conversion tools...pant, pant, pant...what do you say fellers! Whoa, Sparky...down boy!

Cool, actually the unit bears no resemblance at all to the Talon with the exception of having all the same hp_part names in the model; the geometry is completely of my own design. I was refering to the ODF parameters.

I sort of figured out a way to borrow the animation sections from an X model text file, but I need to confirm the rotation = 0 and translation = 2 values as per what MTS mentioned about what numbers BZII uses to play an animation. You see I am trying to use a Threed created XSI animation template to edit that with notepad; it works in 3dex, but I must be missing something as when I load it in BZII I'm not seeing any animation. I also figured out that in order to see animation even on stock BZII models the object detail or some other parameter needs to set to high in the graphic settings panel of BZII. I noticed this the day when loading some stock models like the Tug and Scavenger into the game and not seeing any animation that is until I increased the levels to high on everything. This is something I never really thought much about until I noticed it not actually being visible due to some game settings.
Which is why I'm asking if a single animation will play if BZII also expects a set of animation files.

My undrstanding of bone animation is that it's typically the  most difficult animation type to export correctly due to the variations used by different 3d modeling systems as far as bones are concerned. Someone, mentioned that vertex animations are more easily translated across modeling platforms then bone animation.

What works great in the modeler itself seems to suffer when converting the modelers native bone system to other formats like X, 3ds, and XSI. For example, I created 2 rounded cylinders touching each other to form a basic human arm. Then I built a skeleton with 2 joints; one for the shoulder and a second for the elbow, and attached the bone assembly and rounded cylinders together. I set a single axis from which the shoulder and elbow could pivot along a single axis like a real arm. Then I set a single keyframe with a total of 5 frames and then moved the joints to set the IK animation up. It played fine in GSL with both cylinders moving fairly smoothly along with the bone structure. However, when I exported the arm as an X file and opened it up in 3dex to check it out the animation it did absolutely nothing. I've exported animation before that didn't use bones at all instead they were done with simple keyframe move and rotation animation. These play fine in 3dex, but bone animation was a no go....

Are all required? Could I try a single animation say forword without the others? At this point I'm basically testing animations and would prefer to keep it simple. Would excluding the other animations screw things up? Tanks, BNG.

My model is based off the FE Cerberi Talon. I believe the class supports 3 animations forword, backword and strafe as well as nuetral right? My model has an engine pod assembly (single object 2 actual pods) each has a flame_ __h and hp_trail_. I want the pods to point down in nuetral, forword going straight, and backword flying in reverse. Would I need to move the assembly axis to the center of it to pivot correctly?

As a reference like the jump jets the Brits and Marines use. I believe that I only need to use rotional based keyframes to pull it off right?