BZ2ME XSI to XSI using save as XSI animated model saves animation but...

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

...the model shows animation with some side effects. When played in 3DEX I notice that the animation was translated with full animation but it differs somewhat from the original XSI; an ATST from the XSI data pack. However, messed up it did sufficiently translate the animation information from the original to he saved as XSI essentially making a renamed but similar animated equivalent. BZ2ME, adds SI_FOG which the original does not can it be deleted without screwing up the file? It also appears to truncate XYZ numbers to reduce the quantity of zero's to none; is this a bad thing; or just more efficient to reduce the file size? Also it deletes spacing in the frametransformatrix sections; is this a bad thing too?

There are other differences between the 2 XSI files and I suppose these differences are what basically make the variant version somewhat unusable for BZII animated models even though the models are animating more or less.

I would eventually like to create a python script for converting ASC or X animated files to the BZII XSI format. Between ASC or X which would be the best candidate for said python script? X doesn't seem to translate very well to XSI, but I'm more familiar with it then the ASC format. However, I do notice that ASC seems to be a more widely used importable and exportable format supported by most 3d model making application. If there are any preferences or suggestion by anyone then feel free to post your comments and I'll try to add them to the feature list once I learn enough about python and begin putting together some experimental working test scripts. I've already obtained the SDK for TS 3.2 to study the information and will try to obtain the SDK for GMAX and B3D as well. With any luck and lots of patients something may result so that a decent free animation tool might be made available for BZII modelers.

[mrtwosheds]

Eh? Your editing xsi in bz2me and saving with animation...Your lucky it worked, every time I tried to with actual animation data it decided to combine the animations the way it thought they should be....not helpfull really. I always copy the anim section to a text file and paste it back in after saving.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Naw, I just opened the file in BZ2ME and saved it with another name to see what information was different when viewed side by side in notepad. The biggest problem I noticed is that it does indeed modify the original XSI information enough to literally screw up the resulting XSI file, and this in itself would result in the modeler needing to heavily re edit things back to the way that that 3DEX, and more importantly the game engine needs to see it.

Sometimes I think I do these exercises in futility just to see what the result is and try to tear the thing apart piece by piece like an engineer would do to test the limits of something, and then pose questions to others seeking feedback about possible solutions.   

[OvermindDL1]

I already have an exporter to B3D that saves as BZ2's XSI 1.0 format.  I still need to make a certain change to it, and figure out how animations and bones work in B3D in full so I can make the correct conversions to the old XSI format.  If you want to make any changes then just give me the updated version or a patch (or I can put it in SVN that you could have access to if you so wish).

[mrtwosheds]

After some considerable time of using bz2ME, I have come to a number of conclusions about a number of problems.
When using it with my own models, the only serious problem that appears is the pasted in texture crash.
The Incomplete data set problem,(editor crash on loading model) I have only really seen while editing stock models, ie things made in SI.xsi. (no real issue here, If you want to edit si.xsi models get SI.xsi)

The Animation ruination is, I suspect, results from BZ2ME expecting a layout format different from SI xsi.

As far as Animation is concerned I believe what is happening is this.

SI.xsi only puts in the "SI_Animationkey" that is required eg a linear movement or/and a rotation.

BZ2ME expects to have both, 2 "SI_Animationkey" for every animationset defining both linear movement and a rotation even if they are not needed. So when you save an anim with bz2me it attempts to create that structure, which may not have existed in the original SI.xsi

This would explain why it breaks my animations by attempting to join 2 separate animations together, Often I would create a linear animationset and a rotation animationset for different frames, BZ2me joins these together as one animationset with 2 animationkeys for the same frame, which does not work as the data in it does not addup to a working animation. (crash)
So it seems to me that the the way through this is to create animations the way BZ2ME wants to see them or avoid its input.

BNG what s/w did you create those .x animations with? It can supply the important numbers, all that is needed is to adjust a few headers to be compatable.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Tanks OM, I'm trying different things with python for both Blender and Truespace 3.2.

MTS, the original X file was created in GSL 1.5, as it's X format reads good into both X2XSI and BZ2ME. The TS X format generates multiple errors when I save them in TS and try to load them into BZ2ME; crashing it altogether. 3DEX, will load it okay as I recall.

I wonder if someone can tell me if I can use an X file, modifying an ODF, editing the geometry name to read myunit.x instead of myunit.xsi as I have been doing with past non-animated models?