Building animated models in 3DS Max?

mcase@digitald.com · Post by **mcase@digitald.com** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:34 am

I wanted to use 3D Max 5.0 to build my character models. I am using the Pandasoft .X file exporter, and using bones and skinning on my model. The model appears in Irrlicht, but doesn't animate. An error is displayed : "Unknown Joint referenced in x file: Bone02", but the bone seems to be defined. Another error is displayed : "CXAnimationPlayer: Animationtrack without corresponding joint found: Bone03".

Has anyone been able to use an animated model made with 3DS in the Irrlicht engine? If so, where am I going wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

bitplane · Post by **bitplane** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:46 am

Open and save your mesh in the meshviewer (mview.exe) included in the directx sdk.
you can find a copy here-
http://gdlib.net/uploads/downloads/2_mview.zip

also, it would be nice if you could post your troublesome mesh somewhere online so we can fix the loader. if you don't want to share it with the world, please email it to me, I promise to only share it with the other devs as a test case.

Athlon_Jedi · Post by **Athlon_Jedi** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:47 pm

I use 3ds max 9 and have found that if rename your biped parts with the schematic view to Directx conventions i.e . Use_Underscores not spaces for your parts like so:

left_foot, Left_leg,

and not :

left foot, left leg,

it does 2 things,

1 makes the export easyer cause panda wont rename joints( which is whats happining in this case )

and 2 makes mview optional

if you make sure you export to left handed system , and flip normals. : )

mcase@digitald.com · Post by **mcase@digitald.com** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:41 am

Thanks for the tip...meshviewer displays it fine...and after saving using mview, new information was added to the file...but it still didn't work...

I have no problem sharing the example...it's just a basic cylinder with no textures animated with bones skinning...

Before mview:
www.digitald.com/bones.X
After mview:
www.digitald.com/bones2.X

By the way...should I use IAnimatedMeshSceneNode:setMD2Animation("Anim-1")?
It's unclear from the documentation if I need to initialize the animation using this method...but I tried both ways, with and without it...

Thanks!
Michael

mr.Zog · Post by **mr.Zog** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:05 am

Try the b3d format, imho it works better and is easier to handle.
Here's a how to (as soon as you want to access a bone you'll be happy to have used it

):
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=19179

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:47 pm

Both meshes load with the latest SVN version, but the first seems distorted. So I guess you can use the second one with the next Irrlicht release.

mcase@digitald.com · Post by **mcase@digitald.com** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:27 am

mr.Zog:

I read the post you recommended. I tried using FragMotion to load the .x file and it animated in FragMotion fine. I then saved it as a .b3d, and loaded it in Irrlicht. Again, there was no animation...what do you use for making character models?

hybrid:

When you say "Both meshes load with the latest SVN version", what do you mean by the "latest SVN version"? Is this a beta of the next Irrlicht release? Did the meshes not only load, but also animate correctly?

And you say "So I guess you can use the second one with the next Irrlicht release.", does this mean there will be a new release to fix this problem soon? Any idea of the release date?

Thanks to both of you for your help!

Luke · Post by **Luke** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:50 am

I then saved it as a .b3d, and loaded it in Irrlicht. Again, there was no animation...what do you use for making character models?

The b3d loader will times frames numbers by 100. so the 320 frame mesh will have 32000 frames. The animation will be to slow to see if you don't set the speed right.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:07 pm

mcase@digitald.com wrote: When you say "Both meshes load with the latest SVN version", what do you mean by the "latest SVN version"? Is this a beta of the next Irrlicht release? Did the meshes not only load, but also animate correctly?

And you say "So I guess you can use the second one with the next Irrlicht release.", does this mean there will be a new release to fix this problem soon? Any idea of the release date?

latest SVN version means the latest development version (kind of alpha/beta) which is available from the project page/SVN.
The second loaded, displayed, and animated correctly (as far as I could tell).
No, it does not mean that the next release is near, but it means that it is fixed already, so no chance to miss this for the next release (hmm, only a very low chance near 0). And no, no fixed date for the next release, yet. But you can have a look at the Wiki which might be more informative on this.

mcase@digitald.com · Post by **mcase@digitald.com** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:37 am

Thanks Luke...I used "model->setAnimationSpeed(100)" and the model animated correctly...still a lot of hoops to jump through to get a model into Irrlicht...and I haven't even tried a textured model yet...

hybrid:
Thanks for the update on the latest code state...but an SVN release? I guess I have to install a UNIX shell to get that "subversive" release...it sounds really difficult to get...can you just post a link to it on the Wiki?

Thanks so much guys!
Michael

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 10:53 am

Read the Bug forum's sticky about the SVN code. Subversion clients are available for all platforms.

Irrlicht Engine