Floating shields and weapons

[PurpleScotch]

My new spearman model is suffering from the floating weapons and shields syndrome. At first I made 6 shields and 3 spears for those guys to use, I got this syndrome so I deleted 2 shields and 1 spear because I thought the reason was too many varieties of shields and spears.

When I reload an affected model, the skin is assigned to the abs bone or some other bone I did not set the veritices to. I tried fixing the model into the proper skin modifiers, then I get the syndrome again...any ideas?

NOTE: The model skin modifiers are messed up right after I export it using KnightErrant's .ms3d exporter/importer for 3dsmax.
NOTE2: I'm not sure if this helps, but the 6 shields and 3 spears are all done from scratch, with the skin modifier and UV map also done from scratch.

Here's the model in-game AFTER I deleted the 2 shields and spears:
Click to view--> Attachment 7751





EDIT: I just remembered, I connected the weapons to the weapons bone on the right hand, and the shields to the elbow bone, but after I export, the skin modifiers get mixed up and the weapons get connected to the other weapon bone and the shields to the abs or torso bone, thus they start floating.

But I have no solution to it, thanks for reading, and hope you help (and +rep if you do! )

[PurpleScotch]

Any help? Please.

[Musculus Maximus]

I think you must merge the shield to the hand bone not to the elbow bone, but not sure :hmmm:

regards muscu

[KnightErrant]

Hi killerxguy,

I'll PM you an e-mail address. Could you attach
the .ms3d file and send it to me? I'll look at it in Milkshape and then
import and export it to and from Gmax to see if I can find a bug
in the code.

[KnightErrant]

Hi killerxguy,

Sorry, I got your e-mail and model and e-mailed back but it bounced.
I'm going to try again and if the same thing happens I'll find a place to upload
the reassigned model. After reassingments, the model looks ok in Milkshape
but the best test is put it in game, then import it into 3ds Max and export
it again and try that. If the assignments are messed up then it's a bug
in the importer/exporter.

[PurpleScotch]

Ok, thanks .

You can upload it at www.filefront.com .

EDIT: Or you can attach it to your post via a zip file.

[KnightErrant]

Ok, uploaded it here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/84513424...gned.ms3d.html

Let me know how it looks in game and what happens if you import and then
export it again.

[PurpleScotch]

Hmm...I exporter your model, and then imported it again. It seems the model is still in-tact. I noticed you weighed all vertices in both the spears and shields to the pelvis bone but with the value 0, so that the model doesn't revert to those. I thought about this method before.
Or maybe it's something else, but anyways, the model seems normal, I'll test it in-game and report back on any news.

Thanks!

[DisgruntledGoat]

I'm experiencing the same problem. All the actual assigned weights are correct (the number values) but the bones have been changed. For example the verts I assigned to the pelvis are now assigned to the abs and the verts I assigned to the left thigh are now the right arm. Weapons and shields were all assigned to the pelvis when they were assigned to the left elbow and right hand before. Prior to exporting using v1.1 of your script everything animated correctly. I'm not familiar with Max scripts but I think the issue resides in whatever method you are using to translate the assigned bones something is criss-crossing the assignments.

More info:

Oddly enough when I re-import the messed up file into then export it the bones aren't swapped and nothing is changed. So it seems only weights that are assigned AFTER importing a model are effected by this bug.

[DisgruntledGoat]

NVM, I thought I had discovered a work around, however weights are still being screwed up upon exporting. It appears that the exporter cannot handle partial weights for whatever reason. What I previosly believe to be a work around only works with verts assigned a 1.0 weight to a bone. Any other weight with a secondary bone is either discarded or corrupted and assigned to another bone.

[SigniferOne]

It has to do with the unit's vertices not being weighted. Most likely.

Go to Milkshape Vertices menu and Auto-assign all weights.

[DisgruntledGoat]

Actually it doesn't. Its a bug with 3ds Max and KE's script. Maybe not in the newer versions, but I know 7 has a problem. If you change any value of a weight upon exporting the entire skin modifier is corrupted. The solution (if you don't want use milkshape) is to do your modeling etc in 3ds max. create your skin modifier, assign all the verts to say the pelvis then export. Import into Gmax (free) and do the skinning there with KE's bone weights script.

[SigniferOne]

I wasn't even using 3dsmax, I was referring to this problem occurring in Milkshape. For Max different solutions will have to apply.

[PurpleScotch]

Any news KnightErrant?

[DisgruntledGoat]

I've been chatting with KE via email. I've been reporting to him the things I have found regarding his MS3D export script and max. So far he isn't too sure what is going on. What basically is happening is this. His script works great with max so long as you do not edit a skin modifier for a mesh or create a new mesh and give it a skin modifier. The second you do that upon export that mesh will have a wonky skin modifier. So what happened to you was you merged the shields and spears into your model gave them a skin modifier and when you export it the weights remained correct however the bones were switched all over the place. So far there doesn't seem to be an apparent reason why this happens in 3ds max and not in Gmax. So the quick and dirty (and relatively easy) solution to this problem is simple export your models from 3dsmax with your skin modifier you edited/created, import them into Gmax edit the skin then export again. I've been following that process with my own work and have had no problems with models at all. Gmax is free and is basically a nerfed version of 3ds max. You can find it here:

http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax

[PurpleScotch]

Thanks for the info, but when I used Gmax, I exported again, and got the same problem...it's strange.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

EDIT: What I did was opening the messed up file, deleting the skins, making new ones and exporting it. Then I opened it with 3dsmax, and found out it's messed up, once again.

[DisgruntledGoat]

Thanks for the info, but when I used Gmax, I exported again, and got the same problem...it's strange.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

EDIT: What I did was opening the messed up file, deleting the skins, making new ones and exporting it. Then I opened it with 3dsmax, and found out it's messed up, one again.

Try doing it with Gmax without deleting the skins, just redo the weights.

[PurpleScotch]

Tried that just now...same problem .
What exactly do you do?

[DisgruntledGoat]

That is really odd. Cause both me and Ke have no problems with exporting from Gmax. What I do is pretty simple I create my entire model win 3dsmax, weight it (so I can get an idea of what I need to do, speeds up the process in Gmax since I know what all the verts need to be) and export it. With the shields I weight them to the left elbow and with the weapons I actually weight them straight to the right hand (not the weapons bones). I import this exported model into Gmax, check to see if my some miracle the weights are fine (never is thought) then edit the wieghts back to where they are suppose to be. I export it to the xml format, then convert that xml to ms3d and then check that ms3d in 3dsmax, make any changes to UV layouts or add duplicates of meshes (for variations) and re-export (if I have made any changes).

[KnightErrant]

@killerxguy and DisgruntledGoat,

Sorry, been away from the discussion. We might be looking at two
different things here. DisgruntledGoat has been using an experimental
script, BoneAndWeightInfo.ms to do assignments. If I remember correctly
I didn't send this to killerxguy so you must be assigning bones and weights
using either the weight table or the envelopes. (If my memory is faulty
please let me know.) You may have uncovered
something in 3ds Max where the information about assignments isn't being
read out correctly by the Max Script.

killerxguy: could you tell us how you do assignments in 3ds Max, i.e. weight
table or envelopes?

DisgruntledGoat has definitely found a difference in the way assignments
work between Gmax and 3ds Max. I would have thought an unsupported
application like Gmax would have a bug in it that was fixed in the
supported versions of 3ds Max but it SEEMS it's the other way around,
Gmax works correctly on export and outputs the correct bone assignments
and 3ds Max doesn't. Hard for me to debug because I don't have 3ds Max
to play with.