v1.3 - NTW Model Converter Now Released!

[T.C.]

Tell Primergy, that I'll have a look as soon as possible, please... thanks!

As a quick first reply:

About the import warning (3dsmax):
FBX doesn't store skeletons the way games do, but rather in a way that aims to be compatible across many different applications - this means they focus on storing the essential, nothing additional that is not needed. They don't store a bind-pose per se, but only the skinning information. As the mentioned bones in the warning probably don't skin the hat, but simply exist to preserve hierarchy, FBX loses information about the bind pose on export. It is simply not needed, however, it's obviously a loss of information. You kinda have control over that with the FBX SDK, but the plugin you use, well... it's written that way. Anyways, it should be safe to ignore this warning, for the 3dsmax import, but... maybe this creates a followup issue, later on.

Since a vanilla import/export works fine (correct?), I assume that there is something lost along the way. The comments file looks good, so the bone order and stuff shouldn't be a problem.

I'll check it out, soon

[Primergy]

I assume that there is something lost along the way.

yeah and that is annoying since i can't control whats going on while exporting :/.

[T.C.]

for primergy:

Sorry, I wasn't able to look at your data in detail, so far, but yes, there is unskinned data. This is basically what the vpm exporter tells you - check in 3dsmax, please, if there is unskinned data. And... since your testmodel is a hat, can you just simply set all the weights to 1 for a single "head"-bone in ms3d, and export? I don't intend you to setup your general workflow this way, of course - it would be just a test if that works. Tell me what happens, plz...
Cheers

[Primergy]

I tried it and i still get the same error, with the difference that the hat is isn't distorted but simply placed somewhere at the bottom.

I also took a look at the exported fbx file. Everything is skinned correctly but when i import the "czapka_exported_from_3dsmax2012" i get this errors:

[T.C.]

Hi,

well, I got some answers:

I got everything working fine with what I have, however I'm not quite sure about your workflow... let me recap:

- czapka_original_ms3d_file.ms3d looks correct
- czapka_exported_from_ultimate_unwrap.ms3d looks correct as well
- I'm unsure about the *.fbx files; I find more than one .fbx plugin for milkshape, online, at least that's what it looks like - which one did you use?
- czapka_exported_from_ms3d.variant_part_mesh looks like if it has been exported out of ms3d without being attached correctly to any bones - when exporting this out of ms3d, you need the skeleton in the scene; it is needed (along with the comments) to precalculate the vertex positions, correctly (as the file format stores it in a precalculated way - see last bigger post about the file format for details))

So, basically, my main questions for debugging (please answer every single one, as I don't have the game):
- does loading czapka_original_ms3d_file.ms3d into MS3D, then exporting to .variant_part_mesh result in a correct mesh in the game?
- does loading czapka_exported_from_ultimate_unwrap.ms3d into MS3D, then exporting to .variant_part_mesh result in a correct mesh in the game?
- which FBX plugin(s) did you use?
- please send me a .ms3d file of the scene right before exporting to .variant_part_mesh (should be your prior to last step in your workflow)

Thanks!

Additionally, I'm wondering why you only get 2 bone warnings on FBX reimport - the warning itself is a typical FBX issue (explained in one of my previous posts), however, you should get it for all bones that are not used to skin this hat.... maybe that FBX plugin is buggy?

What about this here, does this work reliably? http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1718

[Primergy]

Thanks for your answer

- does loading czapka_original_ms3d_file.ms3d into MS3D, then exporting to .variant_part_mesh result in a correct mesh in the game?

Staying within Milkshape works very good, no problems here .

does loading czapka_exported_from_ultimate_unwrap.ms3d into MS3D, then exporting to .variant_part_mesh result in a correct mesh in the game?

Also works good, aslong as you don't forget to export the comments before. .

- which FBX plugin(s) did you use?

For 3ds max i'm using fbx 2012. UU3D uses FBX Plugins version 2010.2.

[Primergy]

Ok i made some further tests and i have to say that the crash/problem appears even if i only exported the model from max (in 3ds) and then replace an imported vanilla model in milkshape. I didn't export any bones or weighting from max, i did this within milkshape.
To make it easy i used a hat model and attached it to the "head" bone, so i think i can say that i definitly didn't missed any vertex. Also comments are there.

Could it be that not the bones and exported weighting is the problem but something else?

My workflow worked with an earlier version, so my next step is to try an older plugin...

Edit:

Damn TC deleted the old versions :/

[♔hammeredalways♔]

let me know if one of these is ok, I probably have them all if you can remember the zip names

[T.C.]

@primergy:

Mh, weird, you must have some border case in your mesh. Sorry for asking, but what's not clear to me is what exactly crashes. The game or the export?
I'll check your newly attached file once more, and find attached beta 4 and 5. However, keep in mind, obviously, that those are betas and don't support all the features, so it might be more successful due to something simply missing... we'll see. Beta4 was, AFAIK the first one with an exporter, so it only handled type 1 models (which are the unit parts). Beta5 supports all types, but only makes use of the comments for the bone index, equipment names are truncated, etc.. The comment for the bone index can't be combined with the comment import/export plugin, as the format is different though.

I'll hopefully get around later to check your files, no guarantee, though.

Cheers

[Primergy]

Thanks i will try it .

Mh, weird, you must have some border case in your mesh. Sorry for asking, but what's not clear to me is what exactly crashes. The game or the export?

The Game crashes shortly before finish loading the battle map, at this point the models are loaded so it's definitly a model error. Also when i replace my exported model with a vanilla one, while keeping the path the same, the game runs fine.

-------

Well none of the beta's worked either, or better.. they working great aslong as you stick with Milkshape. But as soon as you export it to fbx, something get broken and unusable in the game :/.

And i think i tried nearly all possible combinations.. with bones, without bones, with comments without comments, v1, betas, default settings in the fbx exporter in max, non default settings and and and.

But it's even crashing when skinning the meshes in milkshape and somehow i can't believe that i'm doing the same thing wrong for weeks now.

I hope someone else makes some tests with fbx and milkshape, since i knew that there are people out there who have to use this way, and hopefully someone with milkshape uses this, so you don't get the feeling your spended free time was useless, but i will have to use the "old method" for now .

[B-DizL]

So it will work as long as you use milkshape?

I do my models in maya then export then as obj and attach then to bones in milkshape then go through UU3D so this work flow will work right now?

so you don't get the feeling your spended free time was useless

I made sure it wasnt useless

[Primergy]

I do my models in maya then export then as obj and attach then to bones in milkshape then go through UU3D so this work flow will work right now?

No UU3d needed, you can import the obj directly in milkshape.

For me this way didn't worked either (obj + skinning in milkshape) still a crash shortly before the end and a wrong placed model when imported into milkshape with the VPM importer.

Thats how it looks after reimporting with the vpm importer :/

Attachment 175341

But Bdizl... pls try it as soon as possible, it's quite important to know it thats a user error or a bug in the exporter :/.

[B-DizL]

Thats the problem, i have no idea how to do it

Could you maybe write up a short tutorial on how to do it, id really love to help out with the testing plus i got this bad boy ready to go...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[T.C.]

@primergy:

Sorry to hear all the issues you guys are having... in an ideal world, the game shouldn't crash, even with corrupt data, but well, nobody seems to have put checks in place. Do you get any information about the crash? Can you see any .cll names in the error message? I'm wondering if it crashes in some rendering code (might be weird shader settings) or something else. Unfortunately, I don't have the game...

Anyways, your vpm reimport into ms3d looks wrong - it looks like the hat didn't get skinned, at all. Lying sideways and on the ground is kinda how the precomputed meshes are stored, but as you can see by importing a vanilla mesh, then exporting it to .vpm, then importing this new .vpm should work, fine, so I assume that it really is not skinned. Do you still get the same warning on export, that something isn't skinned?
Or what is it skinned to on reimport? (you can use ms3d to select a bone and then display what it is skinned, to... although the ms3d workflow sucks a bit).

Can you come up with a very simple workflow and the models in that workflow? E.g. vanilla mesh for import, removing weights in ms3d, reskinning in ms3d, export, crash in game...

I'll happily debug and make this work, I just need some simple case to look at, b/c unmodified exports seem to work fine.

Btw. I never see you online on ICQ, that would help if we could just spent a few hours online to flesh things out.

Cheers

[Primergy]

Can you come up with a very simple workflow and the models in that workflow? E.g. vanilla mesh for import, removing weights in ms3d, reskinning in ms3d, export, crash in game...

Well, i already tried extremly simple things... i've created a box where a hat should be placed, deleted the vanilla files, duplicated the box and renamed everything to LOD0/LOD1 etc.
Then i selected all vertex went to the joint tab, selected the head bone and pressed assign.

During this stage the box - hat was definitly assigned to the bone.

Then i exported it, and after reimport, same error as above. So i think we can exclude that any 3rd Party tool causes the error (as i assumed previously). I will send you a file with the box- hat via topcat, later.

[T.C.]

>
>Mh... if you make a box inside of ms3d, where do you get the skeleton
>from, then?
>
>Another idea - could you check if equipment and plumes work with your
>workflow? E.g. loading a plume, saving comments, exporting to fbx,
>importing in 3dsmax, modifying, export back to fbx, reimport in ms3d,
>loading comments, export to .vpm?

[Primergy]

Finally, we could find the bug and a hotfix might be released the next few days.

The error is that all vertex needed to be assigned to 2 bones and not only one... anyway, watch my awesome cube hat!

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...64199015968021

[B-DizL]

Awesome man nice work! + rep

Reminds me of the block heads from gumbi lol

[The Hedge Knight]

Omg first bit of mine craft tw is done, nice work Primergy.

[T.C.]

v1.1 is now released

Hi,

Primergy and I finally got together to flesh out the issues, directly. Find attached version 1.1 - his models crashed b/c the game seems to expect 2 weights per vertex in ANY case, so even rigidly skinned models need the second weight, which will use any bone and a weight of 0 in that case. Makes sense to streamline the code, but well... didn't really expect this. Anyways, this should be fixed, now... once again, I don't have the game, so I'm working a bit caveman-style, meaning no guarantee that there won't be other bugs popping up.

Cheers

Files in OP