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Thread: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

  1. #1
    Razor's Avatar Licenced to insult
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    Default Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    Hi there,

    Quick question.
    I know that you can weight vertices to more than one bone. I was wondering if you can weight vertices to 3 bones. It's been a while for me and if someone knows the answer, that would be great.
    Last edited by Razor; July 29, 2020 at 04:26 AM.

  2. #2
    Vladyvid's Avatar Wizard of Turmish
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    Hey, yeah you can do it no problem. Like for example in the crotch area where i often use both thighs L and R and pelvis for some vertices.

  3. #3
    Razor's Avatar Licenced to insult
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    Thanks! Precisely for that.
    Unfortunately I can't rep you... Need to spread 'em more I guess.

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    Callistonian's Avatar Ducenarius
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    I hope you don't mind if I hijack this thread to ask: is it possible to assign vertices to multiple joints for strat models? GOAT and Toolbox both seem to assign all vertices 100% to single joints upon conversion to .cas which I infer to mean that the game must have strat models in this format. From what I can tell, the vertex will be assigned to the "majority shareholder" bone or the bone higher in the hierarchy in the case of a 50:50 split.

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    Razor's Avatar Licenced to insult
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    No problem.

    I'm pretty sure that's not possible. Back in Rome Total War .cas files were used for both units and strat models and you could only assign vertices to one bone, which explains your findings when converting to .cas with Toolbox and GOAT.

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    Callistonian's Avatar Ducenarius
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    As I understand it, Toolbox and GOAT are based in part on Vercingetorix' converter for RTW. Might it be possible that both tools are forcing .cas files to use binary vertex assignments in anticipation of use in RTW even though M2 actually allows it?

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    Vladyvid's Avatar Wizard of Turmish
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    Quote Originally Posted by Razor View Post
    Thanks! Precisely for that.
    Unfortunately I can't rep you... Need to spread 'em more I guess.
    No worries, glad i could be of some help.

    As I understand it, Toolbox and GOAT are based in part on Vercingetorix' converter for RTW. Might it be possible that both tools are forcing .cas files to use binary vertex assignments in anticipation of use in RTW even though M2 actually allows it?
    That could be true about the .cas files but then for milkshape or mesh files, i dont think that binary vertex assignment is forced by those tools. I would have to check later.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    It does look like GOAT only takes primary and secondary boneIDs for weighting when converting from and to Milkshape. Not sure wether MTW2 could handle three.
    The Cas file format for strat models look like they do only support one bone per vertex.
    Last edited by Jojo00182; July 31, 2020 at 06:38 PM.

  9. #9
    Callistonian's Avatar Ducenarius
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    Thanks for confirming Jojo.

  10. #10
    wilddog's Avatar Paintedwolves run free
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    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    I have been looking at various .cas and .mesh models recently in M2TW (though not the character ones) and as far as I can see for the ones I've looked at so far they appear to use:

    - A float pair for weights the first being the higher weight
    - the third value in a quad to identify the index of the joint for the first weight
    - the second value in the quad to show the index of the joint of the second weight.

    I haven't spotted the first value in the quad being used yet but it may be that if the pair of weights don't add up then possibly the first quad value is used.
    Last edited by wilddog; August 13, 2020 at 05:08 AM. Reason: correction to my original post

  11. #11

    Default Re: Can you weight vertices to 3 bones?

    Quote Originally Posted by Razor View Post
    No problem.

    I'm pretty sure that's not possible. Back in Rome Total War .cas files were used for both units and strat models and you could only assign vertices to one bone, which explains your findings when converting to .cas with Toolbox and GOAT.
    So, erm, wilddog had a look at the Rome cas's - there do appear to be some verts that are weighted to more than one bone - it's a bit of a convoluted process though - I'm not sure these elements go through the existing converters?

    Example found was on the officer_roman_centurian, by virtue of sharing the same mesh names, the shoulder pads seem to have a 'parent' relationship with the section of shoulder pad that is weighted 100% to torso. The two further separate sections of shoulder pad are nominally weighted to Lupperarm and Rupperarm respectively, but the weighting (either 0 or 0.5 in the original file) seems to then apply to the weighting of the upperarm versus the torso 0= weighted to torso & 0.5= 50/50 torso/upperarm!



    (We will post about this in RTW later, but wilddog is trying to get the RTW models in and out of Blender currently)

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