Importing weighted models into SI3D 4.0 - Printable Version

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Importing weighted models into SI3D 4.0 - buu342 - 04-19-2019

Hello,

Does Softimage's direct x import work well? From the list of import formats, .x seems to be the only format on there that supports animations, and even then that seems buggy to me. I've exported a direct x model from Blender, edited the file with a text editor to use version 0302 (because Blender exports 0303, and that version fails to load on SoftImage). The imported model is fine, and the bones seem to animate, but the model is imported without any weights whatsoever. 

Here are my export settings on Blender (I've experimented with all sorts of different values for this by the way):




And the import settings on SI3D:



And this is the result:




Is this a bug in your versions of SI3D 4.0 as well? Is there some option or step I'm missing to connect the model's weights to the bones? If it's just an issue with Blender's .x export, would you happen to have any other plugins for SI3D which support animations, that can be exported from a modern 3D modeling program? 

The reason I have to use SI3D is because it is one of the few 3D modelers out there that comes with perfect export support for the Nintendo64, both by allowing the models to be exported to C code directly or to NIFF version 1 or 2. 

Here's a copy of the .blend and .x file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dQkqzY5QWTZ4T_y1muJ_EtNKOVRopSlI/view?usp=sharing

Thank you for your time!

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RE: Importing weighted models into SI3D 4.0 - Intuition - 04-21-2019

Hmm, I thought someone would have chimed in on this by now.

I wonder if you can manually load the weightmaps from Blender?

In Maya we can use a black and white weight map to send/receive weights.

I wonder if it just needs a basic weight applied to the mesh?
One thing though is it looks like it just sent over locators vs joints/bones.

You'll need the joints/bones to make the mesh move and these imports may just be locators moving where the joints were from Blender.

Its rare that you can export a rigged character between applications because each application has different joint/bones rig heirarchies.
What you may need to do is create a skeleton for the character that is snapped to the locator positions.

This might drive the animation from Blender. The trick would be in trying to streamline this workflow.

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RE: Importing weighted models into SI3D 4.0 - buu342 - 04-21-2019

(04-21-2019, 04:50 PM)Intuition Wrote:  Hmm, I thought someone would have chimed in on this by now.

I wonder if you can manually load the weightmaps from Blender?

In Maya we can use a black and white weight map to send/receive weights.

I wonder if it just needs a basic weight applied to the mesh?
One thing though is it looks like it just sent over locators vs joints/bones.

You'll need the joints/bones to make the mesh move and these imports may just be locators moving where the joints were from Blender.

Its rare that you can export a rigged character between applications because each application has different joint/bones rig heirarchies.
What you may need to do is create a skeleton for the character that is snapped to the locator positions.

This might drive the animation from Blender. The trick would be in trying to streamline this workflow.

The direct x import plugin for blender is horrible, as it's user made (meaning it's missing about half of the features), so I can't directly say whether or not my exported .x model is broken as well or not (which was why I included it in the download link, in hopes someone could check to see if it's working on their end on another tool). 

I'm not sure what you mean by manually load the weights. Do you mean edit them? Blender uses a painting method for placing weights on a model, which colors it blue (for no weights), red (for full weights), or green/yellow (depending on how much weight). 

The bones probably look weird because the model was originally in SMD format, which is used for Valve's Source Engine. In blender, the importer shrinks the size of the bones so they end up looking like little spheres:



I don't think the issue is related to the look or size of the bones, nor the fact they're not connected. A fully "normal" armature where every bone is connected doesn't work either when imported into SI3D from Blender's exported .x format.

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RE: Importing weighted models into SI3D 4.0 - Intuition - 04-22-2019

Well, I am pretty sure that the importer is not bringing in a softimage rig. That is most likely the primary problem. That even though it has the geometry and it has locators/nulls where the joints/bones should be there isn't a Softimage joints/bones/rig created with the import so you see the locators moving where the joints would be. Since there is just a mesh that isn't attached to a joint/rig there most likely isn't weights applied either.

This may be less about Blender's capabilities and more about Softimage retroactively being able to interpret the data coming from Blender.

I can't say I have ever seen much documentation on this process, if any, and yet there were entire n64 development routes created from SGI to N64 but I don't think Blender was ever in the picture during that era.

In Maya I could script a process that would turn the locators into joints and then skin the mesh to the joints. Then you would need to create a way to get the weight maps to translate to the colors that softimage uses. Maya is black to white.

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RE: Importing weighted models into SI3D 4.0 - Intuition - 05-01-2019

One thing I just thought of today was wondering if Softimage 3|D can import the FBX format. It existed as far back as 1996. It was meant to contain joint hierarchies and may possibly be a way of moving the animation from Blender to Softimage.

Just a thought. I am not near my SGI this week or I'd test it.

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