Torque3D rigging and animation
by Bryan Morgan · in Torque 3D Beginner · 01/16/2011 (5:52 am) · 16 replies
I have spent countless hours trying to reverse engineer the rigging and node heirarchy required in Blender to export to Torque3D using COLLADA. The main reason I have to use COLLADA is because I can't find the DTS exporter anywhere but the blender repository and the links won't work. Also, I never trusted the DTS exporter since it was never finished even to support TGEA and TGE. I've noticed that the official documentary is finally more detailed regarding COLLADA but it misses any mention of exporting a rig. The node heirarchy I'm trying to use is as follows:
bip01 is the armature and it has all the bones listed in the dsq files but it also has additional bones. Would additional bones mess with the animation? I would think that the animation would just ignore those bones, unfortunately when I add a sequence to the mesh (which seems to load fine as everything renders correctly) using the shape editor the mesh just flails about and none of the bones move in any way remotely like the animation should be.
Should the armature perhaps be somewhere else? Or would it just be the additional bones? I tried it using just the bones in the animation but it still didn't work so I figured it was how I'm exporting the armature.
I'm really hoping there are some guru technical artists out there that can help me with this.
+base01 -+detail32 -+start01 -+bip01 -+body32
bip01 is the armature and it has all the bones listed in the dsq files but it also has additional bones. Would additional bones mess with the animation? I would think that the animation would just ignore those bones, unfortunately when I add a sequence to the mesh (which seems to load fine as everything renders correctly) using the shape editor the mesh just flails about and none of the bones move in any way remotely like the animation should be.
Should the armature perhaps be somewhere else? Or would it just be the additional bones? I tried it using just the bones in the animation but it still didn't work so I figured it was how I'm exporting the armature.
I'm really hoping there are some guru technical artists out there that can help me with this.
#2
I'm really surprised less people use Blender for Torque since it's free and pretty much has every feature both Maya and 3DS Max has. If more people used it, it would probably even have a physX plugin.
EDIT: To my utter amazement Milkshape3D can't import COLLADA files(It imports nearly every other format ever made) or any other format that Blender exports to that includes rigging data. I doubt Milkshape3D even supports IK, so I'm not even going to attempt to rerig the thing in Milkshape3D.
01/16/2011 (4:16 pm)
I own a license for Milkshape3D, so if I must I can use that to export to DTS, but that adds an additional step to the artwork pipeline which I would hope to avoid. I've put the armature literally everywhere possible in the heirarchy so it's positioning in the heirarchy is definitely not the problem. It must be something like you said with an offset stored in the rigging, but I've cleared the transformations as far as I know how.I'm really surprised less people use Blender for Torque since it's free and pretty much has every feature both Maya and 3DS Max has. If more people used it, it would probably even have a physX plugin.
EDIT: To my utter amazement Milkshape3D can't import COLLADA files(It imports nearly every other format ever made) or any other format that Blender exports to that includes rigging data. I doubt Milkshape3D even supports IK, so I'm not even going to attempt to rerig the thing in Milkshape3D.
#3
That's in my opinion the unique package with decent exporters for Torque (I'm pretty sure not everybody think the same but I think the most of the people agree)
01/16/2011 (8:17 pm)
That's the reason we unfortunately have to deal with 3DS Max! :-(That's in my opinion the unique package with decent exporters for Torque (I'm pretty sure not everybody think the same but I think the most of the people agree)
#4
If you purchase LightWave 9 before version 10 ( just released ) actually ships, then you can get the entire package for roughly $849.. or roughly 1200 after version 10 ships from NewTek.
Fortunatly I made my purchase 2 months ago and version 10 just got released but hasn't shipped yet.
One reason the Internet isn't plastered with How-To videos for Lightwave is partially from the ease of use, the other reason is NewTek let their product slide into the forgotten zone when some of their engineers left them to make Modo.
But if your looking for a 3D package to do everything you need for T3D games.. LightWave is the way to go.. Just my humble opinion.
p.s. LightWave 9 was used for the recent hit Movie "Avatar"
01/16/2011 (8:49 pm)
LightWave 3D is cheaper, easy to use, Includes everything you need to make content for Torque and exports to Collada which T3D directly imports.If you purchase LightWave 9 before version 10 ( just released ) actually ships, then you can get the entire package for roughly $849.. or roughly 1200 after version 10 ships from NewTek.
Fortunatly I made my purchase 2 months ago and version 10 just got released but hasn't shipped yet.
One reason the Internet isn't plastered with How-To videos for Lightwave is partially from the ease of use, the other reason is NewTek let their product slide into the forgotten zone when some of their engineers left them to make Modo.
But if your looking for a 3D package to do everything you need for T3D games.. LightWave is the way to go.. Just my humble opinion.
p.s. LightWave 9 was used for the recent hit Movie "Avatar"
#5
Oh, I don't animate or do much of anything in Milkshape other than exporting to DTS. Good SMD support and a few others...but no DAE is correct. I believe you may be able to Export to the format, though.[my own opinion is that FBX is DaBOMB]
I might open so other filetype, but I do all or most of my work in something other than Ms3d.
01/16/2011 (9:40 pm)
@Bryan Oh, I don't animate or do much of anything in Milkshape other than exporting to DTS. Good SMD support and a few others...but no DAE is correct. I believe you may be able to Export to the format, though.[my own opinion is that FBX is DaBOMB]
I might open so other filetype, but I do all or most of my work in something other than Ms3d.
#6
Blender also exports to COLLADA which T3D directly imports, unfortunately when exporting to COLLADA you have to know the node heirarchy and there's nothing in the Torque documentation regarding skinned meshes. Don't know a great deal about LightWave, but Blender has been used for several movies now and is even developed by creating opensource movies and developing features as that movie requires it. As of 2.5 it is now pretty much identical to Maya and 3DS Max in regards of features and a lot more stable.
@Rex
I didn't think FBX retains the rigging. I may have to try it, but it still means exporting from Blender to MS3D simply so that I can export it to DTS so that I can be certain my node hierarchy isn't the issue with animations (though if it is, I may have an aneurysm since I've put the armature and meshes literally every possibly location in the node tree.
Just looking at my old posts it has actually been nearly 2 years since I last posted about using COLLADA with Torque3D and documentation hasn't improved in detail. At least at that time I could use the DTS exporter (I was trying to use COLLADA to understand the format better, but you can probably guess how that went), but now I have no option but to use COLLADA, Milkshape3D, or get lucky and find a spare $4k laying around for a copy of 3DS Max or Maya. At this rate though it would probably be easier for me to create all my characters using procedurally animated metaballs or voxels than to simply load up a skinned mesh and expect to be able to use the dsq sequence files. I can't even begin to imagine why it's not working at this point. It animates fine in Blender, it loads up and renders fine in Torque, but as soon as you add a dsq which is using bones all identical to the character the character starts flailing around like a fish.
01/16/2011 (11:01 pm)
@ScottBlender also exports to COLLADA which T3D directly imports, unfortunately when exporting to COLLADA you have to know the node heirarchy and there's nothing in the Torque documentation regarding skinned meshes. Don't know a great deal about LightWave, but Blender has been used for several movies now and is even developed by creating opensource movies and developing features as that movie requires it. As of 2.5 it is now pretty much identical to Maya and 3DS Max in regards of features and a lot more stable.
@Rex
I didn't think FBX retains the rigging. I may have to try it, but it still means exporting from Blender to MS3D simply so that I can export it to DTS so that I can be certain my node hierarchy isn't the issue with animations (though if it is, I may have an aneurysm since I've put the armature and meshes literally every possibly location in the node tree.
Just looking at my old posts it has actually been nearly 2 years since I last posted about using COLLADA with Torque3D and documentation hasn't improved in detail. At least at that time I could use the DTS exporter (I was trying to use COLLADA to understand the format better, but you can probably guess how that went), but now I have no option but to use COLLADA, Milkshape3D, or get lucky and find a spare $4k laying around for a copy of 3DS Max or Maya. At this rate though it would probably be easier for me to create all my characters using procedurally animated metaballs or voxels than to simply load up a skinned mesh and expect to be able to use the dsq sequence files. I can't even begin to imagine why it's not working at this point. It animates fine in Blender, it loads up and renders fine in Torque, but as soon as you add a dsq which is using bones all identical to the character the character starts flailing around like a fish.
#7
1. check here if you haven't already www.biomassthegame.com/j20090721.html
2. make sure you're objects are all set to rotation (0 0 0)
3. animations require a key for all nodes, regardless of whether in use, in dsq you cut these out by not exporting the last frame, in the COLLADA way of doing things I guess you cut that out when you select the frames you want from the enormous list of amalgamated animations in TSconstructor
edit
detail levels would probably help, see 1)
also
01/17/2011 (12:06 am)
I've not tried exporting skinned meshes via COLLADA in Blender, I use an old version of dts for that but ...1. check here if you haven't already www.biomassthegame.com/j20090721.html
2. make sure you're objects are all set to rotation (0 0 0)
3. animations require a key for all nodes, regardless of whether in use, in dsq you cut these out by not exporting the last frame, in the COLLADA way of doing things I guess you cut that out when you select the frames you want from the enormous list of amalgamated animations in TSconstructor
edit
detail levels would probably help, see 1)
also
#8
EDIT: Haha, you actually linked me to that same picture nearly 2 years ago. It was really quite helpful then, but I've got the COLLADA all worked out now except for with skinned meshes.
01/17/2011 (12:16 am)
So in order to use the DSQs I need to export the mesh with a key frame? I've just been exporting it fully rigged and skinned without any animation data. I'm still learning how to use Blender 2.56 so it'll at least give me an excuse to learn the new animation pipeline.EDIT: Haha, you actually linked me to that same picture nearly 2 years ago. It was really quite helpful then, but I've got the COLLADA all worked out now except for with skinned meshes.
#9
01/17/2011 (12:57 am)
At least that's how I think the animation system for Collada works based on things I've seen somewhere on these forums ...
#10
01/17/2011 (1:12 am)
Doesn't seem to be it. Whats strange is that the animation sequence is definitely moving the right joints but the rotations are all off. I had originally thought that Blender has dropped euler rotations and was exporting quaternions since that's kind of what it looks like, but I've spent my entire weekend trying literally every possibility.
#11
01/17/2011 (1:57 am)
Well I've got animations working now. I was trying to get my mesh to work with the pre-existing animations but it just doesn't seem to work even though the skeleton I made should be nearly identical to the one used in Gideon.
#12
So I loaded up one of the .bip animations into 3ds max and rigged my model with that and it plays it fine but I have to bake it in which is not what I want to do.
So I'm assuming .DAE maybe just doesn't run .dsq animations?
01/30/2011 (6:51 am)
interestingly enough I'm having this exact same problem. How did you get your animations working? I export a rigged model to .DAE. Add all the .dsq sequences to the .cs file then when I load it in the shape editor it just won't run any of the sequences. Just does nothing.So I loaded up one of the .bip animations into 3ds max and rigged my model with that and it plays it fine but I have to bake it in which is not what I want to do.
So I'm assuming .DAE maybe just doesn't run .dsq animations?
#13
01/30/2011 (7:29 am)
actually I might have figured it out. Looks like if I take the original Giedon .bip files and load them into 3ds max then just export them to open collada the model will play them.
#14
01/31/2011 (11:44 am)
If you use Gideon's skeleton then the pre-existing animations should work easy enough, but what I was trying to do was create a skeleton from scratch that would work, but it doesn't seem possible so I've just had to make all the animations from scratch.
#15
01/31/2011 (11:55 am)
yeah i tried that too, but the dsq still wouldn't run. Only if I baked the animation into the model. I've just taken the source .bip files and exported them from max to .DAE files and with a model rigged with my own skeleton it seems to work.
#16
After you export your binary file[DSQ], check your .DMP file if you are not an Artiste and do not have access to the ShowToolPro or some file Viewer/Reader. Doing this will give you the hierarchy of the object exported, IE, the listing of nodes that are contained in the binary DSQ file. If there is any difference: STOP immediately...go back and reexport....until both your DTS and DSQ files match in their hierarchies....you will be wasting countless hours trying to debug this.....
If you attempt to load a sequence that contains nodes NOT in the DTS shape; the process of loading the sequence will abort and you are left with a DTS shape that has no animations...and could be very well why you don't see them running during gameplay. Stop immeditately and go read the console.log file to see if the error in the TSShapeConstructor appears, and it will tell you the first node not matching....
More than likely, the DAE file is generating underscores in place of whiteSpace...and this is then giving you an entire list of nodes that do not match namingConvention, and thus not loading....same with the DSQ's that come with the SDK; they won't load into a DAE because of this mismatching of the node names....and thus considered 'extra' nodes not in the DTS shape/file....make any sense?!?
Also, too, it depends upon what modeling application and it's World Coordinate System[Right or Left handed] you've exported from.....meaning the local coordinates will not be the same...in both DTS and DSQ file and you get a horrid mess/mutation.....
NB: this situation of NOT seeing animations exported as DSQ files loaded into a DTS or DAE shape is a COMMON art formatting error...and this questions gets asked countless times.....always check your files after exporting....!!!! Always use a CFG file as well...it fine tunes exports as to what is/isn't included in the finished file!
01/31/2011 (2:59 pm)
When loading sequences into a 'shape' with a TSShapeConstructor script......remember to:After you export your binary file[DSQ], check your .DMP file if you are not an Artiste and do not have access to the ShowToolPro or some file Viewer/Reader. Doing this will give you the hierarchy of the object exported, IE, the listing of nodes that are contained in the binary DSQ file. If there is any difference: STOP immediately...go back and reexport....until both your DTS and DSQ files match in their hierarchies....you will be wasting countless hours trying to debug this.....
If you attempt to load a sequence that contains nodes NOT in the DTS shape; the process of loading the sequence will abort and you are left with a DTS shape that has no animations...and could be very well why you don't see them running during gameplay. Stop immeditately and go read the console.log file to see if the error in the TSShapeConstructor appears, and it will tell you the first node not matching....
More than likely, the DAE file is generating underscores in place of whiteSpace...and this is then giving you an entire list of nodes that do not match namingConvention, and thus not loading....same with the DSQ's that come with the SDK; they won't load into a DAE because of this mismatching of the node names....and thus considered 'extra' nodes not in the DTS shape/file....make any sense?!?
Also, too, it depends upon what modeling application and it's World Coordinate System[Right or Left handed] you've exported from.....meaning the local coordinates will not be the same...in both DTS and DSQ file and you get a horrid mess/mutation.....
NB: this situation of NOT seeing animations exported as DSQ files loaded into a DTS or DAE shape is a COMMON art formatting error...and this questions gets asked countless times.....always check your files after exporting....!!!! Always use a CFG file as well...it fine tunes exports as to what is/isn't included in the finished file!
Torque Owner Rex
BrokeAss Games
--Blender/armatures/exporter.....have no idea
Probably need to examine the files in some form of DTS viewer to see what is up. If the animation sequence loaded[which it appears from your posting] into the DTS shape and then the motions are borked; I'd say that it's some form of orientation error on the armature.
Like perhaps when you export a mesh as well as the armature, some offset[either rotation or position] is causing some errors...
Good luck with Blender....for a small, nominal fee, Milkshape3D has an excellent exporter to DTS/DSQ; for what it's worth.