Mountpoints

#1 Mountpoints are nodes attached to the skeleton, if you look at the shipped models in the shape editor of T3D you will see all the nodes on that particular char.

I think the cam uses the eye node a a reference point and is ofset from that value, but i'm not 100% sure, if you add an extra node to your head and call it eye that would fix the problem i think.

I'm assuming that you are using a custom model and skeleton for this?

edit:- weapons generally mount to mount0 in the demo/sample games

#2 Mounts are just nodes with special names. In Torque, all mounts must be named mount0, mount1, mount2... mountN.

However, the camera is named one of these two things:

eye (third person)
cam (first person)

I believe that's what you are looking for?

#3 Thank you both very much!

#4 Careful adding nodes/'joints' in Ms3D, as it will destroy the hierarchy chain and destroy your hard work!

This is especially true if you have previously animated the figure without the additional joints.

There are some hacky ways to edit previously constructed rigs.[hey, I'm not too proud, it gets things done!]

...some perhaps helpful Ms3d links are these:

Hack-A-Lula
NoNonsenseEverytime


and the eyeCandy stuf as well, with the voice of yours truely

#5 I created the rig myself, and I haven't exported with animations yet!

EDIT: Run into some problems. Do I HAVE to export the animations into the DTS, can't I just export them to DSQ? Because that's not currently working.

#6 You can export animation sequences either way, Nathan. Conceptually, there are two objects; the DTS reference shape[base figure, whatever] and DSQ animation sequences.

At runtime, you either load the DSQ sequences into the DTS shape; or you already have them loaded into the DTS shape.

DSQ animation files are great time savers, if you have a similar node hierachy[skeleton/rig/armature/biped]you can apply motions to several different DTS shapes.

You may not be using the correct exporter, there are two that come with Ms3d now; the 'original' Dynamix/GG SDK version[which does not do DSQ's, I think] and Chris Robertson's DTSPlus! exporter. Go for DTSPlus!, a far more robust exporter, virtually giving you the same export capabilities as Max, in my humble opinion. The program itself, however; is not. It has the quirky destroy skeleton habit, but there are ways around animating in the UI; which I do not do. I pretty much only use it to export mesh and motions, as it has a fairly wide tolerance for formats, ;).........just a stripped down assembler, basically for me.

At the risk of being 'self-serving'; we at brokeassgames.com provide 3D content and DTS and DSQ are some of the flavors we can/do provide to the 3D graphics communities.

#7 Well, I purchased an Indie package known as 'Villager Pack' about a year ago for TGE. It came with 3 fully working and animated models, plus the model in various formats such as max and 3ds. Unfortunately, the Indie version didn't include a fully rigged and working ms3d file. So I imported the 3ds file into milkshape, rescaled and rotated and rerigged. Unfortunately, im having a lot of trouble animating. I dislike the idea of making a set of animations in the timeline then exporting them into the shape, so I tried to export them seperately, but that doesn't work. The model plays the default pose.

You're probably wondering why im going through all this trouble? Well the model im trying to export contains several meshes for clothing and hair and whatnot. I want to add player customizability so I decided to put all the meshes into one player object then use mesh swapping to hide certain parts. The 3 fully made models don't have this.

Whenever I export the animations as DSQ (I HAVE been using DTSPlus! too) it doesn't play them, im not sure why, everything is named correctly and the .cs file goes to the correct path.

#8 Ah, unless you code[script] in the proper Thread calling for the animation, you won't 'see' it running.

The stock SDK animations are hardcoded by 'name' of the sequence to the codeBase functionality.

For example: if you name you sequence 'run' it 'should' play when the player moves forward using the actionThread. It could be slow 'walk' motion, or crawl, or any 'forward' movement...as long as the internal name of the sequence is 'run' it will play for the code calling.

Hope this gets a little closer to helping....

Sometimes you may have to send the files to an established Torque Artist who'll take a look[for fee or not, depends upon 'helper'] to get a different set of eyes on the issue of 'BorkyNess'.

Good luck.

Without a source file that is weighted and only receiving a Max file for Source may make it hard to get things rolling....using a 3DS file or OBJ will necessatate binding the skeleton/rig to the mesh. Have you done that? Could be quite possible the skeleton is running the sequence but because it's not bound to the mesh, you won't 'see' the geometry moving?? Does that make much sense?

Keep at it...once you get your 'workflow' down to your 'pipeline'....things will become so 'easy'!

Don't give up!

#9 Well, i can definately animate it perfectly in Milkshape. As in, all the parts of the mesh correctly moves by the joints and everything. I just cannot get it in game. Well, I can, but only if i export the animations inside the DTS. But I want to export as DSQ.

#10 Alright...can you send me the DTS and a few of these offensive DSQ's I'll take a quick lookie

my name at brokeassgames.com

also, I'm on MessengerLive/MSNmessenger as BL_Rex at hotmailBLAHcom

I'm usually always live online for instant communication, well, might be in the backyard or something....

#11 ok sending the email.

#12 Haven't seen the mail yet, your address in your profile returns error here....

#13 I definately sent an email to rex@brokeassgames.com

#14 I'll check again...dagNabbit, but I saw you Contact request and honored it...at least I think that was you...lol.

#15 Well, had a visit from PostMaster saying the email was delayed. And yes, that is me who added you on windows live.

#16 Cheers Rex for all the help :)

#17 Great to help you get it sorted...for those interested in the solution:

The DSQ files contained extra nodes that were not in the DTS shape....this will cause the TSShapeConstructor to cease loading the animation files into the DTS...!! This is a constraint of the old TSShapeConstructor...which I 'think' has been upgraded in T3D to allow for a mismatch of nodes between the DTS and DSQ files. Double check me on the T3D part...

...way to go, Nathan!