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Can't get accessories to show up in the previewer....
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Dirili VIP Club Member 18+ Age Verified

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:38 pm    Post subject: Can't get accessories to show up in the previewer.... Reply with quote

I've only before made successful flat plane meshes and now I'm trying my hand at an accessory before I try some clothes... but I can't seem to get anything to actually show up in the previewer.

Even when I made the meshes that actually work I had to mix and match steps from at least 2 tutorials to get it to work in the previewer and IMVU.

I'm not sure if I'm not exporting right or if I'm not attaching correctly or what!

I've tried so many things... following tutorials step by step and combining steps from different tutorials and just experimenting and trying things that I think might somehow get it to work....

Can anyone tell me if there's a common problem that people tend to have that causes this?

I'm using 3DS Max 7

I've read all tutorials listed in then 3D tutorials list and the master tutorials list, but I'll list the tutorials below the specific tutorials that I've referenced and tried steps from particularly for exporting:
http://www.freewebs.com/rattutorial/3dastillaccessory.htm
http://www.vigilart.com/imvututorials/weapons/axe/
http://members.shaw.ca/m00s1/comps/comps.htm

Also, when I was try exporting the way the axe tutorial explains, it says to check the box by "Automatically create progressive meshes" where most other tutorials say not to check any extra options. But when I try this it always makes max crash out. Not sure if there's any importance to this step as most tutorials don't seem to go that route.
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Few questions....

What's the main problem? It exports fine but doesn't show up in Previewer? Does it crash previewer? Does it hang previewer?

Here's a short "accessory" checklist (assumes you're deriving from Accessory and NOT clothing):
1. Max file has *your* skeleton (probably AttachmentRoot and AttachmentNode)
2. Max file has your mesh
3. Your mesh (in Max) has ONE modifier of either Skin or Physique
4. Your mesh (in Max) has all vertices weighted
5. Your mesh (in Max) has a material that has its diffuse slot with a texture AND the texture has the proper name (such as "test [0]")

When you export you should have:
1. Skeleton file (XSF) - name is anything you like.
2. Mesh file (XMF) - when exporting, you should have referenced the XSF in #1 (not the main avatar XSF file)
3. Exported material file (XRF)

In previewer:
1. You derive from an avatar accessory (not clothing or empty clothing)
2. You select your XSF skeleton
3. You select your XMF geometry
4. You select your XRF materials

When you open your XMF in the geometry tab, do you see the boxes fill in with # of verts, # faces, Material ID? If that bottom greenish area is empty then your XMF isn't valid - probably something "missing" on your mesh in Max, or you referenced/selected the wrong XSF when exporting.

NOW...
If you're making clothing then the above doesn't apply. You said "accessory" which has a specific meaning in IMVU so I went with that Smile

I'm guessing there *might* be some confusion as the first tutorial (kirby ball) IS an accessory. The second tutorial (hand held axe) is clothing and works differently. When you derive from clothing you weight differently and don't provide your skeleton - you must use the built-in avatar skeleton.

-ner
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Jennifur68

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 10:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I learned to do accessories by watching Twiddler's video "How to Submit a 3D Accesory". Its a good video that covers everything you need to know in one place. As you scroll down the page the videos are on the left side...just look for the IMVU section.

You can find it at:
www.taunt.com
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 8:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the quick responses you 2! If I had known I was going to get such a quick response I would have stayed up later last night! Very Happy

Initially the problem was just that the mesh wasn't showing up in the previewer. Just the avatar, but not the accessory I was trying to export.

Seems the problem I was having was twofold. First I hadn't been sure if I was supposed to use the attachment root or a bone in the skeleton to weight to so I had been trying both with all the methods I had been trying. Looks like using the attachment root was the way to go though since that was the only way that I could get numbers to show up in the geometry tab.

The other thing was that in the special tab, I didn't realize we actually had to manually rename the attachment node to the piece of the skeleton we had linked the attachment root to.

So now I'm getting things to show up in the previewer which is great! Very Happy

But now I have a few other another questions... Sorry to bother you all and hopefully after a little while I won't have to ask anymore and I can help other people who need it hehe.

1. My original idea is for a 7 piece mesh so now I need to figure out how to link them. Since you said clothing and accessories are 2 different animals I guess that's why the method of combining items isn't working for me from the axe tutorial hehe. Yeah... I can never do anything easy to start out with eh? But I figured I'd need to learn this to combine a pair of gloves or shoes so whether it was a 2 piece or 7 piece mesh I figured it wouldn't really make that much of a difference.

2. I thought I remembered reading somewhere about a function or tool or add on somewhere that will let optimize the poly count? I'm not sure if I have the least amount of polys or not in my meshes but of course I want to try to make the meshes as small as possible.

3. So I don't have to worry about the crash with the "Automatically create progressive meshes" for accessories, but is this going to be a problem with clothing?

And so is anything I'm learning from accessories going to help me with clothing? hehe Ergh, guess I'm going to have even more problems and more questions when I do the clothes. Fun fun... but there's lots of things I really want to get done hehe.

Thanks soooo much for the help! I really greatly appreciate it!
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Numbered questions bring numbered answers Smile

1. The key to deciding if you want clothing or accessory is really in what the mesh will "do." You mentioned 7 meshes - if you need them to move with just *two* pieces of the skeleton (or more), then you must use clothing. For example, gloves - one on each hand - must be clothing.

Accessories get their own skeleton, which allows for many moving parts. But, the mesh as a whole links to (and moves with) only ONE bone on the avatar.

Clothing cannot have an additional skeleton so you can't animate a pet (for example), but you can have your mesh interact with all parts of the avatar.

2. There's a modifier called Optimize that will attempt to reduce the number of polys. In general, it gives really bad results. In general it's best to go into a new mesh knowing you'll have to be low-poly. If you start off with ultra detail and hope to reduce later, you'll probably be disappointed. What's "low" and what's "high"? It depends, but I'd say *most* accessories or clothing should be under 1000 polygons. If you're under 10,000 polys you're still ok, but approaching "big." If you're hitting 50,000+ then you're getting really big. You won't find hard numbers from anyone really and the numbers I just gave can (and likely will) be debated, but it's a good starting point to see how well you're doing. Look at the avatar that's provided by IMVU and you can see how they made low-poly look good.

3. I'm not sure if IMVU uses the Progressive Meshes feature. I always leave it at the default *except* when I'm making derivable clothing - the body parts (avatar torso, pelvis, etc.) I leave checked as I believe that's what IMVU did for their export.

Checking (or unchecking) that box shouldn't affect the export or previewer at all. Certainly not cause a crash.

4. The things you do for an accessory or clothing will *definitely* be of use when doing the other. The low-poly meshing, weighting, exporting, previewer is all almost exactly the same.

The difference will be in Max, in what you weight your mesh to and in previewer on what you derive from and what you put in (or don't) on the Special tab.

-ner
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 12:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hmm... so I'm guessing it needs to be a clothing item. It's going to be a series of cuffs. A collar, 2 upper arm cuffs, 2 wrist bracers and 2 ankle bracers so they have to link to all different bones hehe.

I was trying to derive from the Female Avatar Attachment (682). So I'll see try deriving from clothing...

Any tips with the item combining while I'm experimenting? Like what I'm going to do with the special tab since there's going to be more than 1 item needing more than 1 skeleton.

Thank you so much again! I could just kiss you! hehe

Going to go see what I can do now with what I just learned ^_^

EDIT:

Ok, any tips period about combining the items? hehe I've only just started fooling with it, but already thinking this is looking more complicated than I thought.

Yeah, deriving from the "empty clothing" option 2191901, I can get the collar and an armband to show up at the same time, but they are both stationary, not moving with the avatar.
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For a single item that *just* adds cuffs, collar, etc., you'll have to use clothing. You can't use avatar attachments (accessories) for that.

Also note that when you're making clothing, you do NOT need the AttachmentRoot or AttachmentNode objects in the max file. You can simply delete them.

The easiest way to approach this, in my opinion, is to keep each item as a separate object in your max file. Each will have its own Physique or Skin modifier and will be exported as separate XMF files. In previewer, you'll have to click "Add" and add "slots" for each XMF.

Some prefer to "attach" all meshes to each other and export a single XMF. I find that to be a pain, but it will work just fine as long as each "piece" of the mesh is weighted properly.

I'd start simple and add as you go. For example, assume you eventually want 2 bracers and a collar. I'd start with one bracer (or two) and get that working, then add a collar. That way you can troubleshoot each mesh separately and will (hopefully) minimize rework.

Say you wanted to make two bracers:

1. In one Max file, you'll have meshed two separate bracers, one on each arm. Let's assume they're called RBracer and LBracer (for right and left).

2. Each bracer mesh will have Skin or Physique. RBracer will be weighted to the bones RtWrist, RtHand, RtElbow - whatever bones you need to make the bracer move realistically. LBracer will be weighted to other bones. You can use any bones in the avatar that you want/need.

Make sure you mesh moves well with the avatar in Max - doesn't cut through or stretch oddly, etc. Standard weight rules Smile

3. Export your two meshes as RBracer.XMF and LBracer.XMF. On the export wizard you'll select the main female avatar skeleton XSF file - Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.xsf

4. In previewer, derive from Empty Clothing (or another clothing mesh)

5. In previewer, geometry tab, click add and use an ID between 15 and 127. Go with 28 for example. Browse to RBracer.XMF. Click add again and use another ID (e.g. 29). Browse to LBracer.XMF

6. Fill in the material tab with your texture.

Apply changes and weeee!

When deriving from clothing, you don't do anything on the special tab unless you want to change the compatible ID from 80 to "80,191" - but ONLY if your item is really compatible with males. Since clothing uses the avatar skeleton and that's what you weighted to, you don't need to put in any XSF file like you do for furniture, accessories, etc. IMVU *knows* about the avatar skeleton when you make clothing, so make sure your mesh is weighted to the right bones and only the bones in the avatar skeleton.

If you need help with the material, just let us know Smile

Now, once you get two bracers working, then you can go back and mesh a collar. The same principle applies: mesh in max, weight to the right avatar bones, export as XMF and put the XMF into previewer on the Geometry tab.

-ner
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Dirili VIP Club Member 18+ Age Verified

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

woo hoo! OMG I love you lol.

I've got 2 objects working with each other and hopefully I won't have too hard of a time getting the rest to work with it Very Happy

Just one last question for now... any particular numbers I should use or avoid using when doing the specified bodypart thing to add xmf files? Whatever number I choose won't work with other items that are on the same number right? So I was just wondering if there were particular numbers that people tend to use that I should avoid so that there won't be too many conflicts.
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No one's put together a list that I know of, though the popularity of SecondHarvest's tutorial did make one number popular - it was 34, I think?

I generally use numbers in the 40's and 50's, but I jump around alot Razz Not very professional maybe, but then I often find myself dev'ing WAY past my bedtime and I'm not thinking straight.

This sounds like a good list that the forums could host - common ID's for certain things. For example, items that go in the right hand could use 20, left hand 21. Add-on tops could be the 22...

It's unlikely that you'd ever want two layered tops on at the same time - so having one "known" ID would be ok.

Anyhoo - short answer is "no - there is no list."
But know that ID's 0 through 14 are most commonly thought of as "reserved" as they are body part ID's and a few extra "reserved" slots.

-ner
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Errgh... ok one (hopefully last) problem.

I've got it so that all the pieces work together, but in spite of the fact that they all have separate materials and .xrf files when I change the texture or opacity on one piece, it changes it on all the pieces.

Is it because I used the same texture and opacity for each piece even though I named the materials differently?

It might be a nice feature as a separate mesh, but I'd like to make a mesh where each piece can be changed individually.
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Is it because I used the same texture and opacity

if you did this on max.. then this is your problem..
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, yeah, I was just experimenting and discovered that. Now I'm trying to figure out an organized way of dealing with it hehe.
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yep - you got it right. The XRF file (material definition file) stores the filename(s) only - not the actual texture. If you have two XRF files that share a filename exactly then the previewer will treat that as one texture. So you may have:
P0M01 = texture.jpg, opacity.jpg
P2M05 = texture.jpg, opacity.jpg

Changing the texture on either of those will change the other one.

To fix:
1. In Max, go back to your texture and browse to a different file. Then re-export your XRF.

2. Or simply open the XRF in notepad and tweak the filename. It's easy to spot as the XRF is a text file.

-ner
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 11:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

woo hoo! Well, thanks in no small part to you ner, I've got my first 3d mesh working and in PR now Very Happy

There's a crappy texture on it right now of course since it's derivable, but I've got some plans for making some nice looking things eventually. Hope other people derive from it too!


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yay for bands! Arm bands, ankle bands, rock bands! It was all YOU, Dirili - I just clarified some things tis all. Excellent job on getting it all worked out Smile

-ner
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