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Google
Joined: 22 Dec 2012 Posts: 5 Location: USA - NY
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Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 6:57 pm Post subject: Skeleton to Export XMF from 3DMax |
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Hello guys,
I'm new to this 3D part, and recently I've been having some problems.
I create any object in 3D max (In this example I used a box) to be able to save it in imvu, but two problems happened.
FIRST: When exporting the XMF, it appears to select the corresponding skeleton. Which skeleton would it be? Is it a standard that everyone uses for any product, or is it the skeleton of each material that I create in 3d, use the corresponding skeleton?
Please help me, which skeleton is this?
http://prntscr.com/dm06sf
SECOND: I tried to use a standard skeleton here, and I think it saved the .XMF, but when it comes to importing imvu, the box did not appear in my head because it does not appear?
http://prntscr.com/dm07nl
http://prntscr.com/dm07zd
Thanks |
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SVTru
Joined: 29 Oct 2012 Posts: 460 Location: Russian Federation
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Jaleman31
Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 11655 Location: USA - WA
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Google
Joined: 22 Dec 2012 Posts: 5 Location: USA - NY
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 10:00 am Post subject: |
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Hi, thank you for answering. Which material ID would be the correct one? Or rather, where can I see what ID of each material to create? |
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Google
Joined: 22 Dec 2012 Posts: 5 Location: USA - NY
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 10:04 am Post subject: |
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Actually, all I need to learn is in the creator program. Is that because I am from another country, it is difficult to follow the texts, if you could show me in images or videos how to do each Attachment Node and Attachment Node action, because I was a little confused. AttachmentRoot is the avatar default, and Attachment Node refers to the attachment? Right? |
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Nums
Joined: 14 Jan 2015 Posts: 318 Location: USA
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:29 am Post subject: |
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I watched the whole video through and the only thing I would not follow (if you do decide to follow everything) is when exporting the .XAF , don't deselect anything . Other than that, this is an excellent video to get you started.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o0IVNpVvIzo |
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SVTru
Joined: 29 Oct 2012 Posts: 460 Location: Russian Federation
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nerseus
Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: USA - AZ
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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Per Num's post - there's the full page for that tutorial:
http://www.imvu.com/catalog/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpbb2&file=viewtopic.php&t=447284
That has links to download the documents in that tutorial/walkthru and you can see links to all three parts.
As a side-note - one of the most confusing parts (to me) when first developing was... what skeleton to use. Sometimes you Skin (or Physique) to the avatar; sometimes to AttachmentRoot.
Which skeleton you use... matters, but which one you use depends on the product.
In your case I'd recommend:
* weighting your box (Skin or Physique - it's up to you) to AttachmentRoot
* export your skeleton (by selecting AttachmentRoot and exporting skeleton)
* export your mesh (by selecting the mesh); during the export, make sure you choose the skeleton *you* exported in the first step (NOT the Female03MasterRoot skeleton).
=========================================
The longer version of "which skeleton do I use" requires an understanding of the difference between IMVU's definition of Accessory and Clothing. For a short summary:
* If you're making a true Accessory (which means deriving from Accessory) - then you *must* provide your own skeleton (AttachmentRoot, for most products) and weight (Skin or Physique) to AttachmentRoot.
* If you're making a clothing item (means deriving from Clothing) - then you *must* weight your mesh to the avatar bones (and ignore/delete the AttachmentRoot as it isn't needed).
Whether you derive from Accessory or Clothing comes down to this question:
1. Does your product need to move with multiple bones on an avatar? Then you have to use clothing.
2. Does your product need to move with a single bone OR does your product needs fancy animation by itself OR does your product go on/around the avatar head and need to resize with the different avatar heads? Then you should use Accessory.
3. If your product fits either category or you're not sure... then try Accessory and weight to AttachmentRoot. If you're wrong - no worries, you can change it pretty easily later (5-10 minutes in most cases).
Some examples:
If you were making a necklace... it might *seem* like accessory, but the limitation of a true accessory means your necklace can only follow one avatar bone. That means Skinning to, say, a neck bone - which means a "stiff" necklace that will likely poke through all over the place. A better choice would probably be clothing which allows weighting different parts of the necklace to different bones.
If you were making a hat... you could make it as accessory or clothing. But... IMVU has special "rules" that allow resizing accessories, especially on the head. If you want your hat to shrink to fit smaller heads or grow to fit bigger ones - then you'd want accessory. This might not be obvious since a hat seems to "fit" better when defined as "clothing." But if you want the feature of auto-resizing then you'd derive from Accessory.
If you were making a pet - that needs to do tricks (jumping, rolling, wiggling its tail) - you'd likely want a nice skeleton to control those animations. The "pet" would follow the avatar (be linked to one bone) but not move with multiple bones. You'd likely want Accessory. If you wanted it to derive from Clothing for some reason, you could still do the animation - but you'd have to use Morph animation (which most find a bit harder to implement then regular skeleton animation).
If you were making rings (5 rings - one on each finger)... an accessory just wouldn't be possible. The limitation of accessory is that you can weight to only one bone and you would need each ring to weight to each finger bone. In that case, your only real option is clothing.
These trickier questions will become clear in time. Don't worry about it yet. If you start of thinking of the product as Accessory and using AttachmentRoot and later decide it works better as Clothing... it *should* be an easy fix - maybe 5-10 minutes for most devs (unless you have a complicated skeleton or other "advanced" product).
-ner / Dan |
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Google
Joined: 22 Dec 2012 Posts: 5 Location: USA - NY
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Nerseus for the reply. She was still confused about Accessories and clothes, and skeleton, but it was a little easier to understand. Regarding the accessories, I will not make products with no animation, at the moment I would like things fixed, such as necklaces, reamers, piercings and clothes.
Basically then, if I create attachments, I use AttachmentRoot and AttachmentNode, and if I am going to create clothes, do I need to use AttachmentRoot? Right?
And what's the difference of using the skeleton: Female04_Anime01_WeightingPoseMASTER,
Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER,
And Female04_Anime01_IdleStandingPoseMASTER?
I would like to create accessories, mainly, and future clothes. I understand that first I need to save the .XSF to then save the .XMF. But which skeleton model do I use for clothing and accessories?
Last edited by Google on Thu Dec 22, 2016 5:54 am; edited 1 time in total |
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SVTru
Joined: 29 Oct 2012 Posts: 460 Location: Russian Federation
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Keodi
Joined: 26 Jun 2011 Posts: 11319 Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 3:51 am Post subject: |
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nerseus wrote: | If you were making a hat... you could make it as accessory or clothing. But... IMVU has special "rules" that allow resizing accessories, especially on the head. If you want your hat to shrink to fit smaller heads or grow to fit bigger ones - then you'd want accessory. This might not be obvious since a hat seems to "fit" better when defined as "clothing." But if you want the feature of auto-resizing then you'd derive from Accessory. |
Am I missing something? Scaling works regardless of whether the item is an accessory or clothing. The bone will always influence the scale of any mesh attached to it irrespective of method. _________________ http://www.pixelpusher.info/index.php
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Nums
Joined: 14 Jan 2015 Posts: 318 Location: USA
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 6:40 am Post subject: |
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Keodi wrote: | nerseus wrote: | If you were making a hat... you could make it as accessory or clothing. But... IMVU has special "rules" that allow resizing accessories, especially on the head. If you want your hat to shrink to fit smaller heads or grow to fit bigger ones - then you'd want accessory. This might not be obvious since a hat seems to "fit" better when defined as "clothing." But if you want the feature of auto-resizing then you'd derive from Accessory. |
Am I missing something? Scaling works regardless of whether the item is an accessory or clothing. The bone will always influence the scale of any mesh attached to it irrespective of method. |
Pretty much. What matters is the pivot of the bones. Every clothing object should have the same pivots because the skeleton file is the same on every single one. So they should all scale properly.
The accessory forces the object to have the same pivot because when you specify the Attachment Node in create mode, it will move your Root Node of your .XSF to the pivot of the Bone you specified in create. ( which does mean if it wasn't already aligned, your entire mesh will move somewhere else ) |
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SVTru
Joined: 29 Oct 2012 Posts: 460 Location: Russian Federation
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 10:59 am Post subject: |
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Google wrote: | I would like to create accessories, mainly, and future clothes. I understand that first I need to save the .XSF to then save the .XMF. But which skeleton model do I use for clothing and accessories? |
For accessories XSF i use own name, and use it for export XMF _________________ http://www.imvu.com/shop/web_search.php?manufacturers_id=104449066
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Keodi
Joined: 26 Jun 2011 Posts: 11319 Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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Nums wrote: | Keodi wrote: | nerseus wrote: | If you were making a hat... you could make it as accessory or clothing. But... IMVU has special "rules" that allow resizing accessories, especially on the head. If you want your hat to shrink to fit smaller heads or grow to fit bigger ones - then you'd want accessory. This might not be obvious since a hat seems to "fit" better when defined as "clothing." But if you want the feature of auto-resizing then you'd derive from Accessory. |
Am I missing something? Scaling works regardless of whether the item is an accessory or clothing. The bone will always influence the scale of any mesh attached to it irrespective of method. |
Pretty much. What matters is the pivot of the bones. Every clothing object should have the same pivots because the skeleton file is the same on every single one. So they should all scale properly.
The accessory forces the object to have the same pivot because when you specify the Attachment Node in create mode, it will move your Root Node of your .XSF to the pivot of the Bone you specified in create. ( which does mean if it wasn't already aligned, your entire mesh will move somewhere else ) |
I still don't get what Nerseus is driving at.
I can weight a mesh to a bone specifying the attachment, export both xmf and xsf and derive from an accessory, or I can just weight it to the same bone, export only the xmf and derive from clothing. Whichever I do they both behave the same in regards to moving and scaling with the bone.
The only reasons I would use one over another is catalogue placement, pose requirement, animations or multiple bones. How they scale or move with the relevant bone has never been an issue. I'm not just talking about the head bone either, any bone works correctly with both methods ... even though Matt made such a horrible job of the skeleton and it's weird bone rotations.  _________________ http://www.pixelpusher.info/index.php
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nerseus
Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: USA - AZ
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Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2016 3:25 pm Post subject: |
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@Keodi
I was unaware the clothing would automatically resize (for example a hat that derives from clothing, weighted to the head bone). Excellent news!
As for the other question - if you weight a mesh to AttachmentRoot and then export the xmd and xsf but decide later to derive from clothing... it *might* work. Or maybe I should say it "should" work. If the AttachmentRoot is aligned with a bone (such as the Head bone) then you might be able to derive from Accessory or Clothing. It feels a bit "lucky" to me since it counts on the AttachmentRoot being in the *exact* same spot as the Head bone... but if it weren't in the exact spot it likely wouldn't work anyway. I suppose that's a convenience for times when your product is only weighted to a single bone on the avatar. But for most devs, especially those just starting out and trying to understand the process, I'd stick with the rule of "if you're deriving from accessory, weight to your own skeleton and export both the xsf and xmf" and "if you're deriving from clothing, weight to the avatar bones."
-ner |
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