This is from a file that was originally "Female01.Anime01.IdlePose_Standing_MASTER.max" no idea if that makes any difference.
I figure I probably went about something the wrong way, but I would hate to spend hours trying to figure it out just on the off chance it isn't me (not that I won't do that anyway.)
Weird. Okay but...were you exporting skeletons before and NOT getting this message or did you only start trying to do such a thing today? And...are you using that same Urbanette file?
Okay hmm well...I am not getting that error any more...of course I sort of started over and I am not sure which thing it is that I did differently that stopped the error but here are some of the changes I made...
Originally, I had a skin on my wings already and I didn't want to remove it even though Matt said you always should instead of collapsing it, because it would change the position in relation to the avatar and I would have to tweak it again, so I was naughty and I collapsed my mesh with the skin modifier and then made a new skin modifier in my stack. So, when I redid it, I did it the way you are supposed to and deleted the skin modifier instead of collapsing it and repositioned it (like, it took maybe 2 minutes...whoop-di-do! See how much time I waste trying to save time?)
I originally imported my wings from another file I had already made wings in, and 3ds automatically imported the bone I had made for it WITH the wings, so I just used that one. So this time I went back and created a new bone. (I really hate admitting I did all these things...but on the other hand, is it really so bad to experiment with shortcuts? What if they DO end up working? Like, instead of drawing a box around all my vertices to highlight them when weighting the mesh, it seems ctrl-a will highlight them just as well.)
And finally...
When going to export the skeleton, I didn't actually have the bone I wanted to use selected, I was just trying to select it from the list that came up in the export window. If you have it selected, then in the export window it is the only bone that will show up, and I don't know if it's necessary or not, but it sure is easier that way!
Argh!!! I am getting that "Skeleton assignment failed" message again!!!!
This time I am trying to export a .xaf file for an action. I've tried it a couple of different ways, but basically after adjust the morph target sliders on the "Female02_Statuesque01_head03" object in the max file, I am selecting "FemaleStatuesqueRoot" as the root of the bone hierarchy (I also tried "PelvisNode" and trying to export it, and when I go to select "female02_statuesque01.skeleton.xsf" from the export dialogue window, that's when I get the message. I JUST downloaded these files from the site, so I know I'm not using an older version.
Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 1866 Location: USA - CA
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 11:31 pm Post subject:
Hey guys - Boy am I glad I decided to check out the forums tonight!
I know this isn't what you want to hear BUT I have never hit that assert and really don't know why it hits. My guess is that it means there is a corrupt asset in your file. Collapsing the stack with a Skin modifier could do this as it bakes in weighting information and there is no way to get rid of it.
Also, this error could be due to Cal3D exporters being so picky - and rightly so. If you are trying to export an animation for a skeleton with a different amount of bones than the one in the MAX file, you could be out of luck. I am not saying you are doing this but it is another example of how this assert could hit.
Also - I don't know if this is what you meant by "exporting skeletons" but....you should not be exporting .xsf/skeleton files as the master .xsf/skeleton file is exported by us. If you want to make your own avatars (or Accessories or ModIcons) you may make your own .xsf files. Otherwise, all you need to do is tell Cal3D which skeleton to use for your exported animation/mesh asset.
And finally - Jinx, if you want to export a morph animation (a head with morph targets applied) you want to be exporting a .xpf file - not a .xaf file. .xpf/morph files do not require skeletons in order to be exported.
My suggestion would be to start from scratch on whatever you were building, write down what you do to the file and then let me know when/where the assert hits. Otherwise, it is very difficult for me to help.
Okay, I guess I will start over. I was only trying to save an .xaf because it is step 2.b in the instructions. I tried skipping to 2.c and the dialogue box never asked me what skeleton I wanted to use, it just skipped right to the time values of the animation and then I clicked "finish" and got "An error has occurred and the application will now close. Do you want to attempt to save a copy of the current scene?" bleh.
I am just trying to animate the face right now...I wanted to do a full body animation but I realized I have to figure out how to make a morph target first (I think.)
Open Female02_Statuesque01.IdlePose_Standing_MASTER.max
resave the file in the same folder but with a new name.
Select Female02_Statuesque01_head01
click on "Morpher" in the stack
Play with the different morph channel dials until I make something I think is worth saving. I am not creating any additional frames, so I guess I am making a vogue.
Select the root node of the skeleton (I believe this is FemaleStatuesqueRoot, but I have also tried Female02_Statuesque01_head01 and the result was the same) and go to File > Export and choose "Cal3D MorphAnimationFile (*.CPF, *XPF)" from the dropdown and name my file being careful to type in the ".xpf" at the end. I am trying to save it into the same folder as the .max file and the .xsf file are in.
The directions say here to select the skeleton I want my animation to work on, but that isn't the dialogue screen I get, I get the "Animation Time" dialogue right away. I set the end frame to 0 (although before I had made an animation that ended at frame 60 and setting it to 60 still had the same result.)
Click "finish" on this screen and get "An error has occurred and the application will now close. Do you want to attempt to save a copy of the current scene?"
Okay, it occured to me that I might be having problems because the previewer has been updated since I put the plug-ins in my 3ds file (on my other computer from the previewer, so I have to do it manually). So...I copied over the plugin files which did turn out to be about two weeks newer than what I had in there.
Now...I guess this is progress...I have a new error instead of the old one and instead of crashing the program hangs/freezes up.
First, I still don't get the screen where you pick your skeleton/.xsf file, it goes straight to the time values dialogue, and when I click "okay" on that, the error is:
Quote:
Select one (and only one) mesh to export!
(C:\Newco\stable\Dll\cal3d\plugins\src\MorphAnimationCandidate.cpp 106)
Then I click okay and I get "Export module failure"
I click okay on that, and that's when it hangs/freezes.
I was so excited when I thought of the plug-ins, too! I was actually (gasp) not at my computer...I was almost asleep and I got up out of bed to try the newer plug-ins
I don't understand the whole choose the highest bone in the skeletal hierarchy thing. I mean, I know what a hierarchy is, and I guess I know what a bone is, and I do know what the skeleton is, but the root node should be either FemaleStatuesqueRoot, which seems to be a dummy and not a bone, but it is at the top of that hierarchy, or it should/could be PelvisNode, which certainly seems likely because that one actually IS a bone...at least I think it is...if I tell the Select Objects window to only show me Bone Objects, it doesn't show either of those and yet what the heck else would the HEAD be connected to?
And then speaking of which...the head is actually "Female02_Statuesque01_head01" but that isn't attached to ANY of the bones...it certainly isn't at the top of any hierarchy, and that one crashes 3ds when I try to export it. What the heck am I supposed to be selecting and exporting? I feel like I must be missing a step or missing a file or missing SOMETHING! Grrrrr!
is triggered when the bones in the skeleton.xsf file do not match those in the max file. This can happen with a misnamed bone, an extra bone, or even a missing bone.
I'm guessing this happened becuase you either had an out-of-date xsf file, or an out-of-date max file.
Don't feel too bad if you hit this - we started running into this internally about 4 weeks ago when we updated the gaze system. We've modded the exporters so that they don't fail if you have missing bones in your skeleton - this will allow us to add bones to the skeleton for gaze without you having to change all of your max files (this would be a major pain).
If you hit this error again, make sure you are using the right skeleton to export (ie don't export Urbo assets with the Urbanette skeleton).
The second error you got:
Select one (and only one) mesh to export!
(C:\Newco\stable\Dll\cal3d\plugins\src\MorphAnimationCandidate.cpp 106)
Happens when you don't have any meshes selected, or you have more than one mesh selected. Remember when exporting a model, you need to select on and only one mesh, then go to 'export'.
Thanks for being patient with us, there is a lot to remember and keep track of.
Thanks Mel. I'm not sure I understand all the subtle differences BUT, I do understand exporting the same thing you were morphing, and Matt helped me finally export my first action (duh, and it was so easy!)
Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 1866 Location: USA - CA
Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:46 pm Post subject:
Hey all,
As Jinx mentioned, she and I were able to walk through the process of exporting some morph animations. Now, I am not saying that there wasn't some KGB plot at work to try and stop Jinx from exporting at all costs. I'm not saying that at all, tovarisch. However, it seems like everything was solved by, as Mel suggested, selecting the mesh (head, in this case) that she wanted to export and...well...exporting.
I will post here again once we have gone through skeletal animation.
I just want to say that the KGB are plotting against me and my making a statuesque facial morph now. First of all, I can't get morph to show up in the curves editor and second of all, I can't find an animation to load into the previewer for the statuesque to start out with. And third...if I load in an avatar into the previewer with auto-refresh turned off, I am left totally buttonless...as in no "apply changes" button, which I think is why I have had so much trouble loading an avatar in. I have been having trouble loading in 203 and 204...NOT that loading them in is very useful anyway...it's just I thought since loading in 10838 loads in an Urbo avatar, I thought I could get the right avatar this way...OH I DON'T KNOW! Dare I say...grrrr?
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