Animation settings

[Gtox]

I'm having some problems getting animations to work in Skyline. If I export my model (with bone animations) in FBX format, the animations work in Skyline, but they are all grouped as a single animation, instead of split into several animations (I have time tags added). If I use the Ogre3d exporter, the animations work, but the mesh goes absolutely haywire. The FBX issue seems easier to fix, so does anyone know what export settings to use (for 3ds max 2013) for the different animations to be recognised, or is there a way of naming and organising the different animations within Skyline?

[StarFire]

Welcome to Skyline Gtox

look forward to seeing your art

Tech Support is responding very soon, just preparing solution.

[SolarPortal]

Welcome to the forum Gtox I hope you stay on the skyline journey with all of us!

As for your problem, yes skyline has a built in animation splitter. This is also based in the mesh editor.
It is built into the timeline:

> First Select and import your mesh into the mesh editor.
> then select the animation from the dropdown for the "all in one" anim.
> Next Scrub using the LMB Hold + Drag on the timeline.
> Then when you find the start frame, mark it by RMB + clicking on it and choose "Mark - Loop Start"
> Next scrub to find the end frame of the animation.
> When found, again RMB + click on it and choose "Mark - Loop End".
> You should now have a highlighted bar showing the animation.
> Now Right click on the timeline and choose extract animation.
> Enter the animation name, then press ok.
> Save your mesh and reload the sceneEntity.

We consider the "3dsMax documentation" on our wiki out of date and not the fastest method to get assets into skyline.
FBX is skyline's best format for importing a 3D model.

[Pirate Myke]

I will try this way also, Been messing a couple of days on that also. So don't use the ogre thing, Ok.

Also trying to just have mesh animation with out any bone influence, Documentation, is not complete on that. I model in 3D max myself, Is this node animation or will the importer figure it out for me?

Will get back on this after a few tests.

[SolarPortal]

i think FBX will take an animation that has no skeleton and import into skyline. Maybes not,.. hasn't been tested in a long time.
Worth a try

[Pirate Myke]

I will keep at that, The mesh editor did not seem to want to recognize that it had an animation.

I tried naming the time line start and end points the same name as the ogre instructions mentioned. I spent a lot of consecutive time on it. My mind is a bit fresher today. I will try it again with straight fbx format with the animations in it.

Should they be baked or not? I have tried baking them in there thru fbx.

When I do something like this I generally have been used to x file format where everything is a key frame for position rotation and very rarely scaling.

[Gtox]

Thanks SolarPortal - that's what I was looking for. Just one thing, though - once I go back to the main editor, the animations are offset by one ie the animation that plays is the one above the one that I click. So if I click on 'walk' it'll play the run animation etc. In the mesh editor, they are correct.

[SolarPortal]

[Pirate Myke]

Ok, that part works. I had to close and open the editor to see the new animation names. I have three now. This is a door that slides up and down.

Closing, Opening, and the original Take one with the full sequence in it.

When I press the loop animation button to shut that off, the editor crashes.

Going to check for update of all programs and drivers.

I will get back with the results.

[SolarPortal]

i will have a look at it tomorrow if you don't have any luck

[Pirate Myke]

A productive day for a newbie,

Size issue and collision taken care of.
Able to import boned skin animations of objects.
Able to import a character with some test animations for my existing rig.

Guess the next task is looking into the actions and understanding them, and lua scripts.

[lordalmighty1]

nice 1 m8, grats

[SolarPortal]

Nice one! Looking forward to what you come up with

Note: I noticed, that the feet are sliding around the floor when animating. It looks as if the centre is from the pelvis. You may need to parent all bones to a root bone set at position "0,0,0" in the modelling package.
This usually fixes this problem.

[Pirate Myke]

That uses a biped I rigged in Max for a different engine, The mesh is from TurboSquid, I did a retexture on in Quixel Suites.
As I am horrible with organics (or don't have the patients to sit and push pull vertices into place, I leave the character mesh creation to the true artists.)

But this rig has had about 200 characters put thru it for the engine it was designed for. Works fine there, But It will need adjusting for this engine. I did notice that the characters you had in the presets all come in below the default ground plane and need to be raised, does not seem to effect them in this engine. Would have been a disaster in the other engine.

Anyway the hard part is done, getting the first couple things in the engine to see where I need to change my work flow and rigs to make things work.

Things will improve.

[SolarPortal]

great! keep it up, you are doing very well for just starting to use skyline.
If there is anything specific you need help with. All of us on the forum will be happy to help