exporting 3D character

[Derkaragnarr]

I have successfully exported objects from Max to TW, but I am having trouble exporting a character. I have a 2,500 poly character in Max. It has been skinned (with skin, not physique) to the thinking worlds bones.The pivot point of the figure has been set to 0,0,0. I select the figure and the bones (and I've tried it with just the figure and gotten the same result) and use the Caspian Utility and export selected Nodes Only. I get a Scene Exporter Error which reads, "Unable to export scene due to the following errors: This scene cannot be exported as the skinned geometry node has more than one UV channel."
I thought there might be something wrong with the material or mapping. I have changed the material, tried it with and without Unwrapped UVW, changed the channel of the material, and even tried exporting with default materials and no UVW wrapping. I still get the same error. It also gives the same error if I try exporting the whole scene instead of just the selected nodes.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks.

[Gateian]

This sounds to me like the Character you are trying to export has more than 1 UV set on the mesh. If you select the mesh and go to 'Tools > Channel Info' it will tell you what UV sets are on this mesh.

For a character there should be 6 channels with the following IDs:


Sometimes there may be an extra map channel on there. This is OK for meshes that have not been skinned, but not for characters. You can remove any extra map channels by selecting them and clicking the 'Clear' button.

Note, this will add a clear map channel modifier to your character. This will be above the skin modifier, which is incorrect. It needs to be below the skin modifier and ideally collapsed into the stack. You should be able to change the order of the modifiers though.

[Derkaragnarr]

Thanks! That worked perfectly!
Well, it got me to the next step, which brings a new question...I have successfully exported the figure out of Max, but when I try to bring it into TW, I get the following error:
"Error. Incompatible animation specified. The specified model file cannot be used with the animation file at (file location) because there are missing bones (Bip01_HeadNub, Bip01_L_Toe0Nub, Bip01_R_Toe0Nub, Bip01_R_Finger1Nub, Bip01_R_Finger2Nub, Bip01_R_Finger0Nub, Bip01_L_Finger1Nub, Bip01_L_Finger2Nub & Bip01_L_Finger0Nub)
I have tried exporting with just the bones, and with the bones and the dummy objects with the names listed in the error message, and with bones when the bones have an animation applied to them, and when they have no animation assigned to them. I keep getting the same error message. Can you please advise?
Thanks.
PS
I have been able to use this same file to successfully export and then import character animations.

[Gateian]

Apologies for my long reply.

Ok as the error suggests, there is something wrong with the bones. There should not be any nub objects included in the skin modifier list, so make sure they are removed first. I think the problem is that you have the nubs included in the skin modifier and you have exported animation. Unfortunately TW does not support these nub objects, so it is trying to apply animation data to bones that do not exist as far as TW is concerned.

I'd make sure the nubs are removed and export your character and animation again.

1 other note to bear in mind is that sometimes even though a bone is included in the skin modifier, it usually only exports correctly if at least 1 vertex in the mesh is weighted to it. Even if it's only a weighting of 0.1. So if one of your spine bones has no weights, it will not export and will also break the bone heirachy of the character.

[RobbyD]

Also you may want to check out the character exporting video. You may know most of it, but it's only a few minutes long and well worth looking at:

www.thinkingworlds.com/downloads/videos ... Export.zip
www.thinkingworlds.com/downloads/videos ... Export.zip
www.thinkingworlds.com/downloads/videos ... Export.zip

[Derkaragnarr]

Thanks! Yes, i had accidentally included the nub objects in the Skin/selected bones modifier. I have now successfully exported the character. I am able to import the character into TW, but there is a problem. Although I'm able to bring the character in, and you can see him in the preview window, once the scene is actually published, his visual representation is skewed. In the attached link, you can see my character as he should appear, and right next to him, looking like bad origami, what actually appears.
http://development.oakgrovetech.com/TW/thinking1.jpg
Any suggestions?
Thanks.

[Gateian]

I get this occasionally too and I fix this by following this procedure:

- Go into the 'skin modifier > advanced parameters'
- make sure 'bone affect limit' is 4
- click the save button, and save out the skin modifier settings somewhere
- delete the skin modifier
- select the mesh and apply a 'reset x-form modifier', then collapse the stack
- unhide your biped (if hidden) and put it into 'figure mode' <--- important
- make sure the biped lines up with your mesh in figure mode
- add a skin modifier to the mesh again and load in the settings you saved out earlier
- re-export and all should be gravy