XSI ZETools

[Tears2Roses]

eh, alright. I will and then see what happens.

EDIT: Now the tools dont show up in softimage... DX

[ANDEWEGET]

Open the script editor(press the 'Scroll' button on the bottom of the window or Alt + 4) and see if you can find any red text. If you find any, Copy&Paste here.
If there's no red text try and remove the XSIZETools folders from ..\Username\Autodesk\Softimage_Mod_Tool_7.5\Addons\,
start XSI once, then close it again and paste extract the archive into the install directory again.

[Tears2Roses]

Well actually, I think I will be okay. I got softimage 2013 and as of now ZE tools works fine. Thanks for creating such a wonderful tool ande!

[AceMastermind]

That update just adds the ValveSource and XNA tools to the installation, you don't need it unless you intend to make game assets for those engines.

One of the first things you should do after installing Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 is go to:

• C:\Softimage\Softimage_Mod_Tool_7.5\Addons\ModTool\Application\Plugins

then rename:

• ModStartup.js

to:

• ModStartup.js.bak

then restart Mod Tool, this will suppress the auto updater and splash screen.


@ANDEWEGET
You should add animation msh import to ZE Tools so we can tweak or study existing animations from the assets. I would think that reading in the data would be easier than writing it out.

[ANDEWEGET]

Good to hear!
@Ace: I thought that too at the beginning. If you remember from the first pms I sent you I actually started with an importer. In the end exporting was the easier task.
The biggest problem was getting the geometry efficiently into XSI. If you already had the models/hierarchy from unwrap or whatever applying the animations would be easy. Thinking about it, animation meshes don't have any important geometry so I could just handle every object as null, these are easy to import. The dunbarton would end up like a plotted animation(keyframe on every frame)...

[AceMastermind]

Plotted null chains sounds fine to me, if you can get this done that would be awesome!
I'd be happy to convert any geometry with skeletons from the assets for the community if they want to apply animations to something that hasn't already been released as a template.

[ANDEWEGET]

Hidden/Spoiler:

First person grenade throw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLrdvf-CUBo
The import process is a bit messy/ugly as I'm calling an external .exe to reverse the CRCs into names very often(depending on the number of bones up to a few thousand times). That .exe will flash a command line window every time it runs for not even a second.
I had to do some optimizing and profiling(importing 30 bones took about 70 seconds) but I got it down to a few seconds even without using extra C++ code.
I imported a droidekafp animation, some humanfp animations and one or two vehicle take-offs without problems(although it's hard to make out bad position/rotation because the result is just a bunch of lines/nulls). With an earlier version I tried to import some character anims but the transforms were off. Have to test that again tomorrow.
The dialog itself is a bit ugly as there's wasted space. I'll try to invent some options you can tick to fill it...

[AceMastermind]

You are truly amazing ANDE! I look forward to the release of this update!

[icemember]

Well done ANDE, Ace types the truth. You are amazing. That grenade throw looks good. I took look forward to this release.

[ANDEWEGET]

Thanks.
I dunno when I'll release it. I don't have that much time this weekend but I still want to do testing and maybe some more features if they're easy to implement. If I can't get those features in until next weekend I'll release the version next weekend anyways.

Hai.

Hidden/Spoiler:

Added 2 additional parameters:
Global Transform: Applies rotation etc as global instead of local(no difference as far as I could see). Just used this for testing, might remove it before release.
Null Display Size: Sets the display size of nulls to that value. I found nulls with a display size of 1 to be too large, you couldn't really see anything of the skeleton.

And a video showing the import process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXoYtQ8s ... e=youtu.be


Importing still takes pretty long. A player character takes about 16 seconds because it has so many bones.
You can see the crc tool flashing "a few" times during the import on the left side. Unpack is external so there aren't any steps for the progress bar > XSI doesn't respond during unpack.

Added some smaller things you wouldn't notice, too.

EDIT: Got the flashing fixed. Now a lot faster, too. The same animation I imported in the video in 17 seconds now imports in 5 and without flashing!

[AceMastermind]

I'm going to quote my previous post here:

You are truly amazing ANDE! I look forward to the release of this update!

You have done here what Brad Bolthouse(developer of Unwrap 3D) couldn't do.

*embedded your video for awesomeness!*

We'll have to figure out a streamlined workflow for viewing the skinned geometry with the animations. I'm thinking a rig to rig transfer using MOTOR or just constrain the skeletons together or save out a weight preset from the skinned geometry and load it on the geometry enveloped to the animated skeleton.

[ANDEWEGET]

Added 1.1.11.04 to the first page.

Changelog:

• Updated: zetcore, sicore.
  Import: Null Chains(ChainBuilder), Animations(AnimationImport) and Materials(MaterialBuilder, disabled).
  Import: Nulls can be colored according to type(bone, root, eff).
  msh2_crc: Replaced method of validating CRCs(wdrcrc.exe) with my own.
  msh2_crc: Optimized CRC/name validation function.
  msh2_crc: Suppressed drcrc.exe popping up every time it's called.
  msh2_unpack: Most likely fixed STRP polygon unpacking algorithm.
  msh2_unpack: Added animation unpack.
  msh2_unpack: MSHUnpack now uses a config dict.
  msh2_unpack: Wrote msh2_unpack.
  msh2: Added various smaller methods to Animation, Cycle, BoneCollection and Bone.

It's possible to color the imported nulls according to type (bone, eff, root) now. You can hide all effs and/or roots on import, too.

Hidden/Spoiler:

I'm away from tomorrow until Saturday so no bugfixes until then(unless you find them in the next few hours).

[kinetosimpetus]

May I suggest that you move the Bone Eff Root labels and color boxes so the color is closer to its own label than the one to its right?

[ANDEWEGET]

That's not as easy as it might seem. Actually it isn't possible at all if I keep them in a row...
I can shrink the space the individual colors have so much that XSI moves the label above the color though.
I'll add that to the next release. I have to clean up the UI for that anyways. I don't like all the read only check boxes.

[kinetosimpetus]

What about instead of label color label color, go color label color label?

[AceMastermind]

Amazing work here ANDE! I know now what i'll be doing today. I've been curious about the start/end of some of the animations for some time now, like the Droideka's for example.

Here's a tip for those viewing existing or creating new animations in Softimage, change the playback to 'RT' (RealTime) instead of 'All' so you can see what they'll look like ingame.

[Marth8880]

YES! I can finally export things in a newer version! I've been stuck with one of the much older releases for quite a long time now due to the export breaking for whatever reason and this newest version works perfectly!


Argh, exporting animations doesn't work for me it seems.

Hidden/Spoiler:

Hidden/Spoiler:

[code]' ERROR : Traceback (most recent call last):
' File "<Script Block >", line 36, in exportbutton_OnClicked
' export.export()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 690, in export
' self.do_export()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 740, in do_export
' self.msh.animation = anim.convert()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 85, in convert
' bonecoll.add(boneconv.convert())
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 35, in convert
' self.bone.recrc()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Modules\msh2.py", line 1678, in recrc
' self.CRC = msh2_crc.crc(self.name)
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Modules\msh2_crc.py", line 24, in crc
' subprocess.call(['drcrc.exe'], startupinfo=startupinfo)
' File "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012\Application\python\Lib\subprocess.py", line 470, in call
' return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
' File "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012\Application\python\Lib\subprocess.py", line 621, in __init__
' errread, errwrite)
' File "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012\Application\python\Lib\subprocess.py", line 830, in _execute_child
' startupinfo)
' WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified
' - [line 35 in C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZETools\Application\Logic\exporter.py]
' ERROR : Property Page Script Logic Error (Python ActiveX Scripting Engine)
' ERROR : [33] params.preview()
' ERROR : [34] export = andezetexport.Export(xsi, params)
' ERROR : >[35] try:
' ERROR : [36] export.export()
' ERROR : [37] except SystemExit:
' ERROR : [38] return
' ERROR : Traceback (most recent call last):
' File "<Script Block >", line 36, in exportbutton_OnClicked
' export.export()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 690, in export
' self.do_export()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 740, in do_export
' self.msh.animation = anim.convert()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 85, in convert
' bonecoll.add(boneconv.convert())
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Core\andezetexport.py", line 35, in convert
' self.bone.recrc()
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Modules\msh2.py", line 1678, in recrc
' self.CRC = msh2_crc.crc(self.name)
' File "C:\Users\Aaron\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Addons\XSIZEtools\Application\Modules\msh2_crc.py", line 24, in crc
' subprocess.call(['drcrc.exe'], startupinfo=startupinfo)
' File "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012\Application\python\Lib\subprocess.py", line 470, in call
' return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
' File "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012\Application\python\Lib\subprocess.py", line 621, in __init__
' errread, errwrite)
' File "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012\Application\python\Lib\subprocess.py", line 830, in _execute_child
' startupinfo)
' WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified
'
' <config><path>H:\BF2_ModTools\data_ME5\Worlds\TST\munged\door_open.msh</path><bbox>door</bbox><overwrite /><anim>True</anim><basepose /><rootname /><rootbbox>True</rootbbox><batch /></config>
' INFO : 4000 - Drive 'd:' marked as invalid for the next 300 seconds
' [/code]

[ANDEWEGET]

Could you check if drcrc.exe exists in ZETools\Application\modules ?
There was a problem with that missing the last time, too. If it's not there you can download the last version and copy the .exe from there.
I'll try.your suggestion kinetos when I'm back.

[Marth8880]

Yep, it's there. Could the problem be with me running the 64-bit version of Softimage?

[ANDEWEGET]

Not really. I'm developing with 2012 64. I'll have to read up on the error message you got.