[Click-select versus "box" select?]

Box selection affects all CPs stacked at a point, and click selection affects just one of them.

[A:M importer for Blender]

jakerupert

The details in error popups that begin with "Traceback (most recent call last):".

Have you retried it on the models you had problems with?

[A:M importer for Blender]

Update 0.1.20160815

Fixed the bug that jakerupert's Santa exhibited. I didn't get any tracebacks with either of the models, by the way.

[euler to quaternion. quaternion to euler]

euler.x = 10;

euler.y = 20;

euler.z = 30;

These should be in radians.

[euler to quaternion. quaternion to euler]

The Quaternion class (ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/Sdk/AMSDKDoc/classQuaternion.html) has a constructor that takes a RotateEuler (ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/Sdk/AMSDKDoc/classRotateEuler.html) as an argument. And one degree equals (pi/180) radians.

[A:M importer for Blender]

I wonder how he plans to allow for animation

At this time the plan is to support only transformation animation curves. And yes, the transforms will need to be baked. It shouldn't be a problem to duplicate a chor and bake the animation in the copy. Or will it?

 

 

Blender to Sketchfab via FBX file format

Sketchfab accepts .blend files just fine. But for animation, it only supports FBX.

[A:M importer for Blender]

Thanks, I'll look into these.

[A:M importer for Blender]

What does that guy look like in A:M? I don't like the lengths of those bones.

[A:M importer for Blender]

jakerupert

Heads up!

http://pix.academ.info/images/img/2016/07/04/8425df1b47ad8752fb59438d10510aa3.jpg

Arc-rotate is MMB by default, Ctrl+MMB dollies in and out.

[Developer/Programmer Questions (Copy/Paste Buffers)]

 

 

I understand some of the pitfalls but... even if Read-Only?

You'd likely want full transparency even if one instance was 32-bit and the other 64-bit. Couldn't even do much reading in this case =)

 

The thing is with those two instances of A:M that as soon as one updates a model on disk the second instance can update from that model on disk. Almost instantaneously.

A lot of software monitors changes to currently-opened files. Your preferred text editor probably does it.

 

Another approach is to use a client–server model where the server manages the data and the clients work with it over a specialised protocol. You may have heard of the Verse protocol, which was an experiment in adapting this client–server stuff to 3D graphics. It didn't catch on though.

[Developer/Programmer Questions (Copy/Paste Buffers)]

 

 

The question I might have is what it would take to make these two instances of A:M talk to each other

I suppose A:M would have to define a common clipboard format for its data so that multiple versions of the program can read and write it.

 

 

 

share data in memory

That is not a good idea =)

[Developer/Programmer Questions (Copy/Paste Buffers)]

 

 

Assuming A:M would store pointers to data structures this makes we wonder if these pointers could be saved to disk for loading later.

A pointer is a number that specifies the address of something in memory. When your A:M session ends, any pointer value you saved during the session makes no sense any more.

You can always dereference a pointer (meaning, get the thing it points to). Note that the referenced data structure will contain pointers of its own, so you'd need to do some deep dereferencing to gather the data you need. But when you've gathered everything you want, you can save it in any format you please, binary or text-based.

[Developer/Programmer Questions (Copy/Paste Buffers)]

What would we see if we could see the data in the buffer?

Probably pointers to A:M's data structures.

[A:M importer for Blender]

Update 0.1.20160701

Some parsing improvements; now all the stock characters should import successfully.

Funnily, robcat2075 helped fix one of the issues without even knowing it. In Shaggy.mdl the script was stumbling over the "é" in "Robert Holmén". Turns out .mdl files aren't Unicode, so the importer now assumes they are Windows-1252.

[A:M importer for Blender]

Update 0.1.20160630

The script now skips hair definitions. I wasn't familiar with that markup until I tried and failed to import the stock wookie. The model loads correctly with this update.

Please report any issues you find.

[A:M importer for Blender]

i suspect the unsubdivided patches will look a bit raw.

A real model is bound to be detailed enough to look OK with subdivision turned on.

Even the keekat looks decent as a subdiv mesh.

[A:M importer for Blender]

A:M importer for Blender

 

This add-on imports Animation:Master models into Blender. The following happens during model import:

• Patches are converted to polygonal meshes without any subdivision. This happens only for explicitly saved patches listed in the file; if your patch is stamped, it will come through.
• Faces are not created for implicit patches. If you need to make a surface from your edge net, use Blender's excellent family of Fill tools.
• Hooks turn into regular vertices.
• A:M bones and nulls turn into Blender bones.
• CP attachments and weights are converted to vertex weights. For hooks, weights are copied from their hook bases.
• Constraints, limits and all other rigging relationships are ignored.
• Stamps turn into UV layouts, using the / naming convention.
• CP groups turn into vertex groups and are added to the groups that Blender uses for vertex weighting.

The add-on also imports animations in .xform format, as exported by the current version of Animation:Master.

 

Get the add-on here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/blendamajigs/files/io_scene_am_import/
The name of the file is io_scene_am_import-*.*.*.zip.

 

The add-on requires Blender 3.0 or later.

 

How to use

Important: A note on bone orientation specifics. Blender and A:M use different rest-pose orientations for bones. In Blender it's +Y that looks "down" the bone, and in A:M it's +Z. Therefore, if you try to apply A:M animations unchanged to a normal-looking Blender armature, it'll come out wrong.
The add-on supports both orientations for models and animations; the bone orientation import option can be set to either A:M-native or Blender-friendly. Whichever option you use for model import, stick with the same option for animation import to get correct results.
To help you track which option was used during the model import, the add-on names the imported armature object and associated armature data either "mdl_armature_am" (for "A:M-native") or "mdl_armature_blen" (for "Blender-friendly"). You might want to rename the armature object, but you're unlikely to rename the armature data, because nobody ever bothers, so it's a simple hint that won't get lost.

Importing models
To import a .mdl file, click File | Import | Animation:Master model (.mdl).

 

Importing animations

To import an animation in .xform format:

1. Set the time slider to the frame you want the sequence to start at.
2. Select an armature that matches the animation you want to import, or a mesh associated with such an armature. This should preferably be part of a model imported with this add-on.
3. Click File | Import | Bone Transformations as Animation (.xform).
   Specify the bone orientation used by the target armature: A:M native or Blender-friendly. (An "A:M-native" armature is bound to look weird, with bones jutting sideways; if unsure which to select, check the armature data name.)

For details about the .xform format, see this topic.

How to install

1. Open Blender's User Preferences window and go to the Add-ons tab.
2. Click Install and specify the downloaded .zip file or the unpacked .py file.
3. Enable the Import-Export: Animation:Master Import add-on.

[Digital downloads of Windows (non Microsoft)?]

Digital download, non-Microsoft? That sounds bad.

 

Yep. Just get it from Microsoft:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8ISO

[Free quad converting 3D program]

I do find myself wondering if running the model through this application first then Nemyax's Blender to A:M converter might result in an optimal mesh.

The model should meet these requirements:

• Be an all-quads model
• Have sets of only three or five edges converging at the singularities (aka poles)

As long as both are true, the Make an A:M-Friendly Copy operation will produce an optimal topology for A:M.

[Mari - non commercial - free 3D texturing software]

The commercial license of Mari starts at £1,233.

There's also the Steam edition of Mari which you can use commercially and which is a sight cheaper.

[smart skin and export for engines]

the other animation app would need to have some equivalent to smartskin in it... which sounds very unlikely

A smart skin is just a special case of a driver. They're in all animation software in some form or other, but not so much in game engines. Although some engines do support simultaneous vertex and skeletal animation.

[Plug in wish list]

Is there a plugin that cuts through a row of patches with a spline and keeps the decals intact? I'm thinking of writing one, but maybe it already exists.

[Model Plugin: Three-Point Reroute]

Fuchur

In your example, both routes can be corrected in one go, because there's a CP between them. Just select the two stretches and run the plug.

[Model Plugin: Three-Point Reroute]

Add a feature request for that in v19 when v19 begins beta

Can I apply for the beta?

[Model Plugin: Three-Point Reroute]

Is it possible to make that configurable?

Hellraiser would have the details, but long story short, it would be a lot of work, because a whole new configuration mechanism would have to be knocked together. The cheeky little hack would turn into a giant bullying Hacky McHackfaceski, and it still wouldn't solve the problem of hotkey conflicts.

A good long-term solution would of course be to add hotkey support for plugin calls (not necessarily in the UI; text-editing the main hotkey config file would be fine). In the short term, I can rebuild the plugin with a hotkey that everyone likes better =)