jakerupert Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 So far as I understand it, the only way to get motion out of AM that you can use in a gameengine, is the x.exporter, right? But many gameengines like unity can`t import that. (The new great pointlevelfeature is for movies only) I don`t know, what the genesis act. and .av avatar files are doing, but it seems, that gameengines like unity cant use them as well. So does it make sense to ask for a featurerequest fbx- or collada- or maybe even just BVH export? Are one of these even doable by one man like Steffen in a reasonable amount of time? I think AM could then be a great tool for creating also animated gamecontent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Jake, you can already export BVH files from an Action in A:M. The only routes that I have found for getting a model and animation from A:M to Unity requires using 3DS Max, Softimage or Cinema 4D to convert the X file into FBX. Hoping Blender might work one day but would prefer an FBX exporter from A:M. I think that the FBX format is owned by Autodesk now so there are probably legal hurdles involved in writing an FBX exporter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakerupert Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Hi Paul, Good news about the BVH files, so you could use an obj export and a BHV action export, to use together in unity, I guess? Cinema 4D I have tried also, but wasn`t able to open the x.file. It says "unknownfileformat". Is there a trick to it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Hi Paul, Good news about the BVH files, so you could use an obj export and a BHV action export, to use together in unity, I guess? Cinema 4D I have tried also, but wasn`t able to open the x.file. It says "unknownfileformat". Is there a trick to it? You need a bone-hierchy, right? Otherwise you can use an OBJ-file with the MDD-export-plugin. > OBJ provides the geometrie, mdd the animation (on a CP-level). Other than that: You may be able to use Fragmotion. I heard of people using it with the directx-export from A:M. It can export to several game-engines after that, so not to FBX or Collada. It can however export to Milkshape and Milkshape can export to FBX. I would like an FBX or Collada-exporter too, but till then this is an unexpensive way to get A:M-models to Unity. Another, shorter but although much more expensive way is to use Right Hemispheres Deep Exploration. So I didn't test this route yet... it is however one of the most powerful converter-programms out there. See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Cinema 4D I have tried also, but wasn`t able to open the x.file. It says "unknownfileformat". Is there a trick to it? It is along time since I tried Cinema 4D but checking the Unity website confirms that it still supported, though C4D 10 has a problematic exporter. See the bottom of this page for file compatibility and a link to a work around for C4D 10: http://unity3d.com/unity/editor/importing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelplucker Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Milkshape and Ultimate Unwrap 3d support .x very well. UU3d is just a uv editor. Both are low cost and seem to be pretty common tools in the game dev area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakerupert Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I will experiment with the milkshape-pipeline and Paul you answered: >It is along time since I tried Cinema 4D but checking the Unity website confirms that it still supported, though C4D 10 has a problematic exporter. See the bottom of this page for file compatibility and a link to a work around for C4D 10: but Is there a special plugin because C4D wonnt recognize and open it or is milkshape the only (lowcost) way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I see what you mean. C4D can write X files but cannot read them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakerupert Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I also installed milkshape and can`t detect an direct x inport either just export. How do you guys manage to bring in the x.files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I also installed milkshape and can`t detect an direct x inport either just export. How do you guys manage to bring in the x.files? DirectX > Fragmotion (quite inexpensive, well known in the game-industry) > Milkshape (free) > FBX... that is the possible pipeline... See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 ...and A:M (X file) > Softimage XSI (FBX) > Unity This works though I haven't managed to get decals to transfer and daisy chained animations don't seem to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 ...and A:M (X file) > Softimage XSI (FBX) > Unity This works though I haven't managed to get decals to transfer and daisy chained animations don't seem to work. Although possible, so when I last tried it, it had a buggy importer at XSI too... See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I'll try it again and see what I get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted June 17, 2011 Hash Fellow Share Posted June 17, 2011 daisy chained animations What is that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 What is that? Hmm. Perhaps "daisy chaining" is not the correct term. Unity allows you to import animation sequences as separate files, one for each action, or as one file containing all of the actions for your character. So far I have only had success importing a single sequence per character but that is okay as you can then assign the start and end frame numbers to the correct action in Unity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakerupert Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 >DirectX > Fragmotion (quite inexpensive, well known in the game-industry) > Milkshape (free) > FBX... that is the possible pipeline... See you One other question. Do the exported x.files do have similar problems with fivepointers and hooks like the holes in the objexport and do you have to rework that in fragmotion or milkshape? > Milkshape (free) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 >DirectX > Fragmotion (quite inexpensive, well known in the game-industry) > Milkshape (free) > FBX... that is the possible pipeline... See you One other question. Do the exported x.files do have similar problems with fivepointers and hooks like the holes in the objexport and do you have to rework that in fragmotion or milkshape? > Milkshape (free) Oh, okay milkshape is 25 Euro you are right. When I last tested the DirectX-Exporter of A:M, I didn't have those problems. You have to have a look at the normals of course! (if the normals are facing the wrong way, the resulting polygones are not visible and you will have to set the model to "double-sided normals" in the poly-app / game-engine. (which can need more performance, so I would try to make it right in A:M using the Patch-Select-Tool and Flipping normals (Key: f) ). Other than that there were no bigger problems for me. I even got Sir Nigel to XSI without too much trouble involved. The bone-structure is not useable by humans so. It will animate as defined, but editing in XSI was not an option for me... Just to make it clear again: I did not test it with Unity, but with Quest3d (which can use directX-files diretly) and I was able to export everything the directX-plugin promised to export quite fine with it. (directx-file with geometry, textures, CP-weighted bone-animation) -> At my website you can find a little tutorial on DirectX-Export: - Video-Tutorial: A:M-to-Quest3d - Result of the work: Practicle part of my diploma thesis. Fragmotion was used by me because of the problems I had with the XSI-exporter back than (I am not sure if that has changed in the last 3 years so, maybe the importer/exporter has been reworked by Autodesk since then...). You would have to investigate a little in that area, but Fragmotion was very helpful and not very strict concerning the import but created good, valid output-files. See you *Fuchur* PS: I just had a look at fragmotion again and you can use the full fragmotion for free for 7 days. For that (I think the coder of fragmotion is quite into god) you have to put in a few words (> a pray to god... who knows why that is necessary to him...). After that you can use the software for 7 days. If you buy it, you dont have to do that again, otherwise y ou can renew as often as you want to by inputting the pray again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakerupert Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 I just did and could also try the gamemodel pipeline. Seems to work quite good so far. What a funny and original way to protect their software. Thats sure a good reason to spend the 50,-€! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 I did the pipeline again and it worked well: 1.) A:M: DirectX-Export-Plugin. 2.) Fragmotion: Import DirectX > Export using Milkshape-Format. 3.) Milkshape: Open Milkshape-Format > Export Alias FBX 4.) Unity: Import FBX. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did a video-tutorial on the pipeline here: Video Tutorial A:M2Unity3d / A:M2FBX Hope you guys like it and can use it! Best wishes *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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