So I'm doing these tree's for Fuzzdad...

I've made the model in Milkshape3D and made a few animations but Milkshape, being the beeyatch that it is borks just about everything I do animation wise. The animations working, its just the keyframes are all contradicting each other and its trying to motion tween everything and well, its all come out a wee bit wibbly wobbly woo.

So in a fit of desperation/inspiration I dig out my old 3D Studio Max CD, install it and then install the Valve SMD exporter and the SMD Import GMax script. Reference SMD imported, animation SMD imported, display is a bit funky but the modellings done so nothing to change there.

Then the fun part - the Curve Editor! Yay, just the thing I was looking for! :D

Although every single movement and rotation for every bone has a keyframe, getting rid of the superfluous ones is a snap - either drag select then delete or use the "Reduce Keys" command and let it do it for you.

But what I'm really happy about is that X, Y, Z movement and X, Y, Z rotation for each bone has a seperate timeline. I can actually accurately set keyframes for each of those and not have to worry about the usual mess milkshape makes of it. Oh happy day!

Best part though - BEZIER CURVES! Yay, I can actually set the acceleration of the movement between keframes so no more choppy anims! Nice gentle movements.

I tell you, I'm a converted man! Model in MS3D, knock up a quick animation with just the important keyframe positions then into 3DSM for final tweaking and smoothing.

Im so happy I could pee! :p

- Jed

Not on my models please...no yellow-stained bark on a tree for the FD.

LOL. Well you should see how easy its going to make the debris field for our "other" project ;)

- Jed

That's nice. I just had a similar experience with browsers. Firefox > IE :P

I always suspected 3DSM was a lot better for animating, I'll have to try it out, maybe it'll get me animating again finally...

Originally posted by Peril
I always suspected 3DSM was a lot better for animating, I'll have to try it out, maybe it'll get me animating again finally...

It was a piece of cake Peril. I've never really used Max before which is why I stayed away but with the SMD import and export it was easy. The timeline took me about 20 seconds to figure out.

Best thing is to set out the very basics of your animation in MS3D - just keyframe the important steps in the animation then tweak it up in Max.

- Jed

If only Lightwave could import bones with the SMD file ........lol.

No i might look into it now i do a little animating, as milkshape is so backwards, i remember using programs 17 years ago with better animating tools.

Can't it? That sounds odd considering that the bone definition is in the start of the SMD.

Wonder if I could write a .... NO JED, dont even go there!

- Jed

Originally posted by Trp. Jed
Can't it? That sounds odd considering that the bone definition is in the start of the SMD.

Wonder if I could write a .... NO JED, dont even go there!

- Jed

Well there is no import or export plugin for lightwave for SMD files, i have to export them from Milkshape as a lightwave object. In the readme that comes with the lightwave plugin for milkshape, the guy made it first off to carry the bones over aswell, but then took it out before he released it for some strange reason. Which is a shame, because lightwave has some really good animating tools, and i can't use them for Halflife models..:(.

Do you need character studio aswell as max.

No, just max.

At the moment its not importing the bones linked but I think that might just be the script I'm using.

- Jed

i cant figure character studio out ....
always gets some vertexes draging after the model
and last time it did it, i went so pised that i uninstalled 3DSM ...:rolleyes:

EDIT: and now im just jusing Milkshape ....

Jed check your PMs.

Originally posted by JoJo
Jed check your PMs.

I have. And done what you instructed.

- Jed

I'll sit on MSN as much as possible (not much over the weekend as I work) but I'm sure I'll vbe able to get you the 'data' ;)