Request for help: Milkshape BDY export keeps freezing

Velcron · Post by **Velcron** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:00 am

I have successfully exported several models from Milkshape as BDY files, and then converted them into ACT files through Actor Studio, and they have shown up correctly in Actor Viewer. I do it by having a mesh in Milkshape, then adding one single joint/bone, then using the joint tool to assign all vertices to that same joint. Exporting as a BDY works fine, usually, and takes about two or three minutes.

However, if I have a mesh and an actual skeleton, instead of just a single bone, it's different. As before I use the joint tool to assign all vertices to their proper (nearest) bone/joint, and that works fine. But when I go to export as a BDY file, Milkshape reports "Writing .BDY file..." as it always does, and then just stays like that, forever, never completing the export and return to "ready" mode. I have let it sit for over six hours to see if it was just taking a longer time, but it never finished.

I notice that if I have that exact same setup with a skeleton and a mesh, but I assign ALL vertices to ONE specific joint in the skeleton, instead of each of them to their nearest joint, the BDY export works fine. But if I've auto-assigned them all to nearest joint, the export freezes.

I'll post a link here below of the actual saved Milkshape (ms3d) file so that anyone who wants to can download it and try it on their own machine, and see whether it works or what's wrong. Any help would be greatly, greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Milkshape file: http://filexoom.com/files/2006/10/26/34261/Busman.ms3d

psYco · Post by **psYco** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:10 am

Ive never tried auto assighn before so mabey you could try doing it manually? The animeations should look better anyway. How many polys in one of ur models? Cause when I export to BDY it only takes 5 seconds at most!

Post by **Jay** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:17 am

Just a question, how many joints do you have?

Post by **QuestOfDreams** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 9:47 am

Well, it doesn't surprise me that you have problems with it. Your model has over 23000 vertices and almost 32000 faces. This is way too much for a character model in any game engine. Many of the faces don't even add any detail to the model. Game development is about low-poly modelling. Details are added via textures (+bump mapping).

Post by **AndyCR** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:18 pm

What QOD said... Wow... This character has 3 times less detail and look at it...

http://www.pcnews.biz/data/images/game/ ... ne_3_8.jpg

Velcron · Post by **Velcron** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:22 pm

Thank you for the replies everyone, they are appreciated. However, the export problem has nothing to do with the size or detail of the mesh, because as I said I can export it to BDY just fine as long as all vertices are assigned to any one joint. Therefore the mesh itself isn't freezing the process.

The problem only occurs when vertices have been assigned to nearest joint using the joint tool. There are about 53 joints in the skeleton. So since the mesh itself isn't the problem, does anyone have any idea what might be?

I will focus on using lower res models in the near future, but for the moment I'd just like to try to solve this specific problem and find out what is causing it. Does anyone have any further theories? Thanks once again...

Post by **AndyCR** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:02 pm

I know there is a maximum bone count for actors, but i thought it was 128 bones, so that shouldn't be it. Strange.

psYco · Post by **psYco** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 5:25 pm

Well I think that what ever your exporting with is getting confuse with all the assighning of SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many verts to the bones... just try with summink more in the area of 1000 faces (thats about the max in RF, 32000 is just overkill)

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 2:08 pm

RF FAQ http://terrymorgan.net/download.htm

Gmax, I've done a 2 bone anim export, just to see if it worked. Worked.
Milkshape, I never go there, it's middle name is CRASH. Only use it for decompiling.

Don't argue with these guys, they KNOW.

RF FAQ http://terrymorgan.net/rffaq.zip

scott · Post by **scott** » Sat Oct 28, 2006 5:27 pm

e model that you have linked to seems to be for pre-rendering perposes only, when you are after the best quality possible, this is for cut scenes or video animation, where things dont have to update in 'real time' milkshape isnt that advanced, im suggesting that what other people have sed before by that it cant handle so many verticies to a bone, when you say you have tried it to one bone, do you mean this model exactly or a different one?

ive never done too much animating in milkshape, did u create the skeleton? or did u import it, if imported then milkshape may not improted it properly, i just dont have too much of an idea, i will try and export it my self later, just got a new laptop with oober power so if it is to work i will get it to work.

i will also post the steps of what i done with the bdy file if i am able to do it.

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 8:25 pm

Got this from the Jet 3d site (now dead), won't help you with
GMAX but might be useful for getting your thing into an .act file

gmax_to_act.zip

180k
http://hosted.filefront.com/hike1

Post by **Jay** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:31 pm

I am unsure if this will work, because jet3d actors are different from rf actors - don't know why though.

Post by **paradoxnj** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:54 pm

Jet3D is not dead. I don't know where you get that idea from.

The difference between Jet3D actors and G3D actors is that Jet3D actors support weighted vertices. Those scripts are the G3D actor export scripts though. We wrote a converter to convert Genesis actors to Jet actors which is why we keep the G3D stuff around.

You can find a bunch of Genesis resources here also.

scott · Post by **scott** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 6:14 pm

well i havnt been able to export it yet but when i start it up in milkshape version 1.7.6 and it gives me an error message saying "This MS3D has invalid triangles/groups! Do you want to remove these elements?"

and when i went through the groups there was groups with 2 triangles/pollys this may be the root of the your problem, i am busy just lately so have not had time to change this, try regrouping these to as little different groups as possible, eg, just one shoe1 and souls. as this could also be causing problems having groups the same name.

help that helps will try a few other things when i get time