Blender To HKX Development Thread

[EngineGaming]

And btw @dagobaking, got the nif addon from a link u left, where i can put them too? 

[dagobaking]

28 minutes ago, EngineGaming said:

And btw @dagobaking, got the nif addon from a link u left, where i can put them too? 

 

You can install by selecting the zip file of the addon in Edit > Preferences > Add-Ons > Install...

 

I could be missing something. But, it looks like the distortions you are seeing are from the wrong bones being manipulated. This is what we need the animation controls for. They move the correct bone(s) within restrained angles/locations.

Edited April 24, 2022 by dagobaking

[poblivion]

31 minutes ago, EngineGaming said:

And btw @dagobaking, got the nif addon from a link u left, where i can put them too? 

 

You will install it like any regular add-on.

[EngineGaming]

Thanks to both of u, i got them all set. Now i am working for it.

[Vader666]

Exporting a CAT rig out of 3DsMax as .fbx and importing it into Blender apparently works fine, only the Skin of the Meshes got lost.

So importing the Body ontop using the nif plugin should result in a pretty good Rig conversion.

[EngineGaming]

27 minutes ago, Vader666 said:

Exporting a CAT rig out of 3DsMax as .fbx and importing it into Blender apparently works fine, only the Skin of the Meshes got lost.

So importing the Body ontop using the nif plugin should result in a pretty good Rig conversion.

Yea, thats the thing, lack of bone weights on meshes, not just the rig.

[EngineGaming]

Good news! I can see a difference. The bone weights are corrected even without having to parent with bones, i had to modify offsets into a place. The head and other parts of the body is no longer distorted.
 

 

Easy to pose. It doesnt matter if normal meshes look odd and not smooth, but weights matter for references. But it's not finished, i wanna add chain IK, the pelvis could have become COM bone but it's still strange to see the opposite control. The IK for both legs can help stand to the ground, and ofc another one for arms.

[EngineGaming]

Update. It took way long to make a chain IK to the legs, it works exactly like in 3ds max but coming up with the ankle lifting and toe stands to the IK platform. The toe can even lift, too.



I also posed with my own foot IK, they could be my first succeded pose in blender, like this screenie below...



Until i get bunch of errors from havok. Unlike my testing file i left it, it worked before...




I don't see anything to be an issue. Like, Create animations with Use skeleton ticked comes from Create Skeletons, which in fact it's in the correct path. Spline ... What? That shouldn't be an error.

I also tried with my file that has meshes imported with nif addons, and maybe when i was planning to make a chain IK but didn't work out... Root bone ...? It's inserted keyframe... Frames don't matter unless the 0 had effect. Frame 1, not even that too... Bone problems? ...

In fact i had to add bones as helpers for IK, as u see the yellow bone calfs and feet... Or maybe keyframes but only one key binded at frame 1? I'll check tomorrow, otherwise, it's something strange. I don't wanna downgrade it all...

Edited April 24, 2022 by EngineGaming

[Vader666]

7 hours ago, EngineGaming said:

I don't see anything to be an issue

 

It seems you got no animation data in your file, so it either didn't got exported out of blender or got lost during conversion from fbx to hkt.

The Spline compression just tells you that there is no data it could compress, because there is no animation data.

[infiniteone]

It may be useful to grab the rig over at skyrim guild discord, its the best blender rig hands down, they're working on more too.  Point being, they've gone some of the distance, albeit not with fbx in the workflow, but everything else is the same, the blender file setup is quite nice with male/female and weapons and bones toggles and buttons to tweak and export etcetera, it also builds a bone key list and tons of other features as we've discussed here previously.

I am intrigued by the fbx addition you shared tho that seems promising, I have used ck-cmd (from github) which is another fbx workflow discussed elsewhere here on the site in the skyrim section, but what you shared is even more interesting.  I will test that out as im now* modding fo4 too heheh.

Edited April 26, 2022 by infiniteone

[dagobaking]

1 hour ago, infiniteone said:

It may be useful to grab the rig over at skyrim guild discord, its the best blender rig hands down, they're working on more too.  Point being, they've gone some of the distance, albeit not with fbx in the workflow, but everything else is the same, the blender file setup is quite nice with male/female and weapons and bones toggles and buttons to tweak and export etcetera, it also builds a bone key list and tons of other features as we've discussed here previously.

I am intrigued by the fbx addition you shared tho that seems promising, I have used ck-cmd (from github) which is another fbx workflow discussed elsewhere here on the site in the skyrim section, but what you shared is even more interesting.  I will test that out as im not modding fo4 too heheh.

 

Thank you for the tip. Those do sound like great features for a rig. Of course, someone will have to have the expertise to know how to even look at those features and apply them to a different skeleton for FO4.

[EngineGaming]

2 hours ago, infiniteone said:

It may be useful to grab the rig over at skyrim guild discord

U got invite link for it?

[EngineGaming]

Kk so the only keyframe was binded at frame 1 only, and should obviously bind the last one so that Havok would recognize my pose data. All exported, 0 warnings. Thanks Vader for explaining! At my current task, i am still making some few test poses to make sure they are good. I am thinking if everything is working ill release the rig on Nexus so that everyone can use it. 

[EngineGaming]

And bcs most of the bones are split. I also connected each of them so that we can rig without distorting out of the way when using translation axises. I made another test pose with one leg lifting and the pelvis is twisted. In fact, COM bone because of parent connections for the rest of the body.



That's how it looks in game after export. Legs with IK no issues, bones connected to others, in both modes. What's missing is IK/FK for arms but i'll do it soon. What was important to fix is finished now. Noted that without FootIK, feet wont stand to the ground as it should when we pick COM and move it down.



So i guess that would be final to continue. Now the question is what u guys think abt a complete rig in blender from me? Is it a good idea if i'll release it on Nexus as Modder's resources so that would be a good example for their future pose mods without using 3ds max?

[dagobaking]

Cool. I can't say that I understand what you did to fix the issue?

 

I think it would be great to share the rig. But, I think there are still some additional features needed. For instance, it should be based on Zex which includes additional bones beyond vanilla (for instance the tongue).

 

There should also be controller objects to manipulate instead of clicking directly on bones. For example, see the final output of using Rigify.

 

Options to control face morphs would be ideal. Short of that, modes to alternate mouth open/closed would be helpful.

[EngineGaming]

24 minutes ago, dagobaking said:

Cool. I can't say that I understand what you did to fix the issue?

 

I think it would be great to share the rig. But, I think there are still some additional features needed. For instance, it should be based on Zex which includes additional bones beyond vanilla (for instance the tongue).

 

There should also be controller objects to manipulate instead of clicking directly on bones. For example, see the final output of using Rigify.

 

Options to control face morphs would be ideal. Short of that, modes to alternate mouth open/closed would be helpful.

Dope idea too, i also did it in 3ds max for my 2 year pose pack. Face morphs. And abt ZeX, it would be useful for mostly duo animations at the same scene but i will also need to learn abt duo first. But i can do that too. Atm i am adding these in to-do list in the future.

And not sure what u mean Rigify, but ofc i would like to know, either.

[infiniteone]

14 hours ago, EngineGaming said:

U got invite link for it?

Yeah, its an open to the public group, there's lots of nice folks and many animators as well. They do occasional animation tutoring meetups there as well.

https://discord.gg/RtmhURVV

The awesome-sauce blender rig I mentioned above is in the #Resources channel posted by Kars near the middle of the posts there in that section, along with several other useful bits and tips people have added. its easy to find since that section is not tons of stuff.

 

[infiniteone]

I already have Skryim animating stuff setup so im curious if my havoc tools install is going to be a problem?
fo4 uses a different version, can we have multiple versions of havok tools in one system?

 

Getting the vanilla fo4 animations into blender would be nice for making variations and tweaks, I didnt see any info on that FBX importer being able to convert the other direction? Or is there already a preferred tool for getting fo4 vanilla animations into blender?

 

I have a few bits collected

There's a hkx blender importer https://github.com/opparco/io_anim_hkx but its only for 32bit hkx files...

...same with niffools blender addon, in skyrim we convert the vanilla animation to 32bit LE version (or use Skyrim LE anim files) then convert them to .kf with command line, then use niftools addon to import/export .kf files from blender.

There's ck-cmd that can convert .nif to .fbx https://github.com/aerisarn/ck-cmd useful for editing animations that are embedded into nif's like objects and effects anims.

Found this https://github.com/Highflex/havok2fbx but again 32bit only...

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by infiniteone

[dagobaking]

3 hours ago, infiniteone said:

Yeah, its an open to the public group, there's lots of nice folks and many animators as well. They do occasional animation tutoring meetups there as well.

https://discord.gg/RtmhURVV

The awesome-sauce blender rig I mentioned above is in the #Resources channel posted by Kars near the middle of the posts there in that section, along with several other useful bits and tips people have added. its easy to find since that section is not tons of stuff.

 

 

Thank you. Yes. That rig is super nice. Good to know what is possible. But, my Blender knowledge is too low to even begin trying to replicate that for a different game...

I see that they have some solution for annotations in there. It looks like they get put directly into a scene (those little purple bones the button adds).

 

Maybe someone in that discord would be interested in helping make a FO4 rig with some of these features?

 

3 hours ago, infiniteone said:

I already have Skryim animating stuff setup so im curious if my havoc tools install is going to be a problem?

 

I'm not sure if Havok will allow you to install more than once since it probably uses the same file names and install folder. BUT, I'm pretty sure that all you need for the Fallout 4 FBX workflow is the one exe file. Not 100% sure. But, I think its self contained. So, you could install it, move the executable somewhere else and just use it from that new location later (and then re-install your Skyrim version in the regular place).

 

3 hours ago, infiniteone said:

fo4 uses a different version, can we have multiple versions of havok tools in one system?

 

Getting the vanilla fo4 animations into blender would be nice for making variations and tweaks, I didnt see any info on that FBX importer being able to convert the other direction? Or is there already a preferred tool for getting fo4 vanilla animations into blender?

 

I thought this was possible with Dexes tools: 

 

But, on closer inspection I'm not seeing how it's possible with the current state of the tools... I thought I saw a tutorial on how to do this somewhere. But, it was years ago and forget exactly...

 

7 hours ago, EngineGaming said:

Dope idea too, i also did it in 3ds max for my 2 year pose pack. Face morphs. And abt ZeX, it would be useful for mostly duo animations at the same scene but i will also need to learn abt duo first. But i can do that too. Atm i am adding these in to-do list in the future.

 

The process in 3DSMax for duo (or more) animations is to merge multiple rigs into one scene. Animate them all. Then export each character animation separately (delete the others, export, revert then delete the opposite others, export, etc.) It's kind of a pain in the ass. So, if there was some way to block a character from export with a quick button click instead of delete/revert process that would be amazing. Even better would be some fancy script that knows to export each char animation separately.

 

7 hours ago, EngineGaming said:

And not sure what u mean Rigify, but ofc i would like to know, either.

 

Rigify is an add-on that comes with Blender but is not turned on by default. It is a tool that allows quickly creating rigs for characters. In the right hands it can probably be used to make the rig for FO4. But, it's a little tricky in this case because we already have a skeleton we must use. Rigify typically creates the skeleton as part of the rigging process. A step we don't really need in this case...

 

This shows more what its about: 

 

 

The reason why it should be considered imo is that there are other add-ons that do other cools things to rigged characters. But, they sometimes require that the characters are rigged with Rigify. So, it seems like its a psuedo standard in the add-on world.

[RohZima]

14 hours ago, EngineGaming said:

And bcs most of the bones are split. I also connected each of them so that we can rig without distorting out of the way when using translation axises. I made another test pose with one leg lifting and the pelvis is twisted. In fact, COM bone because of parent connections for the rest of the body.



That's how it looks in game after export. Legs with IK no issues, bones connected to others, in both modes. What's missing is IK/FK for arms but i'll do it soon. What was important to fix is finished now. Noted that without FootIK, feet wont stand to the ground as it should when we pick COM and move it down.



So i guess that would be final to continue. Now the question is what u guys think abt a complete rig in blender from me? Is it a good idea if i'll release it on Nexus as Modder's resources so that would be a good example for their future pose mods without using 3ds max?

 

Have you tried a simple animation of the legs, @EngineGaming? 

 

I was having some issues with interpolation when I did it. I only moved individual joints, then I baked every frame. Still didn't come out right in game.

[infiniteone]

4 hours ago, dagobaking said:

Thank you. Yes. That rig is super nice. Good to know what is possible. But, my Blender knowledge is too low to even begin trying to replicate that for a different game...

I see that they have some solution for annotations in there. It looks like they get put directly into a scene (those little purple bones the button adds).

 

Maybe someone in that discord would be interested in helping make a FO4 rig with some of these features?

Yea I bet they'd discuss it and answer questions etc, or maybe even want to build it as well if they also play fo4, they're friendly there and have a lot of fun.  User Kars there is the one that made that great rig setup, and there are several others working on rigs, they intend to build a blender anim rig for every skeleton/NPC type over time.

 

Thanks for the tip on havok install, I figured I might need to finagle it a bit.  I will keep searching on the converting vanilla animations , Id rather figure out the blender way than mess with 3ds as ive been using blender for many years and much prefer it.

[dagobaking]

I don't blame you. 3DS sucks.

 

If there is a way to convert vanilla anims I think it might have been outlined in one of @ShadeAnimator s guides.

[EngineGaming]

6 hours ago, RohZima said:

 

Have you tried a simple animation of the legs, @EngineGaming? 

 

I was having some issues with interpolation when I did it. I only moved individual joints, then I baked every frame. Still didn't come out right in game.

Not yet other than posing. I could either show u once i am taking a short break. The legs seem to work without issues as far as i know.

[RohZima]

1 hour ago, EngineGaming said:

Not yet other than posing. I could either show u once i am taking a short break. The legs seem to work without issues as far as i know.

 

Take a break man, no problem. I recommend testing that first before going ahead spending time on a rig. 

[EngineGaming]

8 hours ago, dagobaking said:

The process in 3DSMax for duo (or more) animations is to merge multiple rigs into one scene. Animate them all. Then export each character animation separately (delete the others, export, revert then delete the opposite others, export, etc.) It's kind of a pain in the ass. So, if there was some way to block a character from export with a quick button click instead of delete/revert process that would be amazing. Even better would be some fancy script that knows to export each char animation separately.

That's for 3ds Max, i know that trick and i often used for it. But not for Blender. If i will go and import it again it will rename it to .001 each as normally Blender does. I am doubting if theres a different way that would work like in 3ds max trick.