bones, skins and other crap i need help with...

[delilah]

first of all i hope this is a good section for this thread and that im not  duplicating an existing thread.

 

i have been playing around with some different armor pieces and hairs and stuff, trying to get them rigged for htd.  i have watched the autopilot video and a couple of others from canderes but i still have so many questions.

 

i managed to get some bones, nubs, capsules and constraints added to a cloak armor.  its actually more like a scarf with fabric strip on either side of the back.  if i understand right, using autopilot, the bones hierarchy names and constraints are all done by the script but i need to link the capsules together starting from the lowest child and working up.  i parented the cloak bones to the spine, but i think the pauldron or clavicle bones would be more appropriate. i then added the new bones to the cloaks existing skin modifier, adjusted the envelopes and tried to weight it.  this is where shit tends to fall apart for me.

 

• once weighted, isnt the mesh supposed to move with the bones when the bones move?  that isnt happening for me.  if i move a bone, just that bone and its children moves.  the mesh stays in place.
• are the capsules supposed to move or do they stay where they were initially created?
• when i adjust the envelopes, weird shit happens and i dont know what is normal and what isnt.  the envelope is basically an inner and an outer capsule. the outer doesnt seem to be too difficult, but when i adjust the inner one, if it gets too close to the mesh, the mesh deforms and looks all stupid.
• when i have the envelopes positioned, how can i get it to automatically paint the weights onto the mesh?
• if and when i ever get to a point where i can actually export, what is the step by step procedure for exporting the new nif and if possible, what does each step/file/setting do and why is it neccessary?

 

i know these questions are all over the place but since they are all part of getting a nif hdt ready i thought it best to ask them all together in one place instead of in several different threads.

 

thanks in advance

 

[blabba]

xD,

 

I'm working on this stuff as well, and am lucky to have received guidance from the experts (Canderes, Yoo, Vioxsis)

Here's a good quick lesson I used to teach myself weighting:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE6DXlersZM

 

He stumbles a bit, but overall a good quick demo of how to do this stuff.

 

Also, it's probably best that you post questions related to HDT in the HDT Sub-Forum.

 

edit: It'd be cool if you could try using the XPMS skeleton for the capes so you could try making a 'universal' cape xml sort of thing.

[delilah]

this was one of the videos i saw...  but i still must be doing something wrong.

 

i thought about posting in the hdt sub forum but since most of my questions were not directly related to htd but to other stuff like bones skins capsules etc, i thougt a more general forum would be best;  even though my ultimate goal is to get items hdt ready.

 

i also thought about using the 2 cloak bone chains on the xpms skelly since that is what i use in game as well as in 3ds max...  but i thought if it were that simple, people would have done that already.  maybe im wrong.

 

 

EDIT:

my 3ds max sometimes glitches out a bit if i load too many different nifs and delete them without restarting the program.  also doesnt seem to like lots and lots of "redo/undo" operations...  so, at the moment the cloak IS skinned to the new bones and moves with them. i need to blend the weights a bit but that can happen later on.  i still dont know if the capsules are supposed to move with the bones and what the export procedure is...

[canderes]

If you have the skin modifier under the mesh/poly object it will cause the mesh to behave like a static model, so you might need to move the skin modifier up, top to bottom is usually this-bsdismember modifier, skin, edit poly/edit mesh. The capsules don't move in the view port when you do move or rotate on bones because they are in a separate hierarchy-I think I've had crashes happen before when accidentally linking rigid bodies to the main skeleton rig, so avoid that. When you get around to exporting the mesh look under the skin modifier and make sure the max vertices per bone is 4, sometimes max spits me 30 and it crashes the exporter. As for the settings on export you don't want to have the rigid bodies exported with the main nif-anyway set weld to 0, sort nodes, do not flatten the hierarchy, collapse transforms, uncheck remove extra bones, uncheck export vertex colors, update tangent space, export as ninode at the bottom. When you apply texture branches in nifskope you'll want to paste the texture data from another nif (for files from the old exporter anyway).

 

If the envelopes are giving you trouble try a different version of the plugin; there is a plugin by figment, then one uploaded by wix and some other one posted here on the forum-I had trouble with that one, but there is a support post with it. Theru posted another one on the nifskope forum-I think it is the one I'm using currently.

[delilah]

If you have the skin modifier under the mesh/poly object it will cause the mesh to behave like a static model, so you might need to move the skin modifier up, top to bottom is usually this-bsdismember modifier, skin, edit poly/edit mesh. The capsules don't move in the view port when you do move or rotate on bones because they are in a separate hierarchy-I think I've had crashes happen before when accidentally linking rigid bodies to the main skeleton rig, so avoid that. When you get around to exporting the mesh look under the skin modifier and make sure the max vertices per bone is 4, sometimes max spits me 30 and it crashes the exporter. As for the settings on export you don't want to have the rigid bodies exported with the main nif-anyway set weld to 0, sort nodes, do not flatten the hierarchy, collapse transforms, uncheck remove extra bones, uncheck export vertex colors, update tangent space, export as ninode at the bottom. When you apply texture branches in nifskope you'll want to paste the texture data from another nif (for files from the old exporter anyway).

 

thanks, canderes, the only thing i had to change was the flatten hierarchy check-box.  when i mentioned the step by step export i meant the havok content tools export. 

i need that for the xml or something, right?

 

[canderes]

If you are going to preview an xml I think this is the usual setup

 

Create skeletons-include the NPC root for all the regular bones

Create skeletons-include the rigid body hierarchy

create rigid bodies

create constraints

create ragdolls-choose the rigid body root you specified in the second create skeleton filter

create mapping-skeleton a is the deforming skeleton and skeleton b is your ragdoll; under advanced settings choose match by name

create skins-so you can preview your skinned mesh with the affecting rbs

preview-opens the local preview so you can test the rb and skinning

 

on export you'll want the rigid body names to be the same as the skeleton but this usually does it

create skeletons-npc root for all the regular bones

create rigid bodies

create constraints

create ragdolls-choose use default physics system

prune types-check all scene data, all animation data, environment data, and all resource data

write to platform-there is a bug with this for me where i have to choose packfile/xml and check remove metadata, something I wish I had known sooner (found out by accident) is that when you save for main file (.max) you can just provide a filename and it will put the xml/hkx in the same folder as the max scene.

 

If you get the nif to load, but the physics don't work double check to make sure that the rigid bodies and bones have the same name-it happens alot, but if you use the ones from hdt autopilot then you should be fine.

 

Normally use deprecated is use on create constraints, but I think I've exported files where I just left the settings on default and everything worked.

[delilah]

ok...  i dont think i gave my bones a root.  it exported , but when i open it in nifskope the mesh is positioned right but the bones are on the "floor"

 

also...  preview crashed while i was trying to adjust the view

[canderes]

Root is just the highest parent in the skeleton so for the default skeleton its NPC Root [Root] and if you are trying to include the rigid bodies, but some things aren't linked (like separate keyframed objects) just add them individually. If all the bones are linked to the origin (in nifskope) then the hierarchy has probably been flattened.

[delilah]

ok, here is what i did...  i selected the cloak mesh, the bones i created, the spine bones, npc_com and Root.  export selected ya da ya da ya da...  load in nifskope.  ALL bones are there and the mesh is out of position.  it is rotated 90 degrees so it looks like it hangs off a shoulder instead of the back.

 

EDIT:

i managed to get the cloak aligned correctly for the most part.  the default offset keeps kicking in for some reason and idk why but that is a minor issue at the moment.  the item loads up in game and is wearable without crashing.  im gonna try making the xml for it today and see what happens... 

 

EDIT 2:

I was able to create a hkx file with havok content tools.  no idea if it works because i still need to do the whole nifskope extra data thing...  but, i got some warnings when i made the hkx...  it says:

 

    [0xabba3865] Warning : Cannot create a ragdoll from a system with 10 rigid bodies and 8 constraints.
    [0xabba3865] Warning : A ragdoll requires n rigid bodies and n-1 constraints. Ignoring system ("Default Physics System")
    [0xabba3bee] Warning : No Rag Doll Instances Created

 

so...  lost now.

 

re-watched your video...  need to make it an xml and ignore the warnings 

 

EDIT 3:

i failed.  item shows up in game but no hdt. 

 

[delilah]

so...

 

I have spent the last week or so messing around with this trying to get something to work.  i still dont have anything that works in game yet and i have no idea what i am missing.

 

most recently i mimicked canderes hair tutorial but i am still having problems.  i have a ponytail i am using.  i added 5 bones, nubs, capsules and constraints. i rigged the hair (crudely) and when i move one of the bones, the hair moves with it.  i went through the first step of the export and loaded up the preview.  what i see is a bit different from what is in the video.  i can see the hair and the capsules.  the capsules react to changes in gravity axis but they do not drag the hair with it.  also, i cannot move an individual capsule with the mouse like canderes does in the video.  also, when i run the config i get warning messages saying the 5 bones are not mapped.

 

does anyone have any idea what i am doing wrong?

[delilah]

it doesnt look like im going to get any more help with this thread but im going to try anyway.

 

for the most part i have managed to get a working hdt hair made.  it was crude and ugly but it worked in game.  the small issue i have right now is as such:

 

i have a "main" bone chain for a pony tail. along the side there are a couple little tendrils of hair.  i would like those tendrils to move seperately... sort of.  kinda like the tassels on handelbars.  they track with the  bars but still "flutter".  i added a new smaller bone chain and linked the parent to one of the bones in the "main".  in the preview i can see my tendril fluttering...  but it does NOT track with the main bone chain.  in fact, the parent of the smaller chain stays in place and its children flutter, while the main chain is moving all over the place.

 

any ideas as to what i am missing?

 

thanks in advance.

[gerra6]

It sounds like part of what you need to do is rig it, skin it, and weight it.

Have you tried rigging the mesh using Mesh Rigger?

 

That's pretty much what I designed it to do.  Simply find a nif that is similar to the one you made in general shape/geometry (doesn't have to be too close, it just need to have more or less the weighting you want) and set it as the template mesh nif.

 

Mesh Rigger will do the rest.

 

For HDT you will probably need to rig your mesh with a complete skeleton, so select the skeleton you use in-game as your 'skeleton template' and enable 'preserve skeleton structure'  That will rig the mesh with a complete, fully animateable skeleton, rather than the flattened skeleton (scene root parented niNodes) that you would otherwise end up with.

 

 

[delilah]

it is rigged, skinned and weighted. but it doesnt move properly

 

think of it like this...  the tendril is your thumb.  it is attached to your hand and should go where your hand goes.  also, your thumb has some motions it can do independently of the rest of your hand, but it is still always close to your hand.  now imagine you have your hand in your pocket along with your thumb, and then take you hand from your pocket and try to pick up a pen from the table...  oh no, you cant because your thumb is still in your pocket.  your thumb is still connected to your hand and is still doing what a thumb should be doing, its just doing it somewhere other than where it should be.

 

hope that makes sense

 

[gerra6]

Well, I can't help you with max.

 

If you're trying to create a new skeleton and a child bone is not responding to its parent bone, them be absolutely certain that the parent-child relationship is set up properly (however that is done in max).

 

If you're seeing issues when you attempt to animate the armature in max, is there any chance that you inadvertently added a constraint to the child bone that prevents it from responding to the parent's movements?

 

If on the other hand, the bone is moving but the skinned mesh is not, then that's a skinning/boneweight/rigging problem.

[canderes]

Set the parent of the secondary bone chains to debris and link it to the closest rb from the main bone chain. If you are using the scripts what it usually does with new chains is designate the first bone of a new chain as keyframe rb type. Also check to make sure that your mass isn't set to zero.

[delilah]

i have tried your suggestions every possible way i can think of and nothing seems to work.  when i change the Keyframe to debris and run the preview, the RB falls out and drags the skin with it, stretching it through the "floor".

 

here is a screeny of my bone rig (the bones involved in this issue anyways).

 

ofc, the larger chain is for the pony tail (its a big pony tail), the smaller is for the tendril on the side of the pony tail.  i created the main chain, then the smaller, and used hdt autopilot (sorry, but i cant seem to get it to work right using your scripts). once the bone nubs and capsules were made  i linked the top nub in the tendril chain to bone 6 of the main chain.  i then rigged the hair to the bones, weighted it and ran the preview.  it took some trial and error but i got the hair to track the bones and rbs...  except for the tendril.

 

linking the parent rb of the tendril to back_main 6 doesnt seem to do anything. the bone nubs dont have any sort of properties for keyframe or debris, and as i said, changing the parent rb from keyframe to debris caused it to literally fall out.  usually with the hair still rigged to it.

 

 

 

[canderes]

You linked the RB of the root tendril to the RB of Main 6 right? RBs cannot be linked to bones because they need to be constrained to something or they will fall to nothing. Add a ragdoll constraint between the parent tendril RB and Main 6 RB.

[delilah]

AHA!!!

 

that did the trick! 

thank you so much

 

now...  only 3 more of those on the pony tail, 3, maybe 4 for the bangs, my dog just farted again and i think i am going to die , and maybe 1 or 2 for the top of the head

 

 

btw: i have NEVER had a dog that farts as much as this one does.  in the evenings when he sleeps he lets one go at least every 10 minutes.

 

[delilah]

ok, here is another question...

 

while skinning, i often get to a point where i have verts that are affected by 3 or more bones. so, when i try to set to vert to .75 for one bone, and .25 to a second, the 3rd bone always manages to get a piece of the action as well.  this makes it only .66 to one and .2 to the second and the rest on the unwanted bone.  i have tried un-checking the "normalize" box but that just makes the mesh do ugly things until the verts are sorted out. also, i cant seem to get the weight tool to work right.  once i open it, i only see a couple bones in the list at the bottom.  also, once i apply a weight or shrink/grow more than twice everything deselects and greys out.

 

in short...  is there an easier, faster way to paint weights?

 

[gerra6]

The thing to keep in mind is that the numbers are relative percentages, rather than absolute values.

 

Let's say you skin 4 bones to a particular vertex (the maximum allowed in a nif) and weight paint the bones with the following weights:

 

bone 1: 1.0

bone 2: 0.75

bone 3: 0.5

bone 4: 0.25

 

That's not the weighting that you'll actually receive.

 

Instead, the weighting actually applied to the vertex for rendering purpose (or when the mesh is skinned during export) is

 

bone 1: 0.4

bone 2: 0.3

bone 3: 0.2

bone 4: 0.1

 

What the numbers actually represent is the percentage influence that each bone will have on the transformation ultimately applied to the vertex.

 

It might be easier to think of the numbers above as:

 

bone 1: 40%

bone 2: 30%

bone 3: 20%

bone 4: 10%

 

So...what's the best way to weightpaint?

 

Well, it depends on what you are attempting to paint.

 

Personally, I have three approaches.  Which I use depends on what I am trying to paint.

 

1. My favorite - Copy the weights from a mesh that already is weighted the way I want it to be.  When I'm using Blender, I use my Upgraded Boneweight Copy tool.  When I'm working directly with a nif outside of Blender, I use Mesh Rigger.

 

2. Situational - I use scripts to achieve the effect I want.  For Blender, I wrote several tools that allow me to automatically weightpaint types of objects.  One basically automatically weightpaints tube shaped meshes to use multiple linearly arranged bones.  Another automatically adds BB weighting to meshes.  I'm not sure what's available for your 3D program, but chances are good that someone, somewhere wrote a script that will get you the weighting that you want.

 

3. By hand.  Not my favorite.

[delilah]

what i needed help with was a better procedure for the actual weighting.... one that eliminated the influence i was getting from the unwanted bones.  i figures out a method, btw.  may be ugly and crude but it works for me.

 

also, i dont use blender. i tried a year or so ago but it was almost impossible to use and there was little to no documentation available.

 

 

new issue, though...  in the preview, the physics look pretty "ok" except for one area.  once the preview starts and the pony tail "settles" i get some wicked jittering from the base.  right where the little scrunchy is.  when i move the hair so gravity isnt pulling it down the jittering lessens/stops.

 

EDIT:

 

here is a fraps vid i shot of the issue in the preview window...

 

 

 

EDIT:

while i do not know exactly what was causing the movement of the hair, i was able to stop it.  i had 2 bones at the base of the pony tail.  one (the parent of the entire pony tail bone chain) very short, and its child, a bit longer.  when i deleted the parent and set the child to keyframe the movement stopped.  idk if it was something with the bones, constraints or rigid bodies though.

[delilah]

ok, canderes, its been a while since i posted here but im counting on you to tell me what i fucked up...

 

i have been editing a bunch of armors with 3ds max and outfit studio.  for the most part it has been going great.  BUT, there are a couple things im having some difficulties with. 

 

several of the armors i am editing  have loin cloths or other dangle-ly bits and i would like to have them flapping in the breeze.  i was able to get a flappity cloak a while back, but i never used it.  even did a long pony tail...  didnt use that either since it when nuts and stretched out all the time...  anyways...  i added the bones made the rigid bodies, skinned it, looks good in the preview window...  i make the XML file and fix the top level thing, export the nif...  and this is about as far as i can get.  the nif file opens up in nifskope and everything, but when i try to use it in game i CTD as soon as i put it on.  i tried using OS and when i load the outfit i get messages saying some bones werent found so it is skipping them.  turns out it is all the bones i added to swing the loin cloth around.

 

also...  the hierarchy looks a little odd...  i followed your turorial, canderes, and when im making the xml and i add the new bones....  the rigid bodies are mixed in with them....  i parented the bones to the pelvis, and there are 6 bones in the chain.  the hierarchylooks like this...

 

-bone 1

--rb1

---rb2

----rb3

-----rb4

------rb5

-------rb6

--bone 2

---bone 3

----bone 4

-----bone 5

------bone 6

 

lastly, not involving bones...  one of the armors i edited isnt showing up in game at all.  sorta.  its the diano armor i chopped up.  i dont have any obvious issues exporting, or sending it through outfit studio.  it doesnt have any extra bones or anything, but when i put it on, im still naked.  its the same with all the variants. ++H, ++L, royal or regular.  no CTD, but no armor either.

 

any ideas are greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

[blabba]

ok, canderes, its been a while since i posted here but im counting on you to tell me what i fucked up...

 

i have been editing a bunch of armors with 3ds max and outfit studio.  for the most part it has been going great.  BUT, there are a couple things im having some difficulties with. 

 

several of the armors i am editing  have loin cloths or other dangle-ly bits and i would like to have them flapping in the breeze.  i was able to get a flappity cloak a while back, but i never used it.  even did a long pony tail...  didnt use that either since it when nuts and stretched out all the time...  anyways...  i added the bones made the rigid bodies, skinned it, looks good in the preview window...  i make the XML file and fix the top level thing, export the nif...  and this is about as far as i can get.  the nif file opens up in nifskope and everything, but when i try to use it in game i CTD as soon as i put it on.  i tried using OS and when i load the outfit i get messages saying some bones werent found so it is skipping them.  turns out it is all the bones i added to swing the loin cloth around.

 

also...  the hierarchy looks a little odd...  i followed your turorial, canderes, and when im making the xml and i add the new bones....  the rigid bodies are mixed in with them....  i parented the bones to the pelvis, and there are 6 bones in the chain.  the hierarchylooks like this...

 

-bone 1

--rb1

---rb2

----rb3

-----rb4

------rb5

-------rb6

--bone 2

---bone 3

----bone 4

-----bone 5

------bone 6

 

lastly, not involving bones...  one of the armors i edited isnt showing up in game at all.  sorta.  its the diano armor i chopped up.  i dont have any obvious issues exporting, or sending it through outfit studio.  it doesnt have any extra bones or anything, but when i put it on, im still naked.  its the same with all the variants. ++H, ++L, royal or regular.  no CTD, but no armor either.

 

any ideas are greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

 

you have to bake the skeleton into the outfit since you use custom bones I'm guessing.

 

Uncheck 'flatten hierarchy' on nif export.

 

As for your invisible armour. Pretty sure there's a texture issue. Double check the relevant branch in nifskope to make sure all flags and paths are defined correctly.

 

[delilah]

thanks for replying, blabba,

 

flatten heirarchy isnt set.

 

im not aware if you can bake bones.  i know you can bake animations, but thats a whole different thing.  also, i dont really NEED to send the loincloth through OS.  i just thought it would be more efficient.  if i can get it to show up in game i can just use a morpher modifier to make the _0 and _1.  but im still CTD with the armor and i wasnt with the cloak or hair.  if i need to, i can try making the loincloth a separate armor piece like the cloaks...  but that would be a pita to have to do it that way.

 

checking the state of the "hidden" flag was the first thing i did.  i also switched back to the original diano armor.  all of the textures are fine and that armor shows up like it should.  i even replaced the wolf armor with it and that had no effect.  i DID notice a funky nec seam with it equipped thoug so im gonna look into that

 

edit:

 

i'm not sure what the issue was, but i remade the diano from a scene save and its working now.

 

diano is foreground, with some of my other edits in the shot also.  l to r is diano, tera skull, high elf paladin, xenocite, and barely visible is high elf inquisitor.

 

ScreenShot30.bmp

 

 

i have also done several other tera armors, silverlight, warhammer, ageha abyss walker...

 

 

[delilah]

i am at my wits end as to what is wrong with this loincloth.  If anyone thinks they can solve it, im happy to send them the 2012 max file or the nif. or if anyone can create a reusable loincloth hdt bone rig with about 6 bones each for front and back that reaches to the ground, id be very appreciative.