Tiny Rigged Mesh Avatars From 3ds Max?

[Chip Midnight]

Has anyone figured out a workflow to get a tiny av out of Max? So far I haven't had any luck. I tried to follow equivelant steps for how it's done in Blender by scaling the pelvis down to the desired scale and resetting xform on it, then exporting the weights from the skin, doing a snapshot of the mesh to get a clean copy at the correct scale, added skin and loaded the saved weights, then exported. I imported into SL with joint positions. The rigged mesh comes in fine but the rig's scale is ignored. It's no different than if I'd never scaled down the pelvis.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

This is what works for me:

- Run SLAV and set the scale smaller than 1 (I used 0.2)

- Export your mesh as you normally would, with (animation and?) deformations checked in the uploader

- Import to SL with an offset of -0.475 or so

 

I think the clue is in the skeleton. If you scale down the normal skeleton and apply xforms, all bones except the hip will pop back to their original size. Instead you can scale the bones with the bone scaler and move them into position. much easier is using the smaller scale in SLAV.

[Oblong Crumb]

Hi Chip

I think it goes like this:

1. Turn Off 'always deform' in the skin modifier under 'advanced params'.

2. Select all the bones and turn them Off in 'bone tools' from the 'Animation' menu.

3. Rescale mPelvis and mesh. I do them together already weighted.

4. Select all the bones and turn On in 'bone tools'.

5. * Press Reset Scale in bone tools.

6. Turn On 'always deform' in the skin modifier.

7. Export.

 

 I just did a little test upload and it worked here so hope it does for you.

ps. Thanks for all the maps )

 

[Chip Midnight]

Well that worked sort of, Oblong, but in the wrong direction. I ended up with a mesh av about 15 meters tall, lol. Maybe I scaled down too much and it went the other way. At least it actually changed the rig scale that time so I'm on the right track. I'd completely forgotten about reset scale in bone tools. I didn't want to start with a fresh SLAV rig since I'm experimenting with an avatar I've already created. Thanks for the pointers, both of you.

[Oblong Crumb]

odd one.  I always reset xform on the mesh before skinning maybe thats the difference?

[Chip Midnight]

I tried that, and tried adding reset xforms to all the bones after resetting their scale and stretch. It still comes in huge. There has to be an issue with the original scale of the rig and I'm just undoing whatever it was I did to make it the correct scale to begin with. Max is pretty awful with the way it handle's scaling at the object level. The one thing I haven't tried yet is changing scene scale but I'm probably going to have to bite the bullet and start with a new rig I think.

[Oblong Crumb]

coordsys local when scaling is my last thought.

bummer though, I hate it when you suddenly realise its easier to start again and it happens to me often because I'm a stuborn old git )