DAE Parsing issue - see log for errors...again

[AkumaShadowWolf]

Hello everyone,

Ive worked with both blender and maya in the past with success. I'm currently using Mayastar in order to upgrade my products and characters to the new bones. After rigging i get this error. After checking the forums, none of the threads point to a clear answer that applies to my situation.

I tried stepping back and exporting the default Mayastar avatar to Second life on SL and Firestorm viewers and get the same error. This makes me wonder if there is an innate setting in my maya that is doing this or if something in my viewers. In any case, there are no logs to speak of so I was wondering is someone could help me with a checklist to see what's wrong.

 

All suggestions are welcome. Thank you :)

[AkumaShadowWolf]

Update:

I exported my Custom mesh as an OBJ and re imported it then rebound it to the Mayastar bento Skeleton.

With this I was able to at least see it in previewer. The problem being...the skeleton is not being seen or sensed, so I can't see my mesh rigged. Again, no idea why this is happening. Any help is appreciated. If i don't export my mesh i get the error again.

[Cathy Foil]

If you are not getting the option to include skin weights in the upload window it could be any number of problems.

1. There is 159 bones in the SL skeleton now but the maximum number of bones any single mesh can be rigged to is 110 bones.
     If your mesh is rigged to too many bones it won't upload.

2. If a single bone is misspelled or has the wrong upper or lower case used it will not upload.

3. The maximum number of bones that can influence a vertex is 4.  So when you do your Smooth Bind in Maya make sure "Max influences:" is set to 4.  For clothes I always use max of 3.  Only place you really need max of 4 is on a Bento head for the face area.

To see a list of what bones your mesh is rigged to in Maya select your rigged mesh in object mode.  Then if you have MayaStar click the MayaStar menu and then click "For Ealier Version of Maya" then click "SkinCluster Bone Names".  Open the Script Editor and in the upper window will appear a list of bones.  Each bone will be on a single line.

Try a simple test by creating a cube in Maya and rig it to one bone say the mHead for example.  Then export it as a DAE and see if it will upload.  If it won't then there is something wrong with your exporter. NOTE: We no longer have to have all the mBones of the original skeleton in the skin cluster.  We can now just rig to the bones we need or want to.  So a hat can be rigged to just the mHead bone for example or just the mSkull bone.

In the past long ago we used to have to select the mesh we wanted to export and also select the bones in the skeleton as well. Now we just have to select the mesh object.  You do not have to select both the mesh and the skeleton anymore.

If you are still having problems even with a simple cube rigged to just the mHead bone in the MayaStar menu click "Remove MAYASTAR Not SKeleton" it is second from the top.  This removes much of MayaStar from the scene simplifying it but leaves the skeleton and your mesh.  Then select your mesh and do Export Selection.  This often works for those having problems.

If you are still having problems then it could be one of the DAE export options.  It is common when the scaling option is set to "Automatic" to mess up the file.  Turn off Automatic and set it to convert to "Meters".  Also turn off Cameras and Lights options.  This just makes the files huge for no reason.  In the export options make sure under the Deformed Models that there is a check mark next to "Skins".  If you can't turn it on under "Animation" section above that animation is checked.  Then turn "Skins" on then turn off Animation.  You do not want Animations to export.  Again it will just make the DAE file huge for no reason and may interfere with the DAE upload.

Hope that helps.
Cathy

[AkumaShadowWolf]

The legendary Mayastar owner!

 

Thank you for the reply. That should I believe cover it. I had heard about the 110 limit, but had no idea about only selecting the mesh. What a help. I have progress to look forward too when I mod tonight!

Cheers.

P.S. I may make a Tutorial for custom mesh in Maya that maybe can be shared later. in addition to your already great tutorials.

[AkumaShadowWolf]

Update!

After 2 days of Tinkering (and remembering control select in the outliner) Ive learned that you must individually select bones, at least in my case, and Bind them to joints. The latter two work in maya but fail t upload because they pass the 110 joint threshold.

 

The problem i`m having now is that, after figuring out which bones fitted or not that I wanted on the mesh, the skeleton disappeared on me again with just 105 bones rigged.

 

Best guesses:

Second Life doesn`t like certain bones un weighted. (something weighted out of order and excluding a needed bone)

 

Despite limiting infuences to 4 upon smooth skin binding, somehow vertices have more than 4 influences or none or greater than 1 and need to be hammered.

 

Regardless, this will probably be nother few hours of work. But what I can say is that simply rigging it with the Mayastar system IS working! ironing out the rest is the new nightmare.

 

Cheers

 

 

[AkumaShadowWolf]

Smooth sailing! I forsee no problems in the future!

[Cathy Foil]

Glad to hear things are moving better for you.

One Smooth Bind setting you should be aware of is to make sure you set your "Normalize Weights:" to "Interactive".
This will make sure each vertex is weighted to at least one bone and that the weight values are per vertex all add up to 1.

If you have Normalize Weights set to "None" then the weights per vertex can be less than one or even more than one per vertex and SL uploader will probably have the skin weights greyed out then.

Hope that helps.
Cathy