Rigging difficulties?!

[Faith Suki]

Hello, I'm wondering if anybody has experienced this. I'm currently rigging an earring set for Swallow's gauged ears, and though the rig looks fine in the software I use 3DS MAX.

https://gyazo.com/3dfefc785101fcec54a292268392026a

The rig messes up once imported into Firestorm (shown in the picture below)

The original rig for the ear mesh is in Blender and I exported it as a DAE into Max so I can rig my mesh to it.

I'm curious to know what this could be or if anyone has experienced this while rigging and has a clue how to fix it.

[OptimoMaximo]

7 hours ago, Faith Suki said:

Hello, I'm wondering if anybody has experienced this. I'm currently rigging an earring set for Swallow's gauged ears, and though the rig looks fine in the software I use 3DS MAX.

https://gyazo.com/3dfefc785101fcec54a292268392026a

The rig messes up once imported into Firestorm (shown in the picture below)

The original rig for the ear mesh is in Blender and I exported it as a DAE into Max so I can rig my mesh to it.

I'm curious to know what this could be or if anyone has experienced this while rigging and has a clue how to fix it.

I know for a fact that the original rig is from Maya, then ported to blender...

Anyway...

The ear uses an attachment point to control the hanging lobe and animate it, and to make that happen both Maya and blender need specific support with a custom collada export that takes attachment points into account (they need a special treatment while writing to file), done with Mayastar in Maya (i wrote the custom export script) and Avastar for blender. The native apps can't handle the attachment points skin information the way SL expect it, therefore that's most likely the issue.

For 3dsmax rigging support you could try and contact  @polysail
who made a plug in to support SL rigging

[Faith Suki]

I was wondering if the issue had something to do with it being rigged in a program that doesn't align with MAX.

This is the first I've heard of needing a plugin so thank you for explaining this. I would never have guessed and It was driving me crazy!

[OptimoMaximo]

On 6/26/2023 at 7:49 PM, Faith Suki said:

This is the first I've heard of needing a plugin so thank you for explaining this.

You're welcome 😊

The issue with attachment points is that these joints names should be written to file with a white space between the joint name components, but most if not all softwares do not allow such a thing, automatically replacing whitespaces with underscores.

That's where the custom treatment comes into play, making sure that each joint name gets parsed correctly and the standard that SL expects is respected.

Unfortunately, the plug in that polysail made is not up for sale to the public and you need to contact her directly to get access to it, I'll make sure to advise @luciayes Magic tthe creator of those ears, to add a specific note about it for 3dsmax users.

[Faith Suki]

Unfortunately, Polysails script is a "dead script" now. But thank you for your explanation. Hopefully if Luciayes Magic makes note of the issue and people come across your answer this will at least help save a lot of time!

 

[BinBash]

4 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

The issue with attachment points is that these joints names should be written to file with a white space between the joint name components, but most if not all softwares do not allow such a thing, automatically replacing whitespaces with underscores.

Collada does not support whitespace in its unique named nodes.  Underscores are added automatically by any Collada compatible exporter and no "tricks" are needed.  An add-on may be required for other reasons but this is not one of them.

These underscore'd node names are supported by the SL uploader for dae files.

It surprises me that you don't know this.

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by BinBash

[BinBash]

On 6/26/2023 at 6:27 AM, Faith Suki said:

Hello, I'm wondering if anybody has experienced this. I'm currently rigging an earring set for Swallow's gauged ears, and though the rig looks fine in the software I use 3DS MAX.

Contact me in-world, I'll explain how all of this works so you don't go nuts sifting through misleading information.

I'm BinBash Resident .

[OptimoMaximo]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:50 PM, BinBash said:

Collada does not support whitespace in its unique named nodes.  Underscores are added automatically by any Collada compatible exporter and no "tricks" are needed.  An add-on may be required for other reasons but this is not one of them.

These underscore'd node names are supported by the SL uploader for dae files.

It surprises me that you don't know this.

 

Well, since the software add the underscores at source, the exported name contains them by default. Therefore the need for the special handling to support them and write them down with whitespace, which is the only way to have a working attachment point rig be accepted by SL, at least in the formatting Maya uses to write it down. Lea img the underscores led my tests to have the rig failing uploading. To get collada accepted and still have the white spaces, it's sufficient to enclose the name between quotes, and it surprises me that you don't know the caveats of collada syntax.

[BinBash]

28 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Well, since the software add the underscores at source, the exported name contains them by default. Therefore the need for the special handling to support them and write them down with whitespace, which is the only way to have a working attachment point rig be accepted by SL, at least in the formatting Maya uses to write it down. Lea img the underscores led my tests to have the rig failing uploading. To get collada accepted and still have the white spaces, it's sufficient to enclose the name between quotes, and it surprises me that you don't know the caveats of collada syntax.

I was unable to understand anything that you attempted to articulate except that you disagree with me, and everyone else that adheres to the Collada specification.

I think I detected a hint of "I tested it" in your comment and I don't doubt that, since you would have had to make sure of your assertion when disagreeing, but your test was half baked, as it were, since the bind data cannot, does not and will not accept quotes to enclose nodes, and I personally do not have to test this in order to assert my authority on the subject.

I expected at least some confirmation from you that you were incorrect earlier, at least with regard to underscores being used, since there is no problem with this node format whatsoever when uploading to SL.  I don't know what tools you're attempting to use but, whatever it is, they are broken.

An example of the bind data that's required in order for a skinned item to be utilized in SL follows ...

(start)
<library_controllers>
    <controller>
        <skin>
            <source>
                <Name_array>
                    <!-- ID and joint count but the fun stuff follows --!>
mAnkleLeft mAnkleRight mTorso mChest mNeck mCollarLeft mWristLeft mHandPinky1Left mHandPinky2Left mHandPinky3Left mHandRing1Left mHandRing2Left mHandRing3Left mHandMiddle1Left mHandMiddle2Left mHandMiddle3Left mHandIndex1Left mHandIndex2Left mHandIndex3Left mHandThumb1Left mHandThumb2Left mHandThumb3Left mCollarRight mWristRight mHandRing1Right mHandRing2Right mHandRing3Right mHandMiddle1Right mHandMiddle2Right mHandMiddle3Right mHandThumb1Right mHandThumb2Right mHandThumb3Right mHandIndex1Right mHandIndex2Right mHandIndex3Right mHandPinky1Right mHandPinky2Right mHandPinky3Right mHipLeft mPelvis mHead mFootLeft mElbowLeft mFootRight mHipRight mKneeLeft mElbowRight mKneeRight mShoulderRight RIGHT_PEC mShoulderLeft LEFT_PEC mSpine4 mSpine2 mSpine3 mSpine1

(/end)

I challenge you to open up one of your functional, and SL compatible, dae files and enclose your joint names in quotes.  We are all anxious to see what you assert next and we're hoping that we'll be able to understand it this time.

If I'm wrong about your assertion, and you actually do agree with me, maybe some simpler language will convey your intent?

 

[CandySwirl76]

50 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

Well, since the software add the underscores at source, the exported name contains them by default. Therefore the need for the special handling to support them and write them down with whitespace, which is the only way to have a working attachment point rig be accepted by SL, at least in the formatting Maya uses to write it down. Lea img the underscores led my tests to have the rig failing uploading. To get collada accepted and still have the white spaces, it's sufficient to enclose the name between quotes, and it surprises me that you don't know the caveats of collada syntax.

As you might suspect, Bin has thoroughly investigated this matter, i suggest that you reexamine your claim. I've tested this, like Bin suggested, and the item cannot be uploaded with skin data... if the nodes contain quotes.

[BinBash]

On 6/26/2023 at 6:27 AM, Faith Suki said:

I'm curious to know what this could be or if anyone has experienced this while rigging and has a clue how to fix it.

I wanted to give people an update in case anyone else needs help with this process.  The conversion worked perfectly and the devkit was able to be utilized in 3ds Max afterwards.  I created some instructional content which includes a video.

If anyone else needs help with something similar please contact me in-world.

[OptimoMaximo]

On 6/30/2023 at 12:55 AM, BinBash said:

...my authority...

👆 🤣

Since when you do have any authority on anything?

Don't make us laugh please...

The proof of my claim to be a working solution is the fact that products such as the one shown in this thread are working in world and exporting through my custom exporter and blender Avastar's exporter do indeed work, and my rig system maintains compatibility with Avastar's both ways in the exchange process. So that's all you need to know as proof of assertion.

[BinBash]

6 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

exporting through my custom exporter

Sometimes all you can do is blink.

I can see that you're pretty upset about this.  I completely misunderstood earlier, now I understand that your intention was to advertise product and not to help someone.  But, despite your intrusion, we were able to fix the problem.

Hopefully some few others were able to learn something useful during this unfortunate interaction, I was hoping that you were one of them.

I think you learned something, I'm convinced that you will assert yourself differently in the future on these, or similar, subjects.  I intend to address misinformation, regarding skinned and animated content creation for SL, whenever I see it.

[OptimoMaximo]

On 7/1/2023 at 3:54 PM, BinBash said:

Sometimes all you can do is blink.

I can see that you're pretty upset about this.  I completely misunderstood earlier, now I understand that your intention was to advertise product and not to help someone.  But, despite your intrusion, we were able to fix the problem.

Hopefully some few others were able to learn something useful during this unfortunate interaction, I was hoping that you were one of them.

I think you learned something, I'm convinced that you will assert yourself differently in the future on these, or similar, subjects.  I intend to address misinformation, regarding skinned and animated content creation for SL, whenever I see it.

Yeh Yeh, whatever.

Know what? I'll not intrude anymore in any subject, from now on. I'm sick and tired of all this, I'll just keep working on my tools when need be and never come back to help anyone, for many's happiness, including yours and your "authority", since trying to help someone on something that was produced using my products leads to show myself as self promoting. Too bad it's the exact same thing you do with your bento buddy, but you're so superior in your "authority" that it doesn't count, does it? Turns out that I have better things to do than dealing with this forum.

Good life y'all, all you'll see me posting from time to time will be me making fun of you and your struggles. @Klytyna did well, time ago, to stop posting and just react with a laugh at all of you. I guess I'll start doing so as well.