Exporting rigged mesh from 3ds max 2009 issues

[MissAllSunday Lemon]

Hello everybody ^^

I read a lot of posts here, but couldn't find a satisfying answer.

I'm trying to upload a rigged mesh made in 3ds max 2009, but when I click on skin and joints (in SL) the upload button disappears.

Since I read that other people with different versions of 3ds max were able to upload rigged meshes without problems I was wondering if maybe mine could be a 3ds max 2009 related issue.

I tried to export with Autodesk Collada (using the latest version of the FBX converter) and Open Collada with no success. I also tried different export settings.

Any suggestion about what I might have been doing wrong? Which export settings are you using?

Thanks everyone!

[guY Ralior]

I don't use Max but one thing you can do is to make sure your output collada file has the complete bone set. Weather you use them all or not they all have to be in the .dae for the skin weight to work. If you scan the file you will find the bone list and they all should be listed, if they are all there then I am not sure what it is

[DanielRavenNest Noe]

Use the 2011.3 FBX exporter.  The 2012 exporter creates a Collada 1.4.1 file, and the SL upload can only understand  Collada 1.4.  Missing bones is the most likely problem if you did not rig the full list of 26.  If you weghted skin vertices to only some bones, add the missing bone names into the collada file bone list after the ones you actually use, and set the array count just before the bone names to 26.  If you did use all of them, the most likely issue is the bone names have to match what SL uses internally or the bone hierarchy is different.

As far as export settings, the only thing I have to make sure is the axes are Z-up, other ones I leave at default.  I use Max 2010 mostly, and learning 2012, but a lot of plugins and compatibility is not ready yet for the latest version (including SL).

[Marielle Caerndow]

it's as Guy says, the probem is most likely that the collada file does not contain all bone names. Why it happens is: 3dsMax' exporter only exports the bones that are actually 'used'. Even if ou have all bones in the skin-modifier, the bones that have no effect arenot exported. (Example, if you create shoes, all the torso and arm bones arenot exported since they don't influence the mesh.)

The problem was already reported here CTS-590 and here CTS-608.

Strange thing: LL says that it's fixed, but my own test show they are not. Maybe the Jiras should be re-opened ?

[MissAllSunday Lemon]

Thank you guys, it worked!

I was using all the bones, but didn't realize that they weren't being exported in the .dae file.

I just added the missing bones names manually and it worked perfectly!

 

Thank you again ^^

[Medhue Simoni]

I think it depends on which exporter you are using. Max has like 3 or 4 different collada exporters.