LightWave parent problem for Motionbuilder

[RichardHertz]

I do not know if this is your problem but before you parent make sure in Layout "parent in place" is checked. "d" and under general options. See if that helps.

[3DDave]

That looks like an issue with weight maps, but your character work looks good so I am guessing you know what your doing so weight maps are probably not the issue.

The left_leg_parent and right_leg_parent are parented to the hip bone. The leftleg and rightleg bones + the leg hierarchy are partented to the hip bone as well. (the left_leg_parent and right_leg_parent are really floater bones and are not needed for MB).

Make sure you have autokey and parent in place on when working in layout. Also don't zero out the rotations of the hip bone or your character won't move when you merge back to Lightwave.

Your also welcome to send me a scene file just replace the character with a null to keep the file small.

[LiveFlash]

Thank you kindly RichardHertz, as your advice was 100% correct.. silly me! :blush:

And an even more special thanks to 3DDave for your amazing skelegon 2.1 files.. I've managed to knock out a little walk cycle test animation if you guys want to see it!

http://www.liveflash.co.uk/images/lightwave/walking_soldier.jpg
and here is the test animation using 3DDave's skeleton 2.1 (http://www.liveflash.co.uk/images/lightwave/Soldier_Walking.avi)

Just when it was going all prefect, I encountered an annoying problem If you look at the bottom of the guys pants.. something really weird is going on when he walks.. this can be seen better in the attached file. Do any of you guys know why this os happening and how I can fix it? :cry:

[LFGabel]

Most likely the problem is an errant point in the left pant leg in the area of influence of the right legs's bones, and vice versa. just make sure all points for a leg are on one side of the X axis...

Or it could be an errant weight map value for the legs...

[3DDave]

Nice walk!!!

:thumbsup:

[RichardHertz]

I'm glad it worked. Nice job on the walk cycle. It maybe because there is no floor but it looks as if there is a little foot slide. Still a great job on the walk.

[colkai]

If I may hijack the thread a little ..
I'm haviong problem with parenting, or something, in MB when loading an object exported from LW.
Normally, in MB, when you assign a motion to a character, you can use the root of that character to rotate/translate an offset from the actual motion skeleton.
However, when I pull in a LW character, I can't do it, the ref just doesn't move.
The character created by characterizing the LW model is set to 'character input' with the skeleton from the motion file being the driver.
I know I'm doing summat wrong / not doing summat, just don't know what!

Here's a grab of my scene browser.

[LFGabel]

If the skeleton is driving the character, try moving the skeleton reference instead... just a guess.

[colkai]

Sorted it.
I 'un-characterized' the model, set the root manually to be the ref brought in from LW, the nre-characterized.
This allows me to rotate & move it. I guess it may be a naming thing - unless the root isn't auto-set - will try to confirm this tomorrow, but even so, at least I know now.
All I have to do is try and remember it for next time! ;)

[LFGabel]

Yes, that's it. The reference node is not required to auto-characterize, so if it is named anything other than "reference" and you are not using filtering, it will not be characterized.

[colkai]

Yeah, I renamed the Null prior to characterizing and it was all fine. One for the memory banks that.
(Though given the way my day is going, that doesn't seem a secure place ;) )

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