animated geometry XSI to MAYA?

[Rhs_CG]

I haven't used Point Oven, but from what I've read and seen, that would work.

But before you do that, wait to see the new pipeline tools in XSI 6.0. The informations sounds like you can move most XSI scenes back and forth between applications, including rigs, which makes it easier to tweak. Check it out.

As you've probably read in the CGS article, Blur did something similar by rendering the XSI animation through 3ds Max in Brazil.

[SheepFactory]

Pointoven will work just fine for that.

[yolao]

Hi,
I have to animate a character and want to do it in XSI (sure :), but the shading will be done in MAYA.What solutions are possible for transfering the animated geometry? POINTOVEN?
Thx a lot!
mick

i was wondering the same thing some time ago... but what i want is to animate the character in maya and make the render in xsi...

[Strob]

I know a method that work only for limited amount of vertex and frames. I use it for adding special effect in Max or Maya to scenes from XSI and it works very well pixel to pixel.

I use FBX. But if you have a high resolution mesh, fbx tends to crash.

Here is my solution:
For the character:

The trick is to select all the polys from the character and do an "Polymesh > Extrac Polygons (keep)" if your character is made of separated parts, you then do a "Polymesh > Merge".And then plot this extracted shape ("Plot > Shape > (unmark "single source" and choose Mixed Weight (anything else and the animation will not follow).

Then create a model and import your model in a new scene.

You can then export the result in maya using FBX file format. If you just try to plot without extracting the plotted shapes will not follow.

To reimport back into XSI, you have to use the dotXSI format.

I was never able to use the dotXSI format to export a rigged character to Maya and neither I wasn't able to use the FBX file format to export from Maya to XSI. It seems that Alias and Softimage don't want people to use the plugins to go away in the other software...

For the animated Camera:

You must do a "plot" => "All Transformations" and a "plot" => "Constrained Transforms" on the camera and on the point of interest of the camera.

If you try to transfert the animation key to max or maya, the frames with they key on them will be ok, but the interpolation between the key will not match with the interpolation made by XSI.


For the rest of the scene:

By the rest of the scene I mean: if you have other objects animated by constraint or expression or keyframing, you have to plot them as well like for the camera.

Also you have to make sure the framerate is the same in both softwares in their preferences before importing and you have to chose the right framerate too in the import plugin as well as in the export plugin.

From the 4th of July 2005, maybe a plug called Point Oven will be available for XSI but until that this is the only method I know for transferring. You could also create a script that could simplify the rig removing constraints and expressions, but to date I didn't succeeded in that direction.

It works with XSI 4.2 and Maya 6.5 and FBX 6.0.2

Note A: if you export the shapes to max, max uses the morpher and the max's morpher is limited to 100 shapes... So you can not export more than 100 frames of shapes at a time.

Note B: I think it is better to have your frame rate without decimals (change 29,97 for 30 before plotting) and to start at frame zero. But I have not verified. The fatc is that I had a scene starting at 100 at 29 fps and the scene never went out ok in Maya, so I put the start at zero and the frame rate at 30 fps and everything was fine.

[themick_g]

thanks for all your tips!! :)
cheers
mick

[themick_g]

The trick is to select all the polys from the character and do an "Polymesh > Extrac Polygons (keep)" if your character is made of separated parts, you then do a "Polymesh > Merge".And then plot this extracted shape ("Plot > Shape > (unmark "single source" and choose Mixed Weight (anything else and the animation will not follow).

Then create a model and import your model in a new scene.

You can then export the result in maya using FBX file format. If you just try to plot without extracting the plotted shapes will not follow.


Hi strob!
Tried your solution, but if I export the model , and reimport it in a new scene, the animated shapeweights are gone! is this ok?
And what do you export as fbx, the whole model, scene, polys?
FBX doesnt seem to work at all, installed
gmk_fbxxsi42.xsiaddon
is this the right plugin?If I select fbx export, I get a window with options, but when I hit ok nothing seems to happen.My script window shows :
SelectObj "export"
'INFO : EXPORT:Preparing internal structures... 33 %
'INFO : EXPORT:Preparing internal structures... 50 %
'INFO : EXPORT:Preparing internal structures... 67 %
'INFO : EXPORT:Preparing internal structures... 83 %
'INFO : EXPORT:Preparing internal structures... 100 %
'INFO : EXPORT:Preparing internal structures... 100 %
'INFO : EXPORT:Building hierarchy... 17 %
FBX Export

after that nothing happens?
you know why?
thank you very much!
mick

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