AM to Lightwave pipeline

#131

You may not have heard that pmG has lowered their prices - so, messiah:animate is now $239. It’s a great compliment to LW’s own animation tools and works seamlessly with LW’s native object format .LWO. Something to consider, should you stay with LW. But A:M is nice also. :slight_smile:

#132

Sorry to be late.
My new plugins did not work correctly.
I recreated them.
Now you will be able to load the plugins in v10.5 and v11.

LWO Export Plugin
MDD Export plugin

#133

It still does not work for me. I get a message that says “unable to load plug-in [C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\V11.0\HXT\m2l_am10.hxt], The specified module could not be found.” I tried it in 11.1 too. I couldn’t get it to work in 10.5 either. Is anyone else having trouble with this?

#134

I will support this in any way I can! Me and a friend are planning a short movie, him animating in AM and I’ll use LW.
Keeping an eye on this.

#135

I have made the video tutorial available on eggprops that was there a while back.

It demonstrates how to convert your geometry from Animation Master to Lightwave. It discusses all the princaple differences between Hash Patches and Lightwave Sub-D technology and demonstrates how to make them work together.


This is a direct link.

#136

Excellent…you’ll see my order tomorrow. My only question before I order is that in the page you have linked it mentions taking your AM models to LW. I actually want to do the opposite. Is this covered in your tutorial? Thanks

#137

It walks you through the difference between patches and Sub-Ds. . . so that would help. But getting from LW -> AM requires a re-wire of your model’s topology once it is imported. Unless your LW mesh is really really light. . . this can take a long time. Much longer than converting an A:M model to a Lightwave Sub-D model. If a LOT of people are interested in this I could probably do another tute but. . . I don’t think there would be any more than. . . 1 ;). A:M users are “do it myself to see how good I am” type people. Importing a model from another package throws all that thinking right out the window. Ya know?

#138

I just really like how easy it is to animate in AM. LW is not always as much fun to animate, but it is getting better. Do you still model in AM? Do you find it easier to work with hash patches and convert to sub-d’s or just start with subdivision surfaces in any other modeler? Thanks for your help and tutorials.

#139

Personally. . . for me. I love Animation Master’s modeler. . . but I find it is much slower for the “nitty gritty” high detail stuff that I end up doing a lot of. But for building a character. . . A:M is the first app I launch. Well besides the “pencil app” to rough out what I’m thinking. The wall built up between no other apps supporting Hash Patches and Hash not supporting Sub-D objects is something I fight with EVERY DAY. If A:M’s intuative workflow and amazing animation tools werent so damn. . . . amazing. . . it would be easy to drop it and just stick with a “one app” pipeline. And then they had to go show me whats in 12 and my whole damn world is upside down. Bloody hell its frustrating. I feel for ya m8. Hopefully my tutorial will at least help you understand the battle. :-/

#140

Alain -
How is the progress? Is this still on your list of things to do?

#141

Apologies for the delay, but Yes, the converter is still in progress but I had to make many other works before and kept my medical activity too.
Furthermore, I’m certainly not the best programmer even seen, and the goal to give a PC and Mac solution adds some contraints.

I will post in this thread the first results as soon as possible.

Best regards.

Alain :slight_smile:

Note : Mark’s Mdd compiler is fully working, and that is already a great part of the project. Although I do not had tested Weta’s Mdd exporter, it seems to be a very serious piece of work too.

#142

Excellent ! Thanks for the info.

#143

Has anyone had success exporting an animation sequence from A:M of a reasonably complex character into LW for rendering? And if so, would they care to show us the results? :slight_smile:

#144

Was Alain’s AM2LW converter ever finished?

#145

Was Alain’s AM2LW converter ever finished?

Not yet, sorry. This project is one of several 3d projects I must solved and it is not the first in order of importance here at EIKON Medical.
But for now, each element movement of the choreography is fully imported into LW in one single pass (a lws file is generated). The models in mdl format are also fully converted, and the converter take into account Middle Hooks, 5 point patches, Mesh groups and … using another converter in developpement AMPatche to Subpatches conversion with no loss of volume (and trust me, that is not simple to make). All these conversions are done in one click (no point, no poly, no edge to edit : AM and LW are closed). I have taken care to keeping Loops and Rings during the conversion so the softwares can really be included in a professionnal pipeline (I mean additionnal polygonal modeling in a polyModeler -LW, Modo, Hexagon, Silo, Wings3D- is possible and then re-importing the more detailed mesh into AM with Hooks and all the needed topology : the unique goal is to Animate into AM).

BTW, The converter will also offer a impressive (because so simple) way to connect AM and Vue d’Esprit with no effort.

Best regards, and apologies for this delated reply,

Cheers,

Alain

#146

Thanks Alain :slight_smile:
Take care.
Cheers

#147

this will definatley be something great to wait for.

I can’t wait!! Give me now, LOL!!!

#148

This looks like it’s going to be a very impressive tool, well done Alain.

#149

Ah, yes it’s me again. I’ve been itching to try out this pipeline myself, but have never had the time or more importantly a copy of Lightwave until now.

Here’s a link to a short clip demonstrating where I’ve got to:

Clip

This is just a VERY rough walk cycle I used to test how faithful an animation from AM to LW would be on a moderately complicated model. I think it’s pretty accurate.
The model was exported using Masashi Watanabe’s plugin from A:M. The textures would have made it completely intact had I not changed all the 5 point patches and hooks into 3 point patches. I did try using the AVA2 plugin to try and preserve the decals, but the AVA2 conversion into a LW model wasn’t too pretty.
You’ll notice the LW model has lost a bit of detail compared to the A:M one. I ran the model through wings ‘Tighten’ feature and got all the subtlety back, unfortunately once that was done, the MDD playback in LW went screwy. I imagine the order of vertices is altered by Wings.

The walk cycle action sequence was again exported using Masashi Watanabe’s MDD exporter. I also tried Mark’s Point Oven conversion which was partly successful, but only half of the LW playback of the animation worked before the point order went haywire.

#150

Wow, this really seems to be coming together. Someone give Masashi Watanabe a beer.