AM to Lightwave pipeline

Wegg · 2004-11-15 08:54:11 UTC

Wycoff3d I don’t get to pick what software the final product is rendered a lot of the time. I have to be willing to blend in with people using Max, Maya, Lightwave etc. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with A:M’s renderer and you should really stop bringing that up. . . This is something that very few people will ever need to deal with.

ClingFree · 2004-11-15 10:55:58 UTC

Wegg, did you create that model in AM or LW?

John_Keates · 2004-11-15 10:56:21 UTC

I would agree that the AM renderer is pretty functional at the moment. There is a lot that can be done in post and, as Martin says, good animation doesn’t need all that much in the way of fancy rendering. The focus with AM is enabling one man shops to tell stories and pretty effects can take a lot of programming (having said this, I am waiting with baited breath to see what Yves might come up with).

Sure, I would like to see a nice sturdy implimentation of sub-pixel displacement as I think it would come in handy for lots of situations. Render speed is also something that everyone (even people with PR renderman) would like to see improved - but then again, those 64 bit processers are looking pretty handy. It has been mentioned that hair might have the ability to sprout geometry as well as polygon hair in the future and maybe this code could migrate towards other types of particle effect… maybe.

However, I would like to see an emphesis on making the animation side of the program work as well as it can. This is a strength that Hash can really play on.

Wegg · 2004-11-15 11:02:37 UTC

It was made in Wings. But it is a friggen simple mesh. . . I like simple.

The pipeline I’m trying to create is LW Modeler -> Animation Master (rigging animation) -> LW Layout for texturing and rendering. And I have it working. The only problem is the point order gets mixed up. I can’t have that happen. When clients need their models animated I need to be able to send them an .mdd file that will work with their mesh.

Wycoff3d · 2004-11-15 16:47:22 UTC

Hey Wegg sorry about that:sad:-consider it dropped! But I still cant get the MMDCompiler to work. To repeat myself-
How do you use them? I click on them and then get nothing. MDDCompile gives me a error window and crashes. LWO2MDD just runs and dies. What am I doing wrong?

Wegg · 2004-11-15 16:57:49 UTC

Your not reading the instructions that were provided in a post a few pages back.

Wycoff3d · 2004-11-15 17:45:04 UTC

Here it is–
Somes notes to the users that hates command lines:

open a Windows MSDOS prompt
to go back to your C: harddrive root enter : cd c:\
Drag the .exe file into the window.
Example : considering you save a lwo sequence for wich every lwo is written ‘Copt_xxx.lwo’ and considering the lwo sequence is saved into the ‘lwo_sequence’ folder of the ‘test’ folder of C:, your command line must be this one :

c:>C: est\LWO2MDD.exe -m “C: est\copter.mdd” -d “C: est\lwo_sequence\” -b “Copt_” -n 3 -s 0 e-120 -f 24

then Hold down Enter key !
The copter.mdd file is generated.

Sorry Wegg. I hate DOS to!

Wegg · 2004-11-16 11:29:26 UTC

http://www.animationsnippets.com/plugins/cinema4dplugins/mddreader/index.html

Looks like C4D is now an option for this pipeline as well!

Oooo doggy. This is getting cool.

Wycoff3d · 2004-11-16 18:50:35 UTC

Wow. This is great. My friend uses C4D and it would be great if we could work together since I use AM and he uses C4D. I wonder if this could be applied to other apps like Electric Image, Max and whatever you can throw at it. This is great to help put AM in studios and the workflow piece.
Real cool stuff.:bounce:

Wegg · 2004-11-16 20:19:48 UTC

Max yes. There is an .mdd plugin available for Max.

EI. . No.

You get Max, Maya, C4D and Lightwave. Soon XSI.

Wycoff3d · 2004-11-17 16:53:32 UTC

This is great to hear. I cant wait for more on the plug ins as they get better and better!

Polou · 2004-11-18 11:32:45 UTC

Hi Guys

Okay we will have soon : Max, Maya, Lightwave, C4D, XSI which is wonderfull, can I add Blender please.

I’ve got 3 great friends using Blender and it will be great if we can “communicate”.
Is it visible or not at all?

Thanks

Wegg · 2004-11-18 11:36:49 UTC

If you can convince a programmer to support the importing of .lwo files into Blender and then write a plugin for blender to read .mdd files then yes it is possible. Even visible.

DrRIEGER · 2004-11-18 23:50:12 UTC

to Polou :

I remember Blender have an obj importer (Python programming). Did you have tested it ?
It was good working but I did not spent a lot of time in Blender some month ago.

About the mesh side :
I can add a Wavefront (.obj) exporter of the standalone application I’m currently working on (it takes into account 5pointsPatches and Hooks).
Send me a private e-mail for more information (I need more infos about Blender, and that is Off Topic in this thread).

About the animation side : there are some possibilities.

Regards,

Alain

markpassion · 2004-11-19 05:21:20 UTC

Hi guys,

I have updated the MDD compiler to have a GUI now. Makes it much simpler to work with. Here it is:

http://www.ef9.com/ef9/Files/MDDCompiler.zip

Mark
www.ef9.com

Wegg · 2004-11-19 08:40:02 UTC

Thank you Mark. This is way cooler than you probably even know.

Polou · 2004-11-19 12:04:22 UTC

[QUOTE=DrRIEGER]to Polou :
I remember Blender have an obj importer …

Yes Alain Blender has an obj importer/exporter working very well.
Okay I will send you a private e-mail because … we’re off topic here.

Thanks Alain

Ejecta · 2004-11-19 16:16:54 UTC

Thanks Mark and Wegg for this cool method. It works really great! It made me dust off my copy of AM and get the upgrade and give it a go again. I never really got to learn how to use AM to its fullest when I tried it awhile back. The instabilty issue was just more than I could handle. However from what I had read and know have experiences v11 has been great so far in that regard. But from what I did get to play with AM back then showed me enough to know I really like its animation tools plus Jeffs DVD made me wish I could use AM even more. Sorry guys, I know AM has made some advancements in its renderer and modeling but it wasnt my cup of tea. I love LW 's modeler and renderer beacause like AM’s animation tools a can I get such good results FAST but the animation tools in LW just plain suck comparitivley. Just my 2 cents.

Lastly, can you guys give me suggestions on books or perferably videos that cover mainly rigging and animation in AM in the most efffective way. I have Jeff Lews which covers the animation part fairly well but he covers very little rigging.

Is Anzivons set up machine well worth it? I downloaded the rigs and they seem cool but would like to know how to rig, weighting, smart skin etc too.

 Again this pipeline is really cool for my personal work. Im not sure how it would work in a fairly sizable studio.
 
 
 PS Wegg or anyone for that matter,
 I know this wont help you with your clients models but what I have found that works for me and my models.
 
 1 Model in LW, Silo, Wings etc with no surfaces named or morphs.
 2 Bring into AM
 3 Put imported model into an Action.
 4 Export just one instance with the plugin for my base model.
 5 Animate away in AM except for facial stuff since I prefer to do that in LW and modeler 
    and export sequence and make MDD.
 6 Open the instance I saved earlier as a base in LW modeler and fix anything I need to.  
   Some more complex ones can get wierd in places. 
 7 Do all my face morph tragets,phonemes, surface names in modeler on the base model.

8 Load the base in layout for surfacing, lighting rendering etc. Add the displacement MD plug on it with “Key Move” ON so you can add morph mixer and your morphs will work with the MD.

 If you guys already knew this please ignore.  :)

Wegg · 2004-11-19 17:33:27 UTC

You already got a chance to play with it?

Damn you lucky bastard.

I have all this damn. . . work.

DrRIEGER · 2004-11-20 11:19:57 UTC

I know this wont help you with your clients models but what I have found that works for me and my models.
1 Model in LW, Silo, Wings etc with no surfaces named or morphs.
2 Bring into AM
3 Put imported model into an Action.
4 Export just one instance with the plugin for my base model.
5 Animate away in AM except for facial stuff since I prefer to do that in LW and modeler
and export sequence and make MDD.
6 Open the instance I saved earlier as a base in LW modeler and fix anything I need to.
Some more complex ones can get wierd in places.
7 Do all my face morph tragets,phonemes, surface names in modeler on the base model.
8 Load the base in layout for surfacing, lighting rendering etc. Add the displacement MD plug on it with “Key Move” ON so you can add morph mixer and your morphs will work with the MD.

If you guys already knew this please ignore.

I cannot ignore your post because these are very exciting news !
We know from now that there are less clouds in sky, but the sky is not totally blue !

Ejecta, note that the following lines are just friendly posted. These are just constructive notes to forge ahead

It works for your models, are they complex or simple models ? Could you post some Stills ?

Comments about steps 1 and 2.
There are many differences in the code of the 3D Modeling software you give as examples and the resulting mesh depends on the file format you use. I don’t know any soft that can export correctly a model that can be loaded without any touch up in AM. There was a Rhino exporter that was working not so bad (but it also needed some touch up in AM ) but maybe Shade could be the one being able to export in the Hash’s mdl format : I do not have that software.
Could anyone help us to know how Shade and AM communicate ?
Wings has a .mdl exporter that needs touch up in AM too ; even its lwo format exporter, that is the badless.
But considering you final goal, all theses remarks are not fundamentals…

Step 3 : OK.

Step 4. I guess you mean you use Weta’s lwo exporter ?
Step 6.
>“Open the instance I saved earlier as a base in LW modeler and fix anything I need to”. You already have taken time to model earlier. Why spending time to touch up it again !
To summarize : you make the mesh in your initial 3D package (phase 1 : modeling), you touch up the resulting mesh in AM (phase2: correction of the importer buggs), and finally you touch up once more the exported mesh from AM (phase3: correction of the exporter buggs). You spent time and don’t have made a step further in animation :argh:
>“Some more complex ones can get wierd in places.” : so you accept your work would be partially lost, destroyed or trandformed by the application (and not by you). :hmm:
Finally, I guess you will correct all parts of the mesh, either the face parts or the body parts.

Step 5 : So, all your animation will be done in AM except the facial one that will be done in LW. OK.

Step 7 : you start from the work you done at the end of step 6 all in LW (considering that maybe some points, edges and even polygons would have been added in step 6) : OK.

Step 8 :
>" Load the base in layout for surfacing, lighting rendering etc. " :
no problem here
>“Add the displacement MD plug on it with “Key Move” ON so you can add morph mixer and your morphs will work with the MD.”
You face will be animated in Layout with the inside LW tools and then you do not need MDD, I understand : no problem here.
The MDD file has the charge of animating the Body Mesh. It is indeed possible, but the resulting animated model is absolutely not the same : a lot of artefacts in the mesh will appear while scrubing the timeslider.
Unless using Mark’s Mdd Editor, I see no immediate way to solve this problem.

To conclude,
yes, these steps can give some work done.
But there are many limitations and many wasted time to correct mesh buggs coming from the communication between softwares. For a professionnal studio, that is not envisageable.
If your 3D Modeling software is LW, you can avoid Step6.
Your pipeline is strictly limited to Polygon. Subpatches power is out.
[B]BUT[B] if you want to use an object sequence and the MDD compiler, then bugs in every frames will appear… Maybe MDD Edit could help applying one frame mesh correction to every frames, but only registered users can give the reply, or Mark himself ?
Waiting a lot for the reply !

Regards,

Alain