AM to Lightwave pipeline

[Ejecta]

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

1. No matter what modeler you use you of course have to get the model into the .lwo format cause you have to use the plug in Wegg posted earlier. Or if there is AM plug that will import obj then I wouldnt see why that wouldnt work. Sorry about not being clear. I dont do any touch up in AM as I wont be rendering in AM.

2. I used the plug in that Weg posted a link to earlier in the thread.

3. I noticed with more complex models where some of the points in the polys intersect the planes of other polys it confused the plugin exporter that Wegg posted a link to. So in that you could avoid that problem from the begining by not modeling that way. The model I used was an older one that was to be used solely in LW where the above isnt a problem.

4. You could do the facial stuff in AM. Im just more comfortable making morphs in LW’s modeler.

5. I have not run into the problem you described

Your conclusion is one I share. Im not sure this would work in a studio of size but for me it’s not so bad that I would consider it an option.

[Wegg]

Masashi Watanabe just emailed me saying he has made an update to his LW Animation Master plugin that tries to match the point order of the exported mesh to the order it imported them at. Oooo this is good news. He is also hinting to the fact that his plugin is “shareware”. . . so. . . I think we should all send him some $$$. I will as soon as I get a chance to play with all this again.

Man this is cool. . . .

[ClingFree]

I agree. If this is out and works well, I will most assuredly send some money his way.

[wata]

Thank you all.

My new plugin is here.MDD Export Plugin
If you can, bug reports please.

[DrRIEGER]

Ejecta wrote :

1. No matter what modeler you use you of course have to get the model into the .lwo format cause you have to use the plug in Wegg posted earlier. Or if there is AM plug that will import obj then I wouldnt see why that wouldnt work.

You are wrong.
Points are written in a specific order in the file. Considering OBJ format, polygons are drawn referencing the order of the vertices that are written some lines above in the .obj file. So, and thrust me, that points order is VERY VERY different from a 3D software to another. To be more clear, a .obj coming from software1 is not the same as another one coming from software2.
These are not bugs but choices of the developpers. The resulting mesh in AM will be different, and that without taking into account the manner a programmer make its AM plugin importer !

Your conclusion is one I share. Im not sure this would work in a studio of size but for me it’s not so bad that I would consider it an option.

Yes, I agree. Some more work need to be done to find a good and professionnal way.

Wata wrote :

My new plugin is here.MDD Export Plugin

Wonderfull initiative !
But… the three new .hxt files does not load into my AM v11.0p (PC-winXP).
What could I do !!! :drool:

Regards,

Alain

[Ejecta]

Ejecta wrote :

You are wrong.
Points are written in a specific order in the file. Considering OBJ format, polygons are drawn referencing the order of the vertices that are written some lines above in the .obj file. So, and thrust me, that points order is VERY VERY different from a 3D software to another. To be more clear, a .obj coming from software1 is not the same as another one coming from software2.
These are not bugs but choices of the developpers. The resulting mesh in AM will be different, and that without taking into account the manner a programmer make its AM plugin importer !

Yes, I agree. Some more work need to be done to find a good and professionnal way.

Wata wrote :

Wonderfull initiative !
But… the three new .hxt files does not load into my AM v11.0p (PC-winXP).
What could I do !!! :drool:

Regards,

Alain

Well I stand corrected. I model in LW and Wegg used Wings so I thought it would work.

I too cant get the new plugins to load in v11

[Ejecta]

Thank you all.

My new plugin is here.MDD Export Plugin
If you can, bug reports please.

Any word on getting this to work with V11?

[Wegg]

Thank you all.

My new plugin is here.MDD Export Plugin
If you can, bug reports please.

Wowa. Very cool. I can’t wait to try it.

[Ejecta]

Still no word on the update to get these plug ins working on 11?

[MBStudios]

You know after reading all these posts I think its just way to much work for this AMtoLW pipeline. Its crazy to model in AM then bring it to hammpatch just to get the model in LW? I dont think its going to look all that great by the way. Or even using Wings. Until you can bring the bvh file from AM to LW easier the best thing is either stay in AM or stay in LW. All this work to move one to another will be like all the time wasted in just one app to do the work. Like its going to take 5 hours to go from AM to LW. But in that 5 hours you can just stay in one app and save headaches. Then you have to worry about post and to many things. I hope your plug in can do this! Maybe just use LW or AM. The fun is choosing which one.:twisted:

I agree with what you are saying and another point comes to my mind.

I am a LW user, my purpse for the software was mostly Modeling and rendering realistic stills, and gaming of a non animate type.

As of late I have really taken an interest in building characters and animating them. Knowing LW’s modeler, I find designing Characters quite easy to do with the Powerful tools LW has.

But I find the ANimation not as strait forward as what I see done in AM. SO I have been cotimplating purchasing AM. But, imediately when I begin to explore the modeling of AM, I found myself somewhat intimidated by the process. Thus, I begin searching for a way to bring models from LW to AM so I could use AM’s powerful Animation tools and ease of use.

This brings me here!  I am at an impass, I am starting to lean toward just staying with LW completely and maybe expand it by getting MEssiah Studio, but not sure that is the answer either.

Truthfully, I would much rather use AM because of seems much simpler learning curve on the animation side. But the idea of having to learn to model all over again isnt to desireable.

Havent give up yet on the idea of AM, being a noob to Animating I may be willing to give the modeling in AM a try.

MBStudios

[chikega]

This brings me here! I am at an impass, I am starting to lean toward just staying with LW completely and maybe expand it by getting MEssiah Studio, but not sure that is the answer either.

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.

[wata]

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

[ClingFree]

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?

[jorx]

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.

[Wegg]

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.

[ClingFree]

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

[Wegg]

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?

[ClingFree]

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.

[Wegg]

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.

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. :-/

[modernhorse]

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