Point Oven q's

#1

Hey all,

I am curious before I make a purchase of Point Oven.

I was wondering if someone can tell what all formats you can export out to from point oven such as, FBX, BVH, and so on. I talked to the guy that made the plugin and he did say that you cant export into those formats.

So, since that plugin only works with baked animations, I was wondering if there is a way you can convert that anim to FBX in Maya and have it later manipulate the joint rigs in Maya.

I wonder if there will be workarounds needed such as dumping the baked animation into trax then from there, somehow convert those trax into FBX formats.

I know the quickest way to do this is convert the baked anim formats into FBX but I am lousy with code.

Any responses is much appreciated. I am attempting to pipeline Messiah anims into game engines.

-Cypher

#2

the quick answer is , the mdd format does not export animation it saves mesh deformation.

#3

Its a displacement effect (cloth, wave, bulge, wrap deformer) and not motion data

#4

Rats. I thought I was being smart. Thanks for responses fellas. Just going to have to either wait til someone makes a converter or I’ll make an exporter myself. Which might not come out any time soon. Wish Messiah would tap into the game development by allowing to export animations. FBX is the way to go.

Again, thanks fellas. I will work with another route.

-C

#5

Actually the answers above are not completely accurate. While PointOven is mostly known for its handling of MDD files, the Point Oven plugins are more than that. As you can see on his website www.ef9.com, the plugins also include import/export options for LWS (LightWave scene files) , FXS (messiah scene files) and PSC (a proprietary scene file format). So from what I gather, you can export your scene from messiah using e.g. the PSC format and then import the PSC file into Maya and then to FBX or BVH or anything else. A problem is that you can’t export the motions of bones (rather you must attach nulls to the bones and export the motions of these nulls). So it is no straight solution, but with some experimenting one can certainly find a solution.

#6

Ah! Great response. I will have to do some experiment sessions then. As far as the nulls to each end of bone…this will help drive motion to joint rigs in Maya? This will be the solution I have only dreamed of.

I felt there was a chance for Messiah anims converting to FBX for game development.

This reply really helps me figure this out. Once I do–that will be a very useful tutorial.

I already got the author of product to grant a refund if this does not work. Again, thank you so much for this valuable insight.

-Cypher

#7

Point Oven is worth every penny even if it’s only function is handling MDD. I love being able to control animations perfectly throughout multiple programs.

#8

Does It work well with messiah 3? I’ve read some post of people having instant crash when trying to use It with messiah 3.

#9

Nope, works fine. Buy it…! Now!

#10

Lol… Point Oven works flawlessly because it doesnt have that direct link that can crash Messiah/Lightwave. You just save your motions in MDD format which store’s all the motion of the points on the mesh you export it from. You load the pointoven plugin in any app it supports and the original mesh then load up the MDD. The animation looks exactly like it did in Messiah. You can get a free version which is the MDD reader but Pointoven has so many features that you will probably NEED for complex animations including offset.

#11

St Ouen, do you KNOW It works with messiah 3.0 or do you ASSUME It works? Because I just bought a license of point oven and, guess what? Messiah 3 is not supported. So I spent my 100.- bucs for nothing. Thank you!

#12

Whoa…using Messiah 3.0a here and just applied a quick bvh file to the Dummy character
and exported using PointOven, imported in XSI using same plugin and works perfectly, excellent
playback. Also saved out a LW scene using PointOven and that came through aces in LW 9.6.

Gene

#13

I just talked with Mark (point oven developper) and he told me he was working on an upgrade BUT that he didn’t use PO with messiah 3. Personaly messiah crashes as soon as I try to apply the pont oven baker. It doesn’t even show the window. I choose It from the list under the customize tab, and CRASH right away!
You are using messiah 3.a did you say? Is It an update from the 3.0 ?

#14
  1. Select Object.
  2. Go into customize tab.
  3. Select SaveMorphSequence from drop menu.
  4. Specify where you want the MDD saved.
  5. Modify what frames you want baked.
  6. Make sure Object Format is set to MDD.
  7. Hit Generate Current Morph Sequence.
  8. Load PointOven into your favorite rendering program.
  9. Use PointOven to load baked motion/MDD file.
  10. Set PointOven with offsets or w/e you need.
  11. Hit render.

I really don’t see any need for pointoven to be in Messiah because Messiah already has a motion baker that works perfectly. Sure you can load MDDs using other free plugins but PointOven has more options that make your life easier.

Enjoy! :slight_smile:

#15

IIRC there was an issue with messiah 3.0a and the HASP dongle driver, which also affected the PointOven plugin. In messiah3.0b this issue was resolved. You can get that version from the same website where you got messiah 3.0a from.

#16

Thank you Zimtower and Surricate! I’m going to try what you advised.

#17

After using the patch, everything works as supposed! Both metods actualy work, bothe the point oven and the morph sequence method!
Thank you for pointing me out the patch solution!!!

#18

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