Wall Worm Forums

I remember the moment I heard I'd be able to work with Max 2013 again by using WW after Max 2012 officially pooped out on me
That being said, expect a little donation! :D

Haha, it just strikes me how the SMD format is so well-documented yet Mario and Shawn have been the only ones to work on an importer  :-\

But then again, I appreciate everything.

That has seemed to fix the issue; so many things I'm learning about the Max's interaction with Source!

As for the hands, I'm a bit confused. Seeing how the raw hands SMD was exported:

Quote//Reference File generated by the Wall Worm SMD Exporter 1.47

and compiles fine without being reimported into Max (correct weighting), I can't see why the SMD would have been imported with incomplete weights. The "Rigid Vertices (All)" tickbox seems to remedy this on some hand models, but not completely.

This seems to be something going on with the importer because in past projects, hands/fingers would be exported flawlessly (this model was imported by OBJ and skinned by me).

K@rt and Shawn, thank you! I very much appreciate you explaining everything. I ended up having to redo the envelope rigging because the envelopes didn't seem to transform along with the new mesh. I understand how the XForm works and its purpose - I can see why you, Shawn, are so adamant about its usage in these scenarios.

Now... I understand how you urge WWMT's use for creating new content, yet it's all I have to do the Source Engine work since Max 2012 and below are too buggy or unavailable. I didn't want to clog up with another thread, but I've been experiencing both importing and exporting errors related to skinning:



For any skinned hand model, the fingers never seem to import with its envelopes correctly, even with models that were never even decompiled e.g https://github.com/robotboy655/gmod-animations/raw/master/c_arms_citizen.smd. Now, decompiling a CS:GO character and importing it seems to retain perfect hand rigging.

Now, 3ds and compiled/exported models don't seem to match. Is this a WWMT bug by design or is it user error?



Note the first image being in-game while max shows smoother skinning on the coat.

Here's the scene as per usual: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15781683/irons_suit_NEW.max

Thanks in advance

Here's the 2016 max file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15781683/irons_suit.max

EDIT: So I sort of found the solution, but I want to know how I can tackle this problem later on in the future. The original OBJ imported had 4 options (default 3DS Max importing) for normals, one being "auto". Choosing this normal option over importing the original normals exported fine ONLY if I set WWMT's export to "auto" as well... It seems this was the only combination that completely solved the issues with smoothing and normals. What's going on here?

I apologize for so much confusion. I'm still trying to work around the hoops of Max.

Thank you K@rt and Shawn, I believe resetting the normals did the trick (Edit Normals modifier), but I think the million dollar question you get, Shawn, is: what happened to the smoothing groups?

[EDIT] False alarm.

Hi Shawn,

Now that the importer seems to be running smoothly, I've noticed an issue with the exporter with models NOT decompiled.



Here's the situation: the model doesn't seem to capture light in-game or in-viewer and I'm really stumped because I've tried just about every method to see if this has to do with welding vertices or anything of the sort. I've narrowed this down to actual normals issues as illustrated above.

While exporting, I've tried all three options in the Normals dropdown with no real difference..



and even without bumpmaps applied, I recieve the same result:



Thanks!

It's a perfect addition, thank you. I think it's good to go!

I also have a question now that you've implemented the change. Since the default is 8 decimals, while the imported file is 6, how is it that the now-exported file is more precise (numbers other than zero) than the imported?

I believe this might be noteworthy.

Reviewing multiple SMD files exported by the tool and user-created content exported by WWMT seems to tell me that there is no "hard-coded" precision for each decimal. I believe the developer version you've posted is by far the best way to handle this dilemma.

Hi Shawn,

I think I've pinpointed key difference in the SMD files. In my compile, I am using the HL2 character's original VTA. As soon as I modify the QC to not include flexes, the issue is no longer present. After looking at the vertex information for both raw and modified SMDs, I have notice that the original SMD has vertexes rounded to six decimal places, WWMT's to five.

I'm going to make the safe assumption that, since the model that was decompiled and simply recompiled can blink in-game/in-view vs. the WWMT exported one cannot (along with the error displayed in the OP), that the decimal rounding issue is causing this.

Original:

Quotesandro_facemap
  6 2.868576 -2.491403 66.030617 0.987740 -0.105783 -0.114802 0.679386 0.442139 1 6 1.000000
  6 2.768548 -3.514405 66.008957 0.965928 -0.235591 -0.107147 0.642418 0.446527 1 6 1.000000
  6 2.550645 -3.391690 65.012589 0.950252 -0.231373 -0.208535 0.638689 0.384207 1 6 1.000000

WWMT:

Quotesandro_facemap
0 2.86858 -2.4914 66.0306 0.987779 -0.105811 -0.114442 0.679386 0.442139
0 2.76855 -3.51441 66.009 0.965973 -0.235557 -0.106811 0.642418 0.446527
0 2.55065 -3.39169 65.0126 0.950306 -0.231384 -0.208281 0.638689 0.384207

Hi Shawn,

For the past year, the model importer has been working great (thanks for that bone display addition!). Recently, I installed the latest WWMT for the most up-to-date 3DS Max 2016 x64.

I have been experiencing an error that I cannot pinpoint as an importing or exporting error, I hope you can shed some light on what's going wrong.

I have been using Crowbar Model Decompiler to decompile this Half-Life 2 civilian to edit in Max.

This is a compile with the SMD straight from the decompiler.



This is a compile with the SMD imported and exported with WWMT in Max (no modifications!), seems to be same when exporting with Explicit Normals and Auto Normals.





Here are the raw SMDs and the WWMT exported versions.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15781683/wwmtpls.zip

Thanks again, the button made it a million times easier.

Excuse me as I don't know much about scripting in Max works, but regardless of the number of child bones, couldn't the bones be created one after another instead of all at once? (Starting from the parent)

Afaik, I might be wrong, but I believe this is how Cannonfodder's importer worked.

Thank you Shawn, this is exactly what I needed. There is no rush, I totally understand your business!

For your understanding, yes, the script you provided addresses  the confusion. I am looking forward to seeing the implementation into the importer with the proper length displayed, it will be very useful. :)

It may be trivial to tell you and that I might sound very picky, I apologize, but the bone format used in the importer currently has been very confusing to work with (before you wrote up that script) and slightly discouraged me from migrating from Max 2012 + the Cannonfodder tools. I had no option since Max 2012's plethora of issues put a stop to my work.

I don't want to come off as rude and urge you to implement that function immediately, but it's been a very big issue for me so far. I very much hope to see it put in the tools, WWMT has been very helpful.

Thank you for your time, Shawn.

Hey Shawn,

Thanks for the speedy response!

I've experimented with your suggestions and I understand I might have been a little vague. Your suggestions are extremely helpful though; these are things I never knew.
But to clarify: in the last image, the standard 3ds max bone rotates where the WWMT bone's parent would be at. Ideally I want the parent bone (for the bones that WWMT uses) to carry along all its children.

The non-helper-dummy bones seem to behave differently. I'll do my best to describe this because I'm not so great at explaining

The bone "Finger0" is the first segment of the finger in the hand. The root/origin of the Finger0 bone using the non-helper bones would be where the hand node is (of the WWMT bones), shown in the last image. The root/origin of the bone nodes in WWMT's helper bones are at the very end of where the non-helper bones would be at, pretty much the opposite end.