Tentacles: Bones

[AceMastermind]

Ace, could you maybe make for me, and for the rest of the community, an head, as obj, so we can import it, make the addon mesh on that so it will correct show up ingame?

You can just use RepSharpshooter's msh importer for that, it's free and available for anyone to use.

[Gogie]

msh importer doesnt import bones though thats the problem

[AceMastermind]

He doesn't need bones for that particular request, he just wants a head as an .obj file so he can use it to fit the tentacles to it for size and placement reference.

EDIT
If you do want an entire skeleton with the mesh, then you can use Unwrap3d to import a character then export it as dotxsi (.xsi) (with animations option), you will then be able to import (with animation option checked) that file into XSI with the skeleton data and see where the exact placement of the bones are, but the bone chains are converted to nulls.

[Gogie]

where can i find this Unwrap3d

[AceMastermind]

Offtopic:
You can find it HERE.

[Gogie]

and where can i get the addon that lets it import .msh files?

[AceMastermind]

Offtopic:
Click on "Downloads" at the top of the page then scroll down to "Third Party Plugins", there will be a drop down list of plugins that you can download.
You must purchase Unwrap3d to be able to save or export.

[Gogie]

thnx man

[MandeRek]

What i meant, was if you could import, with rep's, an jed_inf_sith or whatever, and translate/move it correctly, so we can make the addons, delete the obj from the scene, export and done! I've also got another question; with animated addon tentacles, should the bones be children of the mesh? Also, with adding tents on a new playermodel, should you hide the collision objects, and how should you export the basepose.msh? Just delete all meshes, branch select the DummyRoot and export?? Another question: When you use Aayla's basepose, so you use 2 tentacles with 3 bones, does it matter where you put them? Call you also make a cape? And if you make a cape, should the tentacles be children of bone_ribcage? These are the last questions i've got, and then i think i know everything about tentacles... Thanks in advance

Edit: FragMe! has send me the XMas hat i made for Dann.. He positioned it correct, and everyone can download it to import it. This hat is correctly with coordinates, so your tentacles should be possitioned the same! Thanks Fragme! http://files.filefront.com/xmashatzip/; ... einfo.html

Another Edit: I saw the wookieedreads again, and the mesh and bone_strings/tentacles should be all children of bone_root So, i guess you should make a null, leave it at 0,0,0 and call it bone_root, move all tentacles/bones and the mesh under that, branch select it and export?

Edit AGAIN: In the wookieedread picture, it shows for every tentacle 5 bone strings, but you can see only 4. The tentacle is red. How would i do this? The addon is a polymesh, i've made 5 bone strings/nulls, just enveloped, and whole the mesh is enveloped to the Diet Dr. Pepper bone strings.. Can someone pleas explain to me how to do this with addons? Pleas?! I only want a part of the addons animated... Or isn't that possible?

[MandeRek]

I'm sorry for my double post, but i finished the tut, it's also in the first post, it should work fine... Enjoy everyone ^^

[Teancum]

Another Edit: I saw the wookieedreads again, and the mesh and bone_strings/tentacles should be all children of bone_root So, i guess you should make a null, leave it at 0,0,0 and call it bone_root, move all tentacles/bones and the mesh under that, branch select it and export?

If it's part of the playermodel it has to be attached to bone_head (assuming the tentacles are part of the head). If it's a GeometryAddon it uses bone_root (since it's the root of that model) and attaches itself to wherever the odf specifies.

[MandeRek]

Thank you Teancum, Ace explained the same

Now i finally also know how to get addons animated in this way.. Thanks again

[Gogie]

just to say

easiest way to make addon tenticles.

grab yourself physc0freds unit template,
duplicate the hp_weapons and rename it bone_string_1, _2 etc
envelope your mesh around those bones
copy one more hp_weapons, and name it bone_root
set the bones under their proper parents
minimum animation frames to 0, and max to 1, then put a key frame on both frames selecting all bones.
export but click "export animations" and export FK anims, and also click export basepose

after that just set up your odf like this...
AnimatedAddon = "TENTACLES"
GeometryAddon = "yourmesh"
AddonAttachJoint = "bone_head"
NumTentacles = "#"
BonesPerTentacle = "#"
TentacleCollType = "0"

easier and quicker.

[Teancum]

Any luck getting more than 20 tentacle bones on Kit, Gogie?

[Gogie]

nope but i managed to get the rough same effect with the tentacles by enveloping them around 4 tents and 3 bones...

[edit] : your 1st row of tents should have the heirarchy set so that the bone_string_1 is the bone at the end of the tenticle, and bone_string_3 closest to the head, the second row of bones is the complete opposite and the 3rd row is the same as the first and so on, otherwise your tents go all funny.

[MandeRek]

Ok, so it's just duplicating the hp_weapons and replacing them, enveloping them, animating them in XSI and that's it? Well people, if you want an addon mesh on a already existing model; screw my tut and listen to gogie

[Gogie]

also dont forget to reset the rotations on the bone_string to 0,0,0 and position ihowever you like, but dont set nuetral rotations (nuetral pose doesnt matter but rotations go screwy)

it will rotate X=-90 Y=-90 Z=0 ingame unless you import physc0freds bones and place your dummy root under bone_head.

before exporting, any mesh that you desire to attach to the head of your player model, just envelpe to the dummy root and set its edit weights to 100.

[AceMastermind]

Here is a tentacle template that shows you how to properly setup addon tentacles in XSI, this file when exported to msh works flawlessly ingame, it is a direct conversion of the Wookiee dread addon mesh.

Import this file into XSI and have a look at the setup, make note of the rotation of bone_root, the parent of everything in the scene which is what makes the addon appear correctly on the unit ingame, and also the alignment of the bone_string_# and their location within the tentacles.
Also have a look at the weights, press ctrl+e to open the weight editor and press T then tag some points on the mesh to see their weights in the weight editor, they are all 100%.

If you use this as your template to make animated addon tentacles don't mess with the bone_root, leave it as is.
Make your tentacle mesh like normal. Then line it up close to where the wookie tentacles are to insure you that they'll line up correctly to the unit ingame. Delete the wookiee tentacle mesh and make your new bone_strings or use the existing ones in the scene. Set up the hierarchy accordingly in an explorer (hotkey 8). Envelope the new mesh to all the bone_string_# only, edit the weights to 100%, and export.

I'm also going to upload an *.emdl of Aayla Secura later so that you can see how to properly setup tentacles that are exported with a player model.

Also, I haven't had any luck getting 45 bone_string_#'s to work ingame.

[Teancum]

I'm pretty sure 45 was the Xbox variable. 20 bucks says they upped the limit some point before the docs were released solely to get Kit working on the Xbox. I know for a fact the Xbox version of Kit has 45. The question is how many can the PC hold? I've only seen up to 20 bones total, but it's possible that we can do more, who knows?

[MandeRek]

Very nice Ace, that's great! And I must agree that 45 SHOULD be possible reading the jedi creation doc, which is my help in certain situations... Also, i dunno how many tents kit has in X-BOX but 45 bones must be smoothed and very detailed moving tents right?