3d scene - character

Hi All,

I have been working through importing a 3d scene with lots of geometry and some camera movement. And have now added a 3d avatar/character into the scene.

I am still working through getting the camera animation to work correctly when imported but my bigger problem is that the character doesn’t show up on import.

I have double-checked that all options are set to output bones etc during fbx export. I see some COMP’s in the project that relate to the character but he does not want to show up.

Has anyone worked through anything similar?

The camera moves are a smaller issue that I am working through but any expertise here would also be appreciated.

Many Thanks,
quine

Every character file I’ve tried so far works. It should create a network of Null COMPs for the skeleton, and there should be a Deform SOP somewhere that is deforming the character. You can send me the file and I’ll take a look.

Hi Quine,
did you get the camera import to work?

I’m trying to import a maya camera which I’ve attached to a motion path, is this the sort of thing you’re doing? When I import the camera I don’t get any animation with it.

My character is coming trough fine, I’ve not had any troubles importing a skinned and weighted character with multiple textures. Have you solved your issue?

Heya,

The current word is that there is no support for external paths/NURBS yet. So the path would have to be buillt in touch.

I have a keyframed camera animation that is working and a character who moves around slightly. Built in 3DMAX and exported to fbx. All of this is working but I believe it is all keyframed. (sorry, i didnt actually build the scene or I’d have more specific info).

Regarding the path, could you make the path as an object in Maya or whatever and import it into touch as geometry, then use it as a path object (perhaps using the points as control points ofr anurbs curve etc._)

or did I miss the point?

rod.

Hey Rod, you didn’t miss the point… thats pretty much what I was looking for. I ran out of time on that project and settled for using constant CHOPs to specify camera positions and rotations, and switching between them using a lag to blend the animations.
I’m now trying to do a similar thing where I have a ball following a wire, but again I’n not sure how to go about it. I use a fixed noise chop to define the curve of the wire, and a record CHOP to send the motion data to the ball. At the moment it’s following the path of the wire but only on one axis (z)… Im not sure how to extract the other info I need to make it follow the x axis.
I’ve attachd the .toe, hopefully it will illustate my problem more clearly.
The outcome I’m looking for is to have the wire deform (magnets) as the ball moves along it, as though the ball is moving inside a rubber tube.
wire.toe (8.9 KB)

here are two approaches
carve.2.toe (8.4 KB)

FWIW I’ve imported several characters with models and camera animation from Maya from 3 different animators, they have all worked fine with the default export settings. The camera paths have all been baked out, I index into the resulting CHOP for motion control.

Cheers achim, great examples there!
The carve is an interesting one but sop to chop gives me the functionality I need i.e manipulating the extend behaviour.
I’ve decided to change the object moving along the wire from a spherical object, only problem is it needs to rotate to face the direction it’s traveling in. I’ve played with it for hours now and not come up with much… Any suggestions?
I tried using a trail SOP to compute the objects velocity but I’m getting stuck accessing the point attribute v. I’m sure it’s simple enough and I think the geometry speadsheet would help but I can’t seem to find it! Have I missed something, is the GS no more?

yep, hopefully the spreadsheet will return as a component, like all the other dialogs

For the alignment, you’ll need correct normals. Here’s a way to do it, but I didn’t include the fix for the first point, where the normal is currently wrong. I also added a carve solution, as it easier and doesn’t suffer from the problem.
tp.toe (9.27 KB)

wicked. how does t(x)2 work?

no wait, got it… the shift+1 in sort. cool. you’re a mine of info, thanks for sharing.

As a temporary geometry spreadsheet you can use a SOP to DAT, it displays most geo attributes. We will bring back an editable geometry spreadsheet at some point.