Rigging and Export to UDK (From XSI) Part 1

[ForceCrystal]

Hey, so I'll admit I'm a max guy, but maybe you can still help me. (no one else has been able to :(

when I make my max rig, ActorX tries to export all my helpers along with the main skel. I have two separate files. One just the skinned mesh and base skel. and one with all the helpers and controls...

Is XSI special, or do you have to tell it to ignore all your helper/control objects? Any help would be extremely appreciated. The only small hint I've found was something about "_noexport"

Thanks

[JamesRayder2020]

@ForceCrystal In XSI, all I do, is select the parts of the model, and the shadow bones and export... nothing else is really required... I haven't touched UDK in months, so I will have to make sure this is still relevant...

[ForceCrystal]

@JamesRayder2020 Wow thanks for the crazy fast reply. XSI and Max must be different here. Darn. if I do that it will still take everything in the hierarchy.

[JamesRayder2020]

@ForceCrystal I am not too familiar with MAX, but in my second video all I do it select the meshes that are weighed to the shadow skeleton, and the whole hiearchy...and it exports beautifully... the main difference in MAX and XSI is that Z is up in MAX, and Y is up in Maya and XSI... and it forces me to change the rotation order of the main bone... now you could do manual rotation in UDK, but in XSI this is important...

[ForceCrystal]

@JamesRayder2020 Thanks for the help man. This has slowed me down way to much. I'm going to have to come at it from a different angle, Thanks again.

[JamesRayder2020]

@ForceCrystal Are you using helper objects( could be wrong) in MAX? In XSI, these are nulls... maybe you could build your regular rig in MAX, and constrain dummy objects to the bones, and you could try and using a Skin Modifier (dont know what it's called)... In XSI, ANYTHING can be a deformer

[tantoedge]

Where did you get the original rig?

[JamesRayder2020]

@tantoedge The rig for this model was created from scratch directly in XSI... no content from UE3 was used. As long as your rig adheres to the proper hierarchy, it will work

[YukiTheRookie]

thanx a lot <3

this video helped a lot

btw how big in xsi units should characters be to match size with other udk content?

[JamesRayder2020]

@YukiTheRookie Well, according to the unreal engine info, an average 6 ft man should be 96 units tall... so if u import a cube that is 96 units tall in UDK, this should match perfectly... it is tough since I model everything in meters in XSI...

I will also do a tutorial for unity3d

[JamesRayder2020]

@JamesRayder2020 Also make sure you watch part 2

[JamesRayder2020]

@thyedgeloop: when you have a rig in xsi, whether biped or made from scratch, you always want to make sure that u r animating the complex rig (non shadow)... and i chose nulls because you dont get the snapping that u would normally get with regular shadow bones, and there is no ik solvers to deal with... if u use regular bones as a shadow, you would have to switch off ik for all the bones... hope that helps.

[thyedgeflow]

hello james!

i wanted to ask you :

lets say i have my mesh, and i weight it to the SI3D shadow rig, do i animate using the original biped?

and why exactly did u constrain nulls to bones?

thanks!