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Cloth PLUS Bone animation?

RicherSims

RicherSims

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dominica
I know it seems like I'm a newbie re-inventing the wheel, but I was wondering:
Does anyone know if it is possible to lock the bones to the vertices of flag that are undergoing a cloth simulation in 3DSmax?

To explain further, I know that FSX only supports bones. But since the cloth animation can give a pretty realistic simulation of a flag in wind, i'm trying to find a way to get the bones to follow that animation so that they can be exported to FSX.
I can succesfully apply bones to the flag, and I believe I know how to move them to a new position for each new keyframe, however the current issue is that when a cloth animation is applied to the poly, the poly moves but the bones stay fixed.

564514_203618996436123_1037415218_n.jpg


3DS max allows you to export the cloth simulation as an animation, but that of course is not readable by FSX. So if one could get the bones to follow the cloth, the result would be a pretty realistic and easily made flag in wind.

Any thoughts and discussion appreciated.
 
I've seen this post for days but no one reply to this.
I was wondering if you can provide me the file so i can take a look. But it seems to me that the bones are too many.
Personally, I think the bones are too complicated for a flag.
 
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Thanks for the reply jtanabodee.

I managed to overcome this issue by making a dummy flag and then applying the cloth simulation to the dummy. I then adjust the bones of the real flag to the vertices of the dummy. Turns out with Snapping turned on, you can match the shape of the dummy cloth very easily. (Too bad I'm new to 3DS Max and it took me awhile to figure out the use of Snapping *facepalm* :o) The result is a pretty realistic bone animation of moving cloth.

My new problem is that I can't get the animation out of 3DSMax and into FSX.
I know missing animation seems to be a persistent problem on this forum, but I have scoured the internet looking for similar solutions but none have worked for me.

Someone please correct me if I have the steps wrong:
1)I use Autokey every 10 frames to adjust the flag to a new position.
2)After all 100 frames of the animation are complete, I select the entire model and open the FSX Animation tool.
3)I type 0 and 100 in the Start and End boxes and select NonRandomAmbient (I have also tried Ambient)
4)I click Create and check the summary (Strange: Bones 5,6,7 and 8 show up in the summary; but I have 20 bones in total)
5)I export as X file and receive Flag.x and Flag.xanim. (The xanim file contains position info for all 20 bones for each frame, so all is fine there it seems)
6)I pass the X (and xanim) file through XtoMdl using the /XANIM and /DICT:modeldef flags.

Drop the MDL in ModelconverterX to see if any animation is present at all? None.
Place the MDL in a library and position in FSX. No animation. (Yes, advanced animations are turned on).

jtanabodee (and others), I have attached the zip file containing the max, x, xanim and mdl. Take a look and we'll discuss further. :) Thank you.
 

Attachments

Each of my bones were selected and the animation tag was attached to each one. Just to be sure I deleted all tags and re-did them. Still no change.

Bernado the DICT flag shows XtoMDL where to find the modeldef.xml file (which I am not sure is even needed for succesful compiling)
This is what my script looked like.

Code: 
start cmd.exe "/k XtoMDL.exe /XANIM /DICT:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Modeling SDK\bin\modeldef.xml" /OUT:FLAG.MDL flag.X"
 
Yes, it is required if you have "animated scenery" such as the flag's bones. Otherwise, you'd have no animation whatever.
 
Must be a version issue, I'm using Max2012. I re-saved it as a 2010 file. Any one know of a way to get it to the 2009 format?
 

Attachments

I think that just tagging the animted part should be enough. the moving part of the object. why gmax not register all the bones would be something to inverstigate.
 
I think the summary only shows the bones which are connected in max. Since I have 5 groups of 4 bones, 4 bones showed up (which explains the 5,6,7,8)
The xanim file has data for all the bones though, so I think we can rule that out as a problem.
A question: Even though MCX cannot properly read and write bone animations, the fact that an animation exists in the model is at least supposed to show up in the Animation Editor, am I right?
 
OK, I got it.
Unfortunately, I don't use 3dmax to export to FSX. So I cannot check the way you animate. I only use gmax and 3dmax7.

Did you check on Export Sking nad Export Animation while you are exporting the model?

Did you check on the material setting on Enhanced parameters (the last options in the material setting) to be Skinned mesh? Those are the point that we often make a mistake.
Tic
 
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Yes, Yes and Yes. I'm sure there is a simple error somewhere.

What about the X files jtanabodee? Could you successfully compile those and get animation out of them? Do you see any problems in the xanim file?

Could anybody else with Max 2012 or 2010 verify my file please? Thank you.
 
I'm as Jatanobodee, Gmax and 3dsmax7 very obsolete guys. A little confusing this animations things. but everybody is intersted in some kind of animation for flags so I wish you luck....and patience.
 
MOUSY said:
Could anybody else with Max 2012 or 2010 verify my file please? Thank you.
Click to expand...

If you exported as an earlier version .FBX your file might be more 'viewable'. With Max 2008 I can read up to .FBX 2010 version but that's as far as Autodesk have developed the 2008 plugins. (the version is selected in Advanced options in the .FBX export dialog)

As an aside, .FBX is really useful for importing DAZ Studio 4 figures into Max.
 
Ignore the first picture, that was early experimentation. My final model (and those in the attached files) only has 20 bones...

On another note:
Refer to the oil rig sample file TestX.x for examples of the use of these templates. Note that there is a limit of 128 bones per model, and a limit of 22 connected bones. Any one vertex of a model can be influenced by a maximum of four bones. Models will fail if they exceed these limits.
Click to expand...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526973.aspx#AnimationTemplates

 
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