As far as I know, all of those cylinders are for collision or something similar in MMD. You can probably delete all of that since it's not all that great for what source is going to want. Honestly I'd just delete anything that isn't the mesh. In the time it takes you to fix up a skeleton properly enough, you could probably have just rigged it to the Valve skeleton. The skeleton from your phymodel is the Left 4 Dead skeleton so I wouldn't worry about that. Your best bet is probably to look on Maxofs2d's source website for a proper skeleton, though I'm not sure you'll find anything for Blender. Alternatively you could check the male 05 raw content for a male skeleton or you could decompile a female citizen for a proper female skeleton with a bit of fixing up. I'm honestly not too sure what methods are most efficient for blender, so go with whichever you desire.
I couldn't find the female citizen to decompile so instead I found the rag doll.SMD for the male citizen under HL2MP, I've got Madoka's mesh (the untextured model) and the citizens skeleton in blender, I'm guessing that the skeleton is going to need it's arms adjusting to fit the Madoka mesh? As in, I'll need to move the bones in the arm so that they are part of the mesh? Or would I be able to do this using coordinates in the QC file? As in I could use the QC file to load the rag doll, or at least associate it with the model, and then I could use the QC to position the arms so that the rag dolls bones lie nicely inside Madoka's mesh.
I'm not sure what methods Blender allows for when rigging. For this, I would use male05_reference over ragdoll.smd because it'll allow you to properly scale and adjust Madoka to male 05's proportions. You'll want to scale Madoka so her shoulders line up with Male05's shoulders. From there, you can use the skeletons to line them up which will then allow you to basically get rid of Madoka's skeleton. If her proportions follow most anime/MMD models, you'll need to pull her pelvis down and arms out once her shoulders are aligned. Once she's basically all set up, you can probably delete male05's reference as well which just leaves you with Madoka's mesh and male05's skeleton.
Perhaps if someone who uses Blender drops by, they can explain how rigging works in Blender or suggest any different options to make things easier on you.
So what you are saying is that in blender I need to select Madoka's arms and move it downwards to match the skeletons arms position? Do you know if there's a way to do this with assigning Coordinates in the QC file, since it seems like that would be possible.
You probably could use the QC instead; I'm not sure what results you get but it might be fine. I wouldn't reccomend it though; it's nicer to just be able to see what you're doing to make sure it lines up properly. Essentially you just want to make sure the scales match (I go by the shoulders) first. Then you can try to line her up as best as possible which may include adjusting her proportions.
Is it okay for me to move the skeleton so that the skeleton fits the mesh? Or is it a case of I MUST move Madoka's arms so that they are in line with the skeleton (Hoping it's the former since that seems significantly easier than the other way.)
You should be fine moving the skeleton so long as you don't move it away from the parented bones. In other words, don't scale the bones, detach them, or anything like that.
Okay, I've edited the skeleton into something that might work, I'm guessing I'm going to have to change the QC, change the coordinates for the skeleton's arms and stuff, one question, in the Madoka.qc you use survivors/anim_mechanic.mdl, but I'm guessing I'll probably want to use something to do with the female animations, what path would I put in the QC to use those instead?
This is a completely new model so quite a bit of data in the QC will probably be rewritten. Not all of it is necessary, but the more work you put into this, the better the result will be. For now, you don't need to worry about the QC at all, though the animation set you want is:
$includemodel "f_anm.mdl"
Once everything is lined up properly, you'll need to skin it to the skeleton. Essentially you're the person who tells the model what verts move with what bones and by how much. The skeleton doesn't automatically know how to move your arms, legs, torso, and so on. It also doesn't know how to smooth out joints properly or anything like that at all until you tell it how. Once the rig is done, we'll get the QC and such sorted out.
Would it be better for me to create the mesh and skeleton as separate files and link them together in the QC? I've seen this done before and I'm wondering if that's a better way to go about it rather than having the mesh and skeleton together. Also, I'm guessing that I'm probably only going to need the most basic moving parts, basically the arms and legs, I don't really see how bones in the head would work, but I'm guessing if i want the head to move like most Gmod playermodels do, I'm going to need to do that as well.
The SMD file lists all the data needed for the model including what bone(s) the verts are assigned to. If those verts don't exist, you'd be exporting the model without a skeleton attached which is basically the same as leaving it unrigged or in T-Pose. If you ever see a blank skeleton SMD in a model, it's probably a result of bodygroups. In other words, the default model is a blank mesh because it's just a skeleton. Changeable bodies and such are overlayed on top. In these cases, the bones used still exist as part of the other models, even if it's only the ones necessary. A changeable head model may only have the spine4, neck, and head bone, but the mesh is still rigged to it.
I'm going to assume that some parts of making the rig don't need to be done for this model, for example, the process of making sure bones can only bend in certain ways or move in certain directions. Does that need to be included, you'd think that with the animations dictating which way the bones move, it would be unnecessary. Also, am I fine having the skeleton inside the mesh or do I need to combine them into one object through some form of 'connecting' process? How will I know when my model is finished and ready to try, now that I've added the bones and made the skeleton fit I guess all that's left is the rendering?
All of the constraints and such that control how far a bone can move is for the ragdoll. You can recycle this data from the QC of the files you got your skeleton from, honestly. This is just so your ragdoll doesn't turn into a puddle of limbs when the character dies and turns into a ragdoll.
As for the skinning process, there should be some sort of modifier that attaches the bones to the mesh so you can start adjusting the weights. If you need help from that, I'll need to have someone else take it from here. I use 3ds max, so I'm not really too familiar with Blender.
When I'm working on the weights, which parts should be which weight? Which areas need to be heavier, and which areas need to be lighter?
All of that's up to you as long as it creates the best looking rig you want. Here are some basic tips to help you while working, though (hopefully).
First of all, the easiest thing you can do is decompile a model and open it separately. Observe how the rig works on the citizen you're using and things should start to make sense relatively fast. This should also let you look at how the model was rigged to the same skeleton you're trying to rig a model to.
Assuming you haven't adjusted the proportions yet, make sure you come close to the citizen model's proportions. Try to line up joints such as the elbows and knees with the points where the the bones meet to create cleaner joints that are easier to rig.
Smooth transitions out as best as possible. There should be some relatively neat blending on areas such as the spine. The elbow and knee joints will have blending on one side and a bit harsher blending on the other to prevent noodle-like shapes when bending.
Helper bones can be a nice touch later on. Some of them may help joints look neater while others may perform tasks that single bones cannot. For instance: if you rotate your hand 180 degrees, you'll notice your elbow only rotates about 1/4 of that. This is where the ulna bone (or forearmtwist) helps. The same technique is used by the shoulder/bicep bones.
I think I'm ready to start on the coding that's going to get her in game and working, I'm going to need a few directions on where to start with the QC file however.
Do you know whereabouts I could start looking into putting the model into Gmod? I need to do the QC coding and I have no idea whereabouts I would start to do that.
If you have Source SDK, you should be able to check the sourcesdk_content folder under hl2mp and modelsrc for humans_sdk. This contained the source files used to make male05 along with some basics for getting started with animations and such (which you don't really need, but still). After working with Left 4 Dead's content for a week or so, I'd like to go back and make some changes to the QC I use, but it's still a good place to start. It even includes all kinds of things people tend to ignore (some of which are now obsolete, but some of which are good for optimization).
Note that everything is in the male folder. Note that if you swap to the female commonbones.qci, there is no head attachment. All you need to do is copy the same line from the male one (or rewrite it) but this head attachment is often used for names or hats in gamemodes and should not be left out.
How does the coordinate system in ragdoll.qci file work? The blender coordinates seem to be off, and I remember that in earlier post you mentioned how it worked, so would you mind expanding on that?
If that's the file containing all of the ragdoll properties such as $jointconstain, then the coordinates are responsible for listing how far each bone can move before hitting a limit. This is so that your player has bones and joints holding him together rather than flimsy string. $jointcollide should be a little more self explanatory. This is used to list two joints that should collide with eachother. This is to ensure things such as your arm colliding with your torso, but not colliding with itself.
Am I going to need any additional QCI files? Or do I only need the five that you used with the old model, those being attachments, hitbox, hitbox_old, ikchains and ragdoll. Because, as you said, the male folder does indeed contain a lot of qci files, most of which are probably unnecessary.
The files I sent you were created from your old QC and probably aren't needed anymore. I'd stick to the citizen one. As you begin to figure out how it all works, you can remove anything you feel unnecessary. For now, all you need to remove to get the model compiling for testing is LoD, but I'd reccomend moving that to a separate QCI file that you can re-add later when you have your own LoD models. I'll elaborate more on this when you're at that point (if you decide to use it). You might want to go back and tweak the hitboxes in HLMV later to ensure they fit your model properly.
Okay, So what goes in the QC to ensure it encompasses all of the QCI files that I have, should I take a look at the QC you sent me?
Nevermind, I fixed that, I have a new error in my compilation:
ERROR: c:\users\alexander\desktop\madoka working code\QCI\bodyrules_xsi.qci(2): - bad command flexcontroller
Any idea what this means?
[QUOTE=Countbuffalo;44247427]Okay, So what goes in the QC to ensure it encompasses all of the QCI files that I have, should I take a look at the QC you sent me?
Nevermind, I fixed that, I have a new error in my compilation:
ERROR: c:\users\alexander\desktop\madoka working code\QCI\bodyrules_xsi.qci(2): - bad command flexcontroller
Any idea what this means?[/QUOTE]
If the $model command has brackets afterward ( {} ) which contain a lot of stuff in between, go ahead and cut that out for now. Your model probably doesn't have any face flexes, eyes or anything like that yet.
I noticed that your QC file references the Madoka.mdl file, I'm assuming I can safely delete that.
I've got an interesting problem, the SMD file is called 'mesh', but I was getting an error that it couldn't find a file called madoka. So I changed the name of the mesh to madoka, but not it can't find mesh (because it doesn't exist). Which line is it that makes the QC look in the madoka folder? Since $cd is set to look inside the model folder, $model is looking for mesh.smd, and that only leaves $sequence. Which upon changing to look inside the madoka model folder. I still get the error that my compiler is searching for a madoka folder.
I created a madoka folder and put the mesh inside there, but now it still refuses to find it. The compiler just seems incapable of finding the mesh file.
You no longer need to worry about the original QC we were dealing with. It's not going to be useful to you if you're using a new QC.
As for the second issue, it should have a line such as $model madoka "madoka_reference.smd" or whatever the name of your SMD file is. I'm not sure about $cd really. I keep everything in the same folder as my QC or make use of $pushd, popd, directories, and ../ to return to a previous directory (if all that makes sense). I compile my models by dragging and dropping my QC file onto a batch script. As far as I know, it should use the same directory the QC is in by default. If not, the $cd line should just point to the location of all your SMD files which hopefully are in the same location.
Is there any QC file that I could base mine on? Since I'm not to sure on where to start.
If this is for GMod, the one you have based from male05 should work fine to be honest. If not, I'll see if I can just rewrite using Miku to clear all that unused shit out and update some of it, and then I'll post it here for you to use as a base, or for someone else to complain about its imperfections. I have testing tomorrow (or later today, I guess), but I'll see about writing it after I come home and pass out.
I get a bad command file error when trying to compile the QC. I'm not too sure what to replace and what to leave alone in this QC file, I see the 'include ragdoll' command, that doesn't need changing, but all of the lines that involve replacing model it mentions a reference model, do I replace that with my SMD?
[url]http://pastebin.com/Uc924vs4[/url]
This is a proper .qc file that Bloo sent me to teach me how to properly make them. It should help you out.
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