NifTools: 3ds Max NIF Plug-in 0.2.17 Released

[Symon]

Pre-compiled versions of the plug-in are available for 3ds Max 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 2008, 2009 and gmax 1.2. If you have a different version, it should be able to compile from source.

The most significant bit:-

Importer
    * Add initial support for Freedom Force animation import

[Blkcasanova247]

NICE! :thumbup:

[the_ultimate_evil]

so what does this mean exactly

[Symon]

It means that the ability to produce working, fully animated freedom force meshes in versions of 3DsMax later then 5.2, GMax, (and eventually Blender and Maya) comes a few steps closer.

[the_ultimate_evil]

gmax sweet, hmm may be closer to motu meshs than i thought

[yell0w_lantern]

The gods are smiling on us at last!

[tommyboy]

Sweet babby Jebus, you can import geometry and keyframes, and they work!!111111oneoneone.
No mesh will be safe...

[yell0w_lantern]

No luck yet.  :banghead:

[the_ultimate_evil]

Sweet babby Jebus, you can import geometry and keyframes, and they work!!111111oneoneone.
No mesh will be safe...

hmm good point tommy, this could cause some problems

[tommyboy]

Sweet babby Jebus, you can import geometry and keyframes, and they work!!111111oneoneone.
No mesh will be safe...

hmm good point tommy, this could cause some problems

Well, for me it's not a huge issue within this community. I've given my permission to nifskope any of my geometry, so I'm not too bothered by someone importing my meshes and playing in Max. And my animations are mostly pants so who'd want them?
However, outside this community, ie in the MUA community, they rip meshes from other games like there's no tomorrow, and mentioning kittbashing would draw a blank look from most of them.
This could raise issues for meshers who haven't given carte blanche to cannibalize their work, and I expect to see FF community made stuff turn up in other games as less scrupulous 'modders' and 'modellers' release their 'own' superhero models that look very familiar to us..

[Renegade]

Ah well, we have to retire from this sometime tommyboy. What's it been now, 6 years?

[R.O.M]

maybe a jay z type of retirement

[tommyboy]

Ah well, we have to retire from this sometime tommyboy. What's it been now, 6 years?

I've 'only' been meshing since 2003, so five for me.
But..but...I'm nearly competent now..I can't retire at 'barely adequate'...
Anyway, the rubicon was crossed when 3dripper and RipperDX were released some time ago. With those you can rip geometry from any directx type game, if you are of a mind to.
So perhaps my fears of mesh mis-use-age are just panic. If people wanted to they could have ripped 3D stuff from us for the past year or more. Given how low-poly ff models are compared to todays games, most people would probably snort derisively at an FF mesh in Assassin's Creed or Crysis or GTA4 anyway. So we're probably safe-ish.
We might need another 'code of conduct/permissions list' type discussion within the community, though.
And it could lead to a NifSkope-ian burst of creativity, which would be a Good Thing.

[rmt]

I have to be the heretic and ask:  Does this mean I could import  :ffvstr: only meshes and export them for  :ff: without having to re-physique the @$@#ers?  I'm jonesing to do something with the Volsung TAS style meshes but not particularly interested in creating  :ffvstr: content.  I partially re-physiqued male basic TAS with Tommyboy's map guides*, but never could quite get all the vertices to align properly.**

*Note, this is for private use only.  I don't want to distribute them.  I just wanted something visually different.  I actually had planned to put obscure Golden Age characters from Nedor, Fox, etc. on them since many can look right on a male basic type model.  I have given Tom permission to shoot me in the face if they ever escape the darkness of my home PC.

**Pretend all of the above was done in rhyme and with cryptic in-jokes.  Yeah, I got lazy.

[yell0w_lantern]

Has anyone actually been able to import any animation successfully? I know I haven't. I keep getting 'unknown error'.

[tommyboy]

Has anyone actually been able to import any animation successfully? I know I haven't. I keep getting 'unknown error'.

I've imported my own 'Shooting_star_tf' mesh (exported with ff exporters), and its keyframes, and that worked.
I can import FFV3r 'native' geometry (ie 'Killarilla_with _whip'), but cannot yet import ffv3r 'character.kf's (same error as YL). I wonder if renaming to keyframes.kf might help?

[tommyboy]

I have to be the heretic and ask:  Does this mean I could import  :ffvstr: only meshes and export them for  :ff: without having to re-physique the @$@#ers?  I'm jonesing to do something with the Volsung TAS style meshes but not particularly interested in creating  :ffvstr: content.  I partially re-physiqued male basic TAS with Tommyboy's map guides*, but never could quite get all the vertices to align properly.**

Dunno. We seem to be hitting a wall with importing ffv3r keyframes, I havent checked the imported ffv3r physiquing yet, but will do so.
I'd also bet dollars to donuts the NifSkope Boys will sort out the importing of animations in the very near future.

[tommyboy]

Hmmmmm....even when you cannot import an ffv3r mesh's 'own' keyframes, you CAN import ff keyframes compatible with its biped, and these will work. For example, I imported ffv3r Bullet, but couldn't import ffv3r Bullet's keyframes. However, I can import the ff quicksilver_tvlite's keyframes into ffv3r bullet, and they seem to work. The meshes import with a 'skin' modifier, not physique, but I think theres a plugin or script I had that would convert these to each other.
Now, bear in mind that you have no tools for displaying seperate animations in later max versions, and that the one Bullet export I did manages to crash Ctool, and Ctool2 and the limitations start to sink in. It displayed in NifSkope though, with animations.
We aren't quite at 'import anything, export anything' at the moment.

EDIT: I deleted the keyframes I exported with bullet and now he displays in ctool. Without a skin, and horribly distorted (because of the 'skin' modifier I'll warrant), but hes there.
And exporting with the animations included works in ctool the same as the 'proper' ff exporters if you use them to export including anims rather than to a seperate kf file.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

I am dismayed to report that the updates to the gmax importers/exporters seem to be no improvement whatsoever over the previous version.  gmax still crashes when one attempts to export an animated NIF (and the animations I tried to export were brand new, squeaky clean: the motions of a bouncing ball), and it still seems unable to import animations.  IMO, the only potentially very positive upshot of these updates--namely, giving gmax users the ability to export, say, custom FX with animations--seems a no go at the moment.  I would agree with Tom (and, until I finished reading the entire thread, I was about to say so myself) that the ability to import animations (not keyframes, per se, but their animations--in my tests, I've been able to import animation sequences, but the keys themselves are not demarcated) attached to their meshes will likely be abused by members of other 3-D game modding communities and not this one (until, of course, gmax can begin exporting animations without crashing...).  Yes, advancing technology does seem to have left this game product of 2002 behind, and that fact might be to our advantage.  The other current advantage is that those 3ds max meshers (using R4 or R5) in the FF community who can get these importer upgrades to work are too scrupulous to abuse the animation work of other meshers.  I'd concur that your work is still quite safe, Ren.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

[yell0w_lantern]

My main interest is getting access to the IG animations for 3R.

[tommyboy]

My main interest is getting access to the IG animations for 3R.

Unless we are both doing something wrong, it looks like that will have to wait for a subsequent release.

[style]

you wont have to worry about me with this, because i don't get any of this! :huh: :huh: :huh:

[Symon]

Remember that FF keyframes are NOT the same as FF3R keyframes, and the release notes specified FF keyframes.
I don't think FF3R keyframes are supported at present, but they aren't that different so maybe the next release will have ff3R keyframe support.

[rmt]

you wont have to worry about me with this, because i don't get any of this! :huh: :huh: :huh:

Glad mine is not the only head over which this is sailing.  Sounds like another entry on the "wait until Tom does all the work list."  Fortunately that list has never failed me.   :lol:

[Vertex]

DRRRR

  I've been out of things so long but... where would I get ahold of this? Sounds like I could get ahold of a bunch of the files by using this, that I lost when my computer got wasted. If anybody can point the way I'd be very appreciative.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

Cheers, Vertex!  Long time, no see. :)

You may download the latest NIFTools here.  I hope this helps; however, from what I can tell by initial experiments, you may have some work ahead of you when it comes to restoring the keyframes and note tracks to those imported animations.  :unsure:

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

[Vertex]

thanks! I don't mind a bit of work and it always bugged me a LOT that I lost so much in that crash.


Oops another quick question... What's the newest version of max that you can currently export meshes with now?

[ow_tiobe_sb]

I think the installation options will tell you when you run the 3ds max NIFTools installer.  Something tells me that 3ds max 2009 (both Win32 and x64) is the latest supported by these plug-ins.  Of course, there would be no support for the character animation tool in anything other than 3ds max R3-5.

Good luck! :)

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

[yell0w_lantern]

Of course, the IG exporters only do Max 5.1 and Character Studio 4 - PM me if you need anything.