Skeletons!

[Armanus]

OMG!

I have plans...do you?

[rampa]

<Edit> As soon as I wrote that, I found that Misfit3d does have an import option. Haven't figured out quite how to use it as it is looking for a .cal3d file not a .csf file. But no doubt Rampa or some kind soul can take pity on us </Edit>

As far as I know, the cal3d output that MS reads is not importable into anything (in terms of rebuilding). I was able to get a look at the MS skeletons about a month ago using a program called "CAL3D Viewer". All it could show was lines where the bones were and dots where the joints were. I think a CSF is essentially "run-time only data". I do recall MS posting that before, and I bet Ben or Chris will give us the reason why.

I was very excited when I first read that Misfit Model would read CAL3D. Seems it will read the ".CAL3D" it spits out with the CMF, CRF, CSF, etc. I have not looked into what is actually in this file.

Anyway. I hope that there will be a way to get the skeleton into these "lesser" programs, as well as Blender.

[primaveranz]

So MS guys... can 3dsMAX (or any other software that you are aware of) output the .csf files into any other format that we may be able to use or is the release of the skeletons only of use to people with $3000 to spare

[Chris Ollis]

They will be the MAX files that we have repeatedly been asked to release. Male and Female base rigs, nothing more. Not the cal files which have been sat inside Moviestorm since day one should anyone want to try loading them in to whatever package they use.

Yes you can export the files out of MAX in to whatever format you want, but at that point there is every possibility that the rig will break down and not be recognised by Moviestorm. This is why I have asked about who has MAX 2008.

Staying in MAX (2009 upward) should be fine, but we would be unable to offer any kind of support at all due to our only having old copies of MAX. But seeing as we are going with a no support whatsoever approach that isn't any more of an issue anyway - and in fact I shouldn't probably even telling you this much

[lucindamc123]

Will these files be in 3ds format? Because I have Sketchup Pro and I can import 3ds files into that program. What I am most interested in is seeing the bones and how they are placed and how the mesh is set up so I can learn from them, for instance, in order to do facial animations for my characters or make the clothing move with the puppet in a smooth natural way. Of course I have the Make Human models I can use and they are very detailed but they are too high poly and I always have to work on them a lot to make them lower poly and they are not clothed so I have to draw the clothing on them. As long as I can keep my human models under 8000 faces, they will import fine into Moviestorm. I am trying for 5000 to 6000 faces but that is difficult to do without having them look too boxy.