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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 24th Oct 2009 at 11:38 AM
Default Joint in Milkshape
I've many problems with the assignment Joint in Milkshape. I request a tutorial

please please please pleaseee
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Inventor
#2 Old 24th Oct 2009 at 12:24 PM Last edited by Cocomama : 24th Oct 2009 at 1:41 PM. Reason: Added picture and txt.file
I copied a part from my tutorial (in revision) for you.
Step 16- Joints and bone-assignments.

Check out the bone-assignments for the TS3 mesh and make them the same in your new group.
With only the new group visible, click in one of the grey Milkshape windows or use "Edit-Select none" to unselect everything.
Scroll to the "Joints" tab, click it and click the "SelUnAssigned" button. If there are unassigned vertices, they will now be selected red. Make sure the joint you want to assign them to, is highlighted in the Joints window and click the "Assign" button.

Do a little check by a click in one of the grey Milkshape windows to unselect everything, click the "SelUnAssigned" button and nothing should be selected. If you now click "SelAssigned" you will see that all vertices are assigned.

Hope this helps.
I think you can also find information in the very detailed tutorial from Ellacharm3d and in some other threads.

Make sure your new mesh has the same joints listed in the "Joints" window as the TS3 mesh you used as the base to build your new mesh on, even if there are no vertices assigned to it. The game apparently uses these for the animations etc.

Delete the TS3 baseclone with "Model" "Selekt" and drawing a big box that covers the whole mesh, which will select all the vertices as little red dots, and hit the delete button on your keyboard.
Make sure you have your skeleton hidden (uncheck the "Show Skeleton" option in the Joints menu) or you will delete your joints too.

Edit: I collected questions and answers from WesHowe in the little textfile attached. This could answer your questions too maybe?
Screenshots
Attached files:
File Type: zip  Bones and Joints-Q&A.zip (4.9 KB, 290 downloads) - View custom content
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 24th Oct 2009 at 5:43 PM
thanks!

I've followed step by step you explanation, but i've problem yet.
I'm creating a bed, when the sims go to sleep the bed moves a little with sims inside.
Maybe the bed has some particular settings to rispect different from the other objects?
Alchemist
#4 Old 24th Oct 2009 at 5:53 PM
Beds have a lot of assignments that create spots for the various actions that happen on a bed, including sleeping.

You need to carry these over from an original bed. MilkShape has a checkbox on the joints panel titled "Draw vertices with bone colors" which you can turn on and off to visualize the pattern of your assignments, and study the way the original was assigned.

There is no way that you will get your desired animation effects unless you make you new bed be assigned in the same manner as an original.

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 24th Oct 2009 at 6:33 PM
Wes, in the future we will have An Auto-Joint function(Milkshape) for TS3 like TS2? Only for bodies, of course. =D
Alchemist
#6 Old 24th Oct 2009 at 9:19 PM
I don't know, I hadn't given it much thought. I wouldn't be all that hard to modify the old one.

I wanted to rewrite the old one to be smarter about the joints it was working on... it was bad about setting a vertex at a knuckle to the finger it was on and secondary to the next finger over, or having one leg as a secondary assignment to a vertex on the other leg. That did not work right, and I thought if I made a neighbor list and restricted the selections of secondary assignments to that, and perhaps used the center of the X axis to tell right from left that it would improve the process.

I will think about doing it. My very next project is already written, and should be released before long.

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 25th Oct 2009 at 4:36 PM
The Join tool in milkshape can help us?

Alchemist
#8 Old 25th Oct 2009 at 7:35 PM
If you want to use that tool to make an initial assignment for a complex object, well yes, it will be useful. However, on a car, for example, parts of the fenders are closer to one of the wheel joints than they are to the transformBone (at the base of the car), this is the sort of problems that happen with an automatic tool. So you still have to follow up with some manual work.

That tool does not work any better on body meshes than the UniMesh one. Single assignments are not right when you use the nearest joint, because halfway down the arm the forearm is closer than the upperarm (the joint itself is at the ball location). One of the things that is most time consuming and requires the greatest level of skill is making the right secondary assignments to make a body mesh animate smoothly. The shoulders are a great amount of trouble, particularly the portion of the chest from the armpit down. Getting that part to look good with the arm both raised and at the side is hard to do. No upperarm influence and you get a sharp crease, too much and you get an indention with the arms at side.

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
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