character studio

[WAR_Nuker]

is this necessary to get my custom half life 2 character to work? i am having troubles. i edited a character that was already made....when i was done i attached the mesh to the envelopes (they were already there from whoever made the original model...just werent attached)....comiled to smd....and then tried to drag the qc over studiomdl to compile everything including my new smd file. it gave me an error and closed. i searched the threads and came across character studio and was wondering if that is why it wont work (i dont have it). if that isnt the problem....what the hell is it?

 

[Shinobi]

dont worry, you made it the more "compatible" way... character studio is a more esoteric way of rigging/animating a character that doesnt follow the norm.. It can help getting a biped character up fast but isn't supported too often in game engines (HL2 may have conpatibility,, dont know, dont really care)

So essentially character studio has nothing to do with it...

I've had a ton of trouble to get a rigged/skinned character out with a basic idle animation myself,,, I'm just assuming it's either a path error somewhere in the QC (although I've checked like 1000 times) or some sort of tiny thing I've overlooked.... oy,, UT2k4 seems way easier now in comparison

 

[WAR_Nuker]

ok then. im not so sure about the qc being the problem. i compiled with all the original files first to see if that would work (3 smds, 1 vta, 1 qc). worked ok and looked fine in game (i sure hope it would if it wasnt tampered with). after that, i opened up 3d studio to do some editing. the only thing i did mess with was one of the smds....which carried the info for the skeleton and mesh. i imported the skeleton and the mesh up seperately, but in the same file so they wouldnt be attached. for now i left the skeleton alone. i edited the mesh to my liking. after that i set up the envelopes to my liking. every vertex in the model is assigned to at least 1 envelope. i compiled back to smd and replaced the old smd (original, untampered) with my new and improved smd. i then threw the qc on top of studiomdl...it waited a sec....and just said error and stopped real fast. thats as far as ive gotten. did i forget to do something? do i have to redo the vta file cause there are fewer verticies than there were originally (making a guess as to what the problem could be)?

 

[swiss_cheese9797]

I am using 3ds max too and I think I know your problem. Most ppl use the Cannon Fodder exporter and importer and .mdl decompiler, and something changes between the decompile, the export and the import. At least I think so. Even though all the bones are where they are supposed to be, theres soemthing that differes from the actual sequence .smd files. If you decompile the fast zombie model, import to max, then import a run animation, notice, a lot of the vertex/bone assignments are off, as well as the animations. I really wish VALVE would put out the source for all the models (or at least player models) so we Max users can Mod easier.

 

[WAR_Nuker]

so theres nothing i can do till then?