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Topic Started: Feb 15 2014, 07:38 AM (241,626 Views)
HENDRIX
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-retired-

Yeah. You can try that, but you don't have any benefits from it: it likely won't work properly with skeletons, the collisions will be solid objects and stuff like blinking will be lost. That's why you should convert to BFB in the first place. :P
Edited by HENDRIX, Nov 2 2015, 02:05 PM.
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HENDRIX
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Technical stuff, interesting for those who animate with blender 2.7:
Spines are difficult to rig for easy animation. There are some methods but all have their pros and cons. Inspired by the Linear Curve Tracking Spine from this tutorial, I first updated the concept to allow for roll control. Controlling the twist or roll along the spine is really useful for animating vertebrate spines and was not possible with the built-in spline IK. As setting dozens of constraints manually is a tedious work, I then decided to create a script to automate this process for any given spine setup.

Download: Twistable Spine Rig

Install and activate as usual. Run the script from the Add > Armature menu and change the settings in the toolbar to suit your needs. If you want to curve the spine to fit your model, pose it with the control bones, apply rest pose and then reset the Stretch To constraints on the bones that are direct children of the control bones.
Edited by HENDRIX, Dec 13 2015, 02:10 PM.
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HENDRIX
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I'm developing a new utility once again; just a little blender script that adds LODs to BFB models in batch mode. Got the batch import and export working, only the LOD part is missing still.
So all you'd do is specify the files and the amount of LODs you want, maybe also the rate of detail decrease. The script will import each of these files, duplicate and decimate the models according to the settings and then export again.
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Chase
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That's great, it will save a lot of time!
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HENDRIX
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Basic functionality is now there; I just have to find a way to overwrite existing LODs, but that's really just an extra. I still gotta pack it into an addon or something, though.
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HENDRIX
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The LOD BFB batch processing script is released in the latest version of the blender plugin! You can find it in the File > Import menu because I couldn't think of any better place.

Select all BFBs you want to process and set the amount of LODs you want. Then hit the "Batch Process" button. You end up with a blank scene when the script is done.
Currently the rate of detail decrease is fixed, I might make that customizable later as well. Information is only printed to the console at the moment. Materials and custom normals are preserved by the script, so you don't have to worry about anything here.

There are two cases where it doesn't work yet:
1) When you have models that are parented to empties with offset, because only the model is cloned and not the complete empty structure. Apply the transformation of all these empties and parent the model to the root empty.
2) When you already have LODs in your BFB file. I might be able to expand the script to deal with that as well, but I'm not sure if that's really common, anyway.

If the NIF scripts were more stable, I could also include a NIF to BFB conversion in the batch processing. Maybe with a future version...
Edited by HENDRIX, Dec 31 2015, 07:55 AM.
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HENDRIX
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I figure it can't hurt to create some kind of ZT2 API documentation whether people read it or not. It would certainly come in handy when programming a coding module for APE2.

So I thought I'll set up a little script to collect all possible functions, where they occur (context) and which parameters and common arguments they take. This could be easily run on all ZT2 AI files and the results could be used as a base for writing the documentation. Maybe some people would be interested in helping when that time comes? *coughibencough* :P
Edited by HENDRIX, Jan 1 2016, 05:39 PM.
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Iben
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There'll be no foot-walking! Just air-flying!

HENDRIX
Jan 1 2016, 05:36 PM
*coughibencough* :P
*coughwhenmyexamsareovermatecough*:P

But yeah sure, I'm actually quite interested in a ZT API, API's are certainly useful, even if it's only a handful of people who bother reading it xD
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HENDRIX
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Alright then, I'll let you know when I have collected the rough data so we can start putting this together - should be easy to get that script done by the time you're free again.

Good news, I got the NIF integration for batch processing working! Just have to add some more intercompatibility for small things, but then the batch processing can really begin! :D
Edited by HENDRIX, Jan 2 2016, 03:47 PM.
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HENDRIX
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Redownload the modified NIF scripts and BFB scripts for batch NIF -> BFB conversion with the new blender! When the NIF import works, the BFB produced should be a perfect match. You will need to check the material though.

Also, I've added a file selector to the "Save Z2F" function of APE2.

Everything is in my resources folder, as usual.
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HENDRIX
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New version of the BFB scripts available!

Existing LODs can now be overwritten by the scripts.
HENDRIX
Dec 31 2015, 07:54 AM
There are two cases where it doesn't work yet:
2) When you already have LODs in your BFB file. I might be able to expand the script to deal with that as well, but I'm not sure if that's really common, anyway.

LODs are added on BFB export by default, with the same options as in the batch script. LOD creation can also be disabled for both.
Edited by HENDRIX, Jan 3 2016, 08:02 AM.
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Iben
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There'll be no foot-walking! Just air-flying!

Great to see all this progress :D I especially like the nif -> BFB conversion; I actually prefer Nifskope for things like alphas etc., I never really figured out how to do that in Blender :P

Thanks man !
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HENDRIX
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Actually, I couldn't figure out how it works with the nifscripts, either. :P So the BFMATs are properly configured by default. More control on that is on my agenda, but relatively low priority as BFMATs are very easy to edit.
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Yukon
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insta: yukons_designs

I'm not sure if I already told you this, but yeah, your awesome mate and everything you're doing is so useful and great! Thank you :D
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HENDRIX
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The BFB scripts have been updated to report many common errors via popups, also with some bug fixes and finally when creating object colliders, the required empties are also created.
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