Dot xsi anim curves

[rob-bateman]

Been writing a file translator for dot xsi, can't figure out what "CUBIC" anim curves are. Each keyframe has 6 values, (1st preumably the time, second the value), but what are the other four values?

any help greatly appreciated......

[nrej42]

These values are:
Frame (in seconds)
Value
Left Tan X value
Left Tan Y value
Right Tan X value
Right Tan Y value

Hope this helps.
P.S. what kind of translator are you writing?

[rob-bateman]

cheers for that (writing xsi file translator for Maya btw)

Got everything working now, just the annoying fact of world space transforms for all hierarchies (why??!!??), and sorting all of that stuff out into local transform space.

Kinda odd replying to someone with the same name as me.......

Robert B

[nrej42]

Glad to be of help.
True, kinda odd isn't it?

The transform are always in local space in dotXSI (except for base pose). Not sure I get your problem with world space transforms.

If your translator is to be available somehow, let me know. btw, you know that there might be one eventually from softimage, look at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dotxsi4maya/

No files are present, but maybe something is in the works.

[rob-bateman]

more xsi file fun. I'm loading in the skin weights (envelopes) at the moment and am again a little confused. For any given mesh I would have expected that each vertex would have weights that sum to 1 (100 in xsi, but 1 in maya). This however isn't the case. There are many vertices that have no weights at all. Any ideas whats going on?

cheers, rob

[nrej42]

Normally, if you envelop a mesh with a chain, what gets exported is from the point of view of the bone, what influence it has on the vertex, so you have to add for all the deformers the relative weight.

Now, if you did that already and some vertices have no weights at all, then possibly you added some vertices after you have enveloped the object.

try this and you will have the situation. You should reset the pose, remove the envelope and then re-apply the envelope. Better yet, applied the envelope after you have done polygon modeling.

CreatePrim "Sphere", "MeshSurface"
Create2DSkeleton -1.65419481185095, 4.80079062646199, -0.480079062646201, 4.4505717556942, 5.87851913444406E-02, -5.87851913444482E-03, -5.71059313749964, 0, 0, 4
AppendBone "eff", -1.41788126730081, -5.4278326674693, 0.542783266746923
DeselectAll
SelectObj "sphere", , True
ApplyFlexEnv "sphere;root,bone,bone1,eff", False
DeselectAll
SelectObj "sphere", , True
SplitEdge "sphere.edge[14]", 51.7827931176601, False, False, siPersistentOperation
SplitEdge "sphere.edge[12]", 49.5000777140515, False, False, siPersistentOperation
SplitEdge "sphere.edge[106]", 38.6945341313472, False, False, siPersistentOperation
SplitEdge "sphere.edge[17]", 52.0851127006827, False, False, siPersistentOperation
SplitEdge "sphere.edge[15]", 33.4784423627871, False, False, siPersistentOperation
SplitEdge "sphere.edge[108]", 40.5742593065164, False, False, siPersistentOperation
DeselectAll
ExportDotXSI

Now if you do this, then it will be ok

RemoveFlexEnv "sphere"
ApplyFlexEnv "sphere;root,bone,bone1,eff", False
ExportDotXSI

I hope this helps.