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Author Topic: Settings for ActorX Exporting  (Read 10930 times)
Lenners
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« on: February 04, 2013, 15:23 »

Hey Gildor,
I'm new to the mass effect modding scene, I currently have an issue when swapping armour meshes between characters. For example, I am exporting Liaras default lab outfit to one of shepards casual outfit slots. I have gotten it mostly working (with some help from warrantyvoider of the ME3Explorer program). Firstly though it appears the lighting isn't working properly as textures flicker depending on what angle you're facing. Reference to the 1st image.


I am also trying to swap mirandas only outfit over another of shepards outfits.
Of which, this was the result. As you can see the mesh itself is stuck in the same pose. No animations are working other than shepards head bobbing up and down.

Again, the lighting isn't working as hoped.
Below are the settings I used to export the mesh. The mesh wouldn't swap over directly and someone suggested I open it in 3ds Max ( I have 2012 x64) and use actorX to re-export.

I am not sure if those are the right settings, I did tweak them and test the mesh with every possible setting but it either resulted in crash or same result.

Thanks,
Lenners Smiley
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Gildor
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« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2013, 18:45 »

You could try your mesh exported from 3ds Max in UDK - most likely it will work nice. ME3Explorer is not bug-free program, so most likely your bugs are because of it.
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Lenners
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« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2013, 02:12 »

Ah OK. How would exactly would I import the mesh into UDK? I have the latest beta installed. Might there be another plugin required?

Thanks,
Lenners
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Lenners
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« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2013, 02:40 »

I believe I have found the source of the problem. When I loaded the mesh into ME3Explorer under 'LODS' it listed that 0 bones were active on this mesh but every other mesh had over 100 active bones (which animations worked properly). I would assume this to be some sort of exporting problem rather than a problem with the program.

Thanks
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Gildor
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« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2013, 08:07 »

99.9% probability that the problem you're seeing is from ME3Explorer. ActorX plugin exists for more than 10 years and it's quite bug-free. Try to import mesh into UDK to verify this assumption. Also you could check your psk file with my SkelEdit tool if you're having troubles to understand UnrealEd's interface.
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Lenners
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« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2013, 10:04 »

Ok, I have loaded up SkelEd.
I have opened up I known working mesh, and the one I am suspecting is broken, What exactly should I be looking for? The mesh is stuck in the same pose as it was in game, Comparing  the LODs and extra data, I am not sure what I am looking for.

Working Mesh


Suspected Broken Mesh

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Gildor
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« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2013, 10:11 »

As I understand from your first post, you have problems with mesh lighting. Check lighting in SkelEdit - whether it will be okay or not. Most likely ME3Explorer has troubles with normal computations algorithm.
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Lenners
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« Reply #7 on: February 05, 2013, 10:30 »

Yes, the mesh lighting was one of 2 problems. The other was the mesh had no animations and shepards head was stretched down to the floor. I exported another outfit using the same method and everything worked including animations minus the mesh lighting.

Referenced to this picture of the mesh. It is stuck in that pose, no arm or leg animations.

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Lenners
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« Reply #8 on: February 05, 2013, 10:34 »

Opened up the mesh in SkelEd. The same mesh lighting glitches are not reproduced automatically, Ingame, the textures are constantly flickering in patches or turns black.
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Gildor
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« Reply #9 on: February 05, 2013, 10:36 »

So, the bugs definitely came from ME3Explorer. You have to wait until this program will produce more correct result.
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Lenners
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« Reply #10 on: February 05, 2013, 11:09 »

There is also another problem. When exporting the mesh and replacing it, when loading it up in game it move the third person camera downwards as seen in the pictures. That is as high as it will go up and it will glitch through walls providing you are next to a solid surface. I am guessing this is caused by the bad exports as well. I have no programming skills, but I am currently downloading Visual Studio 2012 to take a look through the code they have provided me with for exporting meshes.

Thanks as usual,
Lenners
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Gildor
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« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2013, 11:18 »

Sigh ... I say again - ActorX has no bugs in your case. Why do you think that ME3Explorer is bug-free, but Epic's toolset is buggy? When I see some problem in umodel while doing support for some game, I don't think "damn Epic, another bug" - that's a problem in my code. In your case the same applies - when you see bugs in substituted meshes - bugs are from the ME3Explorer, not from the ActorX. I warned WarrantyVoider that mesh format is quite complex and it would be hard to replace in-game data with something different, but it was interesting for him to understand the mesh format. You should expect bugs in this program for a long time until someone will fix them.
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Lenners
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« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2013, 11:54 »

Sorry Gildor, I did not mean to accuse Epic of releasing a buggy program. I completely understand what you mean, and will have to patiently wait until someone on the team (or I) can fix problems such as these.
Thanks
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Gildor
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« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2013, 11:58 »

No problems. That's great that you understand me Smiley
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Lenners
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« Reply #14 on: February 06, 2013, 11:22 »

I have the source for the ME3Explorer, I am looking into SkeletalMesh.cs. I am unsure what region to be focusing on first and foremost, Warranty Voider said he knew problems existed with the way it imported Meshes, something to do with SKM and unknown sections. I have little knowledge on this topic of programming, but thanks to WV he has given me a basic rundown of what the problem is.

Thanks,
Lenners Smiley

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