It just came to me

I think I have figured it out. And I don't see how I could possibly be wrong this time. You can't have a vertex belong to more than 4 vertex groups. That's what causes the error. I think I need to add this information to my RCT3 Animation tutorial. I should be given a medal or something for figuring this out.

I will report back when I have configured the model properly to conform to this quirky rule.

The Wrong Solution, and Pure Awesomeness

Today I started classes. This semester is mainly General Education, but I do have one Digital Media class. And that was the first class I took today. And. It. Was. Awesome. The entire class was Pure Awesomeness.

In Axis Mundi news, I have about half of the vertex groups in my armature on a "White List." This means that they will not cause a failure in the importer. Then there are 2 vertex groups that I have on a "Black List." This means that if they are imported they will most certainly cause a failure in the importer. I have not classified the remaining bones. The good news - in fact very good news - is that when I clear the weight painting on a Black Listed vertex group, and then re-weight it, it imports correctly. This means that I've pretty much figured out how to fix everything and make it import properly.

I thought I had also figured out something even more elusive about this whole importing fiasco; the cause of the issue. Sometimes the cause of a computer issue is significantly more difficult to determine than the solution. In this case, I thought I had found the solution AND the cause of the problem, however during the course of writing this blog post I tried to verify my hypothesis and I got results that I did not expect. However, I think it is still worth including what I was thinking up until just a few minutes ago. The text in italics is what I wrote when I thought I knew what caused the problem. It still contains true statements that are relevant to Blender and describes what did in fact happen, it's just that the conclusion of the sequence of events is not actually what caused the importing error.

I'm pretty sure that the cause of the importer's problems with the vertex groups can be described by the conclusion of this sequence of events: At one point during my weight painting I accidentally painted without having X-mirror enabled. (This wasn't my fault, by the way, in Blender 2.48a the X-mirror option does not stay turned on between sessions. That's one of the very rare times I've thought something in the Blender interface is completely nonsensical.) I then proceeded to weight paint one side of the mesh for a while, without realizing that the painting was not automatically being done to the other side. Once I had completed a not inconsiderable amount of work, I realized the mistake that had been made. Of course I didn't want to have to do the same work over again for the other side of the mesh, so... (and here's the punchline).... I used a script that copied the weight from one side of the mesh to the other. More specifically, the script "Mirror Vertex Locations & Weight." I've never used it before, and while it was helpful, that's probably what caused the error in the importer.

So anyways, all this post really amounts to is me talking about a whole bunch of technical Blender stuff because going to my Digital Media class has gotten me more excited than usual about all things 3D, Blender, and Computer-y.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH DigitalMediaexcitedblendidhfilmovifajsdfhaklehf.

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I probably need to calm down before I develop an aneurysm.

Should've done that earlier

So I finally did what I said that I would do a few posts ago. I tried to import the model into RCT3. Unfortunately, I ran into a snag. It looks like the RCT3 Importer doesn't like how detailed my model is. It doesn't give me any error messages, it just appears to begin loading the .modxml, deliberates for a good while, then hits me with a classic "ping!" with no accompanying message. I am guessing that it is just too big. So I'm thinking I'll just have to go with the base mesh that I modeled, instead of the subdivided one. Like I said, I think RCT3 would be able to handle the subdivided mesh, but I didn't think about the fact that it might not be able to get through the importer. That's OK, though, because I was starting to get a little overwhelmed with the weight painting of the hi-poly model. Hopefully I'll have an easier time with the lower poly version.

4 Year YouTube Anniversary

Today I have officially been on YouTube for 4 years. I remember waaay back when I joined all those years ago... I was not necessarily planning on making a ton of videos. At the time I was into making games with Game Maker. It wasn't until I made the "Hugest RCT3 Crash on YouTube" that I really realized I wanted to ditch the game thing and primarily do videos. Man, I'm pretty glad I decided to do that. I just really love to share videos with people. I love hearing feedback. So I'd like to heartily thank every one of you who has engaged any of my videos in any way. If you've ever commented, rated (I guess that now it is "Liked") or even just ever watched any of my videos...

Thank you.

Oh, and here's basically the same sentiment, albeit in video form:

The future is now

I feel really accomplished today. Why? Because I fixed all of the problems with my imported animations. The Warrior of Light is now 100% ready to kick Evil's butt. He is fully modeled, textured, and rigged, and, as of today, totally bug free. He looks EXACTLY like the peep I chose to play the Warrior of Light. I don't know if I have ever accomplished a goal this perfectly. It works exactly like I imagined. Speculation is now reality. What used to be the distant future is now the very real present.

Back in March of last year, I wrote an post that I entitled "The Future of RCT3 Machinima." By far, it has been my most viewed blog post over the last year (Good suggestion CzWorld!). In it, I talked a lot about Animated CSOs. Basically, I considered them to be the "final frontier" of RCT3 Machinima. At the time, though, I wasn't sure if it was possible to implement animations like I dreamed of doing. Today, I have confirmed that it is indeed..... very possible. The outer limit of what I thought might be possible, is now possible. It's the best case scenario.

Sometime this year, all of this ranting about how awesome animated CSOs are will come to fruition, and I'll release The Battle for Axis Mundi. In the best case scenario the film will be released this summer. Wait, I already said this was the best case scenario, didn't I? Well then, in the best case scenario of the best case scenario.

Rigging

I have been rigging the Warrior of Light today. He is almost fully rigged and ready to be animated. I just need to do a little more weight painting. I also worked some more on my other assets that will remain a surprise. I don't feel like screenshots, sorry.

RCT3 Animation Demonstration

As I said in my last blog post, I have managed to import Animated CSOs into RCT3. And while it is great to see even just a simple little thing like the green ball swinging back and forth, I want to emphasize how useful Animated CSOs can be for much more complicated animations and models. That's why I made this video yesterday. It shows how you can create your own character designs, and fully animate them. I am proud to say that this video only took me a few hours to make, from initial idea, to uploading to YouTube.

Animation in RCT3

OK, so recently there has been a really big development. I have finally managed to import animated custom scenery into RCT3. This opens up A LOT of potential. I am working on seeing how much I can integrate this new ability into Axis Mundi. I also decided to create a tutorial of exactly how I managed to do the importing. Half so that I can remember, and half because a forum member over at the LG Machinima Community requested it.

Here's the tutorial, if you are interested:http://gulk.bplaced.net/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=629

And here is an example of what I have been able to import into RCT3:

It may not look like much now, but I fully intend to blow your mind with some crazy animations later on.