So I'm still very new to Blender and trying to learn as quickly as I can, but I have a lot of probably stupid questions that hopefully some of you can help out with. Gonna open with that and then ask my first question below.
#Blender help
tiny garnet
One of the things that confuses me and I still don't understand is, in the outliner window, what does it mean when there's a little red sphere icon (with checkerboard pattern) that is nested under each of the LOD meshes?
Here's a screenshot of what I'm talking about. This is from an import of nude Clive and what super makes no sense is the names of whatever these things are assigned to each Mesh. Mesh0 is Clive's arms, and underneath that says "leg". Mesh1 are Clive's legs, and underneath that says "m_torso". Mesh2 is Clive's torso, and underneath that says "j_fingerA_03_l". o.O
Did the exporter just garble some data? What should be there in place of those?
EDIT: Okay I just answered my own question by importing Clive's body_base model. I guess that red icon is material, and it's supposed to be the material associated with each mesh. LOL so yeah that's super garbled for nude Clive.
boreal heath
Yeah, the spheres represent materials; the orange triangles, the meshes; the green triangles, the actual mesh data. Here's the data elements ref (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/files/data_blocks.html) , but knowing those will probably suffice.
tiny garnet
How are you guys dealing with the automatic Y axis orientation conversion of the bones when it's imported into Blender?
It seems like the game uses the X axis. I tried looking for guides on this but then I read that if you change the orientation for it to look right in Blender, it'll mess everything up when reimported to the game.
I was gonna look into how to make a control rig but not sure if that's the right route to take.
peak pawn
I have my models on a control rig, but I also don't do any reimporting to the games so idk if it would mess them up ๐ I would think that so long as they have the same bones when reimported it would be fine?
tiny garnet
Hm, supposedly bone position doesn't matter because the bones themselves don't get reimported? Only the rigging is imported? I'm not sure how that works, and whether that means that the orientation of the bones also don't matter?
peak pawn
OH I see. I'm only working off of the little knowledge I have ๐ All I know is that the bones on FFXV models had to be exactly as they were, or else the meshes would explode when imported. Things would look fine in blender and then stretch like mad when imported to the game. But that may not be the same situation here. I also know a control rig won't usually export with a model itself (in order to share models with the rigs we just send blend files back and forth). So the main purpose of a control rig is to make posing them in blender easier. I'm not sure it would help with the issue you're having
I'm sorry now that I'm rereading this with more understanding of your question I think I was totally off base ๐
tiny garnet
Right, I wouldn't want to export the control rig. It's more that right now the model I'm working with has some bones that are completely unattached to the mesh or attached incorrectly somehow. When I tried testing moving them in pose mode everything was all wrong. So I assume I need to fix or redo the rigging, but it seems super hard to work with the bones all oriented like this (especially since I'm brand new to rigging):
peak pawn
I'm probably only slightly more skilled in blender than you are, but to my non-expert mind, I think re-rigging may be what's needed. seems like the rig wasn't parented right to the mesh. Rigging is difficult as is, but the best I can suggest is to look for some guides on parenting rigs to meshes and weight painting. Before that, though, to make it easier to work with, I would suggest maybe rolling the bones? The guide in the manual for that is here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/armatures/bones/editing/bone_roll.html
I'm asking a friend who knows more, so they might have a better solution
I'm still learning, too ๐ blender can feel insurmountable sometimes lol
they don't do a ton of rigging either, lol, but this is what they had to offer!
so you could do that for each bone to shift it to the other axis and then shift it back when you're done working, I would think
tiny garnet
Does anyone know what add-on I can use to import .ascii files into Blender?
I was looking into trying out this tool to see if it brings over rig info properly from FFXVI models:
https://reshax.com/files/file/78-ffxvi-final-fantasy-16-models/
boreal heath
For Blender 3.6 or older: https://github.com/johnzero7/XNALaraMesh
For Blender 4 or newer: https://github.com/Mysteryem/XNALaraMesh/tree/master
tiny garnet
Oh okay there is a version for 4 or newer. Thanks!
tiny garnet
For Blender 4 or newer: https://github.com/Mysteryem/XNALaraMesh/tree/master
Erm, how do I install this? I couldn't figure out which file to use
Blender makes me feel so stupid sometimes ; ;
boreal heath
You need to download the repo as a zip, then you can install it like any other blender addon (legacy addons on 4, not the extensions)
tiny garnet
Ahh okay, thanks for explaining!