3dsMax5 Animation

[Q.B]

I want to make new shootdodging moves.
Is it possible to mirror a "left-shootdodging" to create a "right-shootdodging" in 3dsmax?
Otherwise i'd have to do two almost identical animations (except the direction).

[theHunted]

well, there's the mirror button in 3dsmax that lets you mirror a mesh along an axis. looking up in the help files/reference files about the functionality of this mirror button could do the trick for you.

and uh, i actually wanted to create a thread myself but the topic is quite similar to this one, so i'll post it in here. i hope that's fine with everybody.
i tried to create a new shootdodge animation myself. when replacing one of the existing shootdodges (shootdodge_right), with my self-created animation i get this error:

http://maxpayne.gamigo.de/screens/nicht_public/animation_error.jpg

i've actually opened up both, the original shootdodge and my new one in milkshape (animation has been done in 3dsmax of course; just used milkshape to re-check the amount of keyframes) and made sure that mine has got exactly as many keyframes as the original animation. iin case milkshape is wrong, is there another way to find out the amount of keyframes of a kf2 file? are there any special export options that need to be set (insert additional frames at the end maybe?!?) in order to get my new animation to work? has anybody else replaced one of the shootdodges animations already? does anybody know the exact lenght? (51 keyframes is what milkshape tells me)

[eLto]

In answer to the original question:

I tried that mirror function a year ago, for mp1, but the mesh itself, and max gets flipped testures, so its not a good idea.

[Jehoven]

has anybody else replaced one of the shootdodges animations already?



Yes, I have in fact done that, only I exchanged all shootdodges in one go and made sure all my changes were of the same length. I do not know the exact lenght, though http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif

[Kozak]

I've implemented new shootdodes, not replaced. The macroscript for exporting shootdodges looks like this:
if ( animationType == "ShootDodge" ) then
(
format "Exporting Shootdodge Base Animation\n"
R_writeKFConfig strConfigFile 0.01 0.01 "false" 0f 50f 50f "false" "false" -- for ShootDodge_*.kf2
obj = dummy(); obj.position.controller = linear_position(); hide obj -- new helper object
with animate on; for i = 0f to 50f do at time i ( obj.position = $MovementDummy.position * -1 ); with animate off -- invert motion
$Bip01.parent.parent = obj -- we will ignore ParentDummy's parent called "JumpDummy"
exportFile (R_askForFilename (strExportPath + strExportBaseFilename + ".kf2"))
delete obj
)

As you can see they only export till 50 frames. I guess that's what you need.

[theHunted]

uh, where is that macroscript taken from? do you need to export shootdodge animations in a different way than regular animations? if so, how do i tell 3dsmax to use this export-script instead of the regular one? i'm really a bit lost in this since i'm a total beginner in 3dsmax.

[Kozak]

Well, this script is automaticly activated when you export. If you have "shootdodge" in the 3dsmax filename then it will be handled differently.

[Kozak]

Well I hope you do have the UI installed from remedy. Right-Click on the bipv2 and select edit macroscript. Now you can see the code that is executed when you press it.
On a side note. The animations I exported first didn't work as a shootdodge so I tried it again. It keeps giving me errors about the movementdummy, which i cannot fix. I emailed Sami for more explanation.