How to import into Brawl using Autodesk Maya
So I've noticed a distinct lack of Maya users here on the forum. I won't turn this into a Maya vs. Max argument, but I'm sure there are many of you out there who might prefer Maya to Max, but lack of Maya support has left you with no other option.
Well, let's fix that.
Many of you have probably been led to believe Maya created models are incompatible with Brawl. This isn't the case. My imports were completely modeled and rigged within Maya. Max never touched my pipeline, and it doesn't need to touch yours.
So why use Maya when everyone else uses Max? The rigging tools. As you'll see in this tutorial, Maya's rigging tools are hands-down easier to use than the ones found in Max. Max's modeling tools are arguably better suited for new users, but the rigging tools can be quite cumbersome to learn. This is not the case in Maya.
Another plus is you can use the most recent version of Maya with no issues. I'm using 2013 for this tutorial. I can guarantee this method works for every version of Maya since 2009, and I don't foresee any problems with future versions, either.
Now, if any of you have used Maya in the past you might have hit a wall almost immediately. Maya doesn't natively import or export as .DAEs, and that's what Brawlbox uses. This is definitely a weakness in the Maya program, but there's a very easy fix.
You have two options. If you are using an older version of Maya, such as Maya 2010 or 2011, then you can use the OpenCOLLADA plugin, available for free online. This plugin will let you import and export as DAEs, no extra step involved. But unfortunately, the author of this plugin has not created a version for 2012 or 2013. If you're anything like me, then you upgrade to the most recent version of Maya as soon as it's available, so this isn't an option.
(NOTE: Autodesk does offer an "Fbx_Dae" plug-in, but it's terrible, so please don't use it.)Instead, we need to download the Autodesk FBXConverter. It's available for free on the Autodesk website here:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=14943111This is an external program that will allow you to convert between .DAE and .FBX. It's easy to use, and has always worked error-free for me. Once you have that program installed, you're ready to get started. So let's do this thing.
STEP 1Choose a character to rig over. For this tutorial, I'll use Dedede. I'm assuming you all know how to operate BrawlBox, so just open up your model and export him out as a .DAE, if you don't already have a copy of him.
STEP 2Open up the FBXConverter. Under "Source Files", click "Add..." and load the .DAE file. In the "Destintion Files" box, choose where to save the file (it defaults to the same folder as the source file), and under "Destination Format" leave it at the default "FBX201000 (Autodesk)". Then click "convert." After a second or two, you'll have a shiny new .FBX file.
STEP 3Open up Maya, and go to File->Import. Select your new .FBX file, and your model will import in. Now we have Dedede inside of Maya, and his skeleton is still rigged. Before we can import our own model, we first need to delete Dedede's mesh.
STEP 4Click this button. This will turn off your ability to select the joints.
Then click-drag over your model to select him.
STEP 5Go to Edit->Delete By Type->History. This will separate the model from his skeleton, and then you can simply hit the delete key to remove him from your scene.
STEP 6Go to Window->Rendering Editors-> Hypershade
STEP 7Hit edit->Delete All Unused Nodes. This will delete the model's materials out of the scene. If you forget this step, when you go to import your final model into Brawlbox it will import with a bunch of unused Materials. You can delete them in Brawlbox with no issue, it's just faster to do this now.
STEP 8Alright. Now your scene is prepped and ready for you to import your new character. I'll be importing my Snorlax model for this tutorial. Just go up to File->Import and import like before.
STEP 9So here's our first problem. He's too small!
But that's an easy fix. Just select his mesh, and hit this button. That's the scale tool.
Then grab the center yellow box here:
And drag it to the right to scale your model until he lines up with the skeleton.
Step 10Once you've done that, select him and go to edit->delete by type->history again. This is your construction history. Maya keeps a record of all the changes you make to any model, and it adds up. So it's a good idea to delete your history before attaching your skeleton, especially if you've built your own custom model, in which case your construction history is probably very large. When you export out as an FBX, the history is stripped away, so it's not a huge deal if you forget this step, but the more history you have, the slower Maya will run. If you feel Maya is running slower than usual, deleting your history usually frees it up. But be careful, deleting your history AFTER attaching your skeleton will separate the skeleton from the mesh, just like before.
Step 11So it's time to attach the model to the skeleton. You have two options for how to connect him. You can attach him to every joint, or you can attach him to a select few joints (or even just one). Which option you pick largely depends on how many pieces your character is in. If he's basically one piece, like Snorlax here, attaching to every joint is fine. But if he has a different model for his arms or legs, there's no sense in attaching those pieces to joints in his head, is there? So in that case, you'll attach to only a handful of joints.
If you're going to attach to the whole skeleton, all you have to do is select one joint, shift-select your mesh so that you have both selected, and proceed to step 13. If you're going to attach to only a few joints, though, head on to step 12.
(Note: Make sure you hit this button again to let you select joints again)Step 12To attach to only a few joints, you need to select each joint you want to attach to. You'll note that if you grab your character's shoulder joint, for example, it will turn green to show it's selected, but all of it's child joints will turn green, too, such as the elbow and wrist joints.
This is misleading. Those joints are NOT selected, and if you went to attach your mesh now, it would only attach to the shoulder. So if you wanted to attach to the elbow and wrist as well, you would need to shift-select each joint in order. I like to work "up the chain", selecting the lowest child first (the wrist) and then shift-selecting up until I get to the main parent (the shoulder). Once you have all the joints you want to attach to selected, shift-select your model.
(NOTE: Selecting them in this order will leave them all green, visually indistinguishable from the first way. But trust me, it's different. Maya's doing some background work here.)Step 13With your joints and model both selected, make sure you're in the Animation menu set here:
Then go to Skin->Bind Skin->Smooth Bind, and then hit the little square next to it (called the Option Box) to pull up this menu.
Now, depending on whether you're attaching to all the joints, or just a select few, you'll change the "bind to:" setting. "Joint Hierarchy" will attach to every joint, and "Selected Joints" will attach to only the joints you have selected.
The rest of the settings here are
VERY important. Maya is designed for Film Animation first, and video games second, so many of Maya's settings are NOT compatible with Brawlbox, or any video games, for that matter. Among them are Bind Method: "Heat Map", and Skinning Method: "Dual Quarternion". These are basically more advanced history-based rigs, which do wonders when your animating for film, but both of these are incompatible with FBX and DAE files, so you'll get errors if you use them.
But most important of all is the setting "Normalize Weights." Maya defaults to "Post." You MUST change this to "Interactive."
I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH. If you bind using "Post" it will import into Brawl with messed up weights, and ANY weight-painting you do in this method will have to be redone from scratch.
"Post" allows vertices to have non-100% weights. That is, a vertex can have greater than 100% total influence spread across it's joints, as well as less than 100%. This is amazing if you're doing animation, but it is NOT compatible with Brawl.
Brawl requires every vertex to have EXACTLY 100% influence. No more, no less, and if you import a model with non-100% influence into Brawlbox, all your weights will be recalculated and look like garbage. Setting the "Normalize Weights" to "Interactive" ensures every vertex has 100% influence.
The rest of the settings can be left at default. So, hit "Bind Skin" and you're ready to paint some weights.
Step 14Select your model, then go to Skin->Edit Smooth Skin->Paint Skin Weights Tool and then hit the option box. This will pop up the Paint Skin Weights Tool tab on the left, and you'll see your model turn black.
What we'll be doing here is painting the amount of influence any joint has on each vertex. In the paint tab, you see a list of joints. If you click on them one in a row, you'll see parts of your model light up. These lit parts show you how much influence that joint has on that section of the model. The brighter the shade of white, the more influence the joint has on that section. The more influence, the more that section moves when the joint is rotated.
Now, Maya defaults to showing influences in Black and White. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but my students always find it MUCH easier to paint in Color Mode. So scroll down to the bottom of the paint tab, and check "Use Color Ramp."
You'll see your model light up with a gradient of colors. Black has zero influence and White has 100% influence, just like before, but now the in between amounts are show with color. Yellow is 50%, red is 99%>, blue is <1%, and so on. By grabbing the circles on this gradient box you can re-position the sliders to change what each color represents, and you can also add more colors, should you desire. I personally like dragging the green circle almost all the way to the left, as seen here.
Alright, so to begin painting, we need to first select a joint. Generally I like to go down to list and paint any weights that don't belong to Zero, before I go in and paint other influences. It's the easiest step, so you might as well get it out of the way first. Select each joint in turn, and if you see some influence that doesn't belong, you'll paint that away. For example, Dedede has these extra joints for his cloak that Snorlax doesn't need, so I need to paint all the influence away from those joints.
In the Paint Tool tab, you'll see these options. One is brush shape, the otheris value. The brush shape changes how opaque your brush is. I like to use the second brush when adding influence, since it results in more smooth influence gradients, and I like to use the hard-edge circle when removing influence, because it makes sure all that influence is gone (if you use the soft brush, you might be left with a really small amount of influence instead of removing all influence like you wanted).
The other important option is your value setting. A value of 0 paints 0% influence onto a vertex, and a value of 1 paints 100% influence on a vertex. Weight painting is not additive; what this means is if you have a joint with an influence of 50% and you paint on it with a value of 0.3 (30%) you will NOT be left with 80% influence, but instead the 30% influence will override the original 50%, leaving you with just 30% influence.
Because every joint requires a total of 100% spread out across all the joints, Maya will automatically shift this now erased 20% influence to other joints. It's usually pretty good about which joints it add this other influence, too, but occasionally it will add the influence to some random joint you don't want it to, so it's a good idea to check where this influence goes by cycling through the list of joints.
Weight Painting is definitely more of an art than a science, so it's something you'll just have to play with until you figure out what works best for you. That said, most of my students pick it up pretty quickly, so I'm sure you guys can handle it.
A few more tips and tricks for weight painting though:At any time, if you hold down the "B" key, and then left-mouse click drag left and right, you'll change the size of your paint brush. This is good for when you need to get in and paint away small sections of vertices, like at the fingers.
Next to the Value slider is an eyedropper. Use this whenever you need to have the exact same influence on an area that you already have somewhere else on the model.
One thing you can do to check how your weights are going is to turn off the tool (hit the "Q" key) and then pose the joints. Bend the elbow for example, and then reselect the tool. Now if you paint your weights with the elbow bent, you'll actually see your vertices move when you paint them as they recalculate where they should be located at this new influence. When you're done, you can right click the moved joints and hit "assume preferred angle" to snap the joints back to their default position, new weights in tact.
For semetrical objects, you only need to paint half the model! Once you've got one half looking good, simply go to skin->edit smooth skin->mirror skin weights, and hit the option box. Select which axis to mirror over (I've found that Brawl models import over the YZ axis) and then check "Positive to Negative" if you've been painting on the positive side of the grid or uncheck it if you've been painting on the negative side. Leave the other settings at default and then hit "mirror" and now you'll have clean painted weights on both sides of the object.
If your model has seperate objects for parts that should be seamless, such as a shoulder and arm that are seperate objects, you can paint the weights on both of these at the same time by selecting both meshes before hitting the Paint Skin Weights Tool. This will let you make sure the line of vertices on both objects that should be seamless have the exact same influence on all joints. When they have the same influence, you won't get any of that icky gaps that get created on a lot of model imports.
Step 15When you're done with your weights, or if you just want to check how the animations look in Brawlbox, it's time to export the model.
Go to File->Export All and hit the Option Box. Under "General Options" you're going to set the File Type to "FBX export." Then, under "File Type Specific Options", click "Edit Preset..."
A new window will pop up. Scroll down to the very bottom, to the section labeled "FBX File Format." Maya will default to the most recent version of the FBX file format. But FBX files encoded with the 2011, 2012 and 2013 algorithms are not compatible with Brawlbox, or else they'll import with a bunch of errors. So instead, make sure to set this to FBX 2009. I think 2010 is compatible, too, but I just use 2009.
If your model imports with weird errors,
it's likely you forgot this step.
After changing that setting, just hit close, and then hit "Export." Maya will ask you where to export the file to, so choose a name and destination.
Step 16Now it's time to open up the FBXConverter again. Open up your new FBX file in the Source Files tab, and then in the destination files tab, set the destination format as "DAE Collada". Then hit convert.
Now you can open up BrawlBox and import your shin new DAE file the same way you always do. And Wa la! A Maya Rigged model fully functioning in Brawl.
Closing remarks:
This tutorial assumes you have at least a somewhat working knowledge of Maya. If this is your first time using Maya, you'll notice that in many ways it's really similar to Max and in many other ways, it's really, really different. Spend some time getting used to the camera controls before trying to paint weights.
Hopefully we can get some other people to chime in with other Maya-related tutorials in the future, but feel free to ask any Maya-related questions you might have in this thread for now.
Good luck.
- - Vaan
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