Rigging a Model in 3ds Max from Start to Finish

[TokoyamiTheDark]

I've got a few probs on my own that I would like to get help to rig them.  First off, I followed your tutorial with a T-posed model, but it heavily gets deformed once rigged and transfered to Brawl, and I dunno why. It has Snake's bones and the only bones unused are the Bandana ones, since the new character has no bandana. Secondly, when I try testing him with BrawlBox along with a FitMotionEtc file, all the deformaions can be seen when an animation is chosen, then played. Eyesores! Last, one of my 2 models doesn't seem to have any vertices, but it worked before, so I don't undestand why...

As for the model deforming in Brawl, do I need the 'Animation Porter' to fix this? Where can I find it, and how does it works? I need an answer as soon as possible, please.

[Segtendo]

The animation porter is in BrawlBox.
I have no clue how many times people have said that.

[TokoyamiTheDark]

The animation porter is in BrawlBox. I have no clue how many times people have said that.

Thanks for the info! I can delete my thead in the Help section since I know that now. But, how do I access the Animation Porter, and how does it works?

[Segtendo]

Well, you first load up a FitMotion.pac with your character.
Import the animation to your character, then fix it using the MDL0 of the character the animation game from.
Example, to give Mario Captain Falcon's waiting stance, you import the stance into Mario's FitMotion, export Falcon's MDL0, then, while in BrawlBox with Mario, you'd right click the animation you wanna fix and click something like "Fix animation" or something, then load Falcon's MDL0.
That's how you port animations.

[TokoyamiTheDark]

Well, you first load up a FitMotion.pac with your character. Import the animation to your character, then fix it using the MDL0 of the character the animation game from. Example, to give Mario Captain Falcon's waiting stance, you import the stance into Mario's FitMotion, export Falcon's MDL0, then, while in BrawlBox with Mario, you'd right click the animation you wanna fix and click something like "Fix animation" or something, then load Falcon's MDL0. That's how you port animations.

I tried with every single animations, then saved the FitZeldaMotionEtc (since I wanted to port Zelda's animation on Sheik), put it on my SD card in SHeik's folder, but my Wii crashes when I try loading Sheik...

[Justin712]

Well, you first load up a FitMotion.pac with your character.
Import the animation to your character, then fix it using the MDL0 of the character the animation game from.
Example, to give Mario Captain Falcon's waiting stance, you import the stance into Mario's FitMotion, export Falcon's MDL0, then, while in BrawlBox with Mario, you'd right click the animation you wanna fix and click something like "Fix animation" or something, then load Falcon's MDL0.
That's how you port animations.

My hat's off to you, sir. Nice quicktorial right there.

I tried with every single animations, then saved the FitZeldaMotionEtc (since I wanted to port Zelda's animation on Sheik), put it on my SD card in SHeik's folder, but my Wii crashes when I try loading Sheik...

That could be a lot of things. It works fine without the animations? The file size isn't too much?

[Tempo_]

Would it matter that my polygons have "Edit Poly" instead of "Edit Mesh"? I mean, I followed BJ's video tutorial at first, but looking around the web shows that some people used "Edit Mesh" at first so they could rig bones.

Disregard that.

But I still can't get my model to follow the bones. Am I supposed to turn the model into a single mesh again?

[Justin712]

I've personally worked with edit poly since I first started modeling. It's newer than edit mesh and it's supposed to be easier, and there are a lot of things I like about it that I think are better than edit mesh, although they mostly have to do with texturing. I don't think I've ever noticed a difference for rigging, and I doubt you'll ever come across the differences for texturing that I'm talking about either.

Basically: It doesn't matter.


Although some older game engines like warcraft3 require you to have it as an editable mesh.
Sorry, useless history lesson.  

But I still can't get my model to follow the bones. Am I supposed to turn the model into a single mesh again?

No, that wouldn't solve anything. You don't have an edit mesh/edit poly on top of the skin do you? He only did that in the tutorial because he was separating the materials. The skin is ALWAYS on the top. After you separate it by the mat IDs, you should have nothing above the skin.

[StarWaffle]

Sorry, I don't understand the problem. You can only paint the weights is what you're saying?

Yes, although you've probably already figured that out since I answered so late

Edit: Oh, how about that. Thanks for the award!

Thanks for the response!   

Hopefully you can help me with my problem I am having...


Okay so you know how in your tutorial, you start off with rigging the head. I did that! head moves fine...  but then i move onto other stuff, like say the the spine.  The spine should effect the top half of the body right?  so i make it do that,  but now the head bone isn't rigged how it was before. In fact it doesn't move the head at all anymore, The spine bone has completely taken over.

So i thought i should do biggest to smallest, Starting with the waist -> then the bust -> then the head. VOILA! it worked.... but then I start editing the ears...  after completing the ears... the head no longer moved them. and the waist no longer moved the head...  IT just keeps forgetting what i did the previous step or rather it over-wrights it.

What am I doing wrong here?  Is it impossible to have something be completely moved by two separate bones? or are you only aloud to have ONE thing control everything?

It very frustrating ;-;

[Tempo_]

I have it as:

• +Skin

+Edit Poly

I guess that's what you mean by skin on top? If I click the Edit Poly, there's a small warning saying that the dependent modifier is Skin.

I followed BJ's video tutorial by the book video.
Mm, I really need to find out what's going wrong. I guess I should wait for your video tutorial.

[TokoyamiTheDark]

That could be a lot of things. It works fine without the animations? The file size isn't too much?

Well, the size of the FitZeldaMotionEtc.pac with animations ported to Sheik is 4358 KB. Of course I renamed it FitSheikMotionEtc when I put in onto my SD card. Any other solutions?

[Justin712]

I guess that's what you mean by skin on top? If I click the Edit Poly, there's a small warning saying that the dependent modifier is Skin.

Yes, that warning means if you continue and modify something in the edit poly it'll reset your skin, so hopefully you haven't been doing that. Also you have the lightbulb on for skin right?

Well, the size of the FitZeldaMotionEtc.pac with animations ported to Sheik is 4358 KB. Of course I renamed it FitSheikMotionEtc when I put in onto my SD card. Any other solutions?

Not sure, sorry. I actually haven't gotten around to animation importing just yet. If somebody still hasn't figured it out by that point then I'll do some tests of my own and try to find the problem. My current project shouldn't take too long.

[TokoyamiTheDark]

Not sure, sorry. I actually haven't gotten around to animation importing just yet. If somebody still hasn't figured it out by that point then I'll do some tests of my own and try to find the problem. My current project shouldn't take too long.

If I'm not mistaken, I took a peek at my MotionEtc's animations, and they STILL require Zelda's bones to work. Wasn't the Animation Porter supposed to change Zelda's bones for Shiek's in this MotionEtc file? Or only the MDL0 got affected? I need help, this so confusing...

[Tempo_]

Yeah, the bulb is there. Would you mind if I send you my .max file so you can see what I'm doing wrong?

[Justin712]

Not at all, send it on over! It'd probably be better than just guessing

Unfortunately I have work in 15 minutes, so I probably won't be able to get back to you on that for 7 hours...