hi guys i wonder if you can help me out with some advice, i have created a character in Autodesk character generator, and want to convert it to .x to import into GG.

It exports to three types of .fbx (generic, 3d max and unity) and I've tried all of the fret converters people have recommended here but they all seem to fail, no reasons given, just fails.

can anybody recommend which is the best format to export from Autodesk character generator, and is there a free converter that definitely works for that format?

many thanks in advance for any help inget

Checking on this.

Is this the free version of the paid version?

And do you have the FBX output you can mail to my email below. Textures also please. I will see if I can get the FBX file open.
Put GameGuru in the subject so it does not get lost in Junk mail.

Direct x can not use morphs, also multi texture will be an issue, so export the packed map if you can, or you will have to combine the textures and move the UV islands around.

Do you have 3ds max also?

I've got it to convert to .x using blender and it imports ok, however when put in game it just stands there with its arms stretched out to its side and flickers, any idea what I need to do next?

(I've attached the .x file and the skin)

It's the free version. No I don't have 3ds max.

ok, thanks for posting the files. I will take a look at them and see what needs to be done.

In Blender you will need to create a skeleton (armatures) and attach or skin the mesh to it. 3 spines, 1 neck, 1 head, 1 finger,1 toe, 1 pelvis, clavicle, hand, forearm, upper arm, thigh, lower leg, foot, FIRESPOT bone.

then you will need to export it out of Blender with the proper x file settings. I will have to get those for you. (Max user here)

I haven't a clue how to do any of that, but i'm willing to learn if you have know of any guides or tips. I was hoping that as autodesk touts itself as an all in onw character generator that would all be part of it, but obviously not.

If it helps, here are the original files from autodesk, they're in generic (fbx), maya (mb), unity (fbx), and 3ds max (fbx) formats

You can open the fbx files in truespace 3d using the fbx importer. I've done it plenty of times. Are you going to animate yourself or use a stock skeleton? If you are using a stock skeleton then you should do that in fragmotion. Fragmotion is on sale right now.

http://www.fragmosoft.com/

Ok, I will look at these also.

Here is a rigging tutorial for blender.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvalWG8HBU

Search for rigging tutorials for blender, you should get a few thousand videos to watch.

Search for motion capture also.

Thanks for the info, I tried fragmotion and for some reason it wouldn't even import the files, I'll have to have a look later.



That was a great video, I've just watched it at work and i'll give it a try when I get home, it seems simple enough.

Just a quick query, the video shows how to map out every bone in a movable limb, but you mention only a limited amount of bones are needed, ie you said 1 upper leg and 1 lower leg.

Does that mean I only have to map out one side of the models skeleton? or did you mean 1 of each for each limb etc?

Also, what is a FIRESPOT bone and how/where do I create that?

OK, so far I think I understand this, I made a quick mock up in paint to show where I think I need to put the bones, how's this?

I've worked out what a firespot bone is, it's a point needed to denote where a weapon would fire from, I assume that's a normal bone placed a distance from the hand, named FIRESPOT right?

Is there an exact naming convention for all the bones I need to stick with?



Sorry for all the questions, but I really want to learn this, and I have difficulty learning if things aren't laid out cause and effect, step by step for me, thanks very much for al the help.

You can use a simple rig like theirs. Naming convention of bone can be what you want. But if you need to transfer animations from one to another, It is easiest to get a naming convention that you will use over and over again.

The rig details I explained above are what GameGuru uses in their Bipeds for the different characters. This set up will transfer motion capture data to where it needs to be. The hardest part will be trying to get the stock animations into Blender, as there is not a stock set released. So you will have to RIP the animations from the xfile. Not the best way, and a lot of work. But the newer bipeds are not released to the public yet, as the AI is still in development. You can get one that is close from here:
https://forum.game-guru.com/thread/209329. You will need to convert it to Blender format that will import the animations. (I have no clue in Blender). I use Max and have a different way of doing things. The character that holds all the stock weapons is the Uber Soldier one.

The FIRESPOT bone you have, you should move it as close to the Hand Joint as possible on the inside of the hand. Now you may need to play with the rotation if you find that when imported into GG and running test game the Gun is not pointing straight. VWeap.x are the guns in the gun folders for AI to hold when you assign them.

The RIG you painted will give the character good motion. We can use up to 63 bone max per object in one rig. This would be a character that has articulated fingers with 3 joints apiece. (30 bones for both hands and fingers) If you don't need it don't use that many. You will need to mirror the arm and leg bones over like in the tutorial.

Do plan on this having a steep learning curve to achieve what you want. Characters are the hardest, because of the number of different types of jobs needed to finish. But once you get your workflow down, and stick with it. you should be able to do one a week or more with practice.

I will say that you need to be sure your character is the proper height for GameGuru. Test this first before you start rigging your model. If you don't, you will get weird vertices pulling and stretching, and you will have to start rigging from the beginning. You don't want to get all your animations in and find a scaling issue after that is finished. I have done it, everyone has done it, So maybe you wont. : )

If you are not into writing your own AL scrips then have your animation sequences and frame lengths as they are in the uber soldier FPE file at the bottom of the file.
You can make you own animations, but for instant script use, Put them in the frames listed in the FPE file.
Characters are chunky, there are 16000 frames plus of animation in them for the Uber soldier.
What I do is have a different character for holding the colt 1911, or the shot gun, or the RPG weapons and don't use the other not needed.
Your character will work better, and you will be able to use more at the same time. Again if you don't need it, and you are able to customize things, then don't use it. (Performance)

Opening up the files now. I see they supply a script for FBX to Biped. Blender supports BVH motion files. So do a search on them and how Blender needs to convert them. I have a version of Blender that I will try and import the FBX file in and see how bad it scrambles it. But again I am no Blender expert. There are 1000's of tutorials out there on each subject in Blender, and Blender has there own tutorial series online. Worth checking out.

Hmn, looking in that thread it seems there is a dropbox link to a skeleton and animations in .blend format, i'm hoping I can load up my model in blender, import that skeleton/animation and with a few changes to tidy up the bones export it as .x and then import it into GG. I'll give it a go tonight, fingers crossed. I really need some decent character models, the GG creator is good, but very lacking.

As to the model sizing, I think I can do that in blender, the usual scaling for Blender to GG is 100x100x2 isn't it?

Have you heard of FUSE on Steam. It is a free program, and they do export and have stuff for Blender export. Might be worth getting that installed and go thru on. It will generate the files for Blender, Giving you a way of doing this.

Then we will work on the export. More then likely it is a setting in the xfile export to include Hierarchy bone and animations, in the output.

The Character Creator is in its infancy and will have a lot of features added to it in time.

Check out FUSE http://store.steampowered.com/app/257400/


1 blender generic unit equals 1 Game Guru unit. so a typical character would be around 65 to 72 units tall.

I am not seeing any any animations from those FBX files in 3ds max or Blender.

I might have to download the trial of Character Generator and see its export options. You might need the pro version to get the animations out proper.

Yeah, I noticed fuse in my library earlier and wondered if it would help, i'll have a look at it tonight, I haven't a clue how to use it though.

there are plenty of instruction for fuse on the adobe site and the extra scripts you may need.

Character generator, is just that. it generates characters only. This would have to be brought into motion builder or another program and then animated as you wish. So I am thinking maybe you did not animate this model yet, and the reason it just stands there in the editor.

Let me know.

No, I haven't animated it myself yet. I thought the character generator program I used set all that up for me.

So I need to learn how to animate, not sure what to use or how to do that to be honest.

Hmn actually thinking about it, most of these characters I want don't actually need to be animated, they're mainly flavour NPC's and quest givers, if I was to load it into blender, give it a skeleton, then pose it, and export it (say as sitting down etc) could I give it an object script and just have it static? Anything animated I could use the GG creator or stock models.

Fuse will allow you to use mixamo for 11 free animations.

The steps for a character roughly consists of this work flow.
1. Generate the character mesh. Generate this to the proper height you want it.
2. texture the character mesh.
3 figure any weapons for the character mesh, make if needed and texture.
4 rig the character
5 attach or skin the character to the bones.
6 weight the vertices so they don't fly off into space. 3 bones max per vertices.
7 test in editor
8 animate what movements you want or import motion capture files.
9 export the mesh to animated x file.
10 prepare the fpe file and convert the textures to .dds format.
11 prepare a script for the character or adjust your animations to match an existing FPE file for a character.
12 test and fix and test.

There is a lot, and not to many have the desire to learn it all. Take the time, it will be worth it in the end.

The Character Generator meshes work fine once you animate the rig.

I forgot about that thread! I haven't messed with character animations in a long time, probably because of that experience and lack of time since, but I've been meaning to play around with the MakeHuman exports along with bvh animations. I tried it one day with quite a bit of success, the only problem being bone/joint naming conventions between the two. I printed out screen shots of both skeletons to aid in manually converting them to come up with a single, "somewhat universal conversion", but as soon as I printed them out, something came up and I had to abandon it "temporarily". It's been several months since. Anyway, I have Fuse but reading the more recent comments about it (I don't recall exactly what's going on with it) it seems it's not my best choice (animations were pretty pricey, anyway). MakeHuman is a great concept, and in it's current form is already useable, although improvements are few and far between.(those folks have day jobs and families, after all). Conversion to what we can use shouldn't be overly difficult to achieve. It's really a matter of time available to work on it.

EDIT: Btw, Makehuman integrates very well with Blender! It's a really good (free) pipeline for character work!

What did you use to animate the rig? I found that the meshes imported fine in blender but the bones were all over the place and messed up, and somehow all linked together so if you deleted or moved one it deleted or moved the whole model.

I'm thinking of using the FPE from the uber soldier as you stated and using the stick animations from the thread you mentioned, I just need to work out what software to use and how to import the animation.

The bones are supposed to be linked together, think of it like real world. All your bones are linked to getherwhere you pelvis goes, so does the rest of of body. so leave the bones links.

I myself would need to open Blender and give this a try. Dont know if there is a way of changing the way Blender imports an X file. I will have to research this. Maybe Ravey the programmer can enlighten us.

Here is a blender like about FBX import and export. I will be searching for moer also. http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/Autodesk_FBX

Guys, you can simply upload your FUSE generated character to the Adobe CLoud, linked to the mixamo animation suite & library, auto-rig and animate there, create your animations list and then download all the stuff you created as FBX. Outcome can sometimes exceed 15k polys and needs reduction afterwards, sure, but overall it works nice.

Won´t stay free for much longer, though.

Yes, we know that, the problem is how do we get it from FBX format to a working GG format.

We load the FBX into 3DS Max and then export it to X format. Works like a charm!

If instead of just skimming the thread and guessing at the content you actually read it you would understand that we know that, we're trying to find free or low priced ways of converting from fbx to x that actually work properly for animer and GG (most convert to x but they're not quite compatible with animer and GG).

Believe it or not some of us don't have upwards of £3700 to buy a license for 3ds Max.

I've found a way to do it using low cost software now.

For just the cost of animer (£25) you can make a character in fuse and export it as OBJ, then use fragmotion to import it then merge an existing GG character skeleton into it, export it to .x then use import and export in mender (free from TGC site), then load and save in MeshView (free with DX9 SDK) and then load into Animer where you can import an existing GG characters animations, make a few adjustments, and save as .x ready to import into GG. Once imported it's just a few tweaks to the FPE and .x file and your good to go.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. And yes, I didn´t read ALL of the posts. My apologies.

However, for non-commercial purposes (which covers most of the people here right now), Autodesk offers a free 3 years license for all of their products, including Max.

And even the commercial license can be acquired on subscription base at rates between 70 and 120 € per months, for all of those who want to go "Full commercial".

I congratulate on your findings, but Max isnt that horrendous cost factor it used to be anymore.

• It's 1614.48 €. for a years subscription making it 134.54 € per month if you pay a years subscription in one go.
  
• It's 506.27 € for 3 months subscription, making it 168.75 € per month if you pay 3 months in one go.
  
• It's 201.12 € for a single months subscription.
  

So no, it's not only 70 to 120 € a month, it's more like between 134.54 and 201.12 € per month, even if it was 70 to 120 € per month that is still a lot of money to lay out just to use to convert a few files from one format to another, some people don't even spend that much on their monthly food bill.

As to the free for 3 years, that's for students only, yes you can get around it by telling them you're a student, but that's fraud and any honest person wouldn't go there.

So yeah for most people the cost of Max is horrendous.

One of the reasons so few people are making characters and so many are making standard models here is because of the .x version compatibility (you need animer to add your anims and animer is funny about which .x version it can import), only a handful of programs can import FBX and export in the correct .x format, and most of those are very expensive like 3d Max is, even UU3DPro was 2 weeks food shopping for me, not an outlay I take lightly).

Whereas there are plenty of people creating standard models in free software such as blender because those models don't need to go through animer and a simple run through MexhView will make them importable in GG, so I costs nothing except time to make them.

If TGC could make animer less strict on .x imports there would be a lot more people putting out character models than there is now. However if myself, and the others who are trying (PirateMyke, Cyber, Mike, and others) to find a cheaper method succeed then all the better for the community


(a combination of Cyber and Mike led me to that combination, not my work )

These are the official prices for "Western Countries". Please consider:

- If you change your IP to one from China or India you get far lower quotes, and according to International Trade Law you are entitled to purchase any service that is offered worldwide in the same configuration in the country of your choice (e.g. the cheapest one)

- If you run a company and contact the local "Autodesk Partner" with a "I haven´t used Autodesk yet but I want to introduce it in my company" approach, you get most likely 1-3 months free on a annual subscription (however, then you pay the regular country price). Always depends on who is talking to whom, but I have never seen a new customer closing a deal without any discount



This is a common misunderstanding. You don´t have to be student, it is absolutely ok if you enlist in any recognized teaching program (which includes many FREE architecture courses offered by local municipal offices) to be qualified.



Yes, you are right on that. It is still a giant sum for many creators. However, I would recommend anyone who thinks about a career in modelling to go for it, as I see many talented people getting turned down on applications because they have "only" free software experience in modelling.



Yes, of course! I don´t want anyone to discourage here, and I really congratulate on the achievements here, I already told you so. Great work from all of those involved, and I hope it will lead to many cool store characters, because, if we are honest, this is a field of assets where we still lack a variety on the GG users side

And, to redeem my sins, I have now read ALL posts here within carefully

Oh I don't think you want to discourage anyone, sorry if it sounded like I thought that, I was just pointing out that it wasn't as easy for a lot of us to do this because of the price of the software, and when you think about it GamGuru being what it is, a huge majority of our community will be those who want to learn game design, but can't afford the top of the line software and courses, so the easier and cheaper we make it for them the better.



Actually their requirement was that you have to be in full time education, taking a course relevant to the software. Originally they required people to email them copies of proof, such as college/university ID cards etc. but the proof part got removed because it kind of excluded everyone except US students and was time consuming to process.

But yeah as I mentioned in another post any course you take can make you eligible, you just need to be prepared to prove it if they ask. I'm thinking of doing this myself.



If you are caught doing this in some countries you can be prosecuted, it comes under tax evasion, that's one of the reasons many countries prices differ nline, because different countries have different tax structures. For example If we do that in the UK we are getting a product without paying VAT (about 20%) which is an offence and you can be prosecuted for it. Yes I know the chances of ever being found out are slim, but with all the cyber snooping governments are doing lately I wouldn't risk it.