I managed to get my Autodesk generated character into GameGuru using the Uber Soldier animations (over 19000 frames). It's not quite right yet as getting the Uber skeleton to fit to my character was a bit fiddly but with some more work and improvement hopefully will get there as I want to start my first real GameGuru project, something on the lines of Far Cry but want to make it a bit different.

What I used to do last year originally was rip the skeleton out of the GameGuru characters and then merge that skeleton onto my character mesh and then fit the skeleton to the mesh and then assign the vertices to the skeleton which was/is not easy.

Now that I have learnt how to remove bones from the hierarchy and zero joints and other stuff in FM, I realised to get Uber soldier animations to merge correctly I had to either remove extra bones that weren't needed or strip the skeleton out of the Uber soldier and merge it with existing mesh.

If anyone has done this in a much better/efficient way, I'd love to know how you did it.

Also, as a side question, does anyone know why the enemy never actually looks straight at the player?

The best way that I know how to do this is within modeling programs. I use Milkshape and Fragmotion; I'm not sure of what modeling programs you use. But this is my workflow.

I use Fragmotion to import the animated skeleton from the ubersoldier.
Then save it as a milkshape file.
I open it in milkshape and erase the mesh as well as textures, then save it .
I then either build my model around the skeleton or open the premade model in milkshape.
I then merge the animated skeleton with the open model. (always model first then merge animated skeleton)
This is when I rig the model to the skeleton and test the animations. (don't worry if the bones are not lining up with knees, elbows ect. just yet)
If all is good I save the model as a milkshape file.
I then open the now rigged model in Fragmotion.
This is the time if you need to, move the joints to where they will move the limbs correctly. (do not do this in milkshape)
Because there is some disconnect with milkshape animations and GameGuru, I then delete the animation.
You can from here rezero the joints or import animation from the ubersoldier directly. (be sure to match the bones first)
Then I export the model as a .X file at 30 frames per second and have a perfectly functioning enemy.


Stagefright maybe? LOL just kidding. If this is the case , before the model is rigged turn the head a little to the desired eye contact.
Hope this helps.

@Disturbing13-many thanks for your reply, I'll give the steps above a try as i have various modeling packages and Milkshape is one of them. I'll try the other tip regards to making them less stage stricken ha

Theres no easy step. Its over complicated and needs to be addressed and has so been for a long time. Getting custom characters into GG is just a pain.

It certainly is quite the task. No doubt.

Agreed that this needs to be simplified. If this is not possible then (please, please) improve the character creator. In my case I need civilian characters of various ages, gender and ethnicity. I am very happy to pay the 100$+ for characters which are available fully rigged from other sources (honestly I would rather give that business to someone in our community) but getting them in to the engine goes against the GG ethos ie: easy game maker.

While the store has some great content sadly the characters available are of no use to me. Currently I have characters from the character creator as stand-in characters so that I can continue developing but eventually I would need the correct character models.

To be fair there is no real urgency at THIS stage and as GG grows so does my knowledge and capabilities in game design but I know for certain that I will never be a modeller.

Figured out how to import animations from the Uber Soldier using Fragmotion onto e.g. FPSC Aiko char without the character folding over in half.
steps I took were:

1. Aiko-removed "noname" bones using Fragmotion script as shown by Stab In The Dark Software (thanks again)
2. Aiko-deleted the old FIRESPOT bone from the left hand.
3. Aiko-added new FIRESPOT to the right hand
4. Aiko-zeroed the joints
5. Aiko-removed the old animation
6. Uber soldier-removed LOD bones from the hierarchy again using the FM script.
7. Uber soldier-exported the animations in Biovision BVH format (thanks to SITDS for the tip)
8. Uber soldier-zeroed the joints
9. Uber soldier-merged the BVH animations back onto the Uber soldier.
10. Exported Uber soldier back out as X file keeping the groups.
11. Aiko-merged Uber soldier (using file saved at step 10).
12. exported Aiko back out as X file keeping groups.

I export groups as I found the animations don't work in GameGuru the model would just slide across the terrain like it was on skiis.

Still some improvements and experimenting to do but is not bad.

Hope this helps anyone that wants to use Uber soldier anims for other characters.

Thanks BOTR

It is, indeed, but thanks to Bored of the Rings and Part Time Coder, things have come a long way, at least for me. The Autodesk characters I've tried actually work without deleting any bones. Perhaps this is because I am applying animations from models with fewer bones and it simply ignores the "extras". Btw, I haven't been using any TGC character animations because I have gotten rather funky results. I have been using the animations from Mixamo (Adobe). They are currently free (I don't know how long that will last, but I've downloaded a ton of them in .bvh format and they work great!). I advise anyone who is interested to do the same(FYI, it can take some time, depending on how busy their servers are. They have seemed to improve, though) Mixamo used to let you create the character and rig it for free, and then they'd charge for the animations. I would expect Adobe to do the same once their website gets out of preview mode. Btw, Ultimate Unwrap, Fragmotion, Mender/Animer, and sometimes Blender are part of my pipeline. Those applications are, for the most part, simply used to get the type of FBX from Mixamo to a Direct x format with proper scale, origin, and bone order, before applying the animations in Animer. It takes me about 20 minutes to rig, download, and convert a figure to get it into Animer. Animations via individual bvh files takes a bit longer (gotta match bones each time even though they are named exactly the same; can't seem to get it to work in Fragmotion). Anyway, a couple hours tops for each character isn't bad.


(EDIT: Milkshape is also a part of my workflow at times, but not usually. It is the one format that transfers faithfully between all the applications: Ultimate Unwrap, Fragmotion, and Blender, with animations intact.)

@Jerry Tremble-thanks for the info -I must admit, I've downloaded Mixamo animations, but haven't got round to putting them through the Autodesk mixer yet. I used to use Animer a lot, but find I use Fragmotion more these days. I like Animer but takes ages to merge the animations and can get some strange results. Still not used UU3D much yet, but I'm sure I will eventually. Yes, I must admit I use Milkshape from time to time as it does seem to be the better format converter.

Adding animations from miximo using fragmotion is jusr as easy as merging existing animations (as long as you don't mind the character not being biped/ragdoll) all you need to do is:

1. Download the character and each animation in FBX format
2. Use either Max, or UU3D to convert the character and each of the animations to .X format
3. Load and Save the character only with MeshView
4. Import the character into Fragmotion
5. Add your FIRESPOT
6. Select merge animations for each of the animations, the bones should match automatically
7. Go to your animation list and double click the first animation
8. In the window that pops up go to the menu and select Append Animations, tick the boxes of each animation you want to keep then click ok, a window will pop up for you to save a text file, this is a list of the frames for each animation.
9. Export the character to .X
10. Load and Save the character in Mender to set the skin weights etc. and avoid wiggly arm syndrome.

Then all you need to do is set up the fpe and put it into gameguru.

Sometimes the animation frames need adjusting in the fpe one or two frames up or down to what is in the list, to avoid animation glitches, but usually they work fine, I've made a few characters this way.

I agree Fragmotion is much better to use than Animer is, it just seems to be a lot easier to use and doesn't fall down as much.