Looking for Maya tut on rigging vehicles for UT2k4

barnEbiss

I have finsihed my vehicle model but i cant seem to get the wheels setup so the work ingame as wheels can someone please help me?? if anyone knows of a maya tut for setting this up or would be willing to do one up it would really help me out.

here is the vehicle I am working on.

chip

UDN is always a good place to start: S Vehicles in Maya

also search the Unreal Wiki if you haven't already.

barnEbiss

How Do i use the Component Editor? those tuts where not verry clear on that

chip

Window->General Editors->Component Editor. after binding the mesh to the bones (Smooth Bind), select the verts you want to assign a specific weight to. under the Smooth Skins tab in the Component Editor, find the vertex/bone combination you want and enter a skin weight value (1.0 max). make sure auto-normalization of skin weights is enabled.

or use the Paint Skin Weights Tool to do the same thing a lot more intuitively and interactively.

barnEbiss

Do I have use a differnt number for each tire?
or can I use any number for each tire?

chip

[ QUOTE ]
Do I have use a differnt number for each tire?
or can I use any number for each tire?

[/ QUOTE ]sorry, i'm having trouble parsing these questions in the context of the Component Editor -- what "numbers" do you mean?

barnEbiss

Here this is what I have


I am not sure where I enter the settings that you said for the vertex/bone combination for a skin weight value.

barnEbiss

This is what I get when I select the vertexs and the joint for the wheel. I am not sure what the next step to do is.

pyromania

That should be correct. The reason for the component editor is just to make sure that all the the verticies are 100% bound to that bone. When you run smooth bind, it distributes vertex weight across multiple bones. If part of the wheel was bound to the body it would deform horrible when it rotated. Next step would be to check each wheel and make sure its only bound to its axel bone.

barnEbiss

Ok I got the wheels so the they work in Ut2004 now
But I ran into another ptoblem The wheels turn the wrong direction for steering. the when I tell the vehicel to go right it goes right but the wheels turn left

I have tried all setting in code with no luck so my problems seems to be in maya. Does anyone know what this problem might be?

ScreaminBubba

Are your pivots setup correctly? Sounds like maybe a pivot axis is in a negative direction.

barnEbiss

[ QUOTE ]
Are your pivots setup correctly? Sounds like maybe a pivot axis is in a negative direction.

[/ QUOTE ]


Where do I adjust that in maya?

pyromania

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are your pivots setup correctly? Sounds like maybe a pivot axis is in a negative direction.

[/ QUOTE ]


Where do I adjust that in maya?

[/ QUOTE ]

Select your skeleton, then go into component mode, and pick Misc "?". You will see little axis markers show up at each joint. You need to rotate the ones for your axels 180 degree's You need the axis that the wheels steer around to be pointing opposite of what it is.

barnEbiss

I dont see it in my menu where is it in the menu bar??
Oh and thanks for all you guys quick replies

pyromania

You don't have the status line showing??? How do you work!

Display>>UI Elements >>Status Line

barnEbiss

IT had gotten hidden I got it again. I am now going to see if this fixs the problem with the wheels

barnEbiss

Ok I adjusted the rotation like you said but the wheels are still turning the wrong direction

barnEbiss

I cant seem to get the wheels worked out I have uploaded my APC model MP file in Zip format so you guys could look at it and tell me if I am doing somthing wrong.
Please take and look and let me know if you can spot anything I might have done wrong in setting it up.

APC Model

barnEbiss

Can you guys please take a look at the model file and let me know what I am doing wrong

barnEbiss

Bump

I spent all of last night tweaking the joints but with no luck

Come on guys help this newb out and help me pin point where my problem is. I am sure you where all at my point once in your life.

pyromania

According to the docs your bone orientation should be X is left, Y is up, Z is forward. In your model you have it as Y is left, Z is up, X is forward. It has to be something with the bone axis orientation. There isn't much else that can go wrong. You could also try unbinbding your tires, then doing a Freeze Transform, Pivot, Delete History on them. The Unreal exporters have aways done odd things if you had history built up on a model.

barnEbiss

hhm how do I unbind stuff? I am still new with maya and still learning all the commands. same goes for Freeze Transform. I know how to delet History.

pyromania

To unbind an object you select the object then go to Skin>>Detach Skin

With the tire still selected go to Modify>>Freeze Transformations
This will zero out and movements that have been done to the tire. It assures that you are starting with clean history.

Then do a Modify>>Center Pivot, to assure that the rotation axis is in the very center of your object.

Then delete your history and re-bind the wheel to its bone.

barnEbiss

I have tried doing this but with no luck I must be something wrong. Pyromaniado you think you could try doing the changes and uploading it then I will see if that works. if it does I will know it must be somehting I am doing wrong on my end. but I am begining to think the problem might be something in the code I just want to make sure before I go digging through the code.

barnEbiss

Bump

Come on guys help me out I am going nuts here trying to get this working I need to know if the problem is in my code or in the way I have rigged the skel