Rescaling skinned objects

shardy

Hi all,

Probably a simple problem but not something I have had to deal with before.

I have some animated models in 3dsmax using bones and the skin modifier that I need to rescale down to export them to a game engine.

Obviously using the scale tool isnt going to work for me - is there a (quick) way i can scale the mesh/bones and keep the animation correct?

On a slightly different note is there a way to save animation created with bones in a similar fashion to .bip (I am used to using character studio biped..) ?

Thanks!

MoP

Yes, you can save bone animation in a similar way to .BIP - just look up "Saving and Loading Animation" in the 3dsmax help.

I would have thought that if your rig is good, you should have a "global" controller which is the master parent of all the joints/helpers in the rig. If you have that, you can just scale it down and everything else will follow, including the skinned mesh.
If you don't have a controller like that (consider it for future rigs!) then you'll have to look for a different way, good luck!

Farfarer

You can try creating a box around the items, parenting your mesh and rig to it, scaling the box down, resetting it's XForm and then unparenting your rig/mesh.

renderhjs

if you export as vertex animation a XForm Modifier works defenitly- not sure how it behaves with bones though , like MoP said better have a master controler that allows you to transform the whole rig

Rick Stirling

If you don't have the master scale as Mop mentioned, there is a method.

You may get some issues with the scaled geo if you scale it using the bones. Scaling biped seems fairly robust, but you can sometimes get away with scaling bones and then resetting the scale in the Animation/Bone Tools.

It might be better to rescale the mesh and then rebuild the skeleton.

Some exporters don't like geometry with a scale modifier, but that's easy to fix. You can save out the weights, collapse everything, re-add the bones and reload the weights, but there is another method.

What you can do is scale the bones to deform the geo, then copy and paste the skin modifier and turn off the copied one.

You can then collapse the first skin modifier onto your geo, this effectively bakes the changes onto the mesh. You might want to run a Reset Xform at this stage under the pasted skin modifier.

Now, on the copy of the skin modifier, turn it on and then uncheck then recheck the Always Deform.

shardy

Thanks everyone for your replies, I will be trying out the different methods mentioned above - I am sure I will get a positive result!