I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if there is a bug in the model editor or the exporter.
Anyway, I have an animated model with 5 animations all packed into the one timeline in 3ds max. I'm using the OpenCollada exporter and ticked the option to "Sample animation." I then choose the start and end frames of the animation I want to export from the timeline. When I import this into the ME however, it still imports the entire timeline up to the end of the section that I've sampled, however only the keyframes for the sampled section are imported. The rest of the timeline at the beginning is blank, i.e. has no keyframes. It's like it is ignoring the Start limit and just import from frame 0.
For example, my timeline is a total of 400 frames long with 5 animations. I want to export the 3rd animation, which uses frames 180 to 240. So I set the Start to 180 and the End to 240 in the exporter. I then import this into the ME. When I go to the animation, it shows the timeline from frames 0 to 240 instead of 180 to 240. All the frames before 180 are blank (no keyframes).
See attached screenshot of the timeline in ME after importing.
OK, so I'm assuming it is a bug in OpenCollada then.
I've tried using that option to clip from first to last keyframe, but it seems to not work too well with looped animations. It seems to clip too much off the start or end and then the animation doesn't loop smoothly anymore. There is a slight jump when it loops back to the start.
(07-17-2011 12:57 AM)fatcoder Wrote: OK, so I'm assuming it is a bug in OpenCollada then.
I've tried using that option to clip from first to last keyframe, but it seems to not work too well with looped animations. It seems to clip too much off the start or end and then the animation doesn't loop smoothly anymore. There is a slight jump when it loops back to the start.
Does it loop smoothly when you clip it to a specific animation in 3DS Max?
If it does then try cloning the animation so that in 3DS Max it plays the loop 3 times then export it with OpenCollada. Then in EE clip middle loop so that there is no "skip"
I've ended up just doing the clipping in 3DS Max and rescaling the timeline. I then export with OpenCollada, undo my clipping and reclip and scale for the next animation in 3DS Max. This isn't too bad when there is only 5 animations to do. I'm not looking forward to some of the character models with hundreds of animations... *shudder*
I find the clipping in the EE ME is just too hard as it is time based rather than frame based. So it is really hard to find the exact millisecond where you need to clip for a smooth loop.
