Milkshape > X 'unknown data_object'

Pipeline
1

Hello there, I seem to be running into an error when converting from Milkshape3D to X.

I am indeed running V1.5.4 of Panda.

I have created a fairly basic object in Milkshape - it has its mesh - its material - and 8 Joints (Bones). 4 of these are weighted to seperate vertices.

I can load the object in pview as .x - however what seems to happen is the weighted vertices sort of ‘flash appear’ as the animation should be displayed.

When I attempted to x2egg - I am told that many of my joints are ‘unknown data_object’.

Upon opening my .x file in Notepad++ I can see that only 2 of my bones have been given ‘Frame’ co-ordinates.

To explain better - only 2 of my ‘Joints’ have

 Frame ftrtleg {

  FrameTransformMatrix {
   0.699792, 0.000000, 0.714346, 0.000000,
   0.599904, -0.542904, -0.587682, 0.000000,
   0.387822, 0.839795, -0.379920, 0.000000,
   37.747395, -0.637074, 1.780303, 1.000000;;
  }

I’m certain this is why my .x file is not functioning correctly. Is there a history with Milkshape not converting correctly to miss out Joints? Any help is much appreciated.

EDIT: The Export SMD - Import then Export as DirectX fixes the initial problem - however ALL animation is lost during this process =/ Any help?

2

I don’t think panda3d can import X’s animations.

3

Panda does generally load animations from .x file correctly; it is the primary pathway to load animations that don’t come from Blender, Max, or Maya.

One feature that isn’t supported in .x animations is irregular frame timings. But as long as all of your frames are uniformly spaced, it should load just fine.

Note that there appear to be a lot of buggy .x writers out there, so you might have a bogus .x file. I think Milkshape’s is one such buggy .x writer.

David

4

It might be nice to create a list of 3d editors and how people can get stuff out of them into panda3d. … Ill think about that.