A call to the Witcher 3 Developers!!!

[thisisweak]

A call to the Witcher 3 Developers!!!

I have a few questions:

When I import a FBX into Maya, Blender, or Zbrush, I lose the skeleton and joint hierarchy. The skin binding (or whatever its called) (in Maya anyway) become just nodes that reference to a vertex. So if I re-import the mesh, all animation of that Model ceases.

I can recover the joints and skin binding by opening the model in a program called Neosis. But I still have no heirarchy, thus no skeleton.

So I created my own heirarchy and skeleton, but now the model squashes itself around the skeleton!

1. What did you use to model the game meshes?
2. What do models need to be animated in the game? (Skeleton, Joints, Rigs?).
3. What software can us modders use to edit meshes and re-import them into the game?

Thank you for your time.

P.S. I have been working on this problem for a while now. Here is some images to show that I have been trying.
Joints Restored:

Attempt at skeleton and heirarchy recreation:

Result of reimportation:

Software I created to make using the Mod Kit Tools user friendly

 

[lub4095]

I really hope the developers snap out of this and start answering some fundamental questions so that mod developers can actually do something to keep the witcher content and community alive. I am kind of doubtful though, after multiple threads about the same issue.

 

[Riven-Twain]

It looks as though we may need a modders' Q&A, one day, @Kinley.

 

[Bush_ted]

I'm currently using 3dsmax and c4d on mesh editing, dont know why you attempting to create your own skeleton though.

 

[thibaudv]

Someone should organize an AMA with some of the technical guys over at CDPR - that'd be awesome

 

[thisisweak]

I'm currently using 3dsmax and c4d on mesh editing, dont know why you attempting to create your own skeleton though.

Because I don't have one! Importing the fbx files into Maya apparently destroys them.

 

[Dahlialynn]

As it has been mentioned previously in other threads, the bones/joints are there (3ds Max imports them properly) only the hierarchy info is not included in the uncooking process (presumably *.w2rig). I've already managed to animate the original Geralt skeleton+mesh with a manually created hierarchy outside of the game environment. But this will not accurately work in-game as we lack the proper resources with the current modkit's limitations.

 

[Bush_ted]

I've already managed to animate the original Geralt skeleton+mesh with a manually created hierarchy outside of the game environment. But this will not accurately work in-game as we lack the proper resources with the current modkit's limitations.

Exactly, you can do everything outside the game environment, but not in game.

 

[Dahlialynn]

It's quite possible these resources weren't included because we have no advanced editing tool for example say, cutscenes or conversations. Had we been given the rig info with the current tools, at best one could replace an existing animation, but personally I don't see how the game could benefit from it as the existing anims serve their intended purpose. Any changes without the proper editors could potentially cause game breaking (possibly even terrifying) results.

 

[Fartuess.807]

Seems like RedEngine doesn't keep hierarchy information internally... :hmm:

 

[web-head91]

Seems like RedEngine doesn't keep hierarchy information internally... :hmm:

do you mean like CAD softwares(autocad, solidworks,catia...etc), where they save the "features" with the file ?

 

[Fartuess.807]

For drawing skeletal meshes with shaders there is no such thing as bone hierarchy in form of skeleton. There is just set of loose bones and influence weights on vertices. On importing hierarchy is deleted and weights are recalculated, so animtions still look the same. It seems that RedEngine recalculates it only when asset is created, so asset file itself does not have hierarchy info anymore thus it cannot export it. It might export this loose set of bones with recalculated weights, so when you are rebuilding hierarchy, then upon importing the influence weights are included twice. It's a possibility - i cannot guarantee this