XSI skeleton

Unity Engine
1

I’ve decide to buy the new iMac once Leopard arrives. In the meantime I’d like to begin developing all the animations for a first person shooter. Those of you who are using XSI and unity; when you create a rig from the biped guide, what options should I choose? Do I need a Shadow Rig?

Thanks.

2

Hey, I use XSI but I really haven’t done much in the way of character animation beyond one coding test.

Basically you want a really basic rig to import into Unity. Of course none of the special controls will import into Unity (or anywhere else) so you do want a shadow rig (I belive with Softimage 3D settings, it’s one of the options.)

I learned this from a digital tutors dvd that I recommend: “Next-Generation Game Techniques in XSI”. That will be able to tell you the proper steps better than I can right now. :wink:

Any more questions and you can pm me, and I’ll help if I can.

-Jeremy

3

I can confirm that exporting from XSI to Unity works, although I had to do it in a very roundabout way. I used the same Digital Tutors DVD to figure out how to bake the walk cycle.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the XSI FBX export to work properly. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but nothing shows up in my exported FBX files. So I used Crosswalk to export to Max and then exported to FBX from there.

Unfortunately, Softimage’s Crosswalk utility is not available for Maya on OS X.

4

What version of XSI? If you haven’t already, upgrade to 5.11. They fixed some issues with the FBX exporter. The FBX export works perfectly for me, I use XSI for all my geometry and it works fine. It was only importing a rigged character that I only did once.

Oh, just remembered, there was a collada update for XSI as well (XSI download page), and XSI’s FBX exporter seems to be tied to the collada exporter for some reason. You might want to download that to be sure.

HTH,
-Jeremy

5

I’m using 6.02 with Crosswalk 2.4. XSI’s FBX import/export is now tied into Crosswalk. There is no standalone FBX plugin. It’s really a shame that Softimage hasn’t created a Crosswalk plugin for Maya on OS X.

6

Heh, perhaps they broke something again. Their Collada exporter in 5.11 and 6.0 is not that good either. They don’t seem to dedicate enough dev time to those exporters IMO.

-Jeremy

7

Using Softimage 2010 x64, Crosswalk 2011.5 and Unity 3.2. I´ve got an animated character using Biped_Rig, assigned a Weightmap and a having big problem with Unity3D.

So what I did before was:

  1. I found out, that there is a video tutorial on creating Shadow Rigs from Biped by Digital Tutors (Next-Generation Game Techniques in XSI). Unfortunately it´s too late for my project, since I modified and animated my Biped_Rig already.

  2. I tried a .fbx and dotxsi import-export workaround via 3D Studio Max. Didn´t really work, the character appears to be dashed in Unity3d.

  3. I brought in the previously exported dotxsi file (Crosswalk → Export to Max in Softimage 2010) in a new Scene in Softimage and it seems like the whole Biped_Rig became an animated Shadow Rig consisting of Nullobjects.

Since my Biped_Rig bones were set to a neutral pose, the Nulls are also in a zero-local-position (maybe that´s an issue too?).

  1. Exported the new Rig to .fbx → The character is still dashed in Unity3D.

  2. Downgraded Crosswalk to Version 4.1 and exported again → The character is still dashed in Unity3D.

  3. Selected every Nullobject from the new “Shadow Rig” and plotted the animation. Deleted every object in the scene except the Nullobjects and the character. Selected Nullobjects and character and exported to.fbx (Crosswalk 4.1). → The character is still dashed in Unity3D.

  4. Same Step as Point 6, but with Crosswalk 2011.5. Same result, except the fact that the Texture is working under the newer Crosswalk Versions.

Do I really have to create a new Shadow Rig using bones, set a constraint on every bone, plot the whole thing (like in the recipe of i3D_Jack in XSI Base Forum: http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=24;action=display;threadid=41336;start=15 )and hope that it works or is there a chance of less time consuming workarounds??? And what about the reassigning of the weightmap?

Please help me!!!

8

You just bumped a thread from 2007. The people in it are probably dead by now.

9

:slight_smile: - I hope not…

I started an own thread, because I tried out a lot by myself…hopefully someone else knows a solution.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/80291-Softimage-2010-Character-Animation-(Biped_Rig)-amp-several-Crosswalk-Versions.-HELP