fragMotion Settings

[Stridor]

As some of you may know fragMotion is a new player on the block of el chepo 3D editing programs ($25). It more featured than Milkshape3D but is still in beta and a bit buggy in places. I am in email contact with the author who seems quite helpful and willing to make the necessary changes to get fM to support PCK more easily.

fM's party piece is that it fully supports DX natively (including hierarchies), so we can essentially just grab the existing game models, make changes, resave and off you go.

Here are the steps you need to get it to actually work in practice.

1. Import the DX file into fM and make sure all extraneous Materials are deleted. There should only be ONE material. After you have made edits or introduced new geometry make sure you select all your mesh (Ctrl+A) and then right click on the Materials section and select "Assign to Selection" (shown). This is very important, if you don't do this PCK will lock up.
2. With all the mesh selected (Ctrl+A) select File->Export Selected. Press the Options... and you can make final export changes here (note: at this stage the Mirror options appear bugged, but all the others work). Press OK when done.
3. Make sure your export options are exactly as shown in the SS. Save over the original X file (make a backup [;)])
4. Run my little fMF (fragMotion Fixer) program and then drag the saved X file onto the displayed box (to save time you can drag a whole bunch of files all in one go). This will start the fixup routine which will take but a second.

You're done, ready to play your latest creation.

Something worth noting is that in fM your vehicle will appear mirrored (L->R), until the mirror bug gets fixed you will just have to live with that.

Regards

S.

[Stridor]

And here is the little fixer proggy. Remember to unblock the zip before you unzip it.

Regards

S.

[JMass]

I am sorry but I am not able to drag files onto the box (and in it there is the small red "x") or in any zone of the window...
[:(][&:]

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: JMass

I am sorry but I am not able to drag files onto the box (and in it there is the small red "x") or in any zone of the window...
[:(][&:]

JMass,

Does the MM work for you or are the problems with that.

Did you remember to unblock the zip?

Thanks

[Stridor]

JMass, try this one.

I have added a browse button, not as convenient as drag and drop but will work (provided MM works for you).

Regards

S.

[JMass]

No luck, the button don't work and I am not able to say you if MM works because I have formatted my pc, I have not saved a copy of MM and the download link don't works. I tried fmF on my laptop and again it not works, MM ran on it but I deleted it for a space problem. I unblocked all your files. [:(][:(]

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: JMass

No luck, the button don't work and I am not able to say you if MM works because I have formatted my pc, I have not saved a copy of MM and the download link don't works. I tried fmF on my laptop and again it not works, MM ran on it but I deleted it for a space problem. I unblocked all your files. [:(][:(]

Ok JMass this is (strangely) good news because it lets me try out somthing new.

Can you (for the last time) try out this new version. Unblock the zip and then unzip it to the PCK root directory (overwrite any files).

Now run fMF and see what happens. My guess is that the drag box probably still won't work but the button will now.

If you can't get going with this, I will tell you a way to manually edit the files by hand to get them to work.

Regards

S.

[JMass]

Stridor, as first thing thanks for your patience, as second unfortunately also the new version don't work. I registered the *.ocx files but things don't change, better if you tell me how to manually edit the files, as a Linux user (no, now I am on XP!) I have not problems to edit a little!

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: JMass

Stridor, as first thing thanks for your patience, as second unfortunately also the new version don't work. I registered the *.ocx files but things don't change, better if you tell me how to manually edit the files, as a Linux user (no, now I am on XP!) I have not problems to edit a little!

Well now that is really odd?

Ok do this. Prepare the file for export as the SS above.

open the .X file with a quality text editor. What you want to look for are the Mesh defines like this

Code: Select all

  Frame Frame_body {
 
    FrameTransformMatrix {
     0.106539,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.106539,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.106539,0.000000,0.012315,-0.026513,-0.002573,1.000000;;
    }
 
    Mesh {
     826;
     -5.636199;-9.304261;0.299066;,
 

Notice how the name of the Frame above FrameTransformMatrix (Frame Frame_body) and Mesh has no name so you need to edit this to

Code: Select all

  Frame Frame_body {
 
    FrameTransformMatrix {
     0.106539,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.106539,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.106539,0.000000,0.012315,-0.026513,-0.002573,1.000000;;
    }
 
    Mesh body {
     826;
     -5.636199;-9.304261;0.299066;,
 

Add the name of the frame (sans Frame_) to the Mesh define. You need to do this for all meshes in the file (search for "Mesh ") with the correct name you can get from the prior Frame define.

Ok that will get you started, I will do one last edit to fMF to get you going. Still don't know why it don't work for you.

Regards

S.

[JMass]

ORIGINAL: Stridor
Ok that will get you started,

Finally I am able to load single turret's tanks! I imported, exported and edit as you tell me the BA-6 turret.x file and here's the BT-5! Now I must work to lower it and texture it but you resolved the bigger problem, thanks again!
[:)][:)][:)]

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Stridor

Something worth noting is that in fM your vehicle will appear mirrored (L->R), until the mirror bug gets fixed you will just have to live with that.

Stridor,

Well, I finally installed FragMotion ...

Ok ... my first project was to replace the PzIIIH broken RIGHT wheels with the LEFT wheels ... (yeah, I know Mobius fixed them but this was an easy demo for me to try out).

Anyway ... I followed your instructions from post #1 ... viola! it worked. I did have a problem at first but as you said "make sure there is one material" ... this X had two materials ... I removed one and kept the one named "Tank".

Now, regarding the mirror BUG ...

Since the LEFT wheels are a mirrored version of the RIGHT wheels I simply did this before exporting ...

1. Using the TOOLS ... select MESH ... then scroll to the right and select MIRROR
2. MirrorALL (true checked ON)
3. With ORIGIN the same (default) 0,0,0
4. Direction .... select Across X Plane ... invoke
5. Direction .... select Across Y Plane .... invoke
6. Select ALL --- Face --- Reverse Vertex Order

After that, I just exported as above (from post #1)

This solves (IMO) any mirror bugs .... (I didn't have to change any animation at all)

Please, for a practice ... anyone, try this out.

Stridor ???? Since your fmf program requires the X to be text ... any chance you can export the final X as a COMPRESSED or BINARY ? Text is too big [:(].

Anyway ... kudos to you John [&o] .... It works !!

Rob

[Mraah]

Ok ... to sum up what I did ...

1. Imported the wheelL (I did the same for the wheelL_SUMMER) and performed Stridor's task #1.
2. Skipped to my task in post #11
3. Returned to Stridor's task #2, 3, 4
(note, I exported to a filename called "wheelR-new" and "wheelR_SUMMER-new" and then renamed them appropriately when I made sure the original right wheels were saved to prevent over writing)
(note#2 ... I was running animationSet0 so I can see all the wheels, not required but helped me visually)

done.

Basically, to mirror the wheels to the opposite side I inserted my tasks before exporting.

Hope that helps.

[JMass]

I am now enlarging the Tiger but to scale it I tried to proportionate it by using as basis other tanks but I found some big discrepancies, i.e. in fragMOTION the Pz III L is large as the Tiger but 143 % larger that the Jgd Pz IV...
[&:]

[JMass]

In PCK Tiger and JgdPz IV have the same lenght, if you merge them in fragMOTION you could see that the Jgd Pz is smaller... [&:]

[benpark]

What about when models utilize TWO materials (or more)? I'm working on a tree model right now. It has separate textures for the trunk and leaves.

Don't the infantry models also use 3 different textures?

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: benpark

What about when models utilize TWO materials (or more)? I'm working on a tree model right now. It has separate textures for the trunk and leaves.

Don't the infantry models also use 3 different textures?

Ben you can have more than one material per model.

Regards

S.

Remember keep all textures at a power of 2. It may not benefit you have seperate textures in terms of video memory.

[benpark]

The tree[d] program outputs it's models with the two separate textures. I suppose I could remap the entire model and put both textures into one- but that's probably more work than I'm able to do for quite a while. And since any model made with tree[d] would be sharing a lot of the same textures, I don't imagine that it would be too much strain given that many models will be using the same sets of textures. Maybe I am wrong on that.

In the SS above, you note:

1. Import the DX file into fM and make sure all extraneous Materials are deleted. There should only be ONE material. After you have made edits or introduced new geometry make sure you select all your mesh (Ctrl+A) and then right click on the Materials section and select "Assign to Selection" (shown). This is very important, if you don't do this PCK will lock up.

Here is what the tree looks like in fM:



How do I assign the selection properly?

Also, see the "odd alpha layer"? It seems to not recognize the terrain mapping I did in MS3D, and also not straight from the tree[d] program.

[spellir74]

Stridor,

I'm having the same problem as JMass with fMfixer.

I run XP pro SP 2 updated; Norton. I un blocked it before zipping.

The manual method is a b*tch, given that there are a dozen entries --not lined up neatly in Win Notepad.

[Stridor]

ORIGINAL: spellir74

Stridor,

I'm having the same problem as JMass with fMfixer.

I run XP pro SP 2 updated; Norton. I un blocked it before zipping.

The manual method is a b*tch, given that there are a dozen entries --not lined up neatly in Win Notepad.

Spellir try this version. Use the "browse" button. That one just has to work.

Regards

S.

[spellir74]

Stridor, Hello.

Thank you. Good news: It worked!

-------------
Bad news: But oddly (off and on)...






-------
When I use it fresh from a reboot -- or without going to the net-- __it works__; but only the browse-to button; and the little drag to box is always an X.

I'm satisfied the way it is. Thanks again. I'm just letting you know about your prog.