Blender exporter issue RESOLVED

[gryff]

With all the new features of BJS and skeletons - ranges etc.- and the discussion on this thread and this thread I decided to take a look at these new features and the possibility of loading animations on the fly.

But I ran into trouble. Below are some simple tests of creating an animated figure and exporting it from Blender.

Windows XP PC:

1. Blender 2.69, BE(v1.3) :  Player3 - Works fine .babylon file size 8.37MB

Win7 PC:

2. Blender 2.76,  BE(v3.0.6) : Player3 - Works fine .babylon file size 6.82MB
3. Blender 2.76,  BE(v4.4.1) : Player3 - Spaghetti Monster .babylon file size 1.96MB

All exports use the same starting file that I have used to test animation going back over a year.  Examples 2 and 3 use the same PC and no changes were made to the file - it was just exported.

The log files for export 2 and 3 are here  The exporter (v1.3) does not produce a log file.

Not sure what the issue is. TY in advance for any help.

cheers, gryff
 

[JCPalmer]

Since 2.76/3.0.6 works, let's forget about the first, except to say that mentioned the file size has been steadily being reduced.

The major reduction occurred in 4.0. 

The variable bone influencers might only be an issue if your meshes had a highest # observed > 4.  If that was the case, then 4.0 would have actually fixed it.

The vertex optimization did all the size reduction.  It also caused the mesh not to be broken into 2 by staying under the limit.  It is not ideal, but can you flat shade the meshes and report?

4.4 added actions support.  This re-did the process of recording animation.  Might also want to go back to the last 4.0.x.

[gryff]

Quote

Might also want to go back to the last 4.0.x

Hmm will have to search see if I have a v4.0.x.

Jeff, are you saying that there is some break in backwards compatibility in order to get the file size reduction (which is impressive by the way )?

cheers, gryff

[JCPalmer]

Did not think so.  I had a thought though.  That scene looked a lot like the weird stuff during variable bone influencers development.  The .babylon files coming out of 4.0+ Blender exporters might not run on less than a 2.3 BJS runtime when they have armatures.  I checked the console, this is using 2.3-alpha.  Can you switch to exclusively using the latest final print of BJS for all tests?  Maybe alpha / betas for testing new features, but I do not want to be chasing my tail.

Even though the max influencers you have are less than 4, 4.0 exporters now sort the weights & indexes.  If let's say you had 4 vertices in a mesh with 5 influencers, you could force the mesh to have a max of 4.  You might think that would be the same as 4 fixed influencers, but since they are now sorted high to low, now the lowest would now be dropped rather than the one which listed last.

There are also vertex shader differences in 2.3.  Do not know that using 2.3 will fix this, but it is the best possible solution.

[gryff]

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Can you switch to exclusively using the latest final print of BJS for all tests?  Maybe alpha / betas for testing new features, but I do not want to be chasing my tail.

Of course Jeff. I actually downloaded the latest versions of the 4.4.1 exporter and babylon.2.3.js yesterday and used those in my tests. I had actually updated my local server to the latest BJS - but forgot to update the one at my dropbox. account. However my updated dropbox server still gives the "spaghetti monster".  as did my local server when I was testing locally.

If the BE 4.4.1 can be made to work - that is a very serious reduction in file size since BE1.13

I checked my file in Blender for bone influences on vertices - it is set to 4 (which I think is the Blender default). Just so you know, the mesh and rig ("game rig") come from MH 1.0.2** - which you probably guessed . The animation itself is CMU 06-02 reduced to 30fps in bvhacker.

Do you want the blend file to play with ?

I've updated the BJS to the latest preview version (2.4?) -no change. And the basic starting blend file for all exports above, in a zip, is here

cheers, gryff

** Downloaded MH1.1.0 for windows release today - finally it arrives

[JCPalmer]

Pushed out exporter version 4.4.2, but that was just to include a producer section in the .babylon file:

{"producer":{"name":"Blender","version":"2.76 (sub 0)","exporter_version":"4.4.3","file":"base_male3.babylon"}

This supports the new FileLoader logging.  This process is just out of control / audit trail Free.  Showing what exactly made this file from what is on the inside of the file, gives a base line for finding errors like mixing in old .babylon files with newer ones, or newer BJS runtimes.  Not knowing where / when the file came from just leads to speculation.

As far as your problem, I have managed to get it to with 4.1.0.  The big reduction in file size happened in 4.0.x, so that is not the issue.

In 4.2.x, both ik & actions were introduced.  It does not work with 4.2.  I found some problems with the frame #'s not matching & disagreeing with range by 1 frame. 4.4.3 fixed that, but not the problem so not released. 

I did a mass replace to the working 4.1.0 file to make each frame its own line, and 4.3 generates that way.  I saw some of the matrixes of the animation were different (5% of them).  Using Netbean's side-by-side diff tool, I clicked the 4.1.0 values into the 4.3 file.  Problem not fixed.

What is disturbing is the # of vertices in the mesh is different slightly. The indices are the same, so I know it is because of optimization difference.  Also thinking it might be the reordering of work caused by ik.  You see, in order to ignore bones, you have to process the skeleton (pose them for animation) first.  Before, things were processed in whatever order Blender gave them to me.  Maybe in my tests, they all would have processed the skeleton first anyway.  Will have to check.  First will check your logs to see if they did mesh first.

Right now this is on hold.  Just got TOB 5.0 to run with it broken into 13 files.  Need to see if I can add calls to MHX2 for finger shape key construction & another process to combine the 50 face shape keys on the blender side.  This will greatly reduce the file size.

[JCPalmer]

It was the fact that in order to ignore ik bones, skeletons need to be processed prior to meshes.  There was at the very beginning of the exporter to set the scene frame to 0. I just moved it after the pass to process all of the skeletons.  Version 4.4.4 handles this now.

 

[gryff]

Well I finally got time to try out BE4.4.4

WinXP PC (BE 4.4.4) Blender 2.76

Player 4

Jeff killed the "Spaghetti Monster". And the file size went from 1,957Kb to 1,961Kb - a mere bagatelle

Now some experimentation with MakeHuman1.1

cheers, gryff

[benoit-1842]

Did you have success with the 4.5 version.....  Me I am having a little spaghetti with 2.76 and the exporter 4.5......  If you could share the 4.4.4 I will be very happy to test that out.....

 

Thanx,

 

Benoit

[gryff]

No problems - no spaghetti!

WindowsXP , Blender 2.76, BE 4.5.0

Player 5

BE v 4.4.4. Hit the "RAW" button and save the file.

cheers gryff