RE: xsi to maya envelope

[Raffaele Scaduto-Medola <raffaele(at)inch.com>]

Lu is right,

I setup a system were we could rebuild rigs (so when ever we made changes 
to the rigs, or one of the rigs needed to be fixed we would just rebuild 
it), and run a script to reapply weightmaps (by reading a weightMap file).

Now you can use presets (for XSI->XSI) but the problem remains that if you 
change some of the influences names/setup, you can't edit your "setup" 
file. In our case we could change the influence name in the text file and 
run/attach the envellope again.

As a general rule, some of the more laborious/manual labor intensive 
things you can do in rigging is applying and tweaking weightMaps, so its 
really important as a TD to have access to the data (in ASCII form) 
"should anything happen" that would mean rebuilding the rig. The preset is 
nice, but its a closed format, not easy to edit. Now if it was a text 
file... with maybe xml tags %-}

We extended the process to also save uv data maps (again just in case), 
and have also worked on a process to save out data for blendShapes (as 
well as corrective shapes).

As a side note, since I am using Point Oven, I think the lwo format 
(Lightwave scene Object) does allow to save out multiple vertex maps 
including "weightMaps". As in Lightwave, the lws file contains the actual
rig, and the lwo contains the weightmaps which get reconnected at load 
file time (from what I've been able to gather).

So theoretically you could save out a .lwo out of XSI->lwo using 
the point oven plugin, and then import the lwo into Maya. But I'm not sure 
if lwo import in Maya includes a weighMap file, and you would still have 
to recreate the rig (which you can if you have a standard scripted process 
in both software).

I remember looking at FBX, and .XSI formats. but there are limited.
And there are issues transfering rotational coordinate information of XSI 
bones onto Maya joints.

And as a general rule, I stay away from anything that involves .obj format 
as you are not sure you will always get the same point index order.

RSM

_____________________________________________________
Raffaele Scaduto-Mendola - charSetupSup - Gigapix
			   www.turbolinea.com
			   raffaele(at)turbolinea.com

On Tue, 7 Mar 2006, Andre DeAngelis wrote:

> Someone posted 2 scripts to write and read envelopw weight data out to
> an excel spreadhseet, posted on XSI base recently. (Jeremy Meunier aka
> The Ki e-mai: jeremy.meunier(at)gmail.com / http://kiworld.free.fr)
>
> Raffaele,
>
> Why did you write this data out to ASCII if you were simply transferring
> from XSI to XSI?  I we have used this for symmetry maps but haven't had
> the need to go beyond XSI presets.
>
> Would be interested ot hear your views.
>
> AD
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf
> Of Raffaele Scaduto-Medola
> Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:57 PM
> To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
> Subject: Re: xsi to maya envelope
>
> I would recommend the easiest solution is to write a script to export
> out point[index] weightList/influence information as a table.
>
> This was one of the main component of our rigging pipeline at Omation
> (from XSI->XSI), but I have used the same process for Maya.
> Saving weightMaps, UV data, cluster data in general would be better in
> an ascii file format.
>
> For weight map you will want to save a table with...
> pointIndex, xPosition, yPosition, zPosition, weightValueForInfluenceA,
> weightValueForInfluence B, ....
> ...
>
> It would be nice if both XSI and Maya provided for binary plugins to
> read data apply data (Fast), as you will need to write a script to write
> the data out of XSI (slow) and then a reader script to read the data in
> Maya (really slow).
>
> The same process can be used for UV data, blendShapes/MorphTargets.
> The reason for storing x,y,z point position is should your point index
> information ever changed, you can still reapply weights based on a
> closest point algorythm.
>
> Not the perfect solution, but workable.
>
> Cheers,
> RSM
>
> _____________________________________________________
> Raffaele Scaduto-Mendola - charSetupSup - Gigapix
> 			   www.turbolinea.com
> 			   raffaele(at)turbolinea.com
>
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