TMT uploads are all shifted now??

[ArtiX]

Ok, i was kind of scratching my head earlier because one of my uploads was weirdly orientated, i then deleted all bones and did another XForm before collapsing it into the poly. Even though the XForm operation was having an effect on the next upload, BUT ALL uploads i did today with several different models are shifted about 30 degrees ingame. They are ALL shifted. The three models are animated, Y is up (i tried Z up as well, just to check) and no matter what i do (same procedures as before, on one occasion even a FBX that worked fine before, they are misplaced in PlanCo.


Here's a screenshot, see how weird it looks? It still worked yesterday.


Dear devs, I have to say i find this VERY annoying because there should be some documentation on any changes that occur, after all we need to have something reliable to work with, and while it's still being refined, it's needless to say we can't help with the bughunting if we have to fly blindfolded.
PLEASE, in the future, create some log so we can keep track of the changes and give the appropriate technical feedback.





Did anyone else experience this?

 

[Asgaurd1]

No M8, I have not had this problem appear on my static scenery uploads at all, they all work as intended. (except for glass of course ). But im not using bones yet, so that may be why they are ok. But the uploads to the thememakers toolkit seem to be getting very sluggish to process, probably due to amount of submissions.

 

[ArtiX]

The error still occurs, no matter what i do i just can't upload animated objects anymore. I've tried every possible combination, even reverse engineered the objects in different authoring packages but the animations are all fine, except after being uploaded into the game. So this is definetly a bug inside the upload tool. And if no one else experiences this it's even more strange. Static objects, most of the time, are correctly transferred and displayed, though. Animated objects are tilted by about 30 degrees and the animation never works the way it should.


To be honest, i'm really losing all my motivation to bother with creating assets for PlanCo. at all, because this is just frustrating and i'm just wasting my time with trying to find a workaround for this, to no avail.
I'd rather be going back to creating assets for the game instead.

On top of that, some of my uploaded items that use opacity maps, now are broken, too. This seems to be quite recent, with the last update prepping PlanCo for the new MRP DLC.

 

[alco82]

Artix - I've been having issues with the animations, not so much around 30 degrees, but the axis of rotation of the bones being 90 deg off.

Not sure if it was something to do with Blender 2.8, so have been trying the same items in Blender 2.79.


Things to check

- what are your local axis of the meshes and armature? Are they Y up, Z forward - are they both the same as each other?
- Did you rotate your armature -90deg around X axis before exporting as FBX?
- Did you set FBX export as Y forward and Z up?
- Did you apply all of the translations / rotations and scale modifiers before exporting?

The error still occurs, no matter what i do i just can't upload animated objects anymore. I've tried every possible combination, even reverse engineered the objects in different authoring packages but the animations are all fine, except after being uploaded into the game. So this is definetly a bug inside the upload tool. And if no one else experiences this it's even more strange. Static objects, most of the time, are correctly transferred and displayed, though. Animated objects are tilted by about 30 degrees and the animation never works the way it should.


To be honest, i'm really losing all my motivation to bother with creating assets for PlanCo. at all, because this is just frustrating and i'm just wasting my time with trying to find a workaround for this, to no avail.
I'd rather be going back to creating assets for the game instead.

On top of that, some of my uploaded items that use opacity maps, now are broken, too. This seems to be quite recent, with the last update prepping PlanCo for the new MRP DLC.

 

[ArtiX]

Artix - I've been having issues with the animations, not so much around 30 degrees, but the axis of rotation of the bones being 90 deg off.

Not sure if it was something to do with Blender 2.8, so have been trying the same items in Blender 2.79.


Things to check

- what are your local axis of the meshes and armature? Are they Y up, Z forward - are they both the same as each other?
- Did you rotate your armature -90deg around X axis before exporting as FBX?
- Did you set FBX export as Y forward and Z up?
- Did you apply all of the translations / rotations and scale modifiers before exporting?

Did it work when you went back to Blender 2.79?

I use max2019 with Y-up and Z-forward, settings and workflow are the same as back when it worked. I tested the error with the Cage lights assets which worked before this error started to occur, they use bone animation for the different lighting states, but when i upload them now its just tilted (you can see the broken light adjacent to its functioning counterpart in the picture at the top)
but they give the same error when i upload the same fbx file that worked before, they tilt and the animation keys seem to be wrong too with every object i try to upload.


It just doesn't make any sense. I tried pretty much everything now including different versions of 3ds max, to no avail. Tried different compatibilities, settings and setups (root dummy, bone root, no rootBone, they all give the exact same result) I'm sure it's not on the authoring side, as the result is always the same, no matter what settings i change. And it did work before this started to occur.
It seems Blender doesn't share the severity of the bug, but as you also point out, it acts weird too.(At least B2.8) (installing Blender would be the next step for me as this is so extremely annoying (90 degrees makes total sense.. but 30ish-45ish???)

If all else fails i'll either take a longer break from asset creation until they sorted out the bugs or if Blender 2.79 still works, i'll do the animations with Blender instead.


My guess is, they optimized TMT for Blender two weeks ago and with it they introduced a couple of bugs on Max's bone translation.


If the devs had bothered to release a changelog where we could look up what has been changed at what point, i could probably find the cause for what is breaking the animation.

What's even more weird, 3ds max animation is usually baked and resampled before export (if you set the correct settings) and thus TMT only translates the baked keys.
The bug must be hidden somewhere in the bone translation system within TMT, i'd bet money on it. [mouth shut]

 

[alco82]

Yes, going back to Blender 2.79 did work from 2.8, this is because I couldn't get the Y up Z forward correct in Blender 2.8. When applying the rotation of X -90 to the armature, in Blender 2.8 it sent the mesh round 90 deg as well (back the wrong way) - something to do with the way it was parented, but couldn't work it out. Works fine in 2.79 (however I do like the features in 2.8 other than this!)

Will probably use 2.8 for static items, and 2.79 for animated items, until someone can point it out!

Your right that 30deg does seem odd, but I am not a Max expert, can you send me the FBX and I'll see what it looks like in Blender?

 

[ArtiX]

I forgot to mention it only affects animated objects. Static objects upload as intended.

I'll prepare two simple skinned files for you, one with a dummy root (will translate to a regular rootbone) and one with just a keyframe bone.
I doubt it will shed any light on the bug, as you'll only be able to import the .fbx, not the .max file. It should display correctly on your end.

How shall i send them?

 

[alco82]

On discord?