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MDD File Format


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Although the MDD addition is wonderful I have to say that I am absolutely thrilled with the feedback and communication I've seen since the recent 'switch'. Seeing frequent communication from the developers REALLY has me excited about the future of EIAS. Even if the communication isn't date/product specific, it's just nice to hear from the actual developers on anything. It makes me feel like they're really listening... really involved... and they really care about this product. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this excited about the future of a product!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

ATV,

How do you mean? The bones come over from Maya with the rig intact? Or you get an animated skin with no bones?

If the second one, does this mean you can't reanimate within EI?

I Guess I'm not following your workflow.

ZBMaya>PointOven>EIAS

I don't have to rerig with FBX. No bones, just skin.

Thanks.

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Ola Scott,

When you bring a Character using FBX, you need to Bind the bones in your mesh, take care of weight map and so on, if you change the animation in 3D package which you exported the FBX and need to send again to EIAS, you will need to re-do the process of bind and weight maps.

Using MDD, you only need to send the mesh with any kind of complex deforms (the first frame of your animation exported like a OBJ), one file to each group of your Character, XSI, C4D (Repitidle Pro) and other softwares exports automaticly one obj file for each group of the animation and then export the same MDD (vertex motion) file to each group.

When you bring inside the EIAS, MDD plug-in will attatch automaticly a folder of MDD files from your scene to your converted OBJs groups in fact format.

If the client change your animation, you need only to preserve the first frame of your Animation in the previous 3d package, re-do the animation and export only the MDD (motion) files again, reload them inside EIAS MDD plug-in again and Render!! Voila!!!!

Fast feedback and changes, rendering in our Camera GEM.

Thanksss

Tom

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  • 2 weeks later...

Scott, it's only an animated skin, no bones at all. just a shell.

Thanks for the production savvy breakdown and tips Tomas. The MDD plugin is very savvy. No bones needed as with FBX. This makes your EIAS very fast and you can share the animation with other users and designer very quickly.

Sorry I haven't got back to this sooner. I thought I posted this sample already. They nice thing is effects like muscle sliding can be done in another app like Maya and imported into EIAS. FBX can't do that.

Also, I wanted to test MDD with DMM (explosions of destruction physics) expect Maya can't baked fracture. The point count changes.

Opps, posted this already. I'm having trouble when I use url www.eias3d.com I get a work in progress splash screen. I can only use bookmarks.

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  • 10 months later...

Lots of 3D packages like Houdini, XSI, Maya and Lightwave with PointOven do export MDD files but...

...so does Tafa, a 200$ Facial animation program (http://ta-animation.com/FA/index.htm) and Blender, (http://www.blender.org/) the FREE 3D program with a very nice toolset and Collada import...

Imagine the possibilities...:)

Did Felix see this yet? I want to see him jump for JOY !! :-)

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  • 1 year later...

Is it necessary to output the morph models from Maya ? It would seem I only need to bake or cache the main model?

I'm outputting MDD files from Maya to EIAS and I have a 3 morphs for the shape of the eye blinks. Do I need to output the targets as well and group them in the MDD Plugin inorder for the effect to carry over into EIAS? The blink looks curved in Maya but in EIAS crosses through the eye in a linear interpolation.

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I did a morph test a year ago in MDD, I forgot. Then I did a quick test out of Maya. It worked. The problem is with a merge on a previously skinned is not resolving because I can't delete history. It's a Maya/PointOven problem not EIAS problem... thanks.

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