Proper Hierarchy in XSI

[NeptuneImaging]

Good evening... I am trying to test my model to be used in Unreal, and I am using the ActorX plugin for XSI 7.01 which is for me, I am starting to hate it...i can export static meshes perfectly but when it comes to skeletal meshes it is a mixed bag...

Right now, i am doing the scene info and it says I only have one bone...is there some sort of hierarchy that i have to follow...?

[NeptuneImaging]

Okay, by looking at Liam's skeleton in the skeletal mesh viewer, i think I have the correct hierarchy for animating a character that will be used for the game i want to make... it took some fiddling around in XSI to get this right and moving the bones into their correct parents...

TIP: you have to make sure all of the bones that go in a branch. With the shadow rig generated, the bone were in a very fractured tree. Like a leg, the WHOLE leg chain must be there for clean import

[RT-Visualization]

Good to hear that someone found a solution...right now I only exported static meshes and some animated objects ( flags just for test )...can you provide more information about that? I'm very interested since I use XSI as well

[NeptuneImaging]

I've been fiddling around with this all morning...basically, you just have to make sure that from the lead root all the way to the other end is ONE CHAIN. This is a painful process too... and my first time really using an Skeletal mesh inside of unreal. And i had my own custom rig and I hated to delete it...

I'll post a screenshot...i am still trying to get the jawbone imported...

[RT-Visualization]

So, let me guess, if you use an already build-up biped guide and then you add a biped rig is not gonna work, is that right?
I remember there was a videotutorial ( when AcrotX was released ) about import a rigged character from XSI to Unreal, but I can't find it on youtube...I will try to do as you said, but I suppose is quite painfull!

[NeptuneImaging]

What i did was, I generated the rig from the biped guide... everything looks fine... but for the shadow rig, i had to rearrange the hierarchy so that the hips is the master and everything else goes under it... so if you make two chains for the legs and feet, you would to make them all one chain for unreal...

[polix]

It would be nice to see a Video Tut created for this very thing for XSI to UDK to help
cut down on mistakes. Still searching here for something like that.

[RT-Visualization]

I agree with polix, something similar will be great, but I think that your description is quite enough to achieve a rig character and import it into UDK, so thanks for sharing!

[NeptuneImaging]

I agree... now I just have to add a root bone and I am all set for my model... now i ran into an issue with the model not deforming like it is supposed to... we definitely need a proper and in depth XSI to unreal tutorial involving character models... and I am not experienced enough with the UDK to give one...

[polix]

Maybe we can contact this person and see if he would be intersted in throwing one together for all of us.
http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3modeling1.htm

[NeptuneImaging]

That would be awesome... but it leaves me to wonder if he uses XSI at all

[NeptuneImaging]

So, with further experimentation of making my character rigs, I am noticing that it is missing the root bone... and I did place it in the level, and i am trying to figure out how to place it at the feet so the model is not twisted in positon...