XNA UK User Group

I have posted this on the CC site as well but seem to be getting no joy, so thought I would as the UK community :) 

I have created a very simple model in blender, a pipe, and have given it two armatures, I have then animated this model and exported it to an FBX file.

I am attempting to use this model in the Skinned Animation Sample, but I get a compilation error when model goes through the SkinnedModelPipeline "Input Skeleton not found", this occurs when the MeshHelper.FindSkeleton method returns null.

Now this model animates fine in blender (using keyframes) so I know the animations are there (have also seen them in the file) but obviously it is not exporting a skeleton. What do I need to do to get blender to export this skeleton data?

Thanks in advance.

 Are you using blender 2.44? If so,it did not support FBX animation exporting but 2.45 is supposed to.

Alas 2.45.

 Thanks for the reply..

As you clear one hurdle you hit another, got past this error msg now by Ctrl-J to join the armatures to the model (I know, I am a noob!)

But I now get this compiler error:

Error normalizing vertex bone weights. BoneWeightCollection does not contain any weighting values

This error occurs regardless of what pipeline processor I use, any of you guys know how to get this collection populated when exporting to an FBX file in blender??

Thanks.

I've been scouring the entire net for information on getting an animated FBX model from Blender to the SkinnedSample to work. I've actually gotten passed your error and have my model actually rendering, the only problem is for every vertex which is attached to an animated bone, it doesn't render.

 I was wondering if you had gotten through you empasse? Maybe we can share some information on this. I was really set on using Blender as my content creation tool, but problems like this and the lack of documention and help on how to properly create the content is giving me headaches.

Regard,

Terloon 

Hi Terloon,

I have not got passed this issue, but have an idea I have not tried yet, which is to use my current method of animation in Blender coupled with the bone weight painting method and see if this gets past my issue.

Be nice to know what you do to get you model through the content pipeline, maybe I can help once I know how you do what you do.

So far my methods are pretty simple. Steps I should be able to describe to a 3d artist some time down the road of my project. Here goes:

1. Create model to animate.

2. Add armatures. So far my armatures have been pretty basic. Enough to make a few blocks wave.

3. Set weight values by weight painting.

4. Create animations in the Action Editor. 

5.  Name this armature.

6. Add an armature modifier to the mesh object and make sure it references the armature I named.

7. Use the FBX exporter made by RobotronHer which can be found here. www.triplebgames.com

8. In the SimpleSkinned XNA application, add an existing content item and select that exported FBX file.

9. Select the imported fbx file properties and make sure it uses the SkinnedModelProcessor for the Content Processor property.

10. In the SkinnedSample code, make sure you on the line:

AnimationClip clip = skinningData.AnimationClips["Walk"];

That "Walk" was an animation action in blender that you made.

11. Compile and run.

All this have been by memory, but that should be the general steps I've been doing. The model loads, renders, and animates, but, as always, I've met another snag. The orientation of the model is incorrect. In Blender, I have the top of the model going towards Z+, but when it renders in SkinnedSample, the top of the model renders towards Y-.  

Well it sounds like you are almost there... If I get time tonight I will have a play with this and see if I can get to where you are and then may have some ideas on how to get your orientation sorted.

What version of blender are you on?

I am using Blender 2.45.  

 Hello, I'm having the same problem:

I named my armature "Armature" and added it to the mesh weight painted it, unfortunatly using both .fbx exporters (from robotron and blender) I still get:

Error    1    Error normalizing vertex bone weights. BoneWeightCollection does not contain any weighting values....

 I must be doing something wrong, but I have no clue what it is. 

I think you need to weight paint the model.

Have not chance yet, but the guys who wrote Fitba have created an FBX exporter for blender so that might elevate some of our problems, and there is also the possibility of a tutorial.....

Fingers crossed eh..

OK, ik seems that one has to join the mesh and the armature [ctrl+j], for the fbx exporter to export bone weight correctly. 

Ahh, yes don't forget the join :P

You have an animation to play in the sample now??

Nope. I'm still getting the bone weight error...

I'm trying with other .fbx files from the .fbx wiki (press help in the exporter). They seem not to have the problem, so I'm goign to look into what makes those different. 

I still havn't gotten an animation to play in the sample. I'll try that Fitba thing later. I actually moved on to other parts of my code for now.