<div dir="auto">I don’t know if Blender will be as useful for rigging without armature and Blender bones. This means that designers need to weigh in about whether to keep Blender bones, not someone who doesn’t even use Blender. People who use MakeHuman with Blender should weigh in on whether MPFB2 uses armature and Blender bones.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">My vote is to support both old and new ways for maximum flexibility, especially to interoperate with other formats which do include armature.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">However, I am trying to dispose of the old “FLAT” import mechanism for Blender.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">There’s no way I’m going to join the Blender team and turn the ship around, not doing C++ for 25 years and no leadership skills. It’s up to Blender users to push Blender in the right direction. If you’re not a Blender user, what’s the point?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The thing you’re proposing essentially means Blender without any HAnim, just add preprocessors and postprocessors. This just isn’t feasible with multiple GB files. We need good HAnim exporters without glomming onto glTF.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Consider using Blender as the Babelfish, instead of Omniverse. Our goals are different. You want a good 3D design tool, and I’m focused on “compiler technology.”</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Forcing people to use one single naming convention to convert Transforms into HAnim isn’t cool either, it just means that people who use HAnim names in their Transforms will suddenly get HAnim when they really wanted a Transform.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Ideally, Blender rigging could be objects instead of bones. That will likely cause a lot of upheaval in Blender.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But ask for it, maybe you’ll get it.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">John </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Why do we even need HAnim?</div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jun 7, 2024 at 4:55 PM Joe D Williams <<a href="mailto:joedwil@earthlink.net">joedwil@earthlink.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0">> <span style="font-size:12pt">Major point: both Blender bones and Skeleton as Transforms should be supported for maximum flexibility. What are your thoughts?</span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt">Treat that model as it should have been treated years ago and abandon it. </span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt">That is just a simplified convention they adopted in days of yore duplicating mechanical armature and making stop motion videos with no or minimum computer thus should be updated to use terminology and hierarchy of x3d hanim. </span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt">Number 1 is creating fullhanim skeleton by using the blender gui or by importing the minimum skeleton I last sent into blender then adjusting that data to be able to export to x3d. </span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt">Then a user can use the example hanim to start with. </span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt">The way we expose the hanim skeleton hierarchy of Joint, Segment, Site is simply to create the hierarchy with names that can be recognized and organize a system of data for export to x3d. </span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt">So, recall that if they talk bone orientation, it is the same as joint rotation and vertex weights by bone is same as weights by Joint, when rigged correctly. Same for all, even Unity, because it is a just better way to deal with details. Under the covers the data is the same</span></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0">The mission is to update blender to hamin from their archaic current abstractions to terms and structures of x3d hanim, or, alternately, get tools like castle, x3dom, xcite, freewrl and others to become more than just a player and add some even simple ways to create and edit the skeleton and geometry and animations and work more directly with authors to create a complete x3d scene. A great example of the old days was viz3d and flux and BS Content studio. The x3d sai is capable of producing a native x3d authoring tool. </p>
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<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0">Thanks,</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0">Joe</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
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<p style="margin:0.1rem 0;line-height:1.0"><span style="font-size:12pt">.</span></p>
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<p>-----Original Message-----<br>From: John Carlson <<a href="mailto:yottzumm@gmail.com" target="_blank">yottzumm@gmail.com</a>><br>Sent: Jun 6, 2024 1:59 PM<br>To: GPU Group <<a href="mailto:gpugroup@gmail.com" target="_blank">gpugroup@gmail.com</a>>, Joe D Williams <<a href="mailto:joedwil@earthlink.net" target="_blank">joedwil@earthlink.net</a>><br>Cc: Katy Schildmeyer KS APPAREL DESIGN <<a href="mailto:katy@ksappareldesign.com" target="_blank">katy@ksappareldesign.com</a>>, X3D Graphics public mailing list <<a href="mailto:x3d-public@web3d.org" target="_blank">x3d-public@web3d.org</a>><br>Subject: Re: Can you get this X3D animation imported into Blender?</p>
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<div dir="auto">Sorry TL;DR. Major point: both Blender bones and Skeleton as Transforms should be supported for maximum flexibility. What are your thoughts?</div></div><div style="border-left:1px solid #aaa;box-sizing:border-box;padding:10px 0 10px 15px;margin:0">
<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto">Replying to Joe:</div>
<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto">Understood. AFAIK, I still need blender bones to export weights right now, but Blender bones only provide for Joints, not segments or sites (can I attach EMPTYs to Blender bones in a particular mode?). I will experiment with attaching weights to EMPTYs (joints), then on export, I will move weight detection from Blender bones to EMPTYs, we can do limited mapping on export, but asking someone to map an entire LOA4 skeleton is unrealistic. I don’t even like LOA1-LOA2 in VRM and BVH. Such user-specified mapping should be saved for reuse. I can already do MoMask BVH joint mapping on export (but not “End Site” yet). We probably won’t be able to save HAnim to VRM skeletons, and I think that USDSkel may do armature/bones as well, so I’m not seeing X3D to USD Skel particularly working. <strong>I think Doug suggested a separate skeleton mapping app</strong>, perhaps this feasible. It’s just not realistic with glTF files exported to 8GB-14GB X3D files 200 times the size of a Blender file.</div>
<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto">The good news is, I got small Transform hierarchies import mostly working in Blender with matrix_local and translation. Now to follow through with centers and HAnim. Moving like molasses, but with simple examples, things are easier and moving faster without waiting years for import and tons of logging.</div>
<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto"><strong>Katy can comment on rigging and armature in Blender, </strong>as what might be missing if we don’t import Blender bones, this may severely impact the apparel workflow in Blender.</div>
<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto"><strong>Most likely, both paths should be supported.</strong> I hope you are in agreement. Perhaps separating out the import/export into separate addons would make decisions easier.</div>
<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto">Your additional thoughts are welcome.</div>
<div><br>
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<div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 2:48 PM Joe D Williams <<a href="mailto:joedwil@earthlink.net" target="_blank">joedwil@earthlink.net</a>> wrote:</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:#cccccc">
<div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;color:#000000">
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">> <span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;white-space:normal;float:none;display:inline;color:#000000">Can we use the same transform code in Blender for both Transform and HAnim?</span> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Yes, if blender transform operation can use 'center', which Joint needs. Just name the objects so the Humanoid, Joint, Segment, Site transforms can be transcoded at export into into HAnim hierarchy. </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Joe</p>
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<p>-----Original Message-----<br>From: John Carlson <<a href="mailto:yottzumm@gmail.com" rel="noopener" target="_blank">yottzumm@gmail.com</a>><br>Sent: Jun 6, 2024 5:03 AM<br>To: Joe D Williams <<a href="mailto:joedwil@earthlink.net" rel="noopener" target="_blank">joedwil@earthlink.net</a>><br>Cc: Katy Schildmeyer KS APPAREL DESIGN <<a href="mailto:katy@ksappareldesign.com" rel="noopener" target="_blank">katy@ksappareldesign.com</a>>, X3D Graphics public mailing list <<a href="mailto:x3d-public@web3d.org" rel="noopener" target="_blank">x3d-public@web3d.org</a>><br>Subject: Re: Can you get this X3D animation imported into Blender?</p>
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<div dir="auto">Okay, Joe. Now to get this working in Blender, since you’ve confirmed the behavior. Thanks!</div>
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<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto">Can we use the same transform code in Blender for both Transform and HAnim?</div>
<div dir="auto"> </div>
<div dir="auto">John</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div class="gmail_attr" dir="ltr">On Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 5:35 AM Joe D Williams <<a href="mailto:joedwil@earthlink.net" rel="noopener" target="_blank">joedwil@earthlink.net</a>> wrote:</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:#cccccc">
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<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Hi John, </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">You sent this: </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> <Transform DEF="TransformRoot1" center="0 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> <Transform DEF="TransformTargetParent1" center="4 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> <Transform DEF="TransformTargetChild1" center="8 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> </Transform><br> </Transform><br> </Transform></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Not shown here is the interpolator that sends rotations to both Parent and Child Transforms</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">For this animation code you sent this did exactly what it should have done.</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">The boxes start at 0 0 0 then are swept along the axis according to the Parent and Child Transform nodes animation input. </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Note that the initial position of all three boxes is 0 0 0, then they move along the radius from where you set the parent centers.</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Please have a look at this: </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">First, slight change from what you sent. </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Again, a important understanding is that "center" value of the Transform represents the center of rotation of that Transform, and may have nothing much to do with the value for translation, which is 0 0 0 for the parent Transform for each Shape. </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> <Transform DEF="CenterRoot1" center="0 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> <Transform DEF="CenterParent1" center="4 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> <Transform DEF="CenterChild1" center="8 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> </Transform><br> </Transform><br> </Transform></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">So again, all Shapes start at 0 0 0 then are swept through the arc defined by each parent Transform center. </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">This version operates like the hanim model.</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">The parent Transform is a "Joint" with center defined, then the Shape has its own Transform to place it at the parent center value.</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">(The first center="0 2 0" translation='0 2 0' just moves the is example up above the first example.) </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> <Transform DEF="TransformRoot2" center="0 2 0" translation='0 2 0'><br> <Transform DEF="MoveToCenterRoot" translation="0 2 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> </Transform><br> <Transform DEF="CenterTargetParent2" center="4 0 0"><br> <Transform DEF="TranslateTargetParent2" translation="4 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> </Transform><br> <Transform DEF="CenterTargetChild2" center="8 0 0"><br> <Transform DEF="TranslateTargetChild2" translation="8 0 0"><br> <Shape><br> <Box size='0.5 0.5 0.5'/><br> </Shape><br> </Transform><br> </Transform><br> </Transform><br> </Transform></p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">In Humanoid space, once the connection between using center to set the Joint center of rotation and then a child Transform to position any associated stuff in Humanoid space just makes it work wonderful for what we need in hanim.</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">I can recall a day when there were sincere discussions over whether to include the 'center' field in Transform. </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Thanks,</p>
<p style="margin:0.1rem 0px;line-height:1;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Joe</p>
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