I’ve been working on a native Maya importer/exporter plugin named Muskoka
which will seek to support import/export for ET MD3, MDC and MDM/MDX formats,
and for the sake of compatibility, MD2, MDS and MD5 formats are good candidates.
Currently I’m working on IMPORT side of things with MD3 and MDC proceeding nicely.
For now, the plugin is only available for Maya 7, Linux binary.
If you happen to use Maya under Linux and are interested in helping test and
offer feedback, please send me a PM.
Congrats man. I’m really looking forward this. I promise you that if your plugins will work that I will put it to good use.
I wrote you a PM, please check it out. Although I’m only under Windows, I’d still love to help you with your plugin.
Also I want to ask you if your import/export for mdc and mdm does include the tags/tags on the bones too?
Will I be able to attach a new mesh to the rig?
Yes, TAGS are looking good so far. To give an update, I’ve spent the last 2 days
porting to Windows, but aside from that the first half of the translator is looking good,
(IMPORT). Thus far here’s where I’m at:
MD2 - imports mesh and animations (both TRI and GLCOMMANDs supported)
MD3 - imports mesh and animations, tags and tag-animations, texture coords
MDC - imports mesh and animations, tags and tag-animations, texture coords
MDX - imports bones and animations (ends up as joints in Maya)
MDM - basic decoding/dump is complete, no importing that is useful yet.
(anyone have a good MDL spec? I’d like to see how much trouble that would be)
I also have a ‘dump’ tool for each format which lets someone spit out
all the information from command line (unix shell or windows command.exe) to help
see the raw contents of each file. Additionally, the options panel for each import
type is fairly detailed with lots of good options. So in short, here’s my list of things
to do:
offer a ‘tag join’ or ‘tag merge’ option during import where applicable
finish up the Windows port
make Alpha release (only IMPORT support at the moment) for Linux and Windows
maybe affix automatic texture import (shader/file creation in Maya)
work on EXPORT while some people try the Alpha.
RE: your question about attaching a new ‘mesh to the rig’… my goal is to provide
enough support to import the skeleton, and export the skeleton as MDX to enable
new player animations, and also the flip-side, export a mesh as MDM. That’s
assuming I can figure out how to import MDM first
The other good news is thus far, the plugin is 100% Maya API, and MEL is only
used for the options GUI, so it’s relatively fast.
Excellent news! I’m sure the majority of Maya users around here are looking forward to the MDM and MDX import/export the most, because as far as we know, Lightray3D is the only app that can do that directly. I’m running Maya 6.5, so when you release a version of the plugin compatible with that, I’m willing to help test it out.
Is the tag_join or tag_merge option similar to the “auto-attach” option in MD3 gmax plugin? So when you’d import your animated tags and then import models that attach to it, it would then “auto-attach” said models to their relevant animated tags?
Yes, it will be similar. I haven’t put too much thought into it yet, but parenting the
slave-tag (eg: a static weapon model) on the master-tag (eg: an animated tag) is
probably an appropriate approach in Maya. So it might end up being an option as
“[ENABLE] auto parent tagged meshes as [SELECT] master or [SELECT] slave”
which should allow one to import in any order. Will probably require that one ‘selects’
mesh(s) before doing such an import because there could be more than one mesh
already in maya with same tag names.
Beta release available: Muskoka plugin for Maya 6.0, 6.5 and 7.0 on Linux and Windows XP platforms. MD3 import/export support is done, and MDC import is done. MD2 reference importer works. tags, tag-anims, vertex-anims, are functional.
For a more detailed feature list, please take a look inside docs/Features.txt file included in the RAR bundles. I’ve created a Yahoo group for the plugin, which is where you can find the download bundles.
Kick ass. As always the best things in life are for free. Mucho cudos to the Mr.Mxy who did an awesome job without getting any grant for it. Cant wait for the MDX-MDM export to be fully functional.
Cant wait for the MDX-MDM export to be fully functional
Of course, that’s the HUGE thing about this plugin… don’t forget the other thing…
At last! We have a good MD3 plugin for Maya! Finally I can do all my ET work in Maya without having to export it to to milkshape or gmax and be forced to work in their awkward UIs. Eeew. I can get stuff done in Maya about 10x faster.
For that alone, Mr. Mxyzptlk deserves a cookie! Excellent job so far!
