Hello hello

So I have been searching for guides, tutorials and information on how to smoothly and seamlessly get a 3D animated object from Maya into a format that Flash/Away3D can read for the passed 2 days and have found lots of stuff, all of which does not work.

It really should not be this hard to find a guide!

So far I assume my best workflow would be to animate object in Maya, export as DAE_FBX, import into Prefab and export model and vertex animation as MD2.

But this leaves a whole lot of questions unanswered:

1) What are the specifications of the model and animations? Can I have multiple meshes? Can I use bones, deformers, blendshapes? Can I use Maya’s geometry cache as vertex animation?

2) How on earth do I get my animated mesh into Prefab3D??? There are no guides or tutorials on how to import an animated object into Prefab3D, well, at least I cannot find one.

3) What format is least resource intensive, based on bones/vertex animation and file format used?

4) What materials can I use? Can I use normal, specular, bump maps?

5) What are the export settings needed in the DAE_FBX file? What are the settings for other, better formats?

Most important question is number 2.

In short: what are the specifications, limitations and workflows I should use?

Thank you in advance, getting really frustrated here

I’m no Maya user, but I think what you’re looking for is the AWD exporter.
It supports animation, and is a compressed binary format specifically for Away3D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuiq9WENSUQ

Good Luck!

For any 3D Studio Max users I highly recommend the SEA3D exporter. It’s just about perfect, also for materials and animation.

Thanks for the quick reply, but I already knew about the exporter and that video.

The thing is that the video is just a demonstration, and not a guide. It is so impossible to install the plugin because there are no guides. I have tried many methods, all having different issues.

And that just “answered” one of the many other questions I have…

sorry to hear that.

My only other thought would be AwayBuilder, that I believe has superseded Prefab. I’ve used it to convert DAE to AWD, not sure about the animation support.
http://awaytools.com/awaybuilder/live-tool/
The online version freezes on large models for me, but worth a shot.

Hopefully a Maya user will chip in. That would be the handiest workflow for sure.

@adventure Time. Simply drop your file onto Prefab, or right click the file and select open, or use the import options within prefab or drop on dock icon. Any supported formats with animation will be automatiqually set for you. Select the object to revel the animation player.

@mighty let’s see again that in a few weeks from now

Fabrice Closier - 27 November 2013 11:54 AM

@adventure Time. Simply drop your file onto Prefab, or right click the file and select open, or use the import options within prefab or drop on dock icon. Any supported formats with animation will be automatiqually set for you. Select the object to revel the animation player.

@mighty let’s see again that in a few weeks from now

@Fabrice Closier when I import a DAE file for example there is no animation on it. So then I tried importing an FBX into 3ds Max and using the AWD exporter, but again, when I open the AWD in Prefab there is no animation on it.

Hey Farbice, glad to know it’s still alive

I understand Prefab is your solo project, and god knows we all need them,
but wouldn’t it be an idea to focus the limited resources of the team into a single editor that does everything?

Just my 2 cents

Oh, and someone could also fix the Maya plugin. That would probably be of the greatest benefit to Adventure Time, and all other Maya users workflow.

Cheers!

@adventure, if you’ve got MAX use SEA!

EDIT:

Ok so I got my animation into SEA3D, but what now? I can’t seem to export it as anything else other than a .sea file? How do I export it as a .awd or .md2 or other? Or can away3D read .sea files? What is the point of getting it into Sea3D?

If you take a look at the documentation for SEA3D you will see they maintain classes for Away3D to read the files in, and so far I have always found these to be up to date. I suggest taking a look through the many AS3 examples from.
https://code.google.com/p/sea3d/
as well as the wiki, and their forum for any specific questions.
You will also find some threads here.

I’m still using version 1.5 because it works so perfectly for me, I’m almost afraid to upgrade.

Good Luck!

theMightyAtom - 27 November 2013 12:05 PM

Hey Farbice, glad to know it’s still alive

I understand Prefab is your solo project, and god knows we all need them,
but wouldn’t it be an idea to focus the limited resources of the team into a single editor that does everything?

Just my 2 cents

QUOTE!

I think it’ll be impossible because Fabrice doesn’t want to release the code.
Fabrice please join Prefab with AwayBuilder so we can all concentrate with a single tool!!