Star Citizen 3.20 .Skin Files failing to export

[Baconator650]

Star Citizen 3.20 .Skin Files (specifically landing gear) failing to export

[Baconator650]

Also appears that .chr files fail to extract as well.

[Markemp]

Was this working on earlier versions?

[Baconator650]

It's a change in the ivo format.

There has been a lot of back and forth on versions working. But before 3.20 (using 3.19) we were able to convert the .skin files with 1.3.1 of the CGF-Converter with out issue and preserving the material naming convention that some use in their workflows.

[NargiT]

Any news about this ?

[Markemp]

Still working on getting animations working. Sorry this is taking so long. It's been a blocker for a few months now.

[Markemp]

This may not be so bad. Preliminarily it looks like he only gave new chunk type numbers for the objects. Testing a solution today and may have a preliminary 1.6 posted for those who want to use the 3.20/3.21 files

[Markemp]

Hmm... maybe it won't be so easy after all. Old on left, new is the bone garbage on the right.

[Baconator650]

Oh, thats a big difference. Have you tried experimenting with some of the landing gear?

[Markemp]

I take it back. I think I got it. I just forgot to handle the materials, so it failed spectacularly. I'll try the landing gear next. Have any in particular you want tested?

[Baconator650]

I have been using the AEGS_Gladius as my testing model as I can look at legacy stuff to compare it too. But for the new stuff probably the new Crusader A1/C1 would be a good test for a newer ship.

[Markemp]

Gladius landing gear. Armature is there too.

I'm having some problems getting the texture paths to output properly, so working on cleaning that up. Shouldn't be much longer.

[Baconator650]

Gladius landing gear. Armature is there too.

I'm having some problems getting the texture paths to output properly, so working on cleaning that up. Shouldn't be much longer.

Looking good!! To maybe save you some time, both Blender and 3DS Max users use specialized scripts to handle Star Citizen's complex and varied materials and only require the naming convention of the material to be like "lowtech_alpha_ext_a_mtl_graphical_tint_decal_a".

[Markemp]

Is it supposed to be -mtl- or _mtl_?

[Baconator650]

Is it supposed to be -mtl- or _mtl_?

The later

'mtl'

[Markemp]

Got it. The latest version of the branch should name the materials correctly now.

I'm close to doing a 1.6 release, so if you can find any bugs that need addressing or some updates, let me know. Thanks!

edit: derp. I could have answered my own question by lookup up a comment or two. 🤦

[NargiT]

Thank you for your work @Markemp

[Almightykitten]

So I compiled the current repository and it just converts to the folder that is navigated in powershell, and not where the source files are.

[Markemp]

So I compiled the current repository and it just converts to the folder that is navigated in powershell, and not where the source files are.

I'm not sure I follow. Converts what to the folder?

[Baconator650]

So I compiled the current repository and it just converts to the folder that is navigated in powershell, and not where the source files are.

I'm not sure I follow. Converts what to the folder?

Having the same issue was batch converting. The collada files are being placed in the folder in which powershell is opened in, not the same folder where the .cgf, .cga, .skin

[Markemp]

Err... that's not good. Can you show the commands you are running when that happens?

[Almightykitten]

For example: The command: Get-ChildItem -Recurse *.cga, *.cgf, *.chr, *.skin -exclude *_lod* | ForEach-Object -parallel {cgf-converter -smooth -en proxy -em proxy -en bbox -en "3D_VisArea" -em nocollision_faces -en gut -en damage -en dmg -prefixmatnames -notex $_ -objectdir "F:\sc_modding\scdv_trial\all_my_stuff\Data"}

In previous versions that correctly converted to the same locations as the individual source files, now it converts it all to the location you navigated to with powershell.

Starfab has them all pooling up in its directory too when it uses it

[Almightykitten]

Another thing it ignores the path for the mtl in the cga/cgf/skin file if it has .mtl at the end of it, so you don't get the actual material names in the converted dae. This be a problem for older files. And again previous versions didn't have issues with that.

With these problems fixed it would actually be ready to be published again.

[Markemp]

Ok, thanks for the info. I'll take a look at it and see if I can figure out what broke. Sorry about that!

[Markemp]

Was this working on a recent commit? Can you help me pinpoint the time it stopped working?

[Almightykitten]

reckon its the function Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension from commit

[Markemp]

Pushed up a new commit that I'm hoping fixes these issues. Can you test them out and let me know?

[Baconator650]

Think it might be a problem with how I am compiling it, but I have been getting this.

[Baconator650]

And this...

Files are placed in their proper folder though

[Markemp]

Hm... the material name is a problem. Something like -material-27 means it couldn't find the material file. Are these 3.20 or 3.22 files? I haven't downloaded the latest version yet.

[Markemp]

This is v3.21. Looks vaguely like a landing gear too?

[Baconator650]

3.22 files

[Markemp]

Ok, let me download them and take a look.

[Markemp]

Here's the 3.22 CRUS Spirit:

Can you build again and see if it's working? Not sure why it failed.

[Baconator650]

I think it's a user error on my part on building and publishing it to an exe.

[Baconator650]

Found the issue causing the errors. User error using StarFab, exported the mtl in a json format (needed for Max scripts to create materials). Switched the export to a CryXMLB format and it worked (StarFab json and xml format do not work).

Looks like the bone placement for the landing gear is off, I believe this was an issue before though. This appears to be an issue with Max's Importer and StarFabs Scripts in Blender. Importing the landing gear directly into blender doesn't cause the issue.

[Baconator650]

Its looking like the latest commits has broken bone structure to leave only a single bone.

When playing around with the landing gear before the commit, it looks like the rotations aren't being applied.

Also if you want some help on what the rotations are suppose to be, I can provide examples of what CGF-Converter is doing and what they are suppose to look like (using an older SC build and Dymek's modded CryEngine, I can export the HTR animations which keeps a lot of the rotation data intact.)

[Markemp]

I found the issue with it only creating the root bone, and will push up a fix here in a few minutes:

Still cleaning up some material handling stuff, but almost have that part done. Then ... not sure what next. I'll go through the issues list and make sure as much stuff is solved as possible.

edit: I don't like how the bones are handled in this gladius landing gear, but that's more of an issue with the cryengine file. You rotate a bone that should turn a whole pipe, but only the first half of it turns. You have to select the bone on the other side and rotate them both at the same time. It's probably handled in the animation files, but it's just a really goofy way of setting up a bone hierarchy.

[Emygdious]

Still having issues with .skin files not sure if a fix is still being worked on currently or not.

[Markemp]

Yup, still working on a 1.6 release. I'm fixing up some material issues right now. Until that is complete, the new SC skin files will have problems. Sorry for the time it is taking on this.

[Baconator650]

Don't forget to look at the rotations for SC files too

[Markemp]

Got the materials refactored (again). Should support multiple material files, which is something I've only seen in Archeage models so far, but it needed to be done.

Arclight pistol parts are working in this build too.

@Baconator650 , can you check the landing gears too? I think they are working but just want to make sure.

[Baconator650]

Materials are good. Geometry is outputting.

Position and Rotations are substantially off:

Comparing it with an older extraction [Correct Position, somewhat correct rotations], it appears to be rotated 180 degrees as well.

It appears to be just the bones/skeleton that are off

Overall CGF-Convert rotations are good, but they don't match up with what the animation files export out as from Cry Engine. This usually requires a quick fix with rotation of the pivot points by [90,00,00] on then [00,90,00] via a local rotation. Here is a comparison with a normal CGA file.

[done with the last tweaks from 2/6/2024][all displayed rotations are world reference]

[Done with an older CGF-Converter Build from an older SC build][all displayed rotations are world reference]

(CC=CGF Converter; HTR=HTR animation file export from Dymek CryEngine reading a SC3,8.2 build)

[Markemp]

Is this for gltf outputs?

[Baconator650]

Collada (.dae), it's what StarFab deals with.

[Markemp]

Got it. Found the seat and it does look like it's moved down instead of I'm assuming up.

What landing gear is that?

[Baconator650]

Should be the front landing gear of the Hurricane.

[Markemp]

Here is the ANVL Hurricane front landing gear CHR and SKIN files. The CHR definitely is not matching up with the skin bones. I'm looking into that now.

I think the animation files are referencing the chr files? Are you pairing them up as part of the process?

Can you post the old anvl_hurricane_landing_gear_front_chr.dae file? I'd like to compare it too.

[Baconator650]

The Cry Engine Character Tool is what I am using to extract the animations, which uses these .cdf and .chr.chrparams

Unfortunately due to CiG TOS, I can't not publicly post Star Citizen files.

[Markemp]

Oh, I already have the game files. I'm just looking for the working Collada file.

Or can you tell me if it was made with the 1.5 converter or some intermediate build?

[Baconator650]

1.3 version