Project Reality Forums

I was gone for a while.

Im running Maya 2015, it would be nice to have exporter tools for it. I cant write a UI for that, because i only know a little mel and no python at all(yet), so im wondering if anyone made any head way linking the old Bf2 editor to Maya in my absence.

I went and got my CG animating degree. I got pretty good at animating to the point where i can rig characters to geometry and animate them but only in maya. I didnt even touch 3ds max in the last 4 years.

So maybe somebody could give me an update. because its been 3 or 4 years since mosquill talked to me about all this and i totally forget. I think Mosquill told me he would need access to the BF2 editor's source code in order to link Maya to the Bf2 editor and that it wouldnt be worth the time needed.

But the thing is, Maya has gotten awesome, to the point where softimage was totally redundant, and more game devs are drifting over to maya even though the older generation of game devs are used to 3dsmax.

I dont thing max is bad, i just dont like having to learn a whole new program, so its ot going to happen, and basically id like to help the mod out again but i gotta do it through maya.

Afaik i just need to find out how to export a maya animation as a bf2 animation file and then we're flying. And from what i understand its pointless for the bf2 engine to read the joint locations and all of their weight values, so i can only assume it looks at the vertice positions of the LODs and takes those instead (i think its called Geo caching). then you get a deforming mesh per frame and its pretty simple (in theory) but i dont know how any of that works under the hood. So i reckon if i had the weapons, and the pair of arms for 1p animations and do an animation and geo cache it, i need a converter to take that animation and make it into a readable file for the bf2 animation editor.


anywayzzzzzz.............laterrrr

Super unlikely to happen I'm afraid. As far as I know editor source code wasn't/will not ever be released. All we have is Max9.

Although animations in maya might be portable to max9? I have no clue about that. Anyway, here is pretty much all we have on animating for BF2:

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... d-2-a.html

With lots of examples too. If you can figure out a way to work between max9 and maya2015, or expert yourself in max9 animating(which would be more efficient) that be great Could always use more animators as they are always short on supply.

But I would put 0% on ever being able to all BF2 exporting on anything else then max9.

Also, nice to hear from you again Psycko! Nice to see you around.

I'm very new to both max and maya, but having modeled a bit with both I actually prefer max.

I honestly think you'll save a lot more time just learning how to animate in max. If you're already familiar with maya it shouldn't be too hard because even though you're not exactly familiar with max, you at least know what you're supposed to be looking for.

The hardest part is finding a copy of max9. I know for a fact that there are some reliable but less than reputable ways of acquiring it, but remember that if you happen to follow that inadvisable course of action, you probably don't want to mention it to anybody or ask where to find such a download on the prforums...

That being said, there are plenty of helpful tuts on max (+people who can give feedback etc) and the learning curve will be pretty light given your experience

Yeah Hi mineral!

Insanitypays you do have a good point.

But theres nothing worse than promising something you mightnt deliver.
(at the moment i have to do unpaid internships to get proper contracts so i dont have time to go into max unfortunately)

There are workarounds I have set up where I use '13 and save it as a 3ds file and it works inside '09. It's a different approach but it works for me.

Psyko wrote:But theres nothing worse than promising something you mightnt deliver.
(at the moment i have to do unpaid internships to get proper contracts so i dont have time to go into max unfortunately)

Took me <45min to get comfortable with max. It'll certainly be rewarding if you find some time to put into it. It's your free time though- do what you feel best ^^

Chances are there won't be any way to convert from new versions of maya. It's funny though, because a lot of bf2's content was made in maya. There are still tools for maya4, 5, and 6, but it's WAY harder to find that. There isn't a single place to buy it- there aren't even any 'questionable' downloads. I was trying to buy maya6 a while back before I finally gave in and got a copy of max9. Unfortunately the tools won't work with new versions of maya- I looked into that possibility knowing it was unlikely.

If you could somehow find a copy of maya4-6, you would probably be in business. Maybe you can ask around at your internships to see if anyone knows anything about it?

brenn4n wrote:There are workarounds I have set up where I use '13 and save it as a 3ds file and it works inside '09. It's a different approach but it works for me.

Yeah but this way you can end up with porting errors, smoothing groups ect

Insanitypays wrote: Chances are there won't be any way to convert from new versions of maya. It's funny though, because a lot of bf2's content was made in maya. There are still tools for maya4, 5, and 6, but it's WAY harder to find that. There isn't a single place to buy it- there aren't even any 'questionable' downloads. I was trying to buy maya6 a while back before I finally gave in and got a copy of max9. Unfortunately the tools won't work with new versions of maya- I looked into that possibility knowing it was unlikely.

I know right!?

Even back then the game animation was in maya. i spent last summer trying to find a way to get it to work, but nothin. Last night i sent an email to DICE asking them if they would entertain the idea, their company is so huge though that i dont think they have a second to even consider it, so thats a no brainer haha! ( i asked them to release the editor source code to our community now that the gamespy servers are down)

trying to make friends with their animators on LinkedIn to see if i can coaks an email out of them.

CTRifle wrote:Yeah but this way you can end up with porting errors, smoothing groups ect

Not to mention max has a nasty habbit of taking a mesh from maya and making each polygon a seperate object, so its like shattered glass. and of course its in tris and not in quads so byebye edgeflow.