Skyloft Camera Animation Issue

[Lilothestitch16]

Hi guys. I exported the camera animations from Skyloft but when I tested them out in 3ds Max and MMD, they move off position. I don't know how to fix that. Here's a comparison of in-game and MMD. I'm not sure if I need an extra bone for position or something like that.

[ScanMountGoat]

What format are you exporting as?

[Lilothestitch16]

I exported them as SMD and then I imported them into 3ds Max and exportede them as SMD and then imported them into Blender and exported them as VMD.

[ScanMountGoat]

Camera animations use a different order of transformations than skeletal animations, which is probably why it looks off. I'm not sure if 3ds max lets you configure this, but the order of transformations should be translation and then rotation for cameras. The default in a lot of applications is to rotate and then translate.

There's work being done to find ways to account for different ways of handling transformations, but it's unlikely that the changes will be applied to StudioSB's export. Most of the active work at the moment is being done on command line tools like ssbh_data_json or python code for Blender addons. The next release of Cross Mod (v0.19) will have support for correctly displaying camera animations but won't have any export support.

[Lilothestitch16]

I wonder why CrossMod doesn’t have any export support?

[ScanMountGoat]

Cross Mod is just intended for rendering files and editing materials. This makes it much easier to develop accurate rendering.

The code for reading and writing files like nuanmb and numshb has already been rewritten in Rust. This code is what gets used for tools like ssbh_lib_json and even the blender addon. I have no plans to update the old C# file format code for Cross Mod and StudioSB since it's slower, harder to maintain, supports fewer files, and can only be used for those specific applications.

StudioSB will remain pretty much as is other than potentially a few bug fixes, Cross Mod will continue to just view files, and import export functionality will move mostly to command line tools and Python. It's definitely possible for people to write new tools, scripts, etc that handle export in the future. This is planned for the Blender addon I linked.

[Lilothestitch16]

Should I download those tools like the Blender Addon and ssbh_lib_json? They might be useful in the future.

[ScanMountGoat]

The blender addon is still in the early stages, but it's available to try out. You can see the progress Carlos is making in the Smash Ultimate modding discord. It's not an alternative to StudioSB yet but it's getting there.

ssbh_lib_json lets you edit several different formats by converting to a text file (JSON). It's like matlab but supports more formats and accurately rebuilds files. This is mostly helpful if you need to fix a bug in a file exported by another program like an incorrect flag or mesh object name.

ssbh_data_json is similar to ssbh_lib_json but it converts mesh and animation buffers into a more readable format. You can hand write a numshb file by specifying all the vertex positions in ssbh_data_json or a nuanmb file by specifying the values for every frame in a JSON file, but I would recommend waiting on smash-ultimate-blender to be in a more polished state.

[Lilothestitch16]

Okay. Thanks

[Lilothestitch16]

How do I use ssbh_data_json and ssbh_lib_json?

[ScanMountGoat]

The instructions are listed here: https://github.com/ultimate-research/ssbh_lib#ssbh_lib_json
You can use the command prompt or just drag and drop the json or ssbh file onto the exe. Edit the json in your favorite text editor.

[Lilothestitch16]

I can use this for the camera animations for Skyloft to fix their transformation?

[ScanMountGoat]

Not unless you can calculate the correct transform values yourself. I'd recommend waiting for a dedicated tool to be able to do it.

[Lilothestitch16]

What is this dedicated tool you speak of? Sorry if I’m asking too much.

[ScanMountGoat]

There aren't any tools yet that can both preview and edit camera animations. It's doable to edit them with the current tools but it's not user friendly.

[Lilothestitch16]

I’ll just wait for a tool that can edit the camera animations.