Changing bones to ValveBiped

[Zwei]

Although this is more-so for Garry's Mod, or Blender in general, I feel like I'd get more accurate and helpful answers due to this community's 3D modeling and Source-editing presence.

Now, to the actual question.

Is changing a foreign skeleton to ValveBiped as simple as renaming the bones? I've tried it once before, but to no avail; the bones were twisted and deformed around the wrists and legs, but it "bone-merged" onto the model.

The main reason I wish to do so is so bones don't appear as Unknown, as well as for bone-merging and Playermodel purposes in Garry's Mod.

So, if anyone could answer/point to a guide/whatever, that would be wonderful.

Thank you!

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by ZweiProbleme:

Is changing a foreign skeleton to ValveBiped as simple as renaming the bones?

No. If you want to bone-merge or copy animation data from model to model, the orientation of the bones also needs to match the master model.

Note that a lot of authors do not bother to match bone orientations, so a model using ValveBiped bone names does not actually mean it's fully compatible with other ValveBiped skeletons. It means the bones get properly sorted, and rig_biped_simple works as a rig script, but no copying animations.

(As it happens, I was once commissioned to fix a model with this problem in order that its bone orientations were compatible with motion capture data and Valve sequences).

[Misuune]

No you have to copy a skeleton from Valve model
like a HL2 or something model skeleton
then u weight paint which can be tedious work sometimes then you have to test model to see if it properly did the thing
also during that process every bone that controls stuff other than the character for example hats will lose their bone and wont be able to move without moving things like head or neck because the hat is stuck to the head then. You might want to create a bone for that yourself though and it will be in unknown because it bones in unknown section are meant to be used for misc stuff like controlling a hat or part of model like grenade or even make stuff jiggle by jigglebones

Also if the model is too big for skeleton then you have to rescale skeleton to size of model but you can reverse by rescaling model to skeleton which might be not recommended unless you are 100% sure about it

[green]

I'm afraid theres no shortcuts, like the others said. If you take a model that isnt Valve Biped, and rename the bones Valve Biped, it's not gonna work (trust me, I've tried). You're just gonna get a warped, laffy taffy mess of a monster.

You're gonna need to rip a skeleton from a Valve Biped model, attach it to yours, and re-weightpaint it, the latter being oh so tedious. You're gonna need to edit the bone locations in the QC, too, if you aligned the skeleton to better fit your model.

[Zappy]

You should be able to easily rename the bones if you want (while keeping the weight-map/weight-paint/rigging intact, meaning that you don't have to re-do the weight-map/weight-paint/rigging at all (except in very rare cases)), which will also move the bones to proper categories in the Animation Set Editor if you name them something appropriate for the categories in the question. If you name them right, then yes, the skeleton will become a "ValveBiped" one*.

Keep in mind, though, that after any point where you have re-compiled/updated a model in Source Filmmaker, previous sessions using previous versions of that model might require some fix-ups or such to appear correct. In some cases, you might only have to right-click the animation set and choose "Utilities" > "Re-attach to model", but in other cases (especially when bones are renamed), you may have to spawn a new copy of the model and then manually copy the motion/animation of the old model to the new one, bone by bone and flex by flex.

Either way, if an attachment is designed for your model, you won't have to do anything with the model for the attachment to bone-merge correctly, while if not, the attachment probably won't bone-merge to the model correctly in any case (regardless of bone names). So, please explain exactly what kind of bone-merging you're talking about.



* There's no strict rule for what a "ValveBiped" skeleton is (as far as I'm aware), besides the bone naming convention(s) and maybe amount of bones in the spine, arms, and legs. Bone orientations (possibly) differ from game to game (and in Team Fortress 2's case, even from character to character, though Team Fortress 2 doesn't use a "ValveBiped" skeleton).



TL;DR: Yes, you can rename the bones, which will give them a "ValveBiped" skeleton* if you name them correctly. No, you won't (necessarily) have to re-do weight-paint at all, despite what Bob Good and Hunter in the Green Vest are saying, and if you do (e.g. reducing the amount of spine bones or something), you may be able to just "merge" a few of the existent bones' weight-mappings together.

[green]

Originally posted by Zappy:

You should be able to easily rename the bones if you want (while keeping the weight-map/weight-paint/rigging intact, meaning that you don't have to re-do the weight-map/weight-paint/rigging at all (except in very rare cases)), which will also move the bones to proper categories in the Animation Set Editor if you name them something appropriate for the categories in the question. If you name them right, then yes, the skeleton will become a "ValveBiped" one*.

Keep in mind, though, that after any point where you have re-compiled/updated a model in Source Filmmaker, previous sessions using previous versions of that model might require some fix-ups or such to appear correct. In some cases, you might only have to right-click the animation set and choose "Utilities" > "Re-attach to model", but in other cases (especially when bones are renamed), you may have to spawn a new copy of the model and then manually copy the motion/animation of the old model to the new one, bone by bone and flex by flex.

Either way, if an attachment is designed for your model, you won't have to do anything with the model for the attachment to bone-merge correctly, while if not, the attachment probably won't bone-merge to the model correctly in any case (regardless of bone names). So, please explain exactly what kind of bone-merging you're talking about.



* There's no strict rule for what a "ValveBiped" skeleton is (as far as I'm aware), besides the bone naming convention(s) and maybe amount of bones in the spine, arms, and legs. Bone orientations (possibly) differ from game to game (and in Team Fortress 2's case, even from character to character, though Team Fortress 2 doesn't use a "ValveBiped" skeleton).



TL;DR: Yes, you can rename the bones, which will give them a "ValveBiped" skeleton* if you name them correctly. No, you won't (necessarily) have to re-do weight-paint at all, despite what Bob Good and Hunter in the Green Vest are saying, and if you do (e.g. reducing the amount of spine bones or something), you may be able to just "merge" a few of the existent bones' weight-mappings together.

Have you specifically applied this for a GMod playermodel? Gmod is pretty picky with skeletons, from my experience. I've tried taking an SFM model, renaming it, and compiling it for GMod, and I just got a warped mess. I'm not implying you're wrong (I'm no expert, so I'm probably wrong), I've just personally not had any luck myself.

[Zappy]

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

Have you specifically applied this for a GMod playermodel? -

No. That's basically irrelevant for a Source Filmmaker model, however (if it has bones in Source Filmmaker, you can pose it, and if you can pose it... well, then you can pose it), and all things considered, this is a Source Filmmaker forum, not a Garry's Mod forum. (We deal with Source Filmmaker in particular here, not Garry's Mod.)

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

- Gmod is pretty picky with skeletons, from my experience. -

I doubt that it is. Of course, if you make a model use sequences/animations while the model doesn't share the same bone names and base posing as the animations, that'll result in errors, but that's not because Garry's Mod is picky, but rather that you make a model use animations that are not meant for it.

[green]

Originally posted by Zappy:

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

Have you specifically applied this for a GMod playermodel? -

No. That's basically irrelevant for a Source Filmmaker model, however (if it has bones in Source Filmmaker, you can pose it, and if you can pose it... well, then you can pose it), and all things considered, this is a Source Filmmaker forum, not a Garry's Mod forum. (We deal with Source Filmmaker in particular here, not Garry's Mod.)

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

- Gmod is pretty picky with skeletons, from my experience. -

I doubt that it is. Of course, if you make a model use sequences/animations while the model doesn't share the same bone names and base posing as the animations, that'll result in errors, but that's not because Garry's Mod is picky, but rather that you make a model use animations that are not meant for it.

Yeah, I get ya. GMod isn't that picky, but SFM is much more leniant (because you dont need a specific skeleton and all that jazz).

[Zappy]

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

- GMod isn't that picky, but SFM is much more leniant (because you dont need a specific skeleton and all that jazz).

What you've written there semi-implies that you'd need a specific skeleton (and all that jazz) for Garry's Mod. Again, that's wrong. As long as the sequences/animations that the model uses fits the model, you can use almost any skeleton that you'd like (only being limited by the universal 256(?) bone limit on Source models). (You may have to make sure that some *weapon bones" are set up correctly for weapons and such to appear correct, but other than that, you can use almost any skeleton that you want to use.)

[green]

Originally posted by Zappy:

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

- GMod isn't that picky, but SFM is much more leniant (because you dont need a specific skeleton and all that jazz).

What you've written there semi-implies that you'd need a specific skeleton (and all that jazz) for Garry's Mod. Again, that's wrong. As long as the sequences/animations that the model uses fits the model, you can use almost any skeleton that you'd like (only being limited by the universal 256(?) bone limit on Source models). (You may have to make sure that some *weapon bones" are set up correctly for weapons and such to appear correct, but other than that, you can use almost any skeleton that you want to use.)

I didn't mean the actual skeletal structure, I meant the name of the skeleton itself (ValveBiped). Garry's Mod needs to see that name in order for proper stock animations to work for playermodels(like the dance, cheer, etc). At least— that's the way I've always seen it done. Maybe theres other ways, idk.

[Zwei]

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

I didn't mean the actual skeletal structure, I meant the name of the skeleton itself (ValveBiped). Garry's Mod needs to see that name in order for proper stock animations to work for playermodels(like the dance, cheer, etc). At least— that's the way I've always seen it done. Maybe theres other ways, idk.

From my (limited) experience, this is correct. To create a Player/NPC model, it needs to be Valvebiped.

[Zappy]

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

I didn't mean the actual skeletal structure, I meant the name of the skeleton itself (ValveBiped). -

Bone names are part of bones, and bones are part of skeletons, so "any skeleton" also means "any skeleton with any bone names".

Originally posted by Hunter in the Green Vest:

- I meant the name of the skeleton itself (ValveBiped). Garry's Mod needs to see that name in order for proper stock animations to work for playermodels -

Again, if a model uses sequences/animations that are not meant for the model and/or a model is not meant for the sequences/animations that it uses, it won't appear correctly.

There's absolutely nothing stopping you from calling the bones something like "Xghj2" and "mpDf50w4" for the right hand and the third spine bone, making your own animations, and having it appear correctly because you made the model use sequences/animations that fit the model.


Again, the bone naming convention(s) have no impact on how the model appears at all if the sequences/animations have the same skeleton structure and bone names.

Originally posted by ZweiProbleme:

From my (limited) experience, this is correct. To create a Player/NPC model, it needs to be Valvebiped.

That's wrong. Again, the "weapon bones" may need to have certain names for weapons to attach properly, but other than that, any skeleton can be used as long as the resulting model has no more than 256(?) bones.