How do I make stereo sliders for a model available?

[Eternal Yoshi]

Keep in mind that while I have Blender on Steam, I'm not familiar with it.
I work with Maya so I use MESA 2.1 to transfer models to sfm. I have the model that's basically ready to be used in Maya and I've been having difficulty finding out the info I need to do that...

I can get the model in sfm, but it has none of the stereo sliders that most of the other workshop models, such as the Hyrule Warriors models, do.

BTW the model I'm working with has plenty of bones rigged to work with faces already. There's bones for the upper lip, lower lip, cheeks, jaw, eyebrow, eyelids, eyeballs...

[Kumquat [Velbud]]

You mean you want to add flexes. Im not sure how to do it on other 3D programs, but in Blender, do some research on Shape Keys, how to make them, as well as procedural editting. You can also make presets that (basically) treat the placement of the bones as "flexes" which has a controlled slider. For the second one, you may need to look into SFM for how they are made.

[Zappy]

You just need to add "right_" and "left_" in front of the flex controller names, with right before left. (The internal flex names don't matter, nor the order of them, just make sure the "right_" flex controller is defined before the "left_" one.)
So, are you using DMX or VTA flexes for this model?

If DMX, it can be as simple as just turning the "stereo" value for a flex from 0 to 1.

If VTA, either have a different flex for each side, and just add both, giving the flex controllers the "right_" and "left_" prefixes, or use the "flexpair" command instead of just "flex", like this:

FlexFile "ExampleFlexFile.vta" {
    FlexPair "ExampleFlexInternal" 1 Frame 1
}

FlexController Flex right_ExampleFlexExposed left_ExampleFlexExposed Range 0 1

%ExampleFlexInternalR = right_ExampleFlexExposed
%ExampleFlexInternalL = left_ExampleFlexExposed

Please refer to https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Flex_animation#Stereo_flexes_.28one_slider_with_L.2FR_control.29 for some more details.

An example of a stereo DMX flex:

"DmeCombinationInputControl"
{
    "id" "elementid" "01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-456789abcdef"
    "name" "string" "ExampleFlexExposed"
    "rawControlNames" "string_array" ["ExampleFlexInternal"]
    "stereo" "bool" "1"
    "eyelid" "bool" "0"
    "flexMax" "float" "1.0"
    "flexMin" "float" "0.0"
    "wrinkleScales" "float_array" ["0"]

}

In both cases, there will be a flex controller called "right_ExampleFlexExposed" and "left_ExampleFlexExposed", which are then merged into a stereo flex in Source FilmMaker.

[Eternal Yoshi]

I'm going to be honest I have not decided which format to use. I'd be fine with either one as long as I can set it up in Maya and use it in SFM.

Would it be possible to use the already existing facial bones to make flexes without messing with the skin of the model? If so how?

[Kumquat [Velbud]]

Originally posted by Eternal Yoshi:

I'm going to be honest I have not decided which format to use. I'd be fine with either one as long as I can set it up in Maya and use it in SFM.

I find using Blender to be much easier and efficient for making facial flexes, but if Maya also uses Shape Keys, great, use it.

Originally posted by Eternal Yoshi:

Would it be possible to use the already existing facial bones to make flexes without messing with the skin of the model? If so how?

Uhhhhhhhhhh, what do you mean by that? So you want to make a preset, without setting assignments on the face?

[Zappy]

Originally posted by Eternal Yoshi:

I'm going to be honest I have not decided which format to use. I'd be fine with either one as long as I can set it up in Maya and use it in SFM.

Try exporting as DMX and see if you can compile it, even without flexes. If you can, I highly recommend sticking to DMX.
If you can't, see if you can change the weight-mapping or rigging or bone-rigging (basically the "mesh-to-bone" thing) so no single vertice is affected by more than 3 bones.
If you can, you should be able to export and compile now, and then I recommend sticking to DMX, but if you can't, you're going to have to use SMD mesh(es) and VTA flexes.

Trust me when I say flexes in DMX files are much simpler to define and give stereo-ness and such. (Though, I believe you're going to need some Lua scripts or something along with a command-line tool to manually define flexes properly, unless you use Blender.)

Originally posted by Eternal Yoshi:

Would it be possible to use the already existing facial bones to make flexes without messing with the skin of the model? If so how?

In Blender, you can move the bones in "Pose Mode", select the mesh, find the armature deform modifier, and choose "Apply as Shape Key" or something, which should do exactly what you want.

(However, I honestly don't know if you can do that to a model that already has shape keys, even if said shape keys are from applying an armature deform modifier as a shape key.)

Then you can just set up a new armature deform modifier, and repeat it for as many flexes as you want.

For the armature/skeleton, there should also be a "return to default pose" thing. Not sure where, so just try selecting the armature in "Object Mode", press space and search for "pose" or something else, then if you don't find it, try going to "Pose Mode", press space and search again.


I have no idea if it's even possible to do this in Maya, let alone how to do it.