Bone positions when compiled don't match blender placement

[Misfire!]

I have an armature with multiple bones parented to multiple models and animated in blender. All seems well there. However when the model is exported to smd files and compiled, the highlighted bone placements don't match blender locations. Root yeah, but no others. I can do some qc/smd file tweaking with model offsets and move things around in the final model but can't seem to get bone placements aligned to blender placements so that "sub models" are correct.

Thanks for any advise.

[xdshot]

Exported mesh is built against reference pose of armature and mesh objects, not that you see in blender.

In qc there might be $definebone lines that re-define reference pose.

[Momo]

What does your QC file look like?

[Misfire!]

My qc is very minimal while I learn and troubleshoot this. There are no definebones instructions, and I've excluded all animation actions at this time. Will I need to add my own definebones statements? That would be very difficult to get the correct measurements manually. I'd hoped their locations would be exported from blender.

QC....
$ModelName "nf/vehicles/air/falcon/emp_nf_falconjet_mobile.mdl"

$Body airframe "nf_falcon_airframe.smd"
$model fanstar "nf_falcon_fan_Starboard.smd"
$model fanport "nf_falcon_fan_Port.smd"
$model fantail "nf_falcon_fan_Tail.smd"
$model cannon "nf_falcon_cannon.smd"

$SurfaceProp "metal"

$Contents "solid"

$CDMaterials "nf\vehicles\air\falcon\"
$sequence idle "nf_falcon_airframe.smd" fps 1

$keyvalues { "prop_data" { "base" "Metal.Large" "health" "100" } }

And a typical sub model smd file (minus all the triangle data)

SMD exported from blender...
version 1
nodes
0 "base_bone" -1
1 "TailFan_bone" 0
2 "PortFan_bone" 0
3 "GunTurret_bone" 0
4 "StarboardFan_bone" 0
end
skeleton
time 0
0 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
1 -0.484572 -4.589298 0.473971 -1.571133 0.016496 0.016484
2 -0.137782 0.513171 3.614685 0.016491 -0.015916 1.570524
3 -0.130809 3.063153 0.001382 -0.006179 -0.001194 -0.349016
4 -0.267483 0.511181 -3.588485 0.016483 -0.000209 1.570783
end

[xdshot]

Multiple $model statements are not allowed, use $body instead

And you mentioned (one) exported SMD while there are multiple smds in qc...

[ZeqMacaw]

Multiple $model is allowed.

[Misfire!]

Yes, multiple SMDs but I only posted one as example since the others where near identical. And yes you can compile with multiple models. I tried a body group as well which works too. But produces same bone position problem.

I suspect I'm not setting up something in blender to studiomdl's satisfaction, but at this point I don't know what.

[Momo]

If you want, you can upload the files somewhere so we can take a look.

[Misfire!]

Thanks for the offer, but I think I was able to solve the bone position issue finally. I found my armature rig was at a different scale (56.0) than the reference mesh (1.0). While in object mode I was able to choose the armature, CTRL+A and "Apply the Scale" which returned the scale back to 1.0. I can now see each highlited bone in the correct locations after the complie. I still have an issue where the additional models are not alligned with the bones though. That is a separate issue probably solved by the correct qc entries.

[xdshot]

That's what I refered as reference pose. One with un-applied transforms