I'm currently experiencing a crash every time I try and export a mesh from Max 2013 using the Ogre plugin. If I export using a standard FBX file, it will export fine, but if I try using the ogre option and save to the recommended directory, Max crashes every time. I read through to the other forum post on this topic, but it didn't help my situation. A couple of notes that might be useful:
1. Using Max 2013 and FaceFx 2015.1
2. I was worried that something in our modifier stack was causing the crash, so I tried exporting a simple sphere skinned to bone. That also crashes.
3. I looked for ogre exporter logs (Documents\FaceFX Plugins\Ogre Exporters) to get information on why it crashed, but the folder is blank.
Anything ideas on what I could be doing wrong?
Thanks in advance!
Thanks for pointing this out. This was tracked down to a bug in the installer that put the wrong OgreMain.DLL into the 3dsMax 2013 (and 3dsMax 2015) install directories.
The workaround is simply to use the FaceFX 2015.0 Plugin installer unless you are using 2016 versions of Autodesk products.
Use of the FBX pipeline is also encouraged. ExecFxOgreFBX is a commandline tool that can convert FBX files into Ogre files and it can be used even if you do not want to use the rest of the FBX pipeline in FaceFX Studio. We are considering deprecating the Max/Maya Ogre plugins (to prevent issues like this), so if you have a good reason for not upgrading to the FBX pipeline, please let us know.
Thanks for the information. I will give that a try now and let you know if that works.
Edit:
I sped through your response and realized I didn't answer your last paragraph. Exporting FBX files works just fine, but the documentation said using Ogre was recommended for morph and bone based models.
Currently, I'm trying to export in the .mesh format was to try and clean up these random extra nodes that import when I used the FBX method. I get multiple shapes like M, M1, M2, M3, etc. Shapes that I've never defined in my batch export text file. I figured this might occur because I wasn't using the recommended export process. It could also just be my lack of experience with setting up a morph based character in Max for FaceFx. I'm still trying to figure out the best facefx pipeline for our projects.
Thanks again for the help! I will let you know if I have any additional issues.
Hi Doug,
Just wanted to confirm that using the plugin for 2015.0 worked. I think I also figured out what was causing all of the garbage nodes to show up for me. Once I used the batch export option in the Max FaceFX utility, the extra nodes disappeared.
Thanks for your help.
Just an FYI:
1) FaceFX 2015.2 has fixed the plugin issue with the incorrect DLLs mentioned above.
2) FBX is the preferred pipeline for bones or morph
3) If you experience any issues with the FBX pipeline, try doing a round trip through the FBX exporters (export an FBX file, create a new scene in Max/Maya, import it, then export another FBX file and use that one in FaceFX Studio). On some stubborn/tricky export problems that process will resolve it.