Mirror tool bug

[E.Kiver]

Hi!
I've found bug in dealing with bones, actual use of mirror tool causes unexpected results.(When exporting as Skinned Mesh->Bone Animation, there is no problems when exporting as Pose animation) I knew that use of mirror tool with bones is accompointed with "issues", but it's the first time I've discoverd one.
Is there any hope that it would be fixed? Or I still should rebuild opposite parts of skeleton with my bare hands?
Thank you! Buy the way, great tool you've written.

P.S. There are my test files (.max, and .mesh) http://groups.google.com/group/lovebook ... eb/Res.zip
I've discovered problems with my animation, half of man was animated propertly, but the other don't. So I've played around with my rigg.

[leos.pol]

Hi, I've probably ran into same problem as you.

Everyting looks normal in MAX:


But after export I got this in LexiView:


Half skeleton is just screwed up, plus it's smaller and moved from the mesh.

Is there any way to fix the skeleton/mesh?

EDIT: images corrected

[E.Kiver]

Unfortunately I can't see the images. Anyway as I've said, when I was rigging the model (creating bone structure of skeleton and setting it's functionality up to my needs), after finishing of first (right) hand, I've felt to lazy to build the left one from the very beginning, so I've just mirrored whole hand and arm structure with Max's "Mirror Tool" and made some changes to scripts (experienced riggers told me not to use this tool, 'cuz it might cause problems later, and they were right).
So I've simply build left leng and arm from the very beginning.
P.S. It is also possible to copy and set up positions and rotations.
P.P.S. The problem is that mirror inverts the local axis of the bone. If you'll pick "Local" coordinate system in max, and then select initial and mirrored objects, you'll see the difference in local coord systems. That's why exporter thinks about positive direction of exported mirrord object rotation and translation as negative. You could also flip coord sys of bone, but mine were to rigidly set up with scripts controllers and constraints.

[StephenMeldalFoged]

Hi guys.

From what i am reading i all these problems come from Xform issues.

There are some rules you have to follow when you create your rig.
You are not allowed to scale the bones. And since a standard max mirror operation is a +1 to -1 scale on one axis this is not allowed either.
It could maybe be fixed by applying a reset xform to the bones, but i recommend doing it the right way from the beginning.

When you create your bones/rig try use the max bone tools "menu/animation/bone tools" (search for bone tools in the max help) in the max bone tools, there is a mirror function that duplicates one side of a bone chain to the other, done the correct way. There are also tools to scale the bones correctly.

For most characters though i would just use the character studio biped. as long as you use the figure mode to adjust the rig it should work very well from the beginning.

Let us know how it works out.