Things I Been Doin // 13May2023 (Patreon)

Well... I ran out of my 3DS Max 2011 trial. Will be going back to the old method of jockeying my fbx's to friends with Max, as I've recorded a tutorial for not only the Blender>Max>IV importing process, but with specific pointers on preparing a model in Blender for GTA IV for the best results you can get while we are without a Blender Plugin.

Oh, and I may have commissioned a guy for a Blender plugin.

But see, that's not entirely the truth. I tried to commission a guy for a Blender plugin, specifically just bare minimum importing of animations. As he tried to get it working, he came to the conclusion that he couldn't fully solve importing issues to his liking, so he decided he couldn't do it. But he was nice enough to give me what he had finished so far, and let me publish it on github with his permission, and refused my multiple attempts to tip him for the time he'd spent working on this. So Please, PLEASE, if you have any desires for Blender plugins, go to scurest8. he's an absolute legend.

The current state of the plugin is... well, I won't lie to you. it's not great with the unsolved IK weirdness and what I presume is the need to identify flags to deal with how the animation should treat various roll and twist bones, but this is the only, and i mean ONLY plugin for ANYTHING, Blender or Max, to be able to at least partially import ANY IV FACIAL ANIMATIONS! 

But anyways, i used this plugin to import all of Niko's gestures to test how Shirtless Niko looked, and man...

I think he's just fantastic. Too hairless, but fantastic. I have absolutely zero source for some good body hair right now, though, and my last day of my Max trial was spent fruitlessly trying to finagle getting him in-game as seamlessly as possible. Did not vertex paint him properly, but things were not looking that promising regardless. Like, his normal maps looking inexplicably inside out.

I wish I could have gotten his uppr drawable to include his hands at the very least, but it would have come out to 51 bones, or 49 bones if i got rid of his thigh bones for smooth/natural looking leg movement... still 1 bone above the 48 bone limit for GTA IV drawables. Jacuzzi time and showering dreams for Niko have been dashed... For now. 

In the last days of my Max trial I also made Artwork Luis, which as of writing has been uploaded to GTAInside and is now awaiting approval.