Topic: [IMVU] Problem making animated seesaw in IMVU

[appel129]

Hello,

I followed this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7q4GGC-HSM  precisely.  Although 40 minutes long, it took me 3-4 hours to finish making the see-saw as I'm new to Blender and was following these instructions a few seconds at a time. 

Anyway, I thought it was going really well.  At the end of the video, my see-saw looked and moved just like the one in the video.  That is, until I exported into IMVU.  After loading the animation, I found that the poses on the see-saw moved up and down just fine, but the platform just stayed in place.  This is confusing because when I test the animation in Blender (Alt-A), the platform moves just fine.

Does anyone have ideas where I went wrong?  I spent quite a while backtracking through the tutorial but couldn't figure it out.  Thanks. 

Andrew

[EDIT] Topic title edited to make it a bit more contextual sense. Cheers. kat

[kat]

That usually means the mesh doesn't have any vertex groups (or they're not named correctly). One of the things to watch out for in Blender when using an Amateur Modifier is that it allows you to link to and effect a mesh at the Object level without their being any vertex groupings present in the mesh. Check for typos or omissions to make sure the mesh has one.

Learning 3D can be quite a task so well done, mistakes and errors help gain a deeper understanding of the process (although frustrating at the time they happen!), so don't be too disheartened when they crop up.

[appel129]

Thanks for your reply kat.  To the best of my knowledge the mesh does have a vertex group (see http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2zz0t34&s=8#.VcfcjyZViko for a screenshot).  It has 'pivot' for the seesaw and 'Root' for the center block. 

It's definitely a frustrating process, but like you said, I hope mistakes like this help me understand it better. 

[kat]

When you export, are both seesaw and block joined together or exported as separate objects? If you do the latter make sure you're adding another MESH to the product in Create Mode (IMVU); you should have two entries. If they are joined double-check group names for typos and things like that, for instance you wrote "pivot" above when you might have used "Pivot" (note the uppercase "P") - names are case-sensitive. Everything else looks OK from what can be seen in the screenshot.

[appel129]

Yes, when I exported they were joined together as per the video instructions.  Anyway, I gave it another shot uploading to IMVU with the same file I used last night and, inexplicably, this time it worked.  I wish I had an explanation for why the animation wasn't working the first time, but I really don't know.  Perhaps a restart of IMVU was all that was needed. 

In any case, it was a good learning experience since it forced me to go back through the video to make sure I had done things correctly and to reinforce my understanding.  Thank you very much for posting the video and for your help! 

[kat]

Ah yes, that actually is a problem with IMVU Create Mode; if you're in the middle of a long editing session file updates don't refresh properly, presumably because the Client isn't clearing and resetting its temporary file cache as products are composed and items loaded in. Only thing to do is close the program, restart and reload the file (as you found).