Mikoto2x instructions 2

Since I now have the TR4 Lara Croft Metasequoia character rigged using Mikoto’s anchor method [link] I wanted to see if Mikoto2x could export the dance animation I transferred to my character in the sixth part of the Mikoto tutorials [link].

The instructions for Mikoto2x are here [link].

From the screenshot below you can see that conversion was successful.





My skin used the spherical deformation (sdef) method so Mikoto2x can use sdef skins or bone deformation (bdef) skins.

I merged all the anchor objects into one object but tested later without them merged and it made no difference.

I had to change two things though to get Mikoto2x to accept the *.mkm file containing the animations.

By default the motion name for the new motion created by the Motion Converter was the name of the *.bvh file opened – “dance01.bvh”.

I had to rename the motion so it did not contain a full stop, “.” otherwise the motion was not included in the *.x file.

You can rename motions in Mikoto by using the right click pop up context menu or you can rename the motion in the *.mkm file which you can edit in a text editor like Notepad.

The second problem was that for *.bvh files Mikoto calls the objects that the rotations are linked to “Coordinate” and not “Bone” as it does for normal animations.

The Motion Converter copies the “Coordinate” object name to the new motion.

Mikoto2x doesn’t know what a “Coordinate” object is so you have change “Coordinate” to “Bone” for every bone in the motion.

You can do this in Mikoto by expanding the motion and using the right click pop up context menu or open the *.mkm file in a text editor and “Find and Replace” all instances of “Coordinate” with “Bone”.

When I opened the *.x animation in fragMOTION there were some errors that were not apparent in Mikoto2x’s *.x animation viewer.

Some vertices were not bound to any bone and some were incorrectly bound to two bones.
The animation was fine except it was inverted compared to Mikoto.



Unfortunately there is no point converting the animation to MilkShape3D format (*.ms3d) and trying to import the animation into a *.TR4 file with Fexanim because there are extra bones (17) compared to the skeleton in Mikoto (15).

I don’t know whether this is because of the *.x format or something fragMOTION does when importing *.x files.