Nodes Pitcher / Catcher Tutorial

breeanna95 · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 318 Location: Australia

This tutorial is more specifically about the Pitcher Catcher nodes, however I have given some general information about all avatar positioning for better understanding.

For each sitting and standing position an avatar takes there needs to be a "Pitcher" and a "Catcher" position. These are the default positions taken during any of the actions selected from the menu when a user right clicks another person's avatar - such as the greets (shake hands, high five, hugs).

The "Pitcher" is the avatar's position for the person initiating the action. The "Catcher" is the receiving avatar's position. In all cases the Pitcher moves to Catcher to do the action, then returns back to where they were.

The exact spot and the direction each is facing is defined in the XSF file, and stored in the IMVU Previewer under the "Special" tab.

The XSF file follows the general form:
Root, Handle01, seat01.Standing, Pitcher01.Standing, Catcher01.Standing
These "nodes" can be in any order but are case sensative, so be careful about upper and lower case.

This represents a Standing pose. For a sitting pose "seat01.Standing" is replaced with "seat01.Sitting", or replaced by any other "seat01.&&&" name for custom poses. If there are more than one pose included then the number is added to, however it is important to clump node types together.

Each node looks like this:
<BONE NAME="Pitcher01.Standing" NUMCHILDS="0" ID="5">
<TRANSLATION>-32.000 398.000000 85.000000</TRANSLATION>
<ROTATION>0.000000 0.000000 0.39 0.92</ROTATION>
<LOCALTRANSLATION>0.000000 0.000000 0.000000</LOCALTRANSLATION>
<LOCALROTATION>0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000</LOCALROTATION>
<PARENTID>-1</PARENTID>
</BONE>

The following table specifically provides a guide to the Translation and Rotation required to set your Pitcher and Catcher nodes in positions that fit the standing or sitting positions in your scene or furniture product.

The table is very generic, and the numbers are given are accurate to 3 decimal places. Also, the rotation values can be used in the seat nodes.

For the Translation there are 3 values, X Y Z, where X is left to right (left being negative and right positive values, Y is back (further away) and forward (closer to camera) (forward being negative and back positive values), and Z is height. As height is usually ground level the Z values are omitted in the table. The Catcher Translation in the table is 0.000 0.000 0.000.

The Rotation has 4 parameters known as quaternions, A B C D. For the upright position, A and B are always 0.000.

Of course the Catcher translations are almost never all zeros - that will depend on where the "seat" node is. If seat01.Standing is at "100.000 200.000 50.000" then these values should be added to both the Pitcher and Catcher positions. Also, if the avatar is in a seat01.Sitting, then the translation needs to be further offset to allow the avatar room to stand up first before getting into the action wanted of it. You will need to decide if the avatar can just stand up a bit in front of the seat, or if they need to stand off to one side or another. e.g. if the seat is in a car, then Catcher position will need to be a lot off to the side and even rotated away from front facing.

The idea here is simply this: The Catcher should stay where they are (or as close as possible) facing the same way they were before the action started. The Pitcher should be about 516.818 units away facing the Catcher (180 degrees opposite of the direction the Pitcher is facing). This is the case no matter what the action is.

SmallFlower · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 271 Location: USA - NY

Buh?

*bookmarks this for deep study

HeartlessG · Joined: 25 Mar 2007 Posts: 154 Location: Australia

so u mean if i have 2 seat nodes , seat01 and seat02, will it still work only having 1 catcher and 1 pitcher?
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HeartlessG · Joined: 25 Mar 2007 Posts: 154 Location: Australia

haha i think i get it now it should have 2 for both coz theres 2 person in regards to who does the action haha i didnt think of it earlier Razz

breeanna95 · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 318 Location: Australia

yep correct, double up on each node other than the root node.
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neo1471 · Joined: 22 Jul 2005 Posts: 3632 Location: United Kingdom

if u check the sketchup to imvu thread iv posted some info about getting node positions exact from sketchup, just rotation still needs fixing manualy ^_^, this thred had also been put in the The List of D Tutorials ^_^
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breeanna95 · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 318 Location: Australia

Tks for the link. And I read your extra info and put it in my own notes in case I need to refer back to it.

I know you've mentioned a lot about your incorrect spelling - but sometimes I wonder if you actually take pride in spelling mistakes and put some in deliberately just to keep up the standard Razz

Sorry to hear you wont be around as much as in the past. Hopefully others will take up the awesome work you've done in helping people out.
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breeanna95 · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 318 Location: Australia

Copied this from another thread about naming conventions (posted by heavenlypixel):

Mercuria

breeanna95 · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 318 Location: Australia

I dont have 3D Max, but from what I know you can add new nodes and export them to XSF file, and they will work and be correct (assuming you placed them correctly in the first place) when you load them into IMVU Previewer.

But if you use SketchUp, you can load in nodes from the default rooms, however their rotations will not be exported correctly. In addition, you cannot make new nodes unless you copy and paste. For myself, I only use SketchUp as an import and export tool - I do not use to make or alter the original meshes I create. So for my nodes I make them almost all by myself by editing the XSF file in a text editor.

I dont know how well Blender handles nodes, but from most of the posts regarding Blender, it has been used far more for avatar clothes and accessaries than rooms and furniture items. I believe the furniture and room development in Blender is still under research.

So this tutorial is *most* useful for Sketchup users. But it should also be generally useful if you want to manually edit your XSF file. You can use the tutorial by determining where you want your catcher standing and which direction (by degrees) they are facing. Then use the table to look up the settings you need to enter into the XSF file for your pitcher and catcher.
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Mercuria · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:35 am Post subject:

Okay, so this set of instructions is pertinent to SketchUp, not 3ds.

That was fairly confusing.

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Maggiedoll · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 1227 Location: USA - MD

Thank you thank you thank you!!!!! I've been going insane over this!
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breeanna95 · Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 318 Location: Australia

hehe,... Maggie, did you go insane trying to figure out what I was talking about when it didn't apply to you, or insane because you needed what I wrote because it hasn't ever been put in this much detail?
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xJonnx · Joined: 07 Feb 2007 Posts: 1578 Location: USA - PA

This information could be useful for anyone not using Max. Hand editing was a way of life for me (I am using Blender now instead of sketchup). But the spacing for Catcher and Pitcher nodes in Blender is still a little iffy for me, so by placing the nodes, then I can edit them in notepad for proper spacing. A lot is being done with Blender, and thanks for mentioning it in your thread. I am not aware of clothes or hair being done yet, but there are furniture items, accessories, static scenes, and furniture rooms all being done with Blender now. 17 of my last 20 meshes have been done in Blender and if you look up jazzKat, all of his are done in Blender.

Thank you for this information!
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TrakahanTiTeutonia · Joined: 01 Sep 2006 Posts: 874 Location: Italy

WOW, with 1 single post u solved half of my troubles O_O
TNX U! Very Happy

I hope they put this post in the tutorial list. I'm thinking to prepare a complete list of tuturial for "non using 3ds developer"... i needed a long testing time to understand manual modifications and probably people is scared and dont enter in our "fantastic matematic world" Very Happy

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