Hello!
I am looking to make my own animations with the XSI Mod Tool for a machinima that I am planning.....trouble is I don’t have a clue as to what I’m doing!

I’m having a slight bit of trouble with enveloping, I was just wondering how do I apply the mesh to the skeleton.....I googled around and according to some guides this is what I do:

1. I select the mesh
2. Go to deform
3. Envelope
4. Set envelope
5. I then middle clicked envelope deformers
6. Right clicked to finish

When it had finished I tried to move the model but only the skeleton moves.
I have tried selecting all of the bones manually but that does not work either.

This is probably a noobish question but any help will be appreciated...!
If I have left any details out I will do my best to fill them in....

Thank you for your time!
-Buchal

It’ll depend on the rig you’re using. Some rigs will have a pre-built group to middle click when enveloping (which will automatically select all the deformers). Once it is enveloped, the mesh should no longer be able to move, as the skeleton controls now it. Again, it depends on the rig but when you’re using the default ones you usually just can’t grab a bone and rotate it unless it is set to use forward kinematics. Instead there should be a bunch of implicit control objects floating around the rig to grab and move instead.

Hmm, I’m still having problems, I’m trying to make animations for a combine NPC.
I am using the reference.smd and a male rig (I tried Biped but there were alot of errors! :L)

About these floating objects, are you referring to the likes of these:

ValveBiped1.ClavicleControlL
ValveBiped1.SpineControl
ValveBiped1.HeadControl etc.

Well when I decompiled the police.mdl, I could not find an emdl file, I’ll take another look, perhaps I have overlooked it!

Sorry I took so long to get back to you, my connection can be very bad at times! :L

I knew I was doing something wrong!
Thank you very much for your offer but I hope to learn how to do this so I don’t have to plague the good people of these forums with any pointless topics/posts! If you could give me a point in the right direction as to where I can find these emdl. files I should be sorted! However if all goes to fail,(which it most likely will :L), I would be very grateful if I could take you up on your offer but as I said I wish to see can I get the hang of this little problem first!

Thank you again for your patience!

-edit-
Also, I noticed in the early version I used of the Mod Tool (6.01 I think) I could open up scenes with the models already enveloped but with this new version (7.5) the scenes are not present in the start up menu.....are these the emdl files that you are referring to?