Skeleton not working properly

[Aqueous]

Hello, I recently started trying to extract the models from FF7. I don't profess to be an expert at modelling or so but I followed the guides on Mirex's site and managed to extract a few models, the issue I'm having at the moment is the positioning of the p models on the skeleton - they're totally muddled up. I saw Mirex post a thread about new ASE format support for Biturn and in it he had a screenshot of the Joker enemy. The model was perfect, everything in the right position etc. and that was just viewing it in Biturn, but here is how it shows for me (with Cloud):



I can't work out why it's positioned wrongly. I've been searching the web for hours trying to find something about this but haven't been able to find the answer. When I convert this to a 3ds format (I have Max 8 so...at the moment I just have to live with the "blocky" look of 3ds) and import it into Max all the p models are simply on top of each other with their centres on the same point. Can anyone lend a helping hand as to how to get the models assembled correctly?

Thanks.

Edit: I'm guessing the points on this blue "line" are where the p models will be positioned but I don't know how the positions. I have flicked through the file data and looked at the joints sections etc. but still not worked out how to move them.

[Reunion]

Do you have cloud's animation file (rtda) in the same directory as the hierarchy and the rest of his model parts?

[Aqueous]

Yep. All of the files starting with "rt" I extracted to a single directory. Biturn isn't able to identify the file type of the rtda file but it's there nonetheless.

Edit: It's like this for virtually every single battle "mob" in the game, player and enemy alike....



As you can see this is meant to be a Bagnaranda enemy, but it's a complete mess =/

[Alhexx]

The problem is that the skeletons in FF7 do not have a base-frame. Thus, the skeleton was read correctly, however, it seems like biturn failed to load the animation file, and therefore, all bones are just in one line.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to solve this problem. Let's wait until mirex takes a look at it...

 - Alhexx

[Aqueous]

What I find odd is that it seems to be only me with the issue? Surely if it was a universal issue then everyone would have screwed up skeletons but it's weird how it just seems to be me.

Thanks for replying though and ye hopefully he can help because I've been getting a real headache over this.

Edit: Well I got around the issue myself by downloading version 0.87 - at least it's smooth so far. Of course that doesn't help Mirex with the bug in 0.88 but might help him identify it =)

[Alhexx]

Oh, so it works with biturn V0.87 but not with V0.88 ?

 - Alhexx

[Aqueous]

Yep, output is fine aswell. Working fine with 0.87 but screwed with 0.88.

[mirex]

Dang. I knew that I messed up something in 0.88 when changing the base of the engine. It should be reading more of the frames properly, and it was working I swear ! ( it was reading out 3 frames from whole animations instead of 2 as before )

I'll investigate.

And I also move this thread to Programming Feedback where it belongs.