Newbie question on animation

Hi, I’m very new to Blitz3D and trying to learn on my own. I’ve been combing the forums for the past couple weeks trying to avoid having to post, but so far every similar post I’ve found hasn’t resolved my problem, so here I am. From what I’ve found, here’s what I’ve tried thus far…

Created a mesh in 3DS Max 2008.
Created a skeleton and attached it to the mesh via skin modifier and edited envelopes as needed.
Created an animation using the skeleton.
Exported as .3DS
Blitz3D code:

man = LoadAnimMesh ("stickman1.3ds")
PositionEntity man, -1.5, -10, 15
RotateEntity man, 0, 90, 0
ScaleEntity man, .1, .1, .1
ExtractAnimSeq man, 0, 32
Animate man, 1, .4, 1, 1

Result: Mesh OK, bones askew, only bones animate.

…
Install B3D Pipeline
Install Max 9 Patch
Export as .b3d
Preview OK
…
Result: Mesh OK, bones OK, only bones animate.

I’ve tried a simple model with minimal bones, vertices, etc. I’ve tried exporting mesh and animation seperatly. I’ve tried getchild function, and a whole lot of trial and error. All to no avail.

Since I am a newb to Blitz3D, it’s entirely possible that I’m not doing something in 3DS Max that Blitz3D needs me to, and even more possible that my code in Blitz3D is incorrect. What I haven’t been able to do is find my root bone and animate it. One post says this is extremely important. I’m under the impression that the getchild function does this, and the code I Copied&Pasted and altered to fit my files;

man = loadanimmesh("stickman.b3d")
animman=getchild(man,"stickman")
animate animman

does not work.

I would appreciate any insight on this, and in “example code” form if possible (I learn best by picking apart a code piece by piece and viewing the results). I can e-mail my .max, .3ds and .b3d files if needed. Thank you.

I stopped reading at this point. The 3DS format is ancient, and as such, has no support for bones or skeletal animation in general. Use another format. Preferably, the B3D format.

Could you read farther than that point? I’ve tried .3ds, .b3d, and .x. They all give me basically the same result, which is why I think I’m not coding correctly.

..mistake you have related to most probably:
1) wrong options set during export with B3D pipeline (show us screen of B3D pipeline exporter window to see what you did select or not)

2) This is wrong if Im not mistaken --->animman=getchild(man,"stickman")<---, U should use Animman=findchild(man,"stickman")

You're right; it's findchild, not getchild. My other mistake was labeling my mesh "Stickman" in my 3D editor, and in Blitz3D looking for "stickman" (without the capital "S"). Thank you for your help Naughty Alien.