Adding custom floating hand avatar

[seowen1]

Hi there,

I am in the process of trying to create and utilize a custom avatar for a disconnected hand. This would be similar to the "Head and Hands" avatar within vizconnect.

I'm still pretty new to Vizard and python, but I'm pretty well versed in 3ds max, so the model is already created/rigged and exported as a CFG via the Cal3D exporter. It seems like the model is in working order, since I can open the CFG in Inspector and it looks good. I can even use:

handTest = vizfx.addAvatar('<filepath>/Tactical_GloveRight.cfg')

And it will load in and look fine. Where I am confused is how I go about adding this in as an Avatar to replace the hand/glove model. I did replace the model filepath with my new one in the vizconnect file, and it loads but it is a black model with no apparent textures. Almost as if the Effects aren't applied on the model (like if you load it with "viz" instead of "vizfx"). I am using a scene without any light source, but the texture for the glove has a self-illumination complete map baked in that appears just fine with the vizfx.addAvatar() command, as previously mentioned.

Also I'm getting a bunch of errors referencing the bone names:

** ERROR: Bone with name 'END thumb' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'END index' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'END middle' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'END ring' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'END little' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone thumb ROOT' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone thumb 0-0' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone thumb 0-1' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone index 1-0' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone index 1-1' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone index 1-2' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone middle 2-0' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone middle 2-1' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone middle 2-2' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone ring 3-0' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone ring 3-1' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone ring 3-2' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone little 4-0' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone little 4-1' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone little 4-2' does not exist
** ERROR: Bone with name 'bone WRIST' does not exist

Which is weird to me because I thought the code would pull the bone names from the skeleton file instead of having them hardcoded to the old skeleton bone names. I even tried to edit the hardcoded names within HandModel() class of the hand.py file to no effect.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I really want to get this new model working as we want something different than the default "Mickey Mouse Glove" as we call it internally. Thanks!