arma3_animation

[tired summit]

like this?

[desert raven]

no since thats not where the weapon is held in the pose

trying to make example but you got some parenting here that I need to undo 😅

[tired summit]

sorry

I have like, only 40% of an idea what I'm doing with RTMs

[desert raven]

unfortunately its not very documented thing

[tired summit]

a friend who makes them gave me a tutorial like 6 months back and I only partially recall it so Im sure I missed a step

also gotta run into town for a minute so I'll make whatever changes you say when I get back 🙏

[desert raven]

is this a pistol or rifle animation?

well anyway the weapon bone position never changes

its always the same as in the pose the character is in

so for rifle the weapon bone is always up at the shoulder

and for pistol the pistol proxy is glued to the right hand and points forward in the pistol stance

so fi you want this kind of offset you have

the offset has to be faked in the weapons model space

and then you can try to reposition the hands

weapon animation is blended with the pose the character is in from the hands offset from the weapon bone inside the rtm

[tired summit]

Pistol

[tired summit]

to clarify, do I need to move the actual weapon proxy in the blender model?

or just be aware that its gonna always be where the hand is and that I gotta offset it in OB

[desert raven]

This. It's always in same place

[tired summit]

Okay

I got it to actually work this time

Except it keeps making weird warps

[desert raven]

Warps?

[tired summit]

is the wrist just not rotatable on a pistol animation?

[desert raven]

Poorly most likely

[tired summit]

I had been told that you just place the hands and the game kind of auto-places the limbs to connect, but it seems like that only works with rifle

[desert raven]

Yes it does that

[fast canopy]

Pistol proxy is always glued into right hand

[tired summit]

with pistol it seems like it forces the firing hand upright and puts the offhand wildyly elsewhere

[tired summit]

see I understood that part, I just figured I'd rotate the Izlid in OB to match the hand

but I cant seem to even rotate the wrist back

[desert raven]

Your weapon bone might not be in right place and direction

It might be sideway

[tired summit]

should I not have been parenting the Izlid to the weapon bone when I started?

[desert raven]

Probably not

[tired summit]

so should the weapon bone remain at the side place it used to be?

or should I just place it where the Izlid is

[desert raven]

Try that

Or try both

At least like this it definitely looks like what could cause your issue

[tired summit]

actually wait

it seems like its already parented

without even doing anything

just opening the rig from scratch

and rotating the wrist

that rotates with it

[desert raven]

Yeah it has a constraint. It can be turned off

Anything in the rig blender functionality can be changed. Only bone positions matter on export

[tired summit]

just gonna try this and see what happens

[desert raven]

😅

[tired summit]

okay that didnt work

[tired summit]

how do I turn off the link

maybe the move is just keeping the proxy at the side?

idk

this is hurting my brain lol

[desert raven]

Constraint menu

You'll have to look up blenders manual.

😝

[tired summit]

does anyone here have experience with making specifically pistol RTMs who could answer a few question?

[desert raven]

Been a while since I made my last one. Would have to open up the files to see specifics.

Best to just ask the questions and people who have possible answers usually answer

[tired summit]

Yeah I'm just trying to get some info on how the hand stuff works

Like rifle animations make sense to me

Secondaries I have no clue

[desert raven]

I'll check my files when I get on the computer. I'll tag you unless someone got more tips before that

[tired summit]

[regal mauve]

So if i've understnd correctly this discussion, you don't need proxies to make a handgun anim, you just need to use the weapon bone like it was a rifle ?

[desert raven]

weapon, launcher, pistol proxies are always on the character, otherwise weapons cant be used

pistol proxy is glued to the righthand, weapon and launcher proxies are tied to weapon and launcher bones on the side

[junior crest]

Can I stick a - in front of animation speed config and get it to play in reverse? Or do I need to stop being lazy and just reverse it and have it seperate?

[fast canopy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQO3VwPhqEM
Made a vid to tell the overall idea to import Cascadeur animation into Arma 3. Not a tutorial, but you may get what I want to tell

[eternal herald]

RIP

[regal mauve]

Any idea why my handanim has an 90° error ?

[desert raven]

weapon bone is not right way up in your rig

[regal mauve]

here is the rig

[desert raven]

yea dunno who has changed the weapon bone to look like that custom shape but its bad choice as it does not show which way is up

but in your case its most likely sideways

[regal mauve]

i simply attached my weapon object to the center of weapon bone. I think that's how the game displays weapon items. It's more like the game was automatically rotating my right hand to put it in a suitable position to hold a handgun but i don't want this

[desert raven]

is it a pistol weapon or rifle?

[desert raven]

because the handgun proxy moves with the right arm, moving the right arm moves the proxy and moves the weapon

so this is probably related to what @tired summit was asking too

[regal mauve]

it's a pistol

[regal mauve]

but how do i rotate the proxy to put it in the right orientation ?

[desert raven]

you cant

pistols are major pain

the system is basically designed to support only pistol kind of weapon that is held like a pistol

you can try to design your thing to to fit the pistol proxys position but now that I think of it, it may not be possible to move the right hand

(all vanilla pistols use same hold animation)

which basically is just the pose

[regal mauve]

god damn it. Ok thank you very much for these informations, i'll redesign my spreader to add a grip on it

[desert raven]

that may be the easiest way yeah

@tired summit this is related to your thing too and I may have given you bad advice earlier.

this is basically how it looks

[tired summit]

[desert raven]

I'll refresh my memory a bit more info

default pose is this

aand the weapon bone is actually in the back so it may not be considered in this case at all

[desert raven]

now I just checked and none of the vanilla pistols use handanim=

but its possible to use

but it can have some quirks

[tired summit]

Hmmmm

Wish slots were less structured

So that it was juat a matter of a config line saying "this goes in xyz slot" rather than forcing animation limitations

[desert raven]

it has to know what movement set to use somehow

[tired summit]

Sure but that doesn't need to be linked to an inventory slot

Which is entirely what people trying to mod like an Izlid to fit in a secondary slot or an M79 in a launcher slot etc are trying to acheiven

[desert raven]

one of the burdens of very old legacy roots of the animation engine

i'll do some tests

[buoyant lagoon]

my hand anims are much much worse

this was me trying to do it through obj builder only

[desert raven]

[buoyant lagoon]

one day I will get it

untill then, alien hands

been trying blender way now

much nicer

[desert raven]

https://tenor.com/view/thisistheway-mandalorian-gif-24962160

@tired summit @regal mauve coming back to the pistol animation

tested this

with result of this

which is kinda expected

[buoyant lagoon]

why does having the gun point up result in that in game?

[desert raven]

as in relation to either the pistol proxy that is glued to the right hand or the right hand the left hand is in that position

as the pistol takes it position from the pistol aim pose

like this they match

so basically the right hand can not be moved as there is no way to move the pistol proxy like there is with weapon proxy launcher proxy as they are tied to the weapon and launcher bone

so the handanim is in relation to the weapon/launcher/pistol proxy as far as I can figure it out

so basically @regal mauve yeah like you said you will do, adding a handle to your tool will be easiest solution

and @tired summit yours is bit more difficult since the ting is a tube and you probably dont want to make a pistol grip for it xD

what you could do is script a gestsure to overlay the hand animation

so what you could explore is something like this

the device would be held like this pointing down basically

looks a bit silly yes

but options are limited

but a script could be run when you take it out that would run a gesture on top of this pose

moving it to this kind of pose

[regal mauve]

the overlay gesture is not a bad idea.

[tired summit]

hmmmmm yeah

[regal mauve]

Just to be sure, addding new walk, fast, slow, crouch actions to an animation will not make the character play these animation automatically, i have to program it myself ?

[fast canopy]

Program what?

Both animation and configuring are not a part of programming

[regal mauve]

If i want to add a new stand and walk animation, configuring is not enough, i'll have to use keydown event to make the player play the new walk ?

[fast canopy]

Well, depends on how you want to implement

It actually is possible to make entirely new move set, GM CDLC already does

[regal mauve]

Ok, i decided to make a fighting pose

class CfgMovesBasic {
    class ManActions {
        iarts_acs_idle1 = "iarts_acs_idle1";
    };
    class Actions {
        class CivilStandActions;
        
        class iarts_acs_actions : CivilStandActions {
            Default = "iarts_acs_idle1";
            PlayerStand="iarts_acs_idle1";
            Stand="iarts_acs_idle1";
            Civil="iarts_acs_idle1";
                };
         };
};

If i understand corrctly this code, the character will play normal civil actions when the player will try to move ?

[fast canopy]

Maaaybe. Sorry but I've only barely experience with Actions

[regal mauve]

Hmm. I tried this code but the character is not able to move around when the move is played.

It's almost like i have to use keydown event to make the player move myself

[desert raven]

So you can either replace the default animations which would make your new ones default, or if you make new action set you will need to have have some scripting to enable the new avtipn set and then animations will be used from within it as much as possible

But if some other action is played it won't go back to your actions without scripting it again

[woeful pelican]

I know most people have better luck with using things like blender etc for animations but has anyone managed to get object builder to export a working RTM?

I have an unbinarised RTM that i import into object builder on the sample male.p3d and everything looks fine, make the change I want, and export the rtm - but when ingame it turns into arma spaghetti monster

this happens if I binarise or don't binarise, the source RTM works fine its only when it goes through object builder it breaks horribly

[desert raven]

it has worked fine before and @thin temple uses it a lot 😅

what type of animation are you trying to make?

[woeful pelican]

I feel like Im missing a crucial step to make it working then

[desert raven]

static pose? weapon animation?

[woeful pelican]

weapon animation - or rather I'm trying to slightly modify it

[desert raven]

does the import also bring the weapon bone in correct place?

[woeful pelican]

\TemplateRTM\Male.p3d is what I should be using right, in samples?

[desert raven]

weapon anims read the hand offset in relation to the weapon bone

it should work yes

[woeful pelican]

hmm No you're right the weapon bone is off

its over here

[desert raven]

that would be the reason for spaghetti man

yeah

[woeful pelican]

im guessing when it was exported it was 'Weapon'

[desert raven]

yeah it needs to be weapon

[woeful pelican]

and object builder isn't catching that

[desert raven]

you can edit the rtm and change the bone name

in text editor

[woeful pelican]

yeah was about to try that

[desert raven]

it also should need to be weapon to read right in game

Weapon as far as I know cause spaghetti hands everytime

[woeful pelican]

weird it doesn't seem to cause issues cept in OB

[desert raven]

only consistency is the inconsistency then

[woeful pelican]

ok text edit fixed the position, will try it out and see if it explodes again

yep that fixed it

ty goat

[desert raven]

👍

[daring crescent]

Guys , good health to everyone .I'm trying to create an animation, for a mod, with animations of actions with weapons from video tutorials, I seem to have figured it out.Trying to make an animation unit digging trenches.With the animation of the unit, everything is ok.But the shovel, the model of which I animated together with the unit, does not convert into an arm from a blender.The plugin does not see her to save her animation in .rtm format.Has anyone tried adding objects to the unit animation, if someone knows how to do it, please tell me.Or maybe there are quality lessons on this topic.Tell me, comrades?!

[desert raven]

cant add objects to unit animations

[daring crescent]

#arma3_animation message ,And then what is in the hands of this bot?Is it really such secret information that there is no information on the Internet and no one wants to answer?

[desert raven]

It's a representation of a pistol. Read the whole conversation.

And that's not in game it's in animation software. In game the object would not be part of the character

[daring crescent]

In short, I won't find any information here.thank you very much.Your answers are simply a masterpiece.

[desert raven]

I have answered your questions. Its not my fault that what you asked for is not possible. But if your attitude is like this I dont have to try to figure out way to do what you want.

[daring crescent]

My attitude is normal.I asked several questions, including, if there is no way to do as I want, I asked if there are more informative lessons on this topic.You have answered only the first part . That's where my words seemed offensive to you.I'm sorry if that's the case.As I understand it, Bohemia has not created an opportunity to make a character animation with user-created items, except by replacing the weapon with a user-created item.If so, then you can find out how it is done in detail.?If you have such information, please share it.And don't be offended.

[desert raven]

you can make weapon look like anything but there are no detailed instructions to do what you want to do. it could be possible to create a weapon that looks like a shovel and maybe play separate animation on top that looks like showeling

[daring crescent]

And is it possible to simply create a shovel as a separate model, and attach the shovel to the hand of the character playing the animation of "digging with a shovel"?There is a command to attach the object to the hand.I don't remember exactly, but it's something like this.

 shovel attachtoo [unit (0,0,0) "granate"]

[desert raven]

maybe, it might be difficult to keep it aligned correctly

[daring crescent]

in the very sample file of creating character animation, I have to where I can learn how to create my weapon and make animation with it with a character.?

[desert raven]

you can find example weapon and character in arma3 samples on steam

but probably nothing that is 100% guide to do what you want

[daring crescent]

if I attach a shovel to the character's right hand, then I think it should work.

[desert raven]

could be yeah

[manic yarrow]

Is this public animation? I mean could I use that, that looks awesome

[daring crescent]

This is an attempt to create a digging animation.

[manic yarrow]

I know, I have dig script , without animation, and yours animation looking good.

[daring crescent]

In short, it turns out such a thing.the left hand is not working
properly.We need a script so that approximately every second , the shovel turns with the setVectorDirAndUp command, and returns to the previous position.Then it will be possible to talk about more or less not bad animation.

what is needed is not a script, but a cycle that turns the shovel and returns it to its place.

[daring crescent]

Are links to videos allowed in the channel?I would like to show what happened.

[desert raven]

sure

links are ok as long as they are on topic. 👍

[daring crescent]

https://youtu.be/1IaIK3dgr7M

Don't pay attention to mistakes.I'll fix it later.

[analog osprey]

Does arma support a constraint system for skeletons? Eg, "Rotation" and "Look At"?

The Armaman has bones in the legs and arms that appear to be twist bones in it. but I'm not sure if those are in use or are possible to add to use elsewhere, say an additional kneebone.

I'm used to rigging for other engines and I'm not very familiar with arma setup, so I don't know how to check this myself. But a friend is curious about this for a different skeleton variant.

Eg. :

Standard A Pose:

Knee - Calculated 50% influence from the Lower leg bone

[fast canopy]

Nop. An RTM only plays what it has

[desert raven]

For animation making you can add whatever extra bones you want to the rig

As long as you don't write them in rtm

The toolbox rtm export ignores all bones with @ in front of the bone name

But for standard man you cant add bones in.

Custom skeletons can have whatever bones you want (bone count limit 250 or so)

[analog osprey]

I'm going to assume the answer to the main question of constraints existing in some form in Arma 3 is a no then?

[desert raven]

correct Arma just plays the animations given to it

it does not handle the animating

[sharp elm]

hello everyone, I'm new here and I wanna get started

I'm already experienced animator, I just wanna know can I get my animations into the game

[fast canopy]

How do you animate? Do you have the rig for A3?

[sharp elm]

Not yet, I'm asking if someone can provide all the tools I need to animate the character

[fast canopy]

Familiar to Blender animation?

[sharp elm]

Arma is a true fps so anything I animate in the tps will be shown in the fps view

[fast canopy]

Correct

[sharp elm]

Yeah I use for work

[fast canopy]

Check ArmaRig by Macser, that's actually everyone uses

Except me, a Cascadeur user

[sharp elm]

What is the diffrence ?

[fast canopy]

Different software

Everything is different actually, Cascadeur is an awesome software that is takes its focus only in animate

[sharp elm]

Ah we are not talking about blender anymore. So why im gonna need this software

[fast canopy]

No I mean - I'm just explaining what I use

ArmaRig is fine, its for Blender

[sharp elm]

Gotcha, but do you recommend cascafeur

Cascadeur*

[fast canopy]

Actually I can recommend but it is complex and learning is as steep as Blender

If you're good at Blendering, I don't really see a point to get

[sharp elm]

But you are saying it's mostly for animation right ?

[fast canopy]

Mostly? No, It IS for animation

[sharp elm]

So I guess it has better tools than blender

[fast canopy]

Either way importing animation into A3 will require Blender and its addons

Indeed, you don't need to think IK/FK since it can change anytime anywhere

You can keep the name Cascadeur into a corner of your brain

[sharp elm]

Lol show me where to sign

I'm gonna give it a shot

So is there any additional software i'm gonna need ?

[fast canopy]

BTW: before this goes into #offtopic_software , you can actually check pinned posts for Blender workflow

[sharp elm]

Or compalier

[fast canopy]

I use Cascadeur - FBX - Blender - RTM (Arma anim format) workflow

[sharp elm]

Ok thx for the informations, the addon for blender can easily be found right ? If i searched for it

[fast canopy]

Yup, I forgot if ArmaToolBox can export RTM but Blender can do anything with it actually

[sharp elm]

I already have the toolbox I only need the rig

[fast canopy]

Maybe to import an RTM you need another addon, I forgot right now

Search for ArmaRig for Blender, it is decent enough rig

[sharp elm]

Ok, and do you know how can I replace original animations like reload and stuff ?

I know I'm asking a lot of questions

Bear with me please

[fast canopy]

You can get a sample RTM from Arma 3 Samples from Steam

And import with... RTMimporter addon or something named like that

But importer dislikes the constraints, hard to tweak actually

[sharp elm]

What about if I parent directly from the bone

No constraint needed

Or that will break everything

[fast canopy]

Parenting is not a concern IIRC

[sharp elm]

But wouldn't I totally broke the rig If I parented gun to the character

[fast canopy]

Ah that

Won't, an RTM only records the pos/rotation/scaling, not the hierarchies

(AFAIK?)

[sharp elm]

Oh really

That's great

[desert raven]

Correct, only the end result gets exported.

Any extra bones a rig has can be named with @ in the beginning of the name and they get excluded from export

The part of getting animations into the game will require you to learn to read and write the animation configs

Which can be a challenge, but it is possible to learn

There are not much learning material for that specifically though.

[sharp elm]

Please tell me where to start

[desert raven]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Class_Inheritance I suppose from the very beginning

@sharp elm is there something specific you want to do as a mod?

[sharp elm]

right now I just wanna screw around with the tool until I get hang of it

late maybe I could do an enhanced animations mod

[oblique lodge]

is there a video somewhere that helps explain how to setup a launcher hand anim over say a weapon hand anim?

[desert raven]

no

but its the same thing

preferably you will have launcher pose as the base though since the launcher bone is at different position than weapon bone

[fast canopy]

Actually I stand corrected, it is because Steam Overlay and Cascadeur hates it. W/O Steam it is very stable

[desert raven]

Nice catch!

[buoyant lagoon]

wat about one for just for primary weapon hand anims

🙂

I must be doing something wrong, surely

[fast canopy]

Seems like a default anim

Are you sure:

• the path is correct?
• the rtm is exported properly?
• is it binarized well?

[buoyant lagoon]

I would imagine the answer to those is yes since mikeros didnt complain.
path is correct for sure
exported properly -> how would I check that?
and binarized well I assume so, cause again mikeros didnt complain

[fast canopy]

Try Arma 3 Samples' TemplateRTM's male.p3d and apply the anim there

And also, as long as pboProject doesn't complain, seems like an issue of rtm itself

[wind marsh]

I'm having this same issue. Not sure what's causing it. I hand tried different versions of blender, arma toolbox plug-ins from different places, different rigs, and packed pbo with different tools and same results every time

[buoyant lagoon]

okay ill try that in the morning cause eyes go brrr and very sleepy

[buoyant lagoon]

if u find out do let know, and if I do I will lol

[wind marsh]

Will do

[fast canopy]

Also maaaybe model.cfg issue?

If you have the source you can share, prob that's the easiest to troubleshoot

[desert raven]

@buoyant lagoon your weapon bone name in rig is not correct

Weapon vs weapon

The hand anim requires bone name to match exactly

(same thing I explain here over and over and over again XD)

[wind marsh]

Thank you I spent a few hours after posting about mine and seen you mention that quite a few times and was going to check it out on mine after work today.

[desert raven]

there are couple of other bone name mismatches in there too that latest checks in pboproject catch

[wind marsh]

I assume bohemia maybe has list of bone names that I could compare to?

[buoyant lagoon]

🙂
it work, Arma rig has them as Weapon instead of weapon

well work is relative, gg his thumbs, idk wats up with his wrists but I just put together something real quick.
my next question is, how do I get that lean he has with his left shoulder turned in a bit and torso forward. I tried to do it my self but I guess it wanst correct

[buoyant lagoon]

I was relying on mikeros to tell me that the casing was wrong ,but it didnt complain then

[desert raven]

The check is new

[desert raven]

As to the shoulder, you can't. Weapon animations only take into account the hand position in relation to the weapon bone/weapon proxy and blend the basic pose in the rifle up stance to it

How you have it in your animation is highly unnarural though

[buoyant lagoon]

So I should leave the torso as is, and just move hands and fingers. Can I adjust elbows?

[desert raven]

No, it all blends from the hand positions and directions

[buoyant lagoon]

Ok I'll just move hands then

I can move the weapon correct? Like put it up against the shoulder to have a visual reference on where to put hands

Or could I move the weapon bone into position like the pistol,so that when I move the hand it moves the weapon

[desert raven]

Preferably you would have the default rifle aiming pose as base as the weapon bone position does not change either

But if you try to manually position it, you won't get it to match right

So you have less accurate representation of what it will look like in game

But even with using the rifle up pose as a base the setup in blender and in game will never match 100% due to the way the engine blends the pose.

It is usually close enough though

[buoyant lagoon]

how can I get the default rifle aiming position?

[desert raven]

There might be one in the samples or you need mikeros paid tools

[buoyant lagoon]

I got both so I'll peep them

[desert raven]

You can use dertm on the anims

[buoyant lagoon]

so there is a rtm that is the base leaning in sample, its AmovPercMstpSrasWrflDnon.rtm
but when I import it into blender I cant move the hands no more, is that normal?

[fast canopy]

RTM importer disables all constraints

[buoyant lagoon]

so uncheck that option?

ah 🙂

[desert raven]

Yes the rig is not designed to be used with imported animations. It needs some fixing to work right

[fast canopy]

Actually, if you're making only a handanim, it doesn't require actual anim

You just need to align weapon and both hands

[desert raven]

Correct, but it is helpful to fit the gun in correct place

Like how @buoyant lagoon expected to be able also control the guns position

And the rest of the body

With the standing pose as a base one can get a close preview what the final pose in game looks like

There are a lot of tricks that can be done. I'll put it on my "when there is time™️" list to put together a more import friendly rig that can also produce prone animations at the same time.

[buoyant lagoon]

ill try to figure something out, maybe a 8 year old arma video is wat I need lol

[desert raven]

the few good videos that exist for Arma modding have stayed true through out the years. Arma 3 is old game and the core stuff has not really changed much

[buoyant lagoon]

thing is most of the stuff I have found is using object builder for hand anim which might not be the worst idea but idk

[desert raven]

it too works, you can create a weapon holding animation in OB (and well in blender too if you break the rig a bit) where you only got the weaponbone somewhere and hands in right place

as only the hands relative position to the weapon bone matter in hand anim

like this is a pose made over the default rifle pose

this would produce same result in game

despite looking weird here

but

if weapon bone is not with the hands the result will be the tree man

[buoyant lagoon]

Okay so I am using object builder to check my work, with gun pointing up like this

would I then just adjust the weapon bone into the correct spot relative to the hands or is there something else I should do first

[desert raven]

is this still for weapon holding animation?

[buoyant lagoon]

yeah, got it once working, but not anymore so tryna find out wat tiny step im missing

[desert raven]

this wont work since the gun bone wont be like this in game

it will be at the shoulder

so you will get tree hands

[buoyant lagoon]

Yep I get that tree hand, so should I move the weapon bone to shoulder?

[desert raven]

yes. otherwise the hands wont be correctly in relation to it

[fast canopy]

The (prim.) weapon's pos and rotation is baked into the movement sets, and you're about to tweak how the hands follow it

[buoyant lagoon]

so doing this should work, weapon bone at shoulderish, I have it named as weapon which is same in model.cfg

but I still get tree man 😦

[desert raven]

you sure the rtm exports?

the bone is called weapon now yes?

[buoyant lagoon]

yes

if it was Weapon, mikeros does complain about the casing

[desert raven]

what does it look like in game?

[buoyant lagoon]

ill take a pic, games loadin

behold, tree man

[wind marsh]

Changed Weapon to weapon and same results for me but my tree man is way worse arms straight up branched out in 20 directions. I cant post pic's here for some reason.

[fast canopy]

Try to verify in #offtopic_bot_cmds so can post

[desert raven]

maybe the weapon bone in your rigs is wrong direction

I find that cross tube very to be hard to say which way is really up

[buoyant lagoon]

any easy way to check that? other then just rotating and see what happens

[wind marsh]

the feet of the rig should be at 0,0,0 correct? the rigs I found all have the torso at 0,0,0

im also trying to use launcher for my weapon not the rifle due to my pickaxe using the launcher slot

[desert raven]

does not matter for weapon animatiions

[wind marsh]

ok

[desert raven]

never seen one quite this bad though 😄

no idea how you managed that 😅

[buoyant lagoon]

we are pushing arma to its limits

[desert raven]

[buoyant lagoon]

going where no man or tree has

[desert raven]

it is more like trying to put the square peg in the round hole...

[wind marsh]

when I moved the rig up on z axis to 0 it got better that is why i asked

[desert raven]

are you guys actually adding the frame youve set up to be exported?

the timing changes depending on your animation timeline set range

so simplest is to keep starting frame as 0 and make the animation on the 0 frame and export the 0 frame

to avoid complications

[buoyant lagoon]

this is 0

and this is 1

should 0 not be the T pose?

[desert raven]

no

some vanilla animations have -0.5 saved as t pose

but its no really necessary

part of what you experience is likely due to this

[buoyant lagoon]

Okay so have 0 be the hand anim that I want

[desert raven]

or 1 but then export just frame 1

and have the timeline start at 1

so the rtm timing is then 0.0000

[buoyant lagoon]

how do u do that? just have 1 be the only entry in RTM keyframes?

[desert raven]

yes

0 frame would be used for hand anim

[buoyant lagoon]

and whats 15?

[desert raven]

frame 15 where you might have accidentally set up your animation

now this frame will export as 0.0000 phase frame

and it givesit 0.0 phase because the timeline is set to start from it

[buoyant lagoon]

okay, and what does that 0.0000 and 0.7500 mean?

Okay let me see

[desert raven]

phase of animation between 0 and 1

in Arma

if you add frames out of timeline range they will get <0/ >1 phase values and are unlikely to be played because rtm animations roll between 0-1

[buoyant lagoon]

Ah okay

that was the fix

omg

our next challenge, make it look nice enough
and then reload animations
which I assume is jsut the same concept but with many more key frames?

[fast canopy]

Yep

However almost all reloads are not well with IKs, so... uhh...

Pain, yes

[buoyant lagoon]

oh

so what is the method for making reload anims?

[desert raven]

well there are a lot of ways to use the animation tools and even get the IK constraints to work but it kinda starts to be too lengthy to write down in just few lines

it kinda comes down to practice and learning the tools at your disposal

[buoyant lagoon]

ah understandable, I will try to find a video first and hten when I get stuck come back

[desert raven]

Yeah theres a lot of tutorial material out there that can be helpful. RTM/Arma only cares what the frame looks like, not how you set up the rig so you can do pretty much anything with it as long as you export only correct set of bones

bones named with @ in front of the name get ignored by the exporter so if you need to add marker bones or helper bones or stuff like that you can put @ in the name and it wills stay in blender

[buoyant lagoon]

is there anything special to consider when doing hand anim for pistol and launchers?

[desert raven]

Launcher works same way as weapon. Pistol is more restricted as the pistol proxy that defines the weapon position is glued to the right hand. So right hand position can not be moved. Only left hand. And changing pistol hand anima drastically breaks gun down and salute animations pretty easily (visually looks glitchy) none of the vanilla pistols have custom hand anim

You can read about the pistol stuff in the recent history on this channel

[buoyant lagoon]

okay so just dont move the weapon bone

pistol weapon bone*

[fair galleon]

so....I've found a FBX animation that was released for free without any copyright issues, and I'm trying to port it to ARMA3. But I can't find the right guide to do that and I don't know the right use with Blender and ARMARIG. Can I get some help?

For now I don't have any knowledge of this modding, but I think it's going to be difficult to import because the skeleton model of fbx is different from ARMA's one....

[fast canopy]

Good question there. I need to know how I would translate into Arma's rigs well

[fair galleon]

I've tested this and that, but I can provide only the motion file for now and I don't think there's anything more I can do with.

[subtle falcon]

If you're familiar with retargeting, you can use Auto-Rig Pro (Blender addon) to retarget your anims.

I had done some tests with some UE animations. I never pushed further. I had encountered difficulties with some bones.

[fast canopy]

UE to Arma you mean?

[subtle falcon]

yes

UE Skeleton to the Arma Skeleton. As you can see, it was not that great and it required a lot of clean-up.

I think I still have the ARP bones profile somewhere if you want.

[fair galleon]

Ok...so i need UE Tool....?

[fast canopy]

That's not what Moonie meant

[fair galleon]

Oh, Ok...i will trying retargeting thing....

[fair galleon]

I've tried retargeting and I've checked that the animation is applied to Armarig, but it comes out badly twisted

mustbe my retargeting is wrong, and some problem maybe because fbx based on T-pose...

[desert raven]

Re targeting different skeletons can be difficult especially if you have something hands are grabbing very precisely.

[fair galleon]

Is it okay to say that I am confused from designating a skeleton...? I'm really starting with a stupid idea without knowing anything about modding, and I'm tying it up like this.

[desert raven]

Well you are diving into a very complex thing that people can spend months or years practicing. 😅 So yes confusion is kinda normal

[fair galleon]

Okay. I think I need to take more time to learn....thanks you for answer...

[rigid dust]

I'm zero with animations in Arma 3 but I was wondering if this https://feedback.bistudio.com/T171273 can be fixed with config changes?

Feels like wrong animation "route" from "no weapon crouching" to "pistol crouching" with extra "launcher crouching" in the middle of it

[fast canopy]

Looks like a broken config indeed

[rigid dust]

AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWpstDnon looks to be correct animation to do instead of AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon but I have no idea where to set\change that 🤔

[fast canopy]

Actually weapon switching does use somewhat special way by Engine to animate and have no way to script it

Which is lame, I'd like to use anim mask

[rigid dust]

So no way to fix through config?

[woeful pelican]

i havent looked at it properly but it's probably missing the correct interpolateTo entry

or connectTo

[rigid dust]

        class AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon: AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon {
            ConnectTo[] = {
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_gear",0.02,
                "AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon_gear",0.02,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.02,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWpstDnon",0.02,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWrflDnon",0.02,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon",0.02,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.02,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPercMsprSnonWnonDf",0.01,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPpneMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.02,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon",0.01,
                "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AwopPknlMstpSoptWbinDnon",0.02
            };
        };

Both are there, but AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon is listen twice

"AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWpstDnon",0.02,
```vs

"AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon",0.02,
"AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon",0.01,

[fast canopy]

Meant scripting, like switchMove

Seems weapon switching is really a special case and impossible to mimic by a script but only a proper config

[junior crest]

When exporting rtm files using arma tools in blender, what’s the normal movement vector to use for forward movement? -3 on the y axis?

[desert raven]

who did I post that for recently 🤔

I know someone asked

😅

[desert raven]

default walk has it like this

[junior crest]

Thanks! I was sent this but lost it 👀

[desert raven]

but the vector speed is relative to the animation sequence and how far the steps would take it

so you may want to check different movement speeds in game and then calculate that with your animation sequence

[junior crest]

will do - thanks!

[rich summit]

So im not entirely sure if this is the right channel to ask, however im curious how hard it would be to make a patch for a weapon mod that gives in vanilla animations instead of the modded ones it comes with. So how hard would that be? (I've never modded before)

[desert raven]

vanilla animations on what exactly?

vanilla weapon animations fit only vanilla weapons, they dont fit weapons that are not exactly same shape

[rich summit]

i want to take the animations of a base game or dlc (i dont remember) AKS74U and put it onto a modded AK74M. They are the same platform so i figured it would be fine

if the 74U anims wouldnt work than i would use the normal AK12 from base game anims

[desert raven]

its not quite that simple

[rich summit]

alright so that's what I was curious about. I have swapped anims on Fallout 4 before but never did it for arma but if its complicated I wont even bother lol

[desert raven]

it is unlikely to work very easily lets say.

[rich summit]

alright thankyou

[fading pine]

im looking to learn RTMs fully any youtube videos anyone recommends?

[desert raven]

there is not much related to rtm specifically but you can easily find animation tools usage tutorials for every common 3d program

[fading pine]

want to try to learn on blender cause i know blenders modeling side

[desert raven]

there are a lot of tutorials for blender animation tools

[fading pine]

does arma only use RTM for like holding the gun? im trying to port guns and need to make custom rtms so the player holds it right i assume rtm is the only file arma supports?

[desert raven]

yes

but you will kinda need to forget Arma stuff first and just learn how the animation tools work

[fading pine]

fair enough

[fading pine]

happen to know where i could get a list of armas existing reload gestures

[desert raven]

you can make yourself all in one config dump file (scripting command) that you can browse through

there are no external lists really

[fading pine]

Okay thank you

[fading pine]

i have made like 3 guns and never had this issue but for what ever reason i cant get the flash to go away any idea as to why lol

https://i.imgur.com/euru44j.png

[desert raven]

typo somewhere/ muzzleflash proxy not part of correct selection name that connects to config/animations

stuff like that

[fading pine]

it seems fine? https://i.imgur.com/Xi8Oqh1.png

[desert raven]

soz, dont have time to take a look.

typo or missing definition somewhere is the cause

[fading pine]

okay when ever you get a chance cause i copy pasted the name right from it so idk what it could be

thank you

[woeful pelican]

usually the default selection name for muzzleflash is 'zasleh' so if you havent changed it config side to 'muzzleFlash' that's probably why

[fading pine]

Yeah I changed it, turns out the issue was I was editing the wrong file lol, I made a back up file and was editing that and not the one in my p drive lol

[rigid dust]

So I tested it and changed

"AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon",0.01,
```to

"AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon_AmovPknlMstpSrasWlnrDnon",0.02,

So probably more changes are needed

https://pastebin.pl/view/raw/24b84966

This patch config makes you properly start pistol out animation but it keeps looping

Probably that animation needs fixing as well

animationState player => "AmovPknlMstpSnonWnonDnon"

[junior crest]

could anyone explain what the numerical value does exactly? struggling to understand it from this description. the cost of the animation?

[forest lance]

If you switch from anim A to Z it will take the least costly path, if there are multiple animations leading to the target anim.

[junior crest]

So is it just arbitrary and it goes for the lowest value to get to the animation it’s switching to?

[forest lance]

Yes

[junior crest]

sweet - cheers!

[plucky sierra]

Wouldn’t recommend posting your p3d here

[tidal hawk]

Guys, I am doing a script that adds weapon inspection. I am just lacking animations for primary and secondary weapons. Anyone knows ones that work?

Yeah, tried all the gestures... none for inspecting weapons. This animation works for pistols: sqf player switchmove "Acts_Examining_Device_Player";

But I still need to find one that works for primary weapons and secondary weapons

[tidal hawk]

found the one for rifles: sqf player switchmove "Acts_Rifle_Operations_Zeroing";

[small steeple]

Morning (from Aus), I am not sure if this is the right channel to be asking the question, however it is about animations.

I am trying to apply an animation to an AI (eg Arma_AlternativeRun - from the Alternative run mod). However the ai will only run on the spot when I use switchmove or playmove (eg man1 switchmove "ARMA_AlternativeRun"; ) I know certain animations like "Acts_Breaching_One" will actually move the AI unit in accordance with the animation.

Is it possible to apply the above example animation to an AI unit and actually have him move forward?

Edit: In Zeus I can execute man1 switchmove "ARMA_AlternativeRun"; on an AI unit and hew will perform the animation as expected and actually move forward. How can I do this from the editor?

[desert raven]

in live game running the animation also applies the movement vector of the animation on character since the game is live and stuff like that works

inside editor time does not flow in that way so the movement vector does not get applied

editor is not meant for live things

[small steeple]

How does one apply a movement vector?

[desert raven]

cant do it in editor

nothing moves in there

animations where you might see movement in editor play from the spot but the animation has the moving around in itself

the characters underlying position does not change though

so where exactly do you want the movement to happen?

in editor or in live game?

[small steeple]

Apologies, I meant how do I apply a vector so when I start single player and execute code they will perform the animation with a movement.

[desert raven]

they should do that same way. in live game no matter the way of executing the command

[small steeple]

One sec, I will upload a quick video

It seems to be working now 🤔

[desert raven]

a miracle

[small steeple]

@desert raven thanks for your help. I feel like I will be back again today as I am not sure why it is working now lol.

[buoyant lagoon]

Okay so I am back to doing some hand anim stuff, this time for a riotshield, this is where the hands are in blender but then in game its like so
but when in game the hand, or I guess weapon, is off a bit. Is this just something with handanims not being a 100% the same when in blender vs game or could there be something I am doing wrong?

if I move the hands/weapon bone in blender to adjust for the offset it works, but I was hoping to get as close as possible

[desert raven]

what type of weapon is it?

the hand positions should match 100%

[buoyant lagoon]

primary

I fell asleep lol

[desert raven]

you need to keep the gun bone in place at the shoulder and do all aligning in the weapon model/p3d

[buoyant lagoon]

Ah okay I'll send screenshots of what I got when I can

[lament swift]

Hi guys,
I made a weapon animation and wanted to know how to change the height the soldier is holding the weapon? The hands are positioned exactly I wanted but like I said I want to lower the height. More like on the hips.

Should I also bind the Weapon to the shoulder Bone?

[fast canopy]

That is not what handAnim does, you'll need a full set of move animations

[lament swift]

Hmm.. okay and where do I reference them? In which class?

So they are linked to the Weapon

[fast canopy]

No

Not even weapon, just animations

You can't move where the weapon is unless you use very special and overcomplex way

[lament swift]

Okay, thx

[desert raven]

Basically the weapon bone is always at the shoulder unless a new movement animation set is done where it is elsewhere (not an easy task to make or understand)

You can try lowering your weapon in the weapons own P3d and then making the hand animation to fit that fake positioning(bone still at the shoulder but visually weapon is lower) but that can lead to silly looking holding as the rifle at shoulder pose blends to your fake offset pose.

[lament swift]

Hmm. okay. Thanks for your help. I will try and see how it´s going.

[buoyant lagoon]

so when I keep the weapon bone around the shoulder like so but the anim still is offset to the left a bit . I could fix by moving the weapon bone to the left but then it wont visually match up.

would setting autocenter = 0 have an effect on this?

[fast canopy]

Likely

[buoyant lagoon]

Ill try both 1 and 0, in that screenshot I dont have it defined so I assume the default is 0

[woeful pelican]

no default is 1

autocenter 0 is definitely needed in this case yeah

[buoyant lagoon]

oh

alright ill try 0

[woeful pelican]

i might be wrong but autocenter 0 is what you always want for weapons anyway

[fast canopy]

autocenter 1 lets you to centerize the model automatically

0, vice versa

[buoyant lagoon]

having auto center to 0 didnt work :/
ill try a few other things in a bit,maybe just missing a step

[woeful pelican]

just incase, it needs to be in the geometry lod if you didn't put it there

[buoyant lagoon]

I did put it on all the lods, but let me double check incase I am crazy

[desert raven]

dont put named properties in all lods, only where they belong to

and then show where your and then show where where the shield objects origin is

this is how the rifle up stance looks like and the cursors marks where weapon bone is at

thats where your weapon objects origin (p3d 0,0,0) must be

if they dont match

it goes like this in game

@buoyant lagoon

[buoyant lagoon]

how do u get the origin of the bone to show?

[desert raven]

for example here

if you dsiable the fancy shapes of the armature

[buoyant lagoon]

ah so here I have the shield selected,
its origin is on the mans pelvis? I guess thats bad?

and this is where bone pos is

[desert raven]

yep not gut

[buoyant lagoon]

Okay let me try fixing the weapons center

[buoyant lagoon]

🙂 so my issue this whole time was that I was using the spartan scaled arma rig

🤡 = me

[desert raven]

[buoyant lagoon]

I had it named the same as hte normally sized rig too so I didnt know till I copied one of the weapons I had working before

perhaps I should name it better

[desert raven]

give it spartan helmet as head

[buoyant lagoon]

[fast canopy]

Any way to let a certain bone the start of the mask? Let's say if I want only to move prim. weapon using a simple rtm, and it should like tilt the weapon to 90 deg right at any situation/animation, but so far my BlendAnims PLP_recoil_prim_100[] = {"weapon",1.0};looks the mask starts from pelvis, I want to let the anim starts from the weapon in this context

[desert raven]

Try adding the rest of the bones between pelvis and weapon but with weight 0 maybe?

[hasty wing]

[this,"Acts_JetsCrewaid_idle_1","ASIS"] call BIS_fnc_ambientAnim; Would this be correct? im trying to have some ambient animations on my carrier

[desert raven]

simplest way to know is just run it

you can aslo run the command in live game through the debug console by replacing this with cursortarget and looking at a unit

[hasty wing]

ah ok

ill try to run it rq

alr i got a error

said "animation set not recognized"

[desert raven]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/BIS_fnc_ambientAnim you can read how it should be used from here

[hasty wing]

thanks

[hasty wing]

i cant seem to figure out the issue i got the same error

[this,"Acts_JetsCrewaidRCrouch_loop","ASIS"] call BIS_fnc_ambientAnim;

this is what i have

[desert raven]

that probably is not valid type of animation you can play on this

[hasty wing]

alr so just really unlucky ig? some good some are not

fuck i got it again

i even tried a ace animation

They can do everything but carrier animnations

i think i have to find the set name

[fast canopy]

You can just use switchMove

[trail grove]

Is there any eating and drinking animation mods?

[zealous solstice]

Howdy. So I was wondering if there was a general guide on animation for beginners. I'm working on my zombie dog mod, but I'm having trouble with getting it rigged. Any tips would be really helpful!

[desert raven]

You will want to start from generic non Arma animation and rigging tutorials for whatever program you use. There should be plenty for all the commonly used programs

Once you understand how the things work, the few final Arma related pieces of the workflow will be easier to figure out and understand.

[buoyant hound]

anyone aware of a mod that has a run animation like this?

[desert raven]

There aren't any.

There are very few mods that alter animations as it is very difficult to learn

[fast canopy]

Difficult to learn, difficult to make, difficult to organize everything

[buoyant hound]

I understand. Thank you for the responses.

[fast canopy]

Do I need to move camera bone when the third person camera center is on somewhere else than the head?

[fast canopy]

Yeah seems like so, but can't figure out how to export camera properly...

Success. Reason was the bone in Blender was out of place

[fast canopy]

Yay. Successfully reanimated

[cerulean pivot]

ah nice. you beat me to this 😅
I had already made a couple of animations but I abandoned it...

tho those animations were for getting on/getting off/sliding and they did not look so good 😓

[desert raven]

this looks pretty smooth! 👍

[fast canopy]

Tweaked a few after that and I'm really satisfied
https://twitter.com/polpoxEN/status/1652187013096038402

POLPOX (@polpoxEN)

https://t.co/FNDHaj1kqp

▶ Play video

Twitter · Apr 29, 2023, 5:44 AM

[pliant plank]

Hey just as a question, do I ask here about doing a handanim.rtm file? I need to change up the current one but the stand-in is the MAAWS one and I'm not entirely sure how I can modify that one

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/241824832453345280/1101122968005906492/20230427202919_1.jpg

[pliant plank]

Okay, started to figure it out. Does anyone have a good basic rocket launcher pose I can work off of? Samples only has the rifle ones where he's leaning forwards

[pliant plank]

Or does that not really matter

[desert raven]

weapon animations generally only need the hand positions to be right as all it reads from the RTM is the hands offset from the weapon/launcher bone

but it does help to see how to position the weapon

[pliant plank]

that makes my life considerably easier, cheers

Yeah, I can't find the neutral "upright" launcher one

[desert raven]

also you cant move the weapon bone around

[pliant plank]

eh?

[desert raven]

the weapon essentially always is at the shoulder

in same position it is in the character animation pose

so if you need to move the weapon to align it to shoulder

you need to do that inside the weapons own p3d

and then adjust the animation to fit

[pliant plank]

Yeah, I'm trying to gauge how much difference there is between the rifle up vs launcher up pose, I'm attempting to align launcher to shoulder which I did manage to do

I'm trying to work it out on the hand anim end now

[desert raven]

its quite a lot different

[pliant plank]

... Is this something I'll have to trial and error

[desert raven]

well unfortunately BI did not release all the base poses for easy use

[pliant plank]

I saw in a tutorial someone had access to the arma 2 poses but I have no idea where to find them

[desert raven]

they would not be the same I think

[pliant plank]

okay, I finally got it workable

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/725636788294778960/1101995759429230734/20230430060841_1.jpg

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/725636788294778960/1101995771508822078/20230430060836_1.jpg

[desert raven]

quest completed!

[pliant plank]

used a blender ref thing

which is a million times better than Object Builder

now to fix the physics

#arma3_model

[fast canopy]

https://twitter.com/polpoxEN/status/1652445021243846656

POLPOX (@polpoxEN)

Tweaked more. It gets better and better

▶ Play video

Twitter · Apr 29, 2023, 10:49 PM

[desert raven]

that is cool!

[pliant plank]

what a thrill

[fast canopy]

Want to add more functionality on the Mod but I can't since is really limited, unless Ded implements this thingy: https://feedback.bistudio.com/T171953

[desert raven]

oh that would be pretty sweet

[normal oak]

anyone know why my driver anim is broken? It looks okay in blender just cant figure out why is broken in arma

[desert raven]

maybe the rig is not right

[normal oak]

its a rig from a reload animation that worked but i have no idea this is my first anim

[desert raven]

rig from reload animation?

[normal oak]

from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0ACIBZrNIA

i believe the rig is fine i think its something to do with how im rotating and moving it

[torn basin]

I'm not even sure if this is possible. But I was getting into animations and wanted to utilise my unit's custom models for testing animations, I was wondering if there was a way to take models out of a mod, or is that impossible?

[desert raven]

not possible. would need the source files

[torn basin]

Ah, shame

[tidal basin]

question guys, how do you get the RTM file now that o2 doesn't seem to let you export it from there... or am I being completly blind

[undone mirage]

hi
i follow these tutorial to have a custom handAnim
https://www.ofpec.com/tutorials/index.php?action=show&mode=new&id=296
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=909917622

But i have a little issu x)

and i dont understand why x)

on OB

[fast canopy]

Make sure you've binarized the animation properly

[undone mirage]

how can i do that ? (when i export matrix ?)

[desert raven]

When you pack the pbo

[undone mirage]

Yes i try it it doesnt work

[fast canopy]

How you pack

[undone mirage]

addon builder

[wraith oxide]

Does rtm files contains data about its location ? Like p3d files does (paa textures)

[buoyant lagoon]

so I will soon try to make animations soon (gonna try to make a rechamber animation first) and I was wondering how fast would each key frame be played at? Instinctively I am guessing at 30 frames, so if I have an animation with 120 key frames that would be 4 seconds correct?

[fast canopy]

If you set the duration 4 seconds, yes

[buoyant lagoon]

where do u set the duration? config?

[desert raven]

the speed = parameter defines it. but its basically how fast frames play

[buoyant lagoon]

That would be this speed correct?
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3:_Animations#Quick_start:_CfgMoves_example

I dont see this explained anywhere but what happens with its a positive value?

[fast canopy]

Positive means 1/n

[buoyant lagoon]

with that being the time between each frame?

[fast canopy]

No, entire rtm

[buoyant lagoon]

ah so

speed = 0.25
1/0.25 = 4, 4 seconds for the whole animation?

[fast canopy]

Correct

Or simply -4, IDK why this has strange system

[zenith token]

you need to right click the animation frame window and choose "export matrices"

[thorny minnow]

using this video, for the life of me cant figure out why my skeleton imports sideways, I didnt touch the transformations in blender

@fast canopy Any idea why its sideways and if that will mess up the hand anim?

[fast canopy]

Not sure why you specifically ping me but one reason I can think is your skeleton in Blender is out of place

[tidal basin]

Cool ty

[late pier]

So

Is there some sort of 0 axis i can base my animation off of?

cause idk if my animation is going to clip through the groun

[desert raven]

The origin point of your armature is the position is is the connection to the proxy triangle

[dim harbor]

Hi hi everyone

👋

Anyone know how to duplicate rigs in macser’s blender arma rig?

I tried just copying it but then the rig becomes un posable

[fast canopy]

You mean you want to make multiple person anims?

[dim harbor]

Well not necessarily, just want to have two rigs I can pose in 1 scene

[polar musk]

You only need to dupe the Armature since the Model should be a child of it no?

[fast canopy]

Well, in Blender it is relatively complex, you need to copy and paste both the bone (armature) and the model

[polar musk]

I see, been a hot minute since I have messed with Armatures most of my time recently has just been Items

[dim harbor]

From the bi forums thread macser said that you have to retarget some of the constraints too but it’s too vague

He actually uploaded the blend file with multiple rigs but the links are all expired now

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/161228-armarig-for-blender/?page=7

[fast canopy]

This is more of Blender thing than Arma related, but the thing is... well,

• Select a model
• Select Modifier tab (the spanner mark)
• Check Modifier, you may find a tab with an icon of a doll
• Select Object to your desired one

It is very hard to explain in texts...

[desert raven]

Select rig and character, hit shift D to duplicate both at the same time.

It duplicates and retargets the modifiers so the new character copy uses the duplicated armature

@dim harbor

[dim harbor]

hmm the rig itself cant seem to be duplicated

[dim harbor]

nothing happens when i shift D on armarig object

[desert raven]

could be different keybinds too

whatever is Duplicate for you

(non linked duplicate might be safer)

[dim harbor]

well it works when i shift D on the meshes but not on the armarig

OH

i have to be in object mode

seems to be working now thank you! @desert raven

so first enable selection on all meshes (arrow icon) > go to object mode > select all mesh and armaRig > shift D > move the new rig away from the original > go back to pose mode to pose them

[desert raven]

yes

I also like to constraint my reference character to follow the armature ("child of" constraint)

so all I need to do is move the armature where I want it to be

and the reference stuff follows

I'll try to remember to post other tips too when I remember them. They just dont always surface from the grey cells unless Im actually doing the stuff

[dim harbor]

Thanks goat, tbh you're the one who've helped me the most with my arma modding questions =)

[dim harbor]

also can this be pinned? i find it really important and useful!

[desert raven]

maybe 😅 I'll try to compile it in single post later when I have some time

[dim harbor]

Hii im back with another question

[desert raven]

Hi back!

[dim harbor]

anyone know how to stop the guy from moving his head around during an animation? (for example in vanilla vehicles the guy will always move their heads around even though in the rtm the head was not animated)

also anyone know what the idle = "idleDefault"; token does? so hard to find documentation on animations 😭

[desert raven]

there is a headbob animation parameter or something like that maybe

[dim harbor]

from what i read thats related to how the camera follows the head movement

im looking to disable the thing where they keep looking around regardless of the rtm, its like the idle head movement

i tried using head = "headNo"; and it seems to hold the head still but i just wanna know if thats actually the solution

[desert raven]

did the head move by your animation with that set still?

[dim harbor]

it moves but minimally with head = "headNo";

[desert raven]

most likely it takes input still from neck but that usually is not very strong

[dim harbor]

by move i mean movement thats not my animation

[desert raven]

these might be the ones I remember affecting that stuff

[dim harbor]

i believe this is what headbob does

it just affects the 1st person camera

[desert raven]

there are few different headbob modes

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/CfgMoves_Config_Reference#headBobMode

cutscene could be what you are looking for

perhaps

[dim harbor]

it moves around still

[desert raven]

Id suppose you could disable input from player while your animation play

[dim harbor]

no its not about player

like if you spawn a vanilla car

and watch the driver

you can see his head keeps going left and right and all over the place

[desert raven]

yes AI looks around

what kind of animation is it then?

could tell AI to watch X direction or X thing perhaps

[woeful pelican]

there';s also gforces headmovement

which is set by the very well named leaning property

leaning = "crewShake";

[dim harbor]

Thanks for the help guys, i guess i'll have to do some testing 👍

[lethal wasp]

I have kinda looked myself blind at why this isn't working and could use some advice. I have an iron sight that i would like to rotate down when a real optic is put on a gun. I technically speaking have this working, but the irons get moved away from the gun entirely. I would understand if i messed up the axis or something, but it flips in the right direction, its just totally offset for some reason. Any advice would be appreciated.

[desert raven]

Autocenter property might be wrong, or the axis selection is not valid so it defaults to model origin

Does it work in object builder buldozer? @lethal wasp

[lethal wasp]

I do not have any autocenter properties put on my lods. I tried to remove the axis from the config to see what would happen, and it then rotates to the sides instead of forward/backward. So it does use the axis for something.

I have gotten around using object builder so far in my modding time 😛 so im not sure how i would test this

[lethal wasp]

Autocenter 0 did it, thanks! I tried to compare to other guns and they didn't have this property set. I don't know why it was required for my gun, but im glad it works 😛

[zealous solstice]

Just starting out with this. I hope it turns out well in the end lol.

[pulsar nexus]

I have set up a couple of animations in some models that share base models (they have the same geometry for available lods), that have selections that work with the "hasOptic" source and they work correctly MOST of the time, however I've noticed that whenever I have an optic equipped in some other weapons and then changing to the weapons that have the "hasOptic" source, one of the selections doesnt change properly and gets stuck even after removing and reapplying the optic. I wonder if there is anything that could bug out models, since this seems to happen only with an specific selection in the model, since the other selections that are intended to dissapear work correctly, the only one that doesnt is a rotation.

[desert raven]

so said animation work in buldozer?

when you preview the model?

[pulsar nexus]

yep, it actually works in game, it just sometimes stops working out of the blue for one of the selections

[plain knot]

When making an animation that requires 2 characters (I.e I’m making someone get jabbed with an iv) would I have both characters in blender at once or how would I do it

[desert raven]

You can have them n
Both present yeah. Just duplicate the character and armature and you got 2

[torn dove]

hey guys, wanna ask something, i'm not really familiar with 3d and animations but i wanna ask anyway, let's say i have a 3d model of the horse, it's a model in fbx, 3ds and other formats for 3d editors, it has multitrack and singletrack animations with it, normal maps and textures, where from should i start to even consider adding it to the arma

[zinc wadi]

Yes

[naive hemlock]

@torn dove - where did you get that model from?

[pulsar nexus]

Is the weapon bone static in relation to the skeleton?

Im having some troubles adjusting my handAnims as i dont know what defines the actual position of the hands.
Is the position of the bone relative to the hands, or the position of the hands relative to the bone?

My weapon model is centered to the origin of the bone and while I do understand that my p3d origin will define the offset of the weapon to the bone, I still have a really sharp angle on the right hand wrist, but my positions in the model are correct. It almost feel like that whatever defines the position of the actual animation is too high, be it my right hand or weapon bone.

Im asking this since the Mascer armaRig has the bone relative to the right hand so whenever the right hand moves the bone does too, but lowering both the bone and hand keeps the same position when exporting to Arma.

[torn dove]

@naive hemlock my friend bought it on some website for 5 usd, he bought it for something else but didn't end up using it

[zinc wadi]

You better read the TOS, before you use it.

[torn dove]

yeah, we're looking for it atm, it was more than a year ago

All the products we offer can be used royalty free in your video game and media productions, without further payment to arterai3d other than the intiial cost of the purchased pack. All we ask, is that you mention us on your credits page.
You can use the models and audio we sell in as many productions as you require, without having to pay separate licenses per use.

it says

[zinc wadi]

sweet

[torn dove]

so where should i start

i have no idea how to rig it, i have some expirience with moding and model, but nothing that huge

[naive hemlock]

is it aleeady rigged or?

well, this is one of the hardest projects you can try to make

you need a custom skeleton, and all custom animations

[torn dove]

i think i just entered the world of pain

yeah, it's rigged, i mean, the animations work in the blender and other 3d editors, they don't work in oxygen though, only bones are moving

i had a feeling i need something like a custom skeleton, but really have no idea on how to create one

[naive hemlock]

hmmm, if it is rigged, you need to export the vertices weights as well

i am not a blender user, but you can export the frim max using the bis txt scripts

or using a fbx just as welk (it is more complicatec)

that said, you need to define and config you skeleton as well, from scratch

the weights selections needs to be named in direct relation to you bonea

bones^^

[torn dove]

oh boy, sounds like alot of fun

[naive hemlock]

i'm on my phone, excuse the typos and other shit

[torn dove]

dw, thanks for answering, gives me some hopes that this could be done

[naive hemlock]

it isn't, i always wanted to get a horse in, never bothered due to the high chance of burn-out

have a look over how the man skeleton is defined and how its skeleton looks in o2

out of my own curiosity, is it rigged with normal bones systen (manual ik fk?)

[torn dove]

i'm sorry, how can i check that? i know nothing about 3d modeling

i don't even have a blender or something like that atm, downloading it right now

[naive hemlock]

what is the native file format?

[torn dove]

well there are alot of format, .x, .fbx, .dae, .u3d

formats*

[naive hemlock]

so then how do you know it is rigged?

if you dont have a 3d package ?

[torn dove]

last time i tried it which was 1 years ago it worked but i never did anything else with it

[naive hemlock]

0k

[torn dove]

downloading blender atm, will take a look at the model again

jesus i really have no idea what i'm doing

well i opened .dae in blender

there's a slider at the bottom of the program and it animates the horse

[zinc wadi]

"jesus i really have no idea what i'm doing"
Just like 75% of the ppl here :D Try, fail, try again, fail again, try again, win

[torn dove]

as i understand it's a singletrack of the animation, contains all animations in one track

[zinc wadi]

(Oh, btw.: I count me to the 75% :D)

[naive hemlock]

it animates how? so it is rigged AND animatec?

[torn dove]

i guess it is probably

[zinc wadi]

It was for UE4, right?

[torn dove]

i don't really understand the term rigged, but as i udnerstand it it has bones and animations do move the whole horse with the bones

i guess it was for everything, there was bunch ofother formats for any 3d editor including some game engines like unity

[naive hemlock]

hmmm...that is possible, but you need non interpolated (liniar) animation for arma, or baked per frame if the original is "blended"

[torn dove]

if someone wants to take a look i can send the whole zip archive with the horse

[naive hemlock]

anyways, i'm sorry to say that from the amount of knowledge you have and the task you want to accomplish you have a very difficult and bumpy road ahead

[torn dove]

yeah, i understand that

[naive hemlock]

but if you have perseverance it is dooable i guess

[torn dove]

at first i was just asking you know, no i wanna at least try it

now*

[desert raven]

The weapon bone is always at same position in game on the characters shoulder, hands are read from the RTM by their offset to the weapon bone, that's hands and fingers only, and the that is blended with the default stance which often can do funky things when the stance can't properly cope with the hand alignment.

In your case the hand would likely need to point little more upwards and then finger bones can be used to align it with the gun so the wrist might ease up a bit better

[pulsar nexus]

I see, had the hunch it was like this specifically because of that razor sharp wrist haha.

Do you have any advice on what I should consider a generalized position for the origin of the weapon (in this case rifles)?

Some of the arma weapons seems to have a somewhat similar height to what I got and feel like they are always up to the player face specially with larger scopes, its a bit odd to not have the very default firing stance to preview this even if somewhat mimicked.
The m16 and the base weapon in the samples have a very different center point so ive been wondering about the actual bone position when posed, as when I apply the sample rtm for the "combat stance" to the rig it doesnt move the bone.

[desert raven]

the weapon bone always stays in same place at the shoulder. Any adjusting to weapons position is done inside the weapons p3d

and then the weapon holidng animation is done around that setup

[unreal coyote]

is there skeleton for motionbuilder in sample files? I can only find one for blender which breaks if i export it to motionbuilder :/

[naive hemlock]

fbx files comes with skeleton as well

it is not native MB file, but it isn't native for max or maya either

there is a max CAT bone system available from toadie though

[zealous solstice]

When you experiments with animations lmao

[desert raven]

😅 oops

[zealous solstice]

Yeeaaaahhh my boyfriend was laughing so hard lol.

[rigid dust]

nope.avi

[pulsar nexus]

can animation sources in model.cfg have code in them?

for example, unhide a selection (bullets) if the AMMO source is larger than X?

or is this done using the hide and unhide controllers?

hideValue = X;
unhideValue = Y;

[desert raven]

no code

and yes with the hide unhide parameters it works the same way

[buoyant lagoon]

for reload animations what do I have to be considered for in positioning? is it like hand anim where only the hands/fingers matter?

[outer talon]

from my understanding its the torso/arms that matter the most unless youre making prone position

[buoyant lagoon]

wats considered in prone?

[outer talon]

i havent done a prone position just yet but i believe the legs as well

[buoyant lagoon]

Cool thanks, wats the best way to get that forward lean? or should I try to just approximate it?

[full sedge]

Are there any guides for how to make custom animations for gunners in vehicles?

[outer talon]

i would use from A3 samples and make from there for the most accurate lean.

approx sorta works but it can make things look a bit wonk if there isnt a change from base stance.

[buoyant lagoon]

ill try that, I have been using the blender arma rig with great success

[outer talon]

same here, glad i was able to help

[maiden galleon]

Can someone confirm if proxies can't interact with a hasmagazine animation source?
I had the following in my model.config file for an actual object and tested in the viewer and it worked, but now that I have a proxy, it doesn't work in game. ||class Shell2_hide { type="hide"; source="hasMagazine"; selection="Shell"; hideValue=0.22; unhideValue=-1;};
class Shell_hide {type="hide"; source="reloadMagazine"; selection="Shell"; minValue=0; maxValue=1; hideValue=0; unhideValue=0.5;}; ||
For context, this is not for a plane, but a turret. Or is it just a problem with the hasmagazine source? (As in messed up hide and unhide values)
It worked for a square that I had inserted and tested in the model viewer.
Maybe I'm just not triggering the the right thing.

(Sorry for repost. First posted in wrong channel)

[maiden galleon]

More context : I have a large mortar and I want the shells to be visible down the barrel. Perhaps even have a reloading animation.

[maiden galleon]

Here's literally everything par me sending the .p3d file at this point. class Shell2_hide{type="hide";source="hasMagazine";selection="Shell";minValue=0;maxValue=1;hideValue=0.5;unhideValue=-1;}; class Shell_hide{type="hide";source="reloadMagazine";selection="Shell";minValue=0;maxValue=1;hideValue=0;unhideValue=0.5;}; class Shell_mov2 {type="translation";source="reloadMagazine";selection="Shell";end="gun_chamber";begin="gun_muzzle";minValue=0;maxValue=0.5;offset0 = "1";offset1 = "0";}; class Shell_mov1 {type="translation"; source="reloadMagazine"; selection="Shell"; end="gun_chamber"; begin="gun_muzzle"; minValue=0.5; maxValue=1; offset0 = "0"; offset1 = "1";};

On a separate note. How would you rotate a diagonal object that is perpendicular to your axis of rotation. For example the proxy is at a 45 degree angle, is it possible to make it rotate around itself? (Rotation in order to make the proxy do a 180 from this view for example).

[desert raven]

Use code block if you write config in chat please. Keeps it more readable.
Proxies can be hidden as long as they are properly part of a bone selection that is hidden by an animation

And yea you can make any kind of rotation you likime by defining animation axis for your animations in memory lod

Use OB buldozer to preview you animations too. Makes it lot simpler

[maiden galleon]

Proxies don't show up in the viewer though no?

[desert raven]

They do

[maiden galleon]

Fr? I thought they only show up in OB but not the viewer.

[desert raven]

No

But I'd you are not using P drive workflow they might not work

[maiden galleon]

Fair enough. I have a very scuffed P drive setup.

[maiden galleon]

Yeah. Now it decides to work for some reason...

[maiden galleon]

Let's say I want to rotate the shell like the red circle, but my I only rotate using the x,y, and z axis. How would it work? I assumed that the axis would be at the center of the shell.

Ok setting the axis of rotation on the right most vertex seemed to sort it out.

[maiden galleon]

Nvm.

Like even conceptually, I don't think the rotation I want can be done using x,y, and z rotations because of how the object is oriented.

[desert raven]

Axis is 2 points in one selection.

That defines the vector the bone selection rotates around.

And you want rotation type animation, not rotationX or rotationY

I'd recommend reading the wiki pages about model. Cfg

[maiden galleon]

^This helped a lot.

Got it to work ^^.

[desert raven]

👍👍

[maiden galleon]

So I got everything to work except the final step. (Hiding when it runs out of magazines) I tried using different animation sources, but same issue.
Model.cfg :
class Shell2_hide { type="hide"; source="hasMagazine"; selection="Shell"; minValue=0; maxValue=1; hideValue=0.5; unhideValue=-1; };
Cfg vehicles :
class AnimationSources { class HasMagazine{source="hasMagazine";weapon="HellCannon";}; };

[desert raven]

what is it supposed to do when out of magazines?

[maiden galleon]

Hide the shell.

class Shell_hide { type="hide"; source="reloadMagazine"; selection="Shell"; minValue=0; maxValue=1; hideValue=0.60; }; class Shell3_hide { type="hide"; source="reloadMagazine"; selection="Shell"; minValue=0; maxValue=1; unhideValue=0.55; };

Is it possible that I have some overlap?

And yes, reloadMagazine for turrets works from 1 to 0 and not 0 to 1.

[maiden galleon]

These work properly ingame.

[desert raven]

you can have same bone affected by multiple animations yes

[maiden galleon]

They just don't hide at 0 magazines.

[desert raven]

but sometimes you need to make multiple bones in chain for different types of situations

hide1 hide2 hide3 in chain etc

so when you hide hide1 it hides both 2 and 3

and so on

[maiden galleon]

Is there a way to see the animation source value in game?

[maiden galleon]

I was more referring to overlap in the hide and unhide values. Like I want to know if the hiding doesn't happen because something with the animation source value or if I have overlapping hides and unhides for example.

[desert raven]

possibly

at such stare you would want the chained hide bones so different states can be forced

[maiden galleon]

What is the reloadmagazine value when there are no remaining magazines?

I have still not been able to hide the shell when there are 0 shells remaining and you cannot reload. It just stays there.

[desert raven]

use the one for ammo count

you can find animationSource list on the BI wiki page for model.cfg

[maiden galleon]

Will try that one again.

[maiden galleon]

Model.cfg :
class Shell2_hide{type="hide";source="IsEmpty";selection="Shell";minValue=0;maxValue=7;hideValue=0;unhideValue=0.99/7;};
Cfgvehicles :
class IsEmpty{source="ammo";weapon="HellCannon";};

This works.

[desert raven]

👍👍

[indigo lagoon]

are there any animations out there for melee models? We're making stuff like bats and those kind of things that really have the same animations but my model guys is having a hard time learning the the long road of animations and scripting. Are there any sharables out there?

[zenith token]

nope, not that i know of

[bold ember]

I am thinking about the fun task of animating a horse (properly, none of that gliding shit currently available) into Arma 3. Should be fun to see if it works.

[indigo lagoon]

ok thanks X3KJ

I'll let him keep crackin at it

[zenith token]

pretty sure a horse works... you just have to do all the "legwork" to animate it properly, and piece all the animations properly together in the config i guess (judging from what the jurassic mod did). As long as you dont intend it to be ridden

[plain knot]

can someone please help teach me how to import a blender animation into ARMA

[desert raven]

what kind of animations?

[placid escarp]

CaseyChapman, if the horse ever comes to fruition let me know... can donate horse 3D models if you need them

[warm scarab]

cowboy mod pls pls pls pls

[plain knot]

medical animation - its an NCD

[desert raven]

You would want to use armaToolbox addon to export directly to Armas RTM animation file.

[plain knot]

I already have the toolbox so thats good

[jade cloud]

Is there a way to identify all the animations names available for a character? I want to apply my animation after specific ones are completed, ie reloading, running. But CFGAnimation in the Config Viewer is empty

Ah CfgMovesBasic >> ManActions

[bold ember]

@zenith token Well I am hoping to put one together that can be ridden but then I will need to make custom seating and a load of other shit. Nice pun by the way (Legwork).

[sullen sand]

Hello, I just started with Animations and I was wondering if there is like a libary or so with dafult arma stands? Cause i'm trying to do a general reload animation for different weapon types but I can't replicate the default Pistol stand animation

[desert raven]

Unfortunately there is none readily available. Mikeros subscriber toolset has a tool that can make one, but other than that I don't recall there being any.

[sullen sand]

Thats sad, but thanks for the answer

[south mortar]

Hey guys, have someone a blender rig for driver models?

[desert raven]

Macsers armarig is what many have used.

[fast canopy]

“Think” is free, “Do” is not

I know would be cool to have, but since but Arma 3 actually does not have such way to have dynamically/whatever depends on the skill or whatever

Also, making the set of animation is simply painful

[regal dawn]

You'd need costumes for each size, it's probably one of the reasons there's no female choice in reforger

You'd multiply your work really quickly

[desert raven]

usually that is the case yes

[grim rover]

Hello, please, is the bistudio wiki the best resource when it comes to learning how to properly set up animations in config.cpp and model.cfg? Or is there perhaps some better resource one can look into?

[desert raven]

it is pretty much it

[eternal herald]

I wanted to do an old western mod badly

a little Red Dead for A3

[scarlet merlin]

@regal dawn

[quaint oyster]

im making a hand anim for a gun, but unsure if i should keep the weapon model in the rtm or remove it then convert to rtm

(converting from arma rig unsure if i can convert with or without gun model inside of file)

[fast canopy]

RTM has no mesh info

[quaint oyster]

oh, so it doesnt matter?

[fast canopy]

Yup

Essentially RTM is "just" animation file

And should contain nothing else... AFAIK

[desert raven]

Yes only bone transformation is saved in it

[quaint oyster]

i think theres a small problem lol

after i packed it via addon builder

[desert raven]

that would break it yeah

[quaint oyster]

that breaks it?

addon builder does?

[desert raven]

it has trouble binarizing rmts I believe

[quaint oyster]

what do you recommend i do? PBOProject?

[desert raven]

pboproject is what I prefer and it has not let me down yeah

[quaint oyster]

i just keep receiving this error

[desert raven]

xcopy should be normal part of windowns. Dont know why you would not have it

did you install the mikero toolset with the all in one installer