arma3_animation

[desert raven]

its probably picking up some scaling to whatever you have it parented to

you are kinda jumping into very deep end of animating with unifamiliar rig

so it may need some time to get familiar with

[plain knot]

If that’s armarig then it’s pretty finicky, basically use the purple arrows for anything elbow, the green circles should usually alt R’d as they cause a lot of fuckiness

And move/ rotate the red (move for arm, rotate for wrist but use it sparingly)

I also had the error with the small weapon thing, you gotta make sure to apply the scaling before starting to animate

[red jetty]

Apologies I should of updated yall I've managed to get a half decent anim going

Ideally what id like to apply now is a sort of "shake" because right now it looks too fluid and rigid there's nothing organic about it the character seems unaffected about the actions hes doing when realistically the weapon and him are gonna be effected by shifts in weight, movements and how the character would attempt react to those.

https://youtu.be/pVyE4O5sSGs?feature=shared

This could just be camera shake though looking at it

[fast canopy]

Seems you need to know how model.cfg (aka weapon animation) works. That unfortunately is not how it works even, an RTM does not record a weapon animation

Regarded to making your animation better, you really need to take a look of some principles of animation. If you want to take a look of a bit length of video, better to take a look of "12 principles of animation"

[red jetty]

i thought an RTM is just armas equivelant of an FBX animation? only basing this off of the fact that you convert FBX's to RTM's using the Toolbox

And do you have any particular YTBER's you find helpful?

Also again forgive my ignorance i am new to animating

[fast canopy]

It is not even related with your ignorance you say. Actually, an RTM does NOT record any weapon movements - weapon movements are defined in elsewhere

Which is, it's painful to say, but not fluid

[desert raven]

the weapon model (p3d) follows the weapon bone of the RTM

the movement of parts inside the weapon model is handled via the model.cfg for that p3d

as to how to make more stuff happen in your animations, 😅 is a bit tricky question to answer without going deep into different techniques you can use.

[red jetty]

so the way ive just looked it up is the RTM handles the character side of things the Model.Cfg handles the actual weapons anims

so before when ive been doing animations for my xcom mod thats what ive been defining using the memory points and the corresponding code in the model cfg

is that right?

[desert raven]

yes

[red jetty]

Sweet

[desert raven]

that is how the modelc.cfg animation work

[red jetty]

ok thats actually not too bad lemme guess biggest PITA is going to be doing the math/s side of things for getting the movement to work?

[desert raven]

translating that into blender can be a chore but it is possible to replicate same stuff in blender so you can match the movements of rtm and modelc.fg

[red jetty]

or can i work around that by changing the scale between the memory points

[desert raven]

there is no scaling of memorypoints

there is also a model.cfg frame exporter out there that can write a frame by frame translation of bones out of blender

that can be used for complex movements

[red jetty]

ok
so id need two times animations minimum then for the reload (not including the blowback action of the charging handle during firing)
translation action backwards & forwards for the charging handle
translation action on ...axis for the mag as well as the return journey

[red jetty]

that sounds useful as having to input it manually sounds like a laborious chore

[desert raven]

model.cfg animations are typically meant for "simple" mechanical movements driven by various engine sources

you may have noticed vanilla weapons hide the magazine very early on

since that is simpler to set up

it is possible to make animation where the magazine is visible all the way but that it challenging to set up

there are considerations for how it works in prone for example

since the weapon model.cfg only does 1 set of movement and in prone that often can lead the magazine going way under ground

[red jetty]

so for example the blowback action of a bolt on a machine gun how it moves backwards and forwards or the rotation action of a gatling gun that sorta thing

[desert raven]

yes

or wheel wheel and turrets turning

on the other end of spectrum we have magazines movement from the weapon to the body and from the body to the weapon

all the while the weapon itself sways around on the hand

which is not really practical to set up in model.cfg

unless you have a system that exports it out frame by frame

[plain knot]

is there any way for me to get the default start poses (like the idle for holding a rifle or pistol) from arma onto an armarig

like this

[fast canopy]

Check Arma 3 Samples. But anyways you don't really edit it because importing RTM cause every bone constraints disabled

[desert raven]

that can be worked out too, or separate reference character can be used in the background.

but that stuff can get a bit technical so may not be so easy at the beginning

pistol animation you generally dont want to alter anyway since there is very little you can do due to the pistol proxy being glued to the right hand

[plain knot]

i literally just need some animations for if a guy is injured while holding a pistol or unarmed

because right now they will pull out an imaginary gun and then play the animation which sucks and takes ages

[desert raven]

Won't make things any simpler though.

[plain knot]

This is what I have so far

[quaint oyster]

Quick general question, I haven’t ever done reload anims but am curious to take a look at it. Noticed that the old versions of the blender rig have a Magazine bone while the newer ones don’t. Wasn’t sure how I’d go about that.

[desert raven]

Magazine is part of the weapon model. So not animated via the reload rtm.

[hardy zinc]

Is there a Left version of this animation

[fast canopy]

No

[cyan nimbus]

Hey folks, i got a strange issue going on: for my custom vehicles i made some custom animations for drivers, with annexed kia anim when they get killed. Everything works fine with those, but with my gunners it doesn't for some reason. Gunners animations work yes, but if i shoot directly to the gunner itself, it will not take any damage nor any visual damage, while if the vehicle blows up or if i shoot the gunner through the vehicle, then he will die, but the kia animation won't be there, the gunner instead will die in the unconscious stance, appearing under the vehicle. What can be the reason?

[desert raven]

Typo in the config?

No connection parameter set up to connect alive state to killed state?

Killed state not actually correctly set as killed state (config inheritance)

Come to mind

[cyan nimbus]

mm, im gonna post two short clips and the relevant part of the config for the anims

because the strange thing is that the gunners can be killed only at the waist level, now that i checked more deeply. While such a problem do not exist with drivers and codrivers

class CfgMovesBasic { class DefaultDie; class ManActions { TNO_BTR152_SG43_High_Gunner = "TNO_BTR152_SG43_High_Gunner"; TNO_BTR152_driver = "TNO_BTR152_driver"; //KIA_TNO_BTR152_driver = "KIA_TNO_BTR152_driver"; }; //class DeadActions //{ //KIA_TNO_BTR152_driver = "KIA_TNO_BTR152_driver"; //}; }; class CfgMovesMaleSdr: CfgMovesBasic { skeletonName = "OFP2_ManSkeleton"; gestures = "CfgGesturesMale"; class States { class Crew; class TNO_BTR152_SG43_High_Gunner: Crew { file = "tno_gcw_trucks_sov\BTR_152\anims\TNO_BTR152_high_gunner.rtm"; speed = -30; interpolateTo[] = {"Unconscious",1}; }; class TNO_BTR152_driver: Crew { file="tno_gcw_trucks_sov\BTR_152\anims\TNO_BTR152_driver.rtm"; interpolateTo[]= { "KIA_TNO_BTR152_driver", 1 }; leftHandIKCurve[]={1}; rightHandIKCurve[]={1}; }; class KIA_TNO_BTR152_driver: DefaultDie { actions="DeadActions"; file="tno_gcw_trucks_sov\BTR_152\anims\KIA_TNO_BTR152_driver.rtm"; speed=0.5; looped=0; terminal=1; connectTo[]= { "Unconscious", 0.1 }; soundEnabled=0; }; }; }; class CfgMovesWomen: CfgMovesBasic { class ManActions { TNO_BTR152_SG43_High_Gunner = ""; }; };

https://imgur.com/a/k6U7Qv6

those are two short clips which show the weird gunner exceptionality on this issue

[cyan nimbus]

oh shoot

wrong vehicle

[desert raven]

Does the gunner proxy exist in firegeometry lod?

[cyan nimbus]

yes, https://pastebin.com/cS12dU8c pastebin of the correct vehicle which uses a dead gunner animation

[desert raven]

Does the gunner animate beyond the vehicles bounding box when turning out?

[cyan nimbus]

turning out? I'm afraid i have not understood this quite well. Gunner does not turn out, actually i have forcehidegunner=1 in the mainturret parameters

[desert raven]

Sorry misunderstood that.

[cyan nimbus]

I guess it is probably related to the main turret parameters

Otherwise I don’t see an explanation

Vehicle inherits from class truck_F, if that matters. Gonna check the aio for comparisons

[cyan nimbus]

Is the cfg moves and derivates ok?

[desert raven]

There maybe is parameter to control if I gunner can be shot now that I think of it.

[desert raven]

Soz I'm on phone so can't look at them very well at this time

[cyan nimbus]

nice, gonna focus on that, thanks HG

[cyan nimbus]

Tried to change force hide gunner to 0, but ofc it has no effects

[cyan nimbus]

Fixed, raised proxy in fire geo

[desert raven]

Did it not match the res lods?

[cyan nimbus]

No it matched. When i export the rtm i found out that the proxy needs always to be placed at the center of origin in OB. It is probably something i need to change, but i have not understood well atm how to export an rtm "correctly", so to speak, so that the animation is tied to the proxy location in OB correctly. But as of now, i found out this system im using has this limitation in these instances

[desert raven]

Ah

Yeah that's not right

Ask me again next week when I'm at my computer. I'll post some stuff

[cyan nimbus]

Alright 👌

[quartz harness]

Has a weird issue trying to animate my cyclic in my Chinook. Think it has something to do with adding a sheet to my graph for the ramp, but the Share sheet (workspace duplicated from Mi8) manages the cyclic/pedal animations for the vehicle. My cyclic properly animates in the animation editor, but in game is static. How can I fix this issue?

[fast canopy]

So footpedal is not animating? AFAIK it is really a normal behavior in Standard Flightmodel. I've never seen it working out of AFM

[quartz harness]

I got it working a while ago, both aren't working and stumped on the reason. All nodes seem to be active when looking at live debug

By a while ago I mean a month ago, but I removed the functionality due to desync between character and vehicle anim - trying to tackle it again and not sure what I'm doing wrong haha

[quartz harness]

Also I'm on enfusion, used discord quick search and thought it brought me there... I hate fuzzy search

[fast canopy]

Urm... okay

[thin temple]

Collective: source = "collective";
Cyclic: source = "cyclicAside"; and source = "cyclicForward";
Pedals: source = "rudderRTD";

Polpox is correct that helicopter pedals only animate in AFM.

[quartz harness]

I posted in the wrong channel - my bad, but thanks for the attempt to help me!

[fast canopy]

Speaking of, I actually miss that feature in A3 anyways

[buoyant lagoon]

I am maybe forgetting a step, but I am importing from matrices for Arma 3 Samples\Addons\Test_Character_01\A3_character_example.p3d to view an RTM in object builder but it doesnt change the character. I know teh RTM works casue in game it does, was just tryna use object builder to test. Is there something I am missing?

[fast canopy]

"change the character?"

[buoyant lagoon]

when I mean change the character I mean shouldnt it show the animation in the viewer

[fast canopy]

Have you selected a frame of the animation

[buoyant lagoon]

yes

1 sec I will get screenshot

[fast canopy]

Which RTM do you load

[buoyant lagoon]

sory for late reply, ah its one of my hand anims

[fast canopy]

Then I'd say make sure your RTM is properly exported

How did you export that RTM

Or, if you load an RTM from, like Samples, does it work?

[buoyant lagoon]

it should be properly exported because pboProject doesnt give any warnings and it works in game. Unsure what other way to check if its proper
I will try to load an RTM froms samples , the ones in \Test_Anims correct?

yeah the samples one works

[fast canopy]

It does mean indeed your RTM is not exported well

[buoyant lagoon]

ah okay

I will try that step again

[unique vine]

i'm trying to get a custom dance animation to play on the player and i'm not sure if it's the RTM that's borked or if it's something to do with the config. i've never worked with anims more interesting than a handAnim, so i'm a bit at a loss

[fast canopy]

Tell the issue

[unique vine]

it's just not playing

it defaults to the "stow rifle" animation

[fast canopy]

How do you try it

Scripts? Then what code

Also your config

[unique vine]

it's using ace_selfactions to call a script

i've also tested it using the debug console

other animations work fine using the same syntax

[fast canopy]

Can you put it as a plain text because I'm on the phone

[unique vine]

yeah

class cfgMovesMaleSdr: cfgMovesBasic {
    class AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon_falling;
    class bcg_fortnitedance01: AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon_falling
    {
        variantsPlayer[] = {};
        forceAim = 1;
        speed = 1;
        file = "BCG_Anim\data\skinwalking.rtm";
        looped = 1;
        minPlayTime = 3;
        disableWeapons = 0;
        ignoreMinPlayTime[] = {"Unconscious"};
        soundEnabled = 0;
        canBlendStep = 0;
        ConnectFrom[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.1};
        ConnectTo[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.1};
        InterpolateTo[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.5,"Unconscious",0.2};
        InterpolateFrom[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.5};
    };
};

class cfgVehicles {
    class Man;
    class CAManBase : Man {
        class ACE_SelfActions {
            class bcg_anims {
                displayName = "BCG Fortnite";
                icon = "";
                class bcg_Dance {
                    displayName = "Skinwalking";
                    icon = "";
                    condition = "";
                    statement = "[player, 'bcg_fortnitedance01'] remoteExec ['switchMove', 0]";
                    exceptions[]={};
                };
            };
        };
    };
};

[fast canopy]

This is not where your animation is defined

CfgMovesMaleSdr > States > youranim

[unique vine]

oh, has it changed since... whenever kka3 made debut?

[fast canopy]

It never changed

[unique vine]

ah, then i missed something in config, gonna look it over again

i did indeed miss a line, oops

class cfgMovesMaleSdr: cfgMovesBasic {
    class States {
        class AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon_falling;
        class bcg_fortnitedance01: AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon_falling
        {
            variantsPlayer[] = {};
            forceAim = 1;
            speed = 1;
            file = "BCG_Anim\data\skinwalking.rtm";
            looped = 1;
            minPlayTime = 3;
            disableWeapons = 0;
            ignoreMinPlayTime[] = {"Unconscious"};
            soundEnabled = 0;
            canBlendStep = 0;
            ConnectFrom[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.1};
            ConnectTo[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.1};
            InterpolateTo[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.5,"Unconscious",0.2};
            InterpolateFrom[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon",0.5};
        };
    };
};

this looks better then?

as for the speed, minPlayTime, what should i be basing those values off of?

[fast canopy]

speed 1 means 1 sec to play, 10 means 0.1 sec

-1, 1 sec, -10, 10 sec

[unique vine]

i see, thank you!

i'd assumed as much, though the values i was referencing were a bit confusing

[fast canopy]

You can always check biki

Or ingame config

[unique vine]

alright, it is now playing, i think

it's too fast to tell, gonna tweak some values

[fast canopy]

That is what speed does

I always use negative value

[unique vine]

that's what i'm seeing, negative values

if the animation clips through the floor, would that cause it to force cancel?

[fast canopy]

No

[unique vine]

okay, then something else is borked.

[fast canopy]

Maybe minPlayTime, but I've never played with it

Or it is connected to other anim unintentionally

[unique vine]

that's possible

though all of these animations with wildly different runtimes have minPlayTime set to 1

[fast canopy]

I always leave To[] values blank if I'm just making a "fun" anim

Also action = "NoActions" (can't recall the name rn)

[unique vine]

so ConnectTo, InterpolateTo

[fast canopy]

Yup

[unique vine]

should be empty?

[fast canopy]

Yup

[unique vine]

cool, just wipe the arrays entirely?

like, assign them, but empty?

[fast canopy]

Ye

[unique vine]

epic, ty

waiting on an updated rtm from my buddy, he needs to move it up a meter lmao

[fast canopy]

action is also important as it defines "what state I am" and connect the anim to others

In this case, you don't want it

[unique vine]

then it not being present shouldn't be a problem?

[fast canopy]

It is. Because it is inherited

[unique vine]

should i assing that an empty string, then?

[fast canopy]

NoAction or NoActions, can't tell which is correct

[unique vine]

i'll check biki

[fast canopy]

BIKI don't tell it

Check ingame config

[unique vine]

afirm

NoActions

aha the animation plays now

albeit slightly fucked but that's just speed now

and height lol

[unique vine]

@fast canopy final question

is there anything i should be doing with the animation to stop the camera from following what seems to be the pelvis? the anim i'm working with does a bunch of squatting and it's a bit jarring

[fast canopy]

In Third Person?

[unique vine]

yeah

[fast canopy]

That is a part of bone, so RTM thing

[unique vine]

i have changed the camera's parent from pelvis to root

well not me, my buddy that actually knows how to animate and use blender for animation

[fast canopy]

You can't alter bone hierarchy in model.cfg

[unique vine]

it was changed in the rig

idk what was done but it worked

anyway here's this atrocity

[fast canopy]

I see

[brittle nacelle]

Anyone know if it's possible to seamlessly transition from an animation into aiming down sight?

[desert raven]

without aiming?

[brittle nacelle]

Yeah, so say you have one animation, which would take the rifle from a compressed position, then you'd play an another animation which would drive it out, and "seamlessly" into the default presented state, and aim down sight

[desert raven]

no dont think thats possible

or well

was there a different action state for aiming 🤔

if there is then yes you might be able to make a transition animation

multiple different animation states can be between 2 actions

if they form a chain from action A to action B

so action A is animations state "anim1"

action B is state "anim2"

but anim1 connects to anim3 that connects to anim2

thus transition from action A to B plays anim3 in between

so solid mayhapsornot

[left fossil]

Hello! Does anyone have information on weapon animation in Blender (besides videos that are 7-10 years old)?

[fast canopy]

What kind of weapon animation you mean? model.cfg or RTM?

Also that video can be reliable, no tech are really updated since then

[left fossil]

Well, at least Blender has been updated a thousand times. I need an animation, how should I put it... the hand positions on the weapon and the reload itself.

[fast canopy]

So both RTM and model.cfg

Even though Blender is updated, nothing is different on Arma side. If you have a question on Blender side, you can check multiple documents also

So where to start TBH. You really need multple knowledge to get start

Do you know

1. config works
2. proper PBO making process
3. Blender animation
4. debugging process
5. P3D and model.cfg editing

[left fossil]

To be honest, I’m asking more for a friend. He has experience in animation in Blender, but there are no step-by-step instructions anywhere.

[fast canopy]

Okay, tell him to come here

[left fossil]

My goal is to find out if there is any step-by-step instruction on how to do this, preferably with pictures or videos

He knows about the existence of this channel, etc. But, sorry, half of the information here may be somewhat useful, but there are people who literally don’t know where to start

[fast canopy]

That's why I told you to tell him so

Unfortunately nobody really done a comprehensive something because it's too time/resource consuming and hard

...That's why we just put our brains gathered

[left fossil]

Okay, I understand that this information doesn’t exist, thank you for the answers. It’s just that if he writes in this channel, there will be a thousand questions. Personal communication is needed for all of this.

[fast canopy]

Indeed. There are seriously tons of untold knowledge

[left fossil]

Well, judging by the mods that exist in the workshop, someone clearly possesses all this knowledge.

[fast canopy]

Including me I guess

[left fossil]

Can we message you personally on Discord?

Or only here?

[fast canopy]

If you or your friend is after a very confidential anything, like CDLC, yes. Otherwise no

[left fossil]

Sorry, but I don't know what CDLC stands for, specifically regarding animation only.

[fast canopy]

CDLC is not an animation thing. It's Creator DLC

[left fossil]

Sorry if there are any inaccuracies, because I communicate with you through translators. I'll try to ask again.

If we have questions specifically about animations, can we ask you questions personally in the discord?

[fast canopy]

Global Mobilization, SOGPF, CSLA, Western Sahara, Spearhead 1944, Reaction Forces. They are CDLCs, which is professional Mods (well sort of)

I am asking that, is it that confidential to hide from everyone

Do you need to keep it secret for literally everyone? If yes, I can't help you even

[left fossil]

There’s nothing secret, it’s just for convenience, because many questions may arise.

[fast canopy]

There is no benefit to keep it secret if it is

[left fossil]

Okay, I understand you, it's just that if more people write here, it will be difficult to find information later.

[fast canopy]

Nah. This channel is not populated

Just ask. That's how it works

[deep berry]

Is there ANY up to date visual tutorial which will show how i can create weapon animations for my custom gun?
I want to do it via Blender, is that possible? I saw a few very old Windows 7 tutorials, but this all looks very different, and they do not really show what i need

[desert raven]

no for tutorial

yes for blender

[deep berry]

What files do i need for this?

[desert raven]

files?

also the old tutorials show the right stuff, buttons just may be in slightly different locations

[deep berry]

Yeah but i have to rig the animations for Arma - i need somewhat of a character model so it fits Arma?

[desert raven]

you can use macsers Armarig

I belive it still works alright

though I never remember if the weapon bone name was fixed to match the model.cfg

"Weapon" vs "weapon"

that is quite simple to fix on your end though

[deep berry]

ill try my best ^^ ty for the help 🙂

[desert raven]

oh there is actually one guide in the pinned messages if you want to check that out

ah but it has expired

@worldly osprey you dont happen to have your tutorial as pdf or something?

[deep berry]

Uhh, LAxemann - that name is very familiar 😄

[desert raven]

hes been around for a while

[deep berry]

Yeah i know ^^ many great mods

[worldly osprey]

I actually still have it! 😄

Might be a bit outdated though

[deep berry]

Working pretty good for now! ty again 😄

[desert raven]

thanks! new pin in place

[deep berry]

Is it okay if my weapon is not directly facing straight forward but just a milimeter hanging down and maybe right? And also how important is it that i 1:1 match the combat stance?
I think i understood it with the keyframes - but it still looks pretty laggy - is this because i have not yet rendered the animation?

[deep berry]

For some reason i can not render the animation since i dont have a camera? there is one, but i guess its not a camera?

[desert raven]

render it?

[desert raven]

why would you render it?

[deep berry]

Yeah, i saw in one tutorial to render the animation to view it smoother?

[desert raven]

should not really be needed

the playback typically works just fine

[deep berry]

But i can also not export to rmt :/

[deep berry]

So it should be this "laggy?

[desert raven]

I dont know, you made it 😅

[deep berry]

this any good?

[desert raven]

well dont seem laggy to me at least

[deep berry]

haha okay 😄
But now the "issue" that i can not export to rmt 😦

oh i did some oopsy

[desert raven]

have you assigned the list of exportable rtm?

do you have the armatoolbox addon installed?

[deep berry]

yeah i did not 😄
My bad 😦

[deep berry]

I still cant export 😦

[desert raven]

why not?

[deep berry]

idk - thats what i am asking 😄

[desert raven]

I mean you got rtm export there at the bottom?

you got 2 versions of the toolbox addon installed

one of them seems to be working

[deep berry]

I dont have any export, only in the blender export

I have this
https://github.com/AlwarrenSidh/ArmAToolbox

[deep berry]

WTF

[desert raven]

you got 2 addons there

the bottom ones are alwarrens original

[deep berry]

bruh

[desert raven]

the top ones are from mrclocks version

it probably needs different thing tabbed active

[deep berry]

sry for the ping then 😦

[desert raven]

[deep berry]

Is handanim = static pose?

Is there a lot to keep in mind when trying out the animation?
It looks like this 😦

[desert raven]

how did you pack the pbo?

[deep berry]

PBOman

BUt also have mikero

[desert raven]

dont know what pboman is

but pboProject is what Id recommend

[deep berry]

https://github.com/winseros/pboman3

[desert raven]

😮

yet another tool for that 😅

whyy

anyway

the animation issue typically is caused by the earlier mentioned weapon/Weapon bone name mismatch in the rig

so swap the bone name in the blender rig from Weapon to weapon or weapon to Weapon depenging on what it was

[deep berry]

ah you said that Weapon and weapon 😄

ill try

[desert raven]

I cant remember which it was supposed to be off the top of my head

also its possible that pboman cant process feed rtms right into binarize

or it does something else funky to make a pbo

you also should need model.cfg file with the arma skeleton defined init next to the rtms

and rtms should be in their own folder

[deep berry]

oh alr

[deep berry]

Heeeeeey 😄
Somewhat working now 😄

[desert raven]

if you dont want the right hand wrist to break so badly you can try align the hand down a bit and play with the fingers to get the grip right.

unfortunately how the poses work hands dont quite like to align naturally with all types of weapons

[deep berry]

Yeah ill micro manage the pose now - i think the scale of my gun is also off a bit

[deep berry]

Any help with this? The weapon offset is my own fault - but i dont get the arm :/

is there a maximum scale for weapons? i thought that the weapon was to small so i increased it by .1

[fast canopy]

The HandAnim is relative to the weapon bone. Make sure your model in Blender is aligned properly

[deep berry]

Ah yes, i have not reset scale and location - i guess thats the issue

thx - found the issue ^^

[deep berry]

is the HandAnim for when the weapon is raised in combat stance and that lowered state?

[fast canopy]

Both

[desert raven]

Handanim is blended with each underlying stance character is in

[deep berry]

Ah alr so its the “main” animation and i just add stuff like reloading or pulling the bold

[desert raven]

hand anim interpolates the hand positions in relation to weapon bone with the main animations.
reloading animation can move whole body

there is no default reload, so for that you do the whole sequence

it overrides the underlying pose

handanim and reloadaction are very separate things

[deep berry]

Ah okay
But why aren’t there any official recourses from BI on how to do this? Ill have to export the animation and always double check with other weapons if my animations are the same - currently my arms and shoulders are of by just a few mm’s - pretty tedious work 😄

[desert raven]

Dunno. There is unfortunately a lot that has no official documentation.

[deep berry]

I have a problem. I have the animation correct in my ArmaRig and export the RTM with one keyframe, as a "Static Pose" and "Clip Frames to [0,1]"
Scale of the weapon p3d is 0,0,0 and the scale of the 3d model is also 0,0,0 - location is also 0,0,0 for both

The name of my animation is correct. For some reason i get this warning? in the rpt file:
"Subskeleton index out of range. There seems to be a SubSkeleton index that is greater than the number of sub skeletons, this should not be happening."

Would anyone have an idea what my issue is?

Seems like i fixed it - i was using a wrong p3d lol
but any tip on how i can fix that hand?

[dim harbor]

an inclined grip like that generally doesnt work well with arma

you can move the p3d model forward, and adjust the hands again

[dim harbor]

basically the hands like this, just push the p3d model forward so it matches the hands

[buoyant lagoon]

for a reload animation is there a way to ignore the rtms spine,spine1, and spine2 information? I dont like how the character goes from forward leaning to having his back straight as he reloads and I thought I had the back leaned forward enough but I guess not

[woeful pelican]

you can try changing the mask

[buoyant lagoon]

I am not too experienced with editing them, is there any existing ones I should try or should I bite the bullet and try stuff

[woeful pelican]

Yeah existing reload animations use 'handweapon' or something

[drowsy nymph]

Don't rotate the base rightHand bone down. Keep it so the wrist is still poiting towards the elbow as much as possible and only rotate the finger bones - rightHandRing (important one), rightHandThumb1, rightHandIndex1, rightHandMiddle1. Does seem unnatural to bend the index and middle in directions those fingers don't bend IRL, but the results are better than the wrist breaking under IK

[deep berry]

Ill give that a try when im home again! Ty 🙂

[deep berry]

How can i fix my character from changing the finger in combat stance? i want it to be the same as the lowered position 😦

[desert raven]

dont animate the finger

keep it straight

[buoyant lagoon]

ah mistake I always make 😦

[deep berry]

Oh no.. 😔

[deep berry]

If i want to animate a Magazine being pulled from the gun ill have to add a proxy and add the MAGAZINESLOT p3d to that proxy (similar to zasleh i guess)

But now my question is, do i leave the magazine (and bolt since i want to animate that as well) joined to the makn model, or do they have to be separate?

[fast canopy]

Your call. A magazine can be modelled into the model itself, or can be proxy'd

[white juniper]

If you separate them and proxy the magazine.
That means the magazine can have its own model, and loading magazines from other mods, will show their model.
Which IMO is the better way

[deep berry]

If i use a magazine from another mod, will it fit with my animation and model or can that look „funky“

I would imagine that it might look weird since maybe the scale is off?

Theoretically i could use my model, but allow other magazines to be loaded with my weapon, right?

[white juniper]

There is a standard for aligning the magazine, so that all magazines that follow it will fit

If your weapon is special such that another mod would not have magazines that fit, it wouldn't matter.
But maybe you, yourself want to make other magazines, that look different and fit into the same weapon

[deep berry]

Yeah, ill try and see, but i want to use Spearhead magazines with my weapon (not add new entries to cfgMagazines 😄

[deep berry]

If i want to animate the crew slots in a tank, do i also use ArmaRig for it?

Currently it looks like this 🙁

[desert raven]

yes you can use the armarig for that

if you position the rig (in object mode) in same place as your proxy the animation exported from it will match

[deep berry]

Ah cool! Ty 😄

[deep berry]

Why would this „teleportation“ at the end happen? How could i fix this?

My animation is properly setup (im pretty sure since i copied the start to the end)

[desert raven]

change timing of the unhide animation

[deep berry]

Uhm. Whats that? 😄

[desert raven]

the magazine is hidden/unhidden by an animation in the weapons model.cfg

that hiding/unhiding needs to match the movements of your reaload animation

unless you mean something else

with the teleportation

[deep berry]

Ahhh its probably inheriting the thing from the weapon im currently using as a foundation i guess

Is there some sort of tutorial?

[deep berry]

That at the end the gun moves a bit to the right and down

[desert raven]

thats just the stance adjusting back

you end frame is not quite same

[deep berry]

As in game? Man why does BI not offer the stances…

Or am i even supposed to recreate the stance in ArmaRig?

[desert raven]

they are not exactly easy to work with anyway

well theres 2 options basically

1. is that you get mikeros subscriber tools and dertm the vanilla files so you can import the rifle holding stance as base
2. you tweak the animation pose and the animation blending in the action config

[deep berry]

Uhhhhhh… 😄
I dont think that option 1 is allowed?
If it is, does mikero offer documentation?

[desert raven]

rightHandIKCurve
leftHandIKCurve
and
mask="handsWeapon_contextAnimDrive"; are relevant parts

[desert raven]

mikeros tools are all documented yes

[deep berry]

Well i dont have that right now 😄
I only added handAnim and reloadAnim since i have not found anything that would explain me everything else

But allowed? I dont think so? 😵‍💫

[desert raven]

it is in this context

[deep berry]

Ah okay

I guess its mikero then 🤷🏻‍♂️

If its easier

[desert raven]

well

config tweaking might be faster to try out

and could have decent resutls

[deep berry]

Oh, okay - would i be able to ask here again if i just dont understand it? 😄
If i have it once, i can probably reuse it for all my other weapons 😄

[desert raven]

the IK curve dictates time/strength the underlying stance+weapon handanim blend with the realodaction animation

like so that you can detach left hand from the base stance

and the mask dictates what bones and at what strength they are blended from your animation

you can lessen spine bone movement from there for example

and see if that works alright

[deep berry]

Oh man.. that all sounds hard 😄

[desert raven]

with the RTM import youll need 2 rigs and youll use second to import the arma stance

as a background reference

because importing disables constraints and such and while they can be turned back on for animating, that may be difficult for someone not so versed in the program

[deep berry]

Haha ill screenshot your messages and try if i can solve it tomorrow 😄
But im pretty sure ill be back here asking questions again 🙁😄

[deep berry]

Even with this it did not fix the issue 😦
This teleportation is still there, and with rightHandIKCurve leftHandIKCurve its worse and my animation is not played correctly

Or do you maybe have a link where i can read about this? I have not found anything

[desert raven]

arma animation stuff is not really documented

[deep berry]

maaaaaan 😦
How am i supposed to fix it then? 😦

[desert raven]

experiment Id suppose.

[deep berry]

Even the samples dont give any advice

[dim harbor]

Welcome to arma modding

[deep berry]

i guess my best bet is to go to the Arma forums and asking for help there? 😦

[fast canopy]

Or ask it here

[deep berry]

Well i dont know what i am supposed to ask since i dont really know how to describe my issue 😦
My issue is this, that the gun at the end of the animation teleports to a different position then i have it in my animation.
Yes my animation is properly setup and the beginning and the end are 100% the same.
Yes the HandAnim is the same as the beginning and end of my ReloadAnim
I have tried with rightHandIKCurve, leftHandIKCurve and mask="handsWeapon_contextAnimDrive"; but this made the teleportation either worse or it was the same.
I was sitting there yesterday for about 40 minutes trying to "finetune" the rightHandIKCurve and leftHandIKCurve but i never achieved something that would fix my issue. So i am pretty much clueless now on how i could fix this.. Attached are my ArmaRig blender files if someone wants to take a look

[desert raven]

you can try using a maks have 0 weight for head, neck and spine bones since it looks like those dont align properly at the end

you can see the view change at the beginning as the head pulls back a bit

and thats what it returns at the end

if that even is what you mean by the teleportation

[deep berry]

Ill try that weight thingy - yes, the bones might not align correctly - but there is no way for me to 1:1 replicate the bones - already tried my best here 😄

[fast canopy]

I mean what it does do with animation

[desert raven]

stringtable is text file

notepad (++ recommended) can do it

but yes wrong channel probably

[plush rampart]

Hey thank you, I forgot I was in wrong channel

[cyan nimbus]

hello yalls, on a serious note, how can i fix the transformation on the rig after i moved the centre point of origin to where the proxy should be?

im talking about a custom animation im making, simple driver action for pilots

because this is what i get when i export the rtm, binarized and packed with pbo project

all previous animations which had the origin point un touched worked fine, except these, where the origin point for the armature has been moved where the proxy should be

i noticed i do have this weird "object transforms" in the dope sheet, which isn't there for the previous working animation i made -the ones where the origin point was not touched at all-

scale of the armature is 1,1,1 and keyframes are reported in the export list. So, i am totally lost here

[cyan nimbus]

i exported the same rtms when the origin point was at 0,0,0, with the same config, and they worked except for the get in action taking place where the proxy was, so in the middle of the helicopter, which isnt correct. But by moving the origin point to where the proxy should be, now the get in action run in the right place, but the animation is messed up like showed in the pics

[desert raven]

now that im back on computer. 😅
Is the proxy in your p3d in correct place at the seat or is it at he middle of the helo still?

it looks to be in right place in blender

but did you fix it in p3d

[cyan nimbus]

I just got helped and the solution was not to move the origin point, but the model itself. Moved it to the origin with coordinates 0,0,0, and built the anim there. Then its just a matter of repositioning the proxy in the actual p3d by matter of trial and errors

[desert raven]

hmm

thats not great

the animation should be exported from the armatures model space

its location should not need to be at 0,0,0

there should be 0 trial and error needed

Ive done multiple 100% accurate crew animations like this

the armature is at proxys position and exported rtm is written from the armatures object space

which toolbox did you use again?

[cyan nimbus]

i use the one which is updated with the 3.6 version of blender, armatoolbox

[deep berry]

Do i need to do a prone reload animation? And if yes, do i just have to “lay down” the ArmaRig dude and keep my handAnim?

[fast canopy]

Yes, unfortunately

[woeful pelican]

well you dont have to but the guy will break his back when reloading prone, so it looks Bad

[deep berry]

Haha alr - pain.. 😔

[grizzled blaze]

do houses support selection specific attachTo memory points?
like if i wanted to attach something to a door and make said door open and close with the attached item?

[fast canopy]

Yes. But since house simulation is slow, you won't see it smoothly

[grizzled blaze]

hrm

lemme get a video then one sec

for le specifics

forgot to pack lol woops

i assume the selections are set up right since the animation is going off properly ; w;

but character just warps to object's 0 instead of selection's zero

[fast canopy]

You sure the mem is animated? Not selection in vis LOD I mean

[grizzled blaze]

i would hope so sence it shares...wait a second

so hear me out

if i say

forgor tentacle memory point

but wouldnt it still jump to the tentacle_tip's pos?

even if the anim didnt work, id still want it to teleport to the tentacle' selection ; w;

[fast canopy]

Since I can't read your code you've shown in the video on the phone, which mem you use

Or rather, code itself

[grizzled blaze]

the code for the trig?

[fast canopy]

Yes

[fast canopy]

Missspell

[grizzled blaze]

where

oh

tenacle

[fast canopy]

in attachTo

[grizzled blaze]

haha

i think i had it spelled properly one of the other 50 times i wrote that line, but i might have had everything else set up wrong
fingies crossed!

we are victorious

would you recommend making it a vehicle or something for increased sim speed and smoothness?
i dont think its too much of a problem

ty fo the help, now to make this all a function

[fast canopy]

Maybe Invisible simulation

[grizzled blaze]

ill try dat now

if non then ill just make an anim for arma man to go up with the tentacle, at least then the player will b able to shoot it

[grim rover]

Please, what am I forgetting to click in order to display the static pose in OB?

It used to work in the past but I can´t remember anymore

[fast canopy]

You are applying the animation to nothing

You need a model to apply

[grim rover]

cheers

[deep berry]

Hey guys, if i want to make an Animation for a Tank driver, is there much to keep in mind? I have positioned him how i want him to sit, and made a static pose

[desert raven]

do you have the tank as reference model in the scene?

[deep berry]

Yeah ^^ i placed my ArmaRig just how i wanted it, made a Keyframe at frame 0, have 0-2 frames and exported as static animation

[desert raven]

if the rig is at the location of the proxy then that should be it

[deep berry]

Could it be that i use a wrong proxy? I use P:\a3\data_f\proxies\crew_tank01\Driver.p3d

[desert raven]

1 frame should be enough too

proxy only defines the location where the character gets glued on

[deep berry]

My guy is just standing 😄

[desert raven]

the config defines the action that makes the pose

then it means your animation config is not right

[deep berry]

:/

[desert raven]

assuming the rtm is

you can also try clearing the animation cache folder in the arma3 profiles folder in user files

sometimes that bugs and dont load new animations right

[deep berry]

This is how it looks - i changed it to 1 frame, made a keyframe - anything else that i could do wrong with my RTM?

common error - typo in config..

[desert raven]

ah the classic

[deep berry]

https://tenor.com/view/goofy-grin-smile-gif-11650412

[deep berry]

what could i be doing wrong here?
Scale, Rotation and Location are 0,0,0 on blend file and ArmaRig weapon - i tried with static pose and not - i got it working for my MP41, but now i broke it? 😦

[barren river]

Hey folks!

I'm completely new to Arma mission making, I've spent the past week making a mission with OPTRE but for the big climax I'd like a spaceship to 'fly in' to a defined position upon a trigger activation. I've been pointed to you guys, how would I achieve this?

[desert raven]

Probably mission keyframe animation thingy

[barren river]

Sorry, I don't know what those are

[desert raven]

Google will help

[limpid crypt]

"pay for my Gfuel addiction"

Crazy

[grizzled blaze]

is there a reason my animation is blending back to its first frame at the end?

might b on blender end of things but im wondering if there's an attribute im missing that prevents it?

ah, i figured it out, forgot that absence of attribute inherits the parent class' value

[grizzled blaze]

i cant send my code

😦

is there any particular reason adding any classes to my CfgMovesMaleSdr set up causes all animations to break in game?

what i have here works, but any additions causes the state machine to implode

[fast canopy]

Depends on how broken it is

[grizzled blaze]

so it must be broke right? ; w;

[fast canopy]

I am saying depends on how broken it is, means you need to explain how it is broken

[grizzled blaze]

basically the characters just constantly cycle animations

lemme get a vid

[fast canopy]

Your first resort is deleting AnimDataCache in your profile (or its parent) folder

[grizzled blaze]

O_O

wait really?

[fast canopy]

What is?

[grizzled blaze]

here lemme get the vid first

so all i did was add an empty class that just inherits from the rock class, i've tried more "proper" class entries before but no matter what i do, it breaks the game's state machine...

uhhhh

well now i cant get a video

because its just randomly working even tho i didnt do anything

[fast canopy]

You still need to take care of my advice, don't you think

[grizzled blaze]

ye i want to try that, let me add the ace action rq to make sure im not crazy

is it really that simple? ; w;

[fast canopy]

Try it first. Complain later

[grizzled blaze]

im not complaining, im happy ;A;

[fast canopy]

At least you didn't tried it yet

[grizzled blaze]

i cant find this?

[fast canopy]

Profile folder, where you usually see your RPT

[grizzled blaze]

oh so appdata local

found it

i thought you were talking about my arma profile lol

okay now what?

[fast canopy]

Play

[grizzled blaze]

just fire the game up and see?

oke

is there any specific reason that worked and do people who use my mod have to do the same?

[fast canopy]

The broken cache

[grizzled blaze]

was it caused by an incorrect config entry previously? or can it just happen?

[fast canopy]

Somehow it does. Don't know why

[grizzled blaze]

im happy because i thought i didnt actually understand any of what i was doing ; w;

started to really doubt myself haha

ty for the help again o wo7

[grizzled blaze]

if i wanted to move my character's backpack around would i just add a bone called backpack?

i've seen hiding backpacks like when you get in vehicles
but there's also that backpack on chest mod
but i think that just yoinks your bag and attaches it to your chest?

-< is there a way to wiggle it around during animations?

[desert raven]

can not

[grizzled blaze]

[desert raven]

backpacks are weighted to various parts of character same way as uniform or vest

[grizzled blaze]

Oh you're right I didn't think about it like that

[desert raven]

honestly you can consider most things being invented already.

if it does not already exist in some mod. likelyhood is that it cant be done

[grizzled blaze]

It's okay, I think it would be a bad idea anyway since I want to make it compatible with Spartan skeletons and some mods have their shoulders as a backpack

[desert raven]

not saying there could not be something undone still

but just if you come up with some fancy idea, dont get your hopes up too much

😅

[grizzled blaze]

But if I turn the ship 90° vertically it will solve the problem

[desert raven]

noo

like I explained on webs discord it wont work

in case you didnt read what I answered there

[grizzled blaze]

I'm joking haha

I was just referencing that conversation

[desert raven]

😾

[fluid galleon]

Anyone know where I can find a good bomb defusal animation in base A3? Been looking around the animation editor but can't find anything

[desert raven]

how do you define good Id suppose. There the mechanic one kneeled down fixing stuff

[fluid galleon]

That would even be awesome. I saw a healing one which I figured I could jiffy but still just kinda seemed meh

[fast canopy]

You can probably take a medic anim and call it a day

[desert raven]

yeh

[deep berry]

Does anyone here know how to create custom weapon animations? Im using ArmaRig and make my Animations there. They look alright and i would be okay with them working ingame.
Sadly once i export them and pack my addon with Addon Builder the animation never looks the same as in ArmaRig - is there any way to fix this?

[fast canopy]

Post what you expect vs what you got

[deep berry]

one sec

just noticed i deleted my reloadAnim ArmaRig
In that case there is nothing to show :/
But it always feels like my hands are not following the hands in ArmaRig - as if they are glued in place (ingame)

[fast canopy]

My point still stands

[abstract cipher]

are there any guides specifically on how to set up a gun to animate it for arma? I'm looking at the video in the pins that covers animating weps in blender right now but I'm asking more about what I would need before that point, like what way to rig it generally

[fast canopy]

You don't Rig. But use the existed one

[abstract cipher]

what do you mean

I don't think there is anything existing in vanilla for what I want to do

[fast canopy]

Quite literally. You don't make a rig, but use a distributed one, like Macser's ArmaRig

Then what do you want

[abstract cipher]

that's a step after what I'm asking

I have a shotgun I want to animate, specifically 1st person animations for working the pump and reloading it

[fast canopy]

And why do you think existed rig won't work

[abstract cipher]

I'm not talking about rigging the character, I'm talking about how to set up a rig for the weapon

[fast canopy]

That was the twist

Nothing is literally different than animating P3D

[abstract cipher]

I have the pre-rigged ArmaMan model already, but before I can put the shotgun in his hands and make him work the shotgun's pump, I need to make it so the pump on the shotgun can move. I don't know how to do that in an arma-friendly way

[fast canopy]

Have you ever done an RTM like reload animation

[abstract cipher]

for example the guns I've put in-game so far have not needed bones, I think, but they did rely on vertex groups

nope

I am completely new to animating for arma

[fast canopy]

And do you know how a P3D animates

[abstract cipher]

I do not

[fast canopy]

Then I seriously suggest not to hop into RTM at this point

[desert raven]

pump action shotgun is not the easiest thing to to start animating from 😅

especially since there isnt actual straight engine support for the pumping part

[abstract cipher]

perhaps not, but it's on my plate eventually

[fast canopy]

Even if it is, you better to start off not from RTM

[abstract cipher]

can you explain what you mean by RTM

[desert raven]

rtm is the arma character animation format

vs model.cfg animations for other objects

like vehicles, weapons and buildings

weapon reloads need both

theres the rtm for the character part

and the model.cfg for the weapon

[fast canopy]

And RTM is complicated to understand even the concept

[abstract cipher]

as I understand pump-action and bolt action weapons aren't actually supported in arma anyway

[desert raven]

correct

[fast canopy]

Indeed

[desert raven]

needs scripting to be able to make them work

the main problem I can see in this endeavour is that you cant properly easily test your work in live game

[abstract cipher]

how so

[desert raven]

no engine support

[abstract cipher]

oh, right

[desert raven]

you would need a scripted solution to go between

to play the pumping gesture in right timing

[abstract cipher]

the optre mod has a pump shotgun, I could probably ask them how they did it

[desert raven]

sure

but you basically need that set up before you can test anything

as to rigging things in blender, theres plenty of basics tutorials out there to learn that

[abstract cipher]

point taken about the shotgun, I'll save that for another time

[desert raven]

on that side you put aside Arma specifcs for a while and just get to know the animating tools

[abstract cipher]

whoops

[desert raven]

keyframing, constraint use and such

[abstract cipher]

didn't mean for that to be a reply

[desert raven]

is okay

[abstract cipher]

I'll come back when I can generally animate my guns then

[desert raven]

understanding how to model.cfg is important

that part in normal use has no connection with Blender

however there are plugins for Blender that can export model.cfg compatible "frames"

which can be useful

but still a lot of the weapon (or other model.cfg) animations should be done in the normal procedural way

[deep berry]

yeah, model.cfg is really important 😄
Its like a magic key to every animation on the weapon. Someone showed me how to "hide bullets" in a magazine - that was pretty awesome 😄

[deep berry]

How can i free the right hand in ArmaRig from the Weapon? I need the right hand to do an animation

[fast canopy]

My point STILL stands

[gilded rampart]

Does it need a chair it may be standing for a while

[desert raven]

you need to learn how the constraints work

[zenith token]

can somebody tell me where the handanimation for the pistols (P07, rook) is located at? I can't seem to find it - configviewer doesn#t show any entry in handAnim for either of those weapons

[barren river]

Hey folks, quick question: How do I separate a key frame animation into two parts, with the second only playing after a condition is met? Will I need to create an entirely separate animation that just starts where the last ends, and show/hide each animated object respectively? Cheers!

[fast canopy]

@grim dust You cannot use inline link

[grim dust]

Thank you for clearing that up, I was trying to figure out what was no working. I will fix and repost.

Hello! I am attempting to break into the world of RTM animations and have made some progress but also hit some snags. I was wondering if anyone has some wisdom to share on where I might be going wrong in my workflow.

1. I've created a very simple "animal" model in Blender, rigged with basic armatures, and converted into a rig. https://imgur.com/p2803d3
2. Made a simple "walking" animation and exported it into RTM using ARMA Toolbox.
3. Set up a model.cfg to connect with the new rig. https://pastebin.com/ngTin5qL
4. Both the model and RTM animation are able to be loaded in OB and Buldozer shows the animation working as intended. To me this implies that model.cfg is working correctly. https://imgur.com/H3wbC90
5. Using Test_Animal_01 from ARMA Samples, set up CfgVehicles. Unit shows up in-game. https://pastebin.com/1zkccAcd
6. Create CfgMoves based on CfgMovesAnimal_Base_F with help from CfgMovesRabbit_F. https://pastebin.com/nhQNT7Mx
7. Mod packs with no errors using pboProject.
8. When trying to view the animation in Splendid Animation Viewer, all the listed animations show up, but none of them work. The timeline advances but the unit does not move at all. https://imgur.com/ZAtkShj

It works in OB and Buldozer but doesn't run in-game. Seems to be telling me that it's a config-side issue, but I haven't been able to nail down why. I have also swapped out the model's CfgMoves with CfgMovesRabbit_F, which does make it move, implying the rig and skeleton are okay.

I've been going around in circles for a few days now. If I've goofed somewhere or missed a step, I'd appreciate any guidance. Thanks.

Edit: Solved. Issue was file structure issue and not procedural.

[deft fern]

probably they don't use handAnim since they are fitting well in default pistol anim

so their hand anim is probably equal to this "AmovPercMstpSrasWpstDnon"

[desert raven]

how do you pack the pbo?

ah pboproject

right

😵

do you have the model.cfg with the rig in the anim folder with the rtm?

[grim dust]

model.cfg lives in the same folder as Armature_test.p3d which is my base "animal" model. I followed the example of Test_Animal_01 and where it put its .p3d file. This is how things are currently laid out: https://imgur.com/a/v0Gd15L

[desert raven]

try put copy of the model.cfg with the skeleton in it next to the rtm and pack that

[grim dust]

I have solved it. I nested my config.cpp and associated #include files inside the model folder instead of my base mod folder. Discovered when I checked the packed .pbo and it was model.pbo instead of Armature_test.pbo.

All that work and I was unintentionally excluding my anim folder entirely. It was a rookie mistake. Thank you, HorribleGoat for your time, and bearing witness to my lack of brain cell.

[desert raven]

👍

[grim dust]

🤦‍♂️

[zenith token]

ok thanks, will check it out. Definitely makes sense as not even the written config has reference to handanim.

[deep berry]

Could someone help me out with the path to the vanilla pistol handAnims? i want to use them for my gun but have not yet found anything helpful in the A3 P drive

[desert raven]

if you get yourself a "all in one" config dump file you can search through it easily for things like this

[deep berry]

Well since they are all named super weird in the animation folders its impossible 😄
And i have not yet found any handAnim entries in the configs themselfs

[desert raven]

handanim = is defined in the weapons class

it just points to a rtm file

though pistols may not even have special ones and use the default

and then you dont really even need to do anything but to just make a pistolmodel

[deep berry]

P07_F -> \a3\weapons_f\Pistols\P07 has no handAnim in its config - yeah, i am looking for the default one - is there a path for this?

[desert raven]

challenge with pistols is that the pistol proxy is glued to the right hand, so the position of the right hand cant be changed at all

compared to the free moving launcher and weapon bones that can be animated independently

[deep berry]

are you telling me that pisols are a whole nother deal then rifles?

😄

[desert raven]

yes

typically people dont bother with custom animations for them

you can move the left hand around though

[deep berry]

alr im gonna scrap that pistol them LMFAO

[narrow cosmos]

To all who are good at making animations, cos i suck. I was wondering if anyone can try making an animation for a crashing helicopter, where the occupants jump out a few feet above the ground and watch the helicopter skidd on the ground ahead before exploding. It's kind of a mental imagination i thought would look good in Arma 3.

[desert raven]

For like a cinematic staged scene that is doable relatively easy.

To do it dynamically so it works at all heights and angles it gets a bit more tricky

Personally I would want to do that kind of thing with the helo model in the blender scene all animated to move the same way it goes in the scene so the jumper animations could be directly matched to it.

[paper panther]

hey! this is less of a question about making animations, but does anyone here know any good vanilla injured sitting animations? or atleast, where to find them? im looking through the animation viewer and i just cant seem to find any.

like, having a unit sit down by like a wall holding his side like hes taken a bullet to it?

[fast canopy]

There are some. The vanilla anim viewer is simply so bad so take third party viewer

[desert raven]

Try the one made by this guy👆

[night dune]

A question for experienced animators. I have a modeled weapon and I put it in another mod as a test, I modified the parameters and such, I have the magazines and everything but when I try it the weapon looks fine, everything is normal but when it does the reloading animation the magazine is not seen, any ideas ?

[desert raven]

you need to configure your own model.cfg animations with correct magazine movement, showing and hiding animations

I recommend you dont use another mod as test

there may be errors that you get from it too

[night dune]

And with what codes will I make that model? In this case it is a gun and I have doubts because most only use a cfg config

This is what he brings as an example, he told you, but I mean, it still worked for him.

[desert raven]

I would recommend stydying the arma 3 samples on steam

and start learning from basics of mod so you can build the config and model.cfg yourself

if you just copypaste you wont understand what you are copying

[night dune]

I understand it, so how did the mod make the charger appear without the model?

[desert raven]

magazines can be either modeled directly into the weapon model or they can be added via magazine proxy

[night dune]

That's where my doubt comes in, in the blender example of the same glock there are the proxies but for couplings and things like that the only thing he put in is the magazine_axis memory point, I put the memory points in but a photo is not requested ?

[desert raven]

the magazine proxy would be part of the magazine selection that gets animated

[night dune]

I mean the charger is in the animation?

[desert raven]

dont know your example so cant really say how its made.

I always recommend starting to learn animations from fully empty model.cfg

so you build your first sekeleton fith first bone in it

then add first animation to it

so you can gradually learn how to piece things together

[night dune]

I understand I'll send you a photo of the original weapon

[desert raven]

you can post images here if you complete verification at #✔role-selection and accept rules at #rules

[night dune]

okay

It's something like that you see

[desert raven]

yes this looks normal.

but like I said go back and start from basics one thing at a time

you are jumping ahead too much

[night dune]

sorry jajaja

I know the basics down to memory points but proxy all the way up to sharing animations and that got me hooked

look at mine

that's it

that's what I wear

What's more, the points helped me, everything was normal, relaxed, it points well, it shoots well, when I try it on the gun, it goes well, but it gives me that knock when I reload, I don't see the charger. Could it be the proxy?

?

[desert raven]

no proxies are not related to that

you need to write your model.cfg to animate the parts

dont try share animations

you need to understand how it works

not just copypaste

[night dune]

Ok, let me read it from the sample, what seemed strange to me was that it doesn't have a model, but hey, I'll try it.

[desert raven]

all animated parts are vertex groups/named selections

they are not separate objects

[night dune]

Would reading and putting together the correct model?

[desert raven]

these are vertex groups yes

for memory lod

[night dune]

yes

[desert raven]

animated parts for the model are same thing

[night dune]

I did that

[desert raven]

just on the weapon model

you have some basic gaps here

[night dune]

what?

[night dune]

I would like to know about this

[desert raven]

I guess look up armature/skeleton animations and how they are set up

[night dune]

In your opinion, what would be missing?

[desert raven]

vertex groups on the model

that then connect with the model.cfg animations

[night dune]

this?

[desert raven]

well more the theory about it

how vertex groups work

how weight painting works

[night dune]

you killed me there

I didn't find anything referenced about all that.

[desert raven]

not in arma context

just basic blender modeling

[night dune]

yes

okok

[night dune]

This is used to assign bones to groups of vertices

[desert raven]

yes

but the same concept of vertex groups is used to animate model with model.cfg

[night dune]

yes

[desert raven]

the skeleton is defined in the cfgSkeletons part of model.cfg

and animations for that skeleton is defined in the cfgModels part

and the bones defined in cfgSkeletons connect to vertex groups in the model

[night dune]

the blender model?

[desert raven]

well

yes

that becomes the p3d

[night dune]

ok

[night dune]

One question, is there any template to make a reloading animation or whatever?

[desert raven]

no. its not really something that can be templated

every weapon is different

[night dune]

What would you recommend to me then?

[desert raven]

well you already had the rig. youll need to learn to use it

[night dune]

are you talking about this?

[desert raven]

yes

thats what you can use to make animations

[night dune]

Can I put the charger like this? I put it inside the gun and encourage it to eject and etc.

[desert raven]

charger? do you mean the magazine?

[night dune]

yes

when I say charger I mean magazine

or I don't know what they will say there

xd

[desert raven]

well yes you can make magazine move but that is done in model.cfg

[night dune]

What do you recommend to animate the magazine or do I do it from modelcfg?

[desert raven]

model.cfg is text file

you really need to go study the wiki pages about it

[night dune]

I know it's a text file but my question was do I need to model the magazine in the animation or do I configure it in the text file?

nothing more than that

[desert raven]

you do it in model.cfg for the game

[night dune]

and you told me that it is done from the cfg

[desert raven]

if you do it in blender you can use that as reference for how to animate the hand

but the model.cfg controls the movement in game

[night dune]

ok

[night dune]

My humble animation

Do I have to export as bvh?

[desert raven]

I would recommend getting the ArmaToolbox addon and exporting directly to RTM

[night dune]

I have one that is from the object builder

It won't let me export, the option appears grayed out.

[night dune]

and the armatool gives me an error

[paper panther]

@fast canopy sorry for being a nuisance, but how do i like, copy an animation from your animation viewer? and is there any way to tell exactly how long an animation is?

ah i got it, apologies for the ping

[paper panther]

am i able to remove the mod after ive done adding the animations to people?

[fast canopy]

In what context? Remove what, from where?

And what "able"?

[tribal dirge]

I think they want to apply the Animation then unload the mod and reload their mission

[tribal dirge]

I don't think the animation will still apply on AI if you unload Polpox's mod

[paper panther]

yea thats what i was hoping, if not thats unfortunate but i can work around it

[fast canopy]

I never said Artwork Supporter is compatible with any mission making

Which is, in fact, is not

[tribal dirge]

I'm intrigued on the why is it not compatible ? What is the technical limitation of it ?

[fast canopy]

Because it is not even designed for it

And mission making is not the goal of it

As, I clearly stated it in the Mod's page

[night dune]

@desert raven

[silent elk]

Im trying to make a mod that adds realistic fighting, does anybody know how I could make animations for stances and throwing different types of punched (like hooks, crosses etc.)

[thin temple]

The Arma engine isn't really built well for this, and it would be very complex to even start working on it.
There are some simple melee actions available in DLC and mods, but realistically to work on this you'd want to be a very experienced modder with many years experience working with the RV engine.

[silent elk]

well I just need help with the animations, everyhting else is gonna be with ACE Medical

[desert raven]

well first step would be learning animating (in blender for example)

to make the moves you want to see

[regal mauve]

Hi everyone ! I'm trying to make a hand anim with OB but when i export the matrices itthrows an error "No coordinates points in proxy....". Why ?

[desert raven]

what model are you using to make the animation?

[regal mauve]

I'm using object builder and character example sample

[fast canopy]

What steps you've really done?

[regal mauve]

Here is what is says

I used Armarig to make the hand anim then i imported the character sample and the animation from armarig and then replaced the weapon proxy with the proxy of my tear gas

[desert raven]

you dont need to do that

it just needs to be the weapon proxy

or well the rtm itself wont even know about the proxy

just the weapon bone

[regal mauve]

it does the same error with the weapon proxy

[regal mauve]

You already said this to me few month ago, but i think i'm doing something wrong

Here is the animation, what is wrong with it ?

[desert raven]

is there a reason you run it through object builder

[regal mauve]

to check it because it doesn't work ingame. Hands are like giant spider

[fast canopy]

Well it is because you're using AB?

[regal mauve]

yes i'm using AB

[fast canopy]

I am saying using AB is your fault

Or at least, could be

[regal mauve]

let me try with project builder

[fast canopy]

What is that

[regal mauve]

i mean pboproject xD

[desert raven]

youll need a model.cfg with the man skeleton in it next to the rtm so it binarizes right too

and in the rig you make the animation with the weapon bone name needs to be same as in the character skeleton

[regal mauve]

Is is the same procedure for a pistol ?

[desert raven]

Yes. Though pistol proxy is weighted to the right hand so there is less that can be done with the animation.

[regal mauve]

its definitely not working, i must be doing something wrong

[desert raven]

any difference to previous?

[regal mauve]

none

i tested various other things but it's still not working

[desert raven]

have you tried clearing the animation cache?

[regal mauve]

animation cache ?

[fast canopy]

Search for AnimDataCache folder

[regal mauve]

i found an animdataCache folder in my temp files, i deleted it but it didn't change anything

[deep berry]

Is it possible to have two handAnims for a weapon depending on the magazine that is inserted?

[regal mauve]

just to know did you manage to make a proper hand anim ? Do you have a tutorial for it ? I'm trying to make mine but its not working....

[desert raven]

I dont remember if I've asked this already but is the armature object scale 1,1,1 in blender?

[deep berry]

making a handAnim is pretty easy. You should use the ArmaRig for that
https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/161228-armarig-for-blender/
https://youtu.be/dR2ReXC_HPk?si=N3G0Q0iW8or33FeE - this Video helped me with handAnims

[regal mauve]

yes, armature scale is 1.0

[regal mauve]

i'm using armarig but is doesn't work

[deep berry]

Whats then issue looking like?

[regal mauve]

thanks for the kink i'll watch the video, i'm sure i'm missing or doing something wrong

[regal mauve]

The character looks like this in game

[desert raven]

can you send me the blend file to check?

I might have a moment to look see

[regal mauve]

Here is a screen of the pose on Armarig *

[deep berry]

Yeah, your best bet is HorribleGoat 😄

[regal mauve]

Here is the blend file of the armarig

i tried to remove the link in between the right hand and the weapon but it doesn't change anything

[deep berry]

what tool are you using to pack the project?

[desert raven]

ok so as starting point this rigs Weapon and Launcher bones are named wrong

[regal mauve]

i'm using addon builder, i need to reinstall pboproject

[desert raven]

they need to be weapon and launcher and not Weapon and Launcher

pbo project might indeed help in this

[deep berry]

Yeah i had issues with Addon Builder - so i have been using PBOProject ever since

[desert raven]

addonbuilder has problems with rtm

[deep berry]

Well this is how it is in the first download. So the ArmaRig needs to be updated then :/

[desert raven]

well yes. it is faulty in that sense and has unfortunately never been fixed regarding this issue

[deep berry]

Could you guys not just make a wiki entry with a guide on how to fix these issues?
I think that would benefit a lot of Modders

[desert raven]

next thing about pistols is that the proxy is always glued to the right hand

so it does not follow the weapon bone

[desert raven]

theoretically we/I could make a lot of wiki entries

[regal mauve]

when i make static poses or gestures it works very well, but i can remove the caps on first letter

[desert raven]

addon builder might process it all to low caps

one of its things

and rtms for other animations are processed different

from weapon handAnims

handAnims are special case where the letters must match

because you know

Arma

[deep berry]

But i have to say that i am using PBOProject and Weapon and Launcher are caps on first letter and i have no issue with handAnims what so ever 🤷‍♂️

[desert raven]

there is 0 consistency to the process

I just tell what I know to work

[regal mauve]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

[desert raven]

if your animation worked it would look something like this

if the spray is pistol

I think I recall it was supposed to be a pistol?

(there is pistol reference in the rig too, but Ive set up mine as object with origin in right place so I can see better where its at)

[regal mauve]

Wait, i need to attach the spray to the pistol instead of the weapon bone ?

[desert raven]

well if you want to see where it is at in the animation yes

[regal mauve]

I just manage to pack my mod with pboproject, an now i see just what you've showed me ^^

[desert raven]

ah there we go

👍

progress

[regal mauve]

Yeah, big progress ! Pheeew, 2 days to figure it out ^^. I didn't use pboproject first because it didn't want to pack my mod and there were no error, i needed to reinstall depbo

[desert raven]

👍

looks like its working as it should now so youll just need to figure out the right position in p3d where the model needs to be

[regal mauve]

yep 🙂

[deep berry]

Nice! congrats 🙂

[deep berry]

So, hello guys 😄
I want to start making reloadAnims again. there was the request to share a video of what my issue is, and mby even my ArmaRig file.
I now have encountered a new issue which im somewhat clueless about, but im sure its just the naming of the bones since they seem to be wrong from the start 😄
attached is my video, my config.cpp and my ArmaRig file - the head just moves to the hip for the reloadAnim duration.
The other issue i had was with the speed of the hand and that the hand would not follow the animation like i had it in ArmaRig, but this could be because of my keyframe points not being "correct?" and probably also because of the magazineReloadSwitchPhase? But it seems fixed for now.

Any help and feedback would be much appreciated! 🙂

[desert raven]

this is likely issue with the blending mask you use

what does the animation look like in blender?

[deep berry]

Animation in blender looks alright - just like i want it to behave for now - this is just a test for now
But whats an animation mask? 😄

[desert raven]

it defines what parts of the animation blend with the pose when the gesture is played

[deep berry]

What mask should i be using then?

[desert raven]

well typically handsWeapon is used with the reload animations

but it may be that you have not made yours with correct pose

so it picks up weird stuff from your animations body bones

[deep berry]

Well im animating? the fire ready pose - where the gun is aimed up - is that not correct?

[desert raven]

hmm

can you record the animation in blender

and in game in 3rd person view

[deep berry]

Yes ill do that when im in Arma again 🙂

[deep berry]

Here are the videos 🙂

[desert raven]

and were these packed with addon builder or pboProject?

[deep berry]

PBOProject - i have moved over entirely

[desert raven]

then it is fairly odd to get that kind of input out of the rtm

[deep berry]

Well i can try setting it up once again, but then i lose the firing ready position and that took me so long to setup 🤣

[desert raven]

do you have model.cfg file with the character skeleton defined in it next to the rtms?

[deep berry]

Yes ofc! 😄
I actually had an error in them the first time i asked about reloadAnims since i copied the samples one to my Animations folder and did not replace the path of the skeleton from A3 Samples to the actual Arma 3 path - but now i have done that

But maybe you have a firing ready pose ready at hand that you could share me?

So that i dont have to completely redo everything from scratch again - that was so hard 😭😂

[desert raven]

first try using gesturereloadbase as your parent class for the reload animation

instead of default

[deep berry]

Head moves the same way as in the two videos.
I used GestureReloadBase for my SPE_MP41_GestureReload and SPE_MP41_GestureReload_Prone

So im pretty sure ill have to do a new animation from scratch again

[regal mauve]

Just out of curiosity, can i play 2 gestures at the same time ? For example an animation test1 blend on the arms and an animation test2 blend on the hands ?

[fast canopy]

Not really

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/switchGesture
If you call a very hacky way a way, yes

[regal mauve]

using the blendfactor i guess, hmm

[fast canopy]

It still might not be the thing you really look for

[regal mauve]

probably not, the blendfactor only determines the smoothness of the transition

[regal mauve]

i just made a test, its not working, the character is supposed to hold the weapon like this

but if i use a second animation with a mask on the arms it gives this result

[deep berry]

@desert raven sorry for the ping 😦
Would it be possible to get that firing ready pose so that i dont have to spent hours trying to recreate the pose again? 😄

[deep berry]

Hey guys 🙂
I just done a new ArmaRig but i have an issue with my left arm - in the ArmaRig it looks perfect, but ingame it looks of.. my right arm though is perfect.
How can i fix this? Im sure that the naming is still wrong since some bones? use capital letters but im not sure.
I attached my blend file and two screenshots. Any help would be really appreciated!

[fast canopy]

It is just about how the IK works in game. You need to make the wrist and hand more straight in Blender

[deep berry]

No, the actual position - ingame the hand is moved down even though in blender its at the position i want the hand to be

[desert raven]

maybe its not exported

[deep berry]

its for sure - i select every bone and press I so 650 "keyframes" are added.

Is the naming right in my blend file?

[desert raven]

your weapon holding rtm is 650 frames long?

[deep berry]

dont i just all all of them? i select for example the hand, then press "A" and press "I"
If you tell me what exactly i have to add via "I" ill do that 😄

[desert raven]

oh you mean you key all the bones

right

so do you add the frame to the frame export list?

frame of timeline that is

[deep berry]

ooooooooh i see my error i think - i just have not added an RTM keyframe.... wait lemme test

[desert raven]

for proper hand anim export you just need your animation playback be set to start from the frame you are exporting

and then you add that frame to the export list

(in the export list it will show 0,000 as the frame timing)

exported frames list

[deep berry]

Yea did not fix it. Yes i did that just now 🙂
Hand is still below where it actually should be. I have also tried pressing "I" again for the hand - no result.

And pboProject does not give me any errors

also updated my animations model.cfg pivotsModel="a3\anims_f\data\skeleton\SkeletonPivots.p3d"; now since it was still using samples - no fix

[still mason]

anyone could help me figure out how to get my hands on a model like this? I want to be able to preview my animations in object builder but i cant seem to find anything in the arma samples that could work or that ive been able to figure out how to use.

[deep berry]

Have never found a way to see the animations in OB - i just pack my project and look ingame

[desert raven]

Character animation viewing in object builder is not super reliable anyway.

[still mason]

Aight thx, ima just use blender then, yall hav any tips on how to get my weapon in the right position relative to the weapon controller with the armarig inblender? Im tryna do weapon animations and i wanna make sure everything is in the right place.

[pallid stream]

Hey, so I'm thinkin about doing maybe a 15-20 second intro for a scenario I'm creating. I want to know if its worth my time trying to do this through arma or using something like blender. The intro would be a condensed version of the Armored Core V cinematic with VTOLs or Helos slingloading mechs into a battlefield, some of which get shot down.

[desert raven]

well since you dont have any of the assets in blender you dont really have much choice

[pallid stream]

Yeaaa, it appears so

[deep berry]

Move in Blender - otherwise post pictures of your issue pls

[buoyant lagoon]

For reload animation I am not sure what is going on with the pelvis/spine/spine1 parts. do I need to rotate them to the right more?

[fast canopy]

Use AmovPercMstpSrasWrflDnon as the template

[buoyant lagoon]

how would I do that?

I never heard of it 🙂

[fast canopy]

Arma 3 Samples/Addons/AmovPercMstpSrasWrflDnon.rtm

[buoyant lagoon]

oh okay, and what do I do with it? import rtm?

[fast canopy]

Yes

[buoyant lagoon]

Oh okay let me try

Okay I thought I knew how to import rtm but I cant find it it under file->import