arma3_animation

[quaint token]

sorry. Just trying to find someone online...

[desert raven]

for future, use correct channels

[zealous coral]

wait a minute all of my collision shapes have inverted faces

i didn't notice until just now because i didn't have display faces turned on

what the hell

[desert raven]

thaat might not be good either

[zealous coral]

is that normal

[desert raven]

does not sound like it

[zealous coral]

dammit odol decompiler website

well also dammit me for being lazy

[desert raven]

😄

if{lazy} while {armamodding} == {shootingOwnFoot = true}

[zealous coral]

lol basically

hmm well just to sanity check, do these need to be centered in the model space grid?

[zenith token]

why do you decompile in the first place?

[desert raven]

yes

the vanilla character should be used as reference in all ways

[zealous coral]

couldn't find a sample version of animstate collisionshapes and they're like 50 polys each

so i figured the debinariser noise wouldn't hurt too much

[zenith token]

oh it will

[desert raven]

there are no samples for those Im afraid

closest things are Arma 2 collision shapes

[zenith token]

collision geometry has to be pristine perfect convex.

[zealous coral]

oh yeah i ran convex hull on them in object builder after LOL

[zenith token]

i trust OB results only as far as i can throw them... 0m because its digital

[zealous coral]

yes somehow my normals got flipped along the way so all my collisionshapes are inside out

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[desert raven]

you must install it on a usb stick!

[zenith token]

but then its only a copy of the thing i dont trust

[zealous coral]

it's easy just pull out your hard drive

then you can build a trebuchet or something, for maximum trust

man i love that running buldozer fails if you run OB from steam

[desert raven]

yep. never run the tools from steam

[zealous coral]

"people say it's bad but how bad could it be" me, 50 hours ago

[desert raven]

@zealous coral looks like my hit geometry has stopped working completely too.

on custom character

[zealous coral]

hmm

well that's "good"

aka lame

so what's the general strategy for this kind of thing

hm meanwhile i guess i can like, attachto some invisible agents inside my guy or something lol idk

[desert raven]

the dreadnougts in the wh40k mods did something like that I think

which is probably alright workaround

it probably will be a while before I return to my walkers, Im deep in terrain part of my project right now

I think the Spartan and space marines still work with hitpoints

but they are not quite as big as my walker legs

which are 8 meters tall

and about 8 meters wide

[zealous coral]

that's quite big

hmm is this something where one can bother BIS about it via semi-official channels and then they'll deal with it in 18 months

or are we otherwise just sol

[desert raven]

need the height 😄

[zealous coral]

dang that's sweet

guess you can staple an agent to each arm and leg lel

[desert raven]

buut yeah migth try if I Dedmen could find some spot to help. 😅 He is rather busy with his work though

can be just some simple blob object that simulates a hitpoint

not its a valid option

for now at least

[zealous coral]

oh yeah i just meant like, it's big enough that it being a blob will probably be noticeable due to the joints articulating etc etc

and youll need a blob for each moving bit

hmm on the plus side though this would be a way to get the AI to actually shoot at the arms intentionally lol

[desert raven]

actually true

however it might limit a bit how many of the things you can field at once

[zealous coral]

i read some bugpost thread about how nato tanks lost to opfor ones in a 1v1 even though it's statistically superior because there's like, exactly one memory vertex the AI tries to shoot at

and the nato tank one is right where the armor is weakest, whereas the opfor one is right where the armor is strongest

[desert raven]

there is 1 aim point yeah

so could very well be possible

[zealous coral]

how many 40' mechs do you need to field at once anyways

[desert raven]

mechwarrior?

[zealous coral]

hmm actually in retrospect that answer was obvious

actually mechwarrior is kinda perfectly suited to arma

in the sense that mechwarrior has exactly the same combined arms as RL but +mechs

[desert raven]

or do you mean mine?

[zealous coral]

oh yeah i meant yours

[desert raven]

(not that im trying to sneakiily figure out your porject 😉 )

[desert raven]

for our purposes we are probably going to limit the amount how many there can be yeah

seems like there is about a man sized area where hit geometry works

@deft fern might you have any insight on what defines characters hitgeometry bounds?
for this one cfgmoves boundingsphere is set to 20 and visibility works just fine (smaller boundsphere made the model disappear at high angles)
collision works fine and covers the whole model. Hit geometry just does not seem to work in this size, only a small area about the size of the man character

[desert raven]

there seems to be about this big area where hitgeometry takes shots

so about 2 meter radius sphere

[zealous coral]

yeah this is consistent with my experience where it seemed like i could get shots on the legs of my character (who was about 4m tall, so not quite as big as that walker) up until waist height (i.e. 2m/regular man height), then bullets stopped registering

[desert raven]

@white juniper you did some stuff with the hit calculation range a while back didnt you? could this be related to that?

[little crystal]

@desert raven

that looks awesome!

You got any videos of animations yet?

[desert raven]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-8igodclDg this is a bit older one

the legs have gone through a redesign

https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/26/25069/WK209_NewRun_06.gif

something along these lines

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/331868308112408576/842295142522159104/LoDR_WK209_New_Walk_02.gif

this is one of more recent ones I recall.

Might still aim to stabilize the torso more

(the measure line is in meters btw 😉 its pretty fast boi running )

[zealous coral]

Dang that walking animation has some nice oomph to it

[desert raven]

Thanks. Still looking for that balance between oomph and stabilised torso

[cerulean pivot]

it looks nice, but if you don't mind me getting a bit critical, the motion is a bit unrealistic and the placement of joints is impractical in actual robots

[desert raven]

Walking mechs in this size are not really realistic.

[cerulean pivot]

true, but the part that looked bad to me was this:

even if assuming the structure is extremely robust, the torque there is probably impossible to maintain with a real life actuator

[desert raven]

[cerulean pivot]

🤓

[zenith token]

its not worse than for a human in normal gait, if actual center of mass (not visual center of mass) is on the upper torso pivot

yes it cant hold still with one leg in the air, but humans cant do so either (freeze motion while their front foot is just about to make contact to ground)

[white juniper]

I don't remember that

[desert raven]

I'll try to look it up. Was maybe something about how high collision detection went. Could be totally unrelated too.

[graceful basalt]

Hello, i have a doubt concerning animating; From where can i get info or documents for making custom animations for arma, not static but as mods

If anyone can help, Dm'me or something

[desert raven]

@graceful basalt there isnt really much any documentation.

[brisk jewel]

setting up a working pipeline is complicated

[desert raven]

starting point would be just learning how to do animations in your chosen 3D program

[brisk jewel]

i tried motionbuilder, couldn't make heads or tails of it. that thing is rocket surgery, though that's par for the course with an autodesk product

i tried this newcomer on the scene, akeytsu which seems very nice and easy to use but unfortunately it doesn't yet support roll joints

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/580388329036709928/911621659126030346/anim.gif

might still be able to make it work. the conversion between rtm and this is going to be a pain though

[desert raven]

Id really suggest just plain Blender

[zealous coral]

does anyone know if there's a config setting for the acceleration of man-type characters?

my mans decelerate and accelerate kinda slowly vs their movement speed so they slide to a stop well after the running animation stops playing

i saw there was an "acceleration" setting for vehicles but it doesn't seem to do anything for mans

[desert raven]

I dont think there is any. animations only have X amount of vector speed

[graceful basalt]

But how do i properly export the anim from Blender to ArmA

'Cause i have for Blender the oficial riggin for making anims but idfk how to make it compatible

[zealous coral]

yeah but mine don't immediately go from 0 to 100 on that speed, it takes a little bit and doesn't seem to care about the corresponding anim state's interpolationspeed :/

i guess i could always run a script that each frame sets my velocity to be exactly the absolute offset of that animstate's RTM or something

ughh

[brisk jewel]

The man movement is hardcoded in thr engine

[zealous coral]

lame

i guess i didn't waste my time writing this script to dump all the RTM offset vectors and match them to the animstates they get loaded on so i can increase acceleration via script

hm does anyone know what the base accel is

actually i guess i can just print it

[zealous coral]

ok so the base acceleration is 20m/s^2

i guess i'll have my script write out a dictionary of {animstatename: (RTM offset / anim time)} and then just run a while loop that increases the magnitude of velocity by 20 * (scale-1) as long as it's currently slower than that value for the current animstate

[desert raven]

You can create a set of animations that run between the standing and walling/running state that have different vector speeds.

Like 1 step with speed 1,second step with speed 2 and then the repeating walk at speed 3

[zealous coral]

Yeah that makes sense

Yikes, stategraph edits tho

[regal dawn]

@scarlet wraith might be the right place for you

[scarlet wraith]

Appreciate it. I was torn between the two channels. haha. I'll put that message here

Hey everyone. I'm trying to make Arma cinematics and I'm pretty new to it. I'm trying to figure out how to use playMove (or any other good methods) to use several animations in a sequence. For example, a soldier switching from his primary to his secondary, but there are several animations to do so. Any tips on how to do that effectively?

[regal dawn]

👍

[cerulean pivot]

no, this channel is for animation making (rtm)

[brisk jewel]

surely it is the right place for animation graph questions as well

[brisk jewel]

generally you want to use playAction if applicable

[desert raven]

there are also commands for weapon swapping.

[meager mirage]

does anyone have the biskeleton.p3d file?

[brisk jewel]

i have one of those. can't post here though

[meager mirage]

could you dm it to me?

[zealous coral]

out of curiosity what is a biskeleton.p3d file

is there an important such file aside from the one from the samples

[brisk jewel]

no it's the one from the sample models

[desert raven]

For Blender users Macrsers Armarig serves the same purpose

[zealous coral]

hm not sure if this is best for scripting or here but is there a good way to get where a selection's position in model space would have been without ik?

[brisk jewel]

don't think so

what are you looking to do?

[zealous coral]

i want to play a smoke/dust puff effect when a character's foot hits the ground

checking for stuff like z-position in model space doesn't really work because of slopes and IK

a thing that will "obviously" work is to write an external script that just checks all the animations "by hand" and then writes out the animation times when contact occurs to an array somewhere

but this seems like overkill

[brisk jewel]

i believe there is a command to get the current animation phase

combine that with sound edges

[zealous coral]

sound edges?

[brisk jewel]

animation states have a soundEdges config which specifies when to play sounds, particularly footstep sounds

[zealous coral]

oh i see

hm does each anim state only have one type of sound it can play?

[brisk jewel]

i think it plays multiple sounds. footsteps is one, shuffling or clacking from the equipment also

[zealous coral]

hmm well i see for instance

soundOverride="adjust_stand_to_right_prone";
soundEnabled=1;
soundEdge[]={0.0099999998};```

and it doesn't look like you can specify more than one sound

i guess the sound overrides can contain multiple sounds but there doesn't seem to be a way to specify what gets played when, it seems like a normal "pick one at random" thing like for soundshaders

well i guess all of that is academic anyways because the walk anims only seem to have sound edges for walkin' anyways

Well I'll try it out, thanks

[echo quiver]

Amazing, Just confirming, this mod is not on Steam Workshop?

[desert raven]

@echo quiver no, work in progress. Not released yet

[brisk jewel]

anyone know what purpose, if any, the world root node in the A3 character samples serves?

[brisk jewel]

does the A3 man skeleton have a Hips bone?

[zealous coral]

are there any gotchas i should know about when trying to retarget animations onto the armarig skeleton?

[desert raven]

Nothing specific comes to mind

[zealous coral]

lol well i tried to retarget a mixamo animation and bad things happened

matching rest poses is really fiddly it turns out since the armarig dude rests at an A-pose and almost every other rig i've looked at rests at a T-pose

[desert raven]

ah

yeah people have asked about that before too

it does need a correct kind of setup

not impossible

buut not easy to explain either

and usually people after such animations have not been interested in the hard work part as much I suppose. Mostly doing stuff for meme purposes

[zealous coral]

i did get armarig-im or whatever set up to import/modify RTMs but it either doesn't import or re-export the camera bone correctly so the 3p camera dramatically swoops to stare at your pelvis during the animation lol

[brisk jewel]

i once had this issue when my skeleton config had Camera instead of camera

[zealous coral]

hmm i think my skeleton is just copy pasted from example character or something but i'll check it

[brisk jewel]

so was mine

[zealous coral]

it works fine on every other animation so far

hm yeah it does have Camera instead of camera

well this will be dumb if it's the problem

[desert raven]

Those are case sensitive yeah

[zealous coral]

hm well i changed it in the config and tried rebinarizing all the models/the RTM and it didn't seem to fix it :/

the camera bone looks like it actually is placed at Z=1 instead of Z=2 like it's supposed to be when i open it in dertm

[brisk jewel]

use a hex editor to check the name in the rtm

oh do you mean it also looks wrong in oxygen?

[zealous coral]

well i was looking at the actual bone transform data in dertm

most animations have the Z (actually Y because for some reason RTMs use a different coordinate space than the engine??) at 2 but my exported anim has Z at 1

it does call it Camera though

[brisk jewel]

the engine uses +X right, +Y up, +Z forward

[zealous coral]

hm in script it's +Z up, i'm pretty sure

it just happens that p3d and rtm both do it as you say

[brisk jewel]

yeah, it converts for sqf

[cerulean pivot]

that's not engine tho

engine is left handed afaik (because of DirectX)

[zealous coral]

ok, sure, but it's still confusing

but yes regardless my exported bone transform is offset to a different position than most other RTMs are

so i guess i can just add 1 to the Y or Z or whatever we're calling the vertical axis

[brisk jewel]

that's an unbinarised RTM with Camera?

[zealous coral]

yes

[brisk jewel]

it should be camera

[zealous coral]

well i opened a debinarized "vanilla" RTM and that's also Camera

[cerulean pivot]

you sure you're putting the correct file in your pbo?!

[zealous coral]

reasonably sure?

i mean, i don't have any other versions of that animation

and it does play in the game

it just swoops the camera to a weird spot

[cerulean pivot]

this sounds like it's not following the camera bone

[brisk jewel]

okay, open the binarised rtm in a hex editor and see if it has the camera bone

[zealous coral]

no i mean, i literally examined the bone transforms on the camera bone in both my RTM and a vanilla one and they're off by 1 on the Y-value

[zealous coral]

oh i just realized, it's because binarizing lowercases bone names

that's why the debinarizer requires a skeleton file

[brisk jewel]

well that's not the only reason but sure

[zealous coral]

well it also needs a hierarchy i guess

[brisk jewel]

right

[zealous coral]

but regardless it is the reason that mikero specifically called out in his docs for needing a skeleton file

but yeah it shouldn't matter what the case is in the unbinarized file

[zealous coral]

well it worked lol

is there a separate camera bone for 1p view?

[brisk jewel]

no

[zealous coral]

weird

i get a little zoom effect whenever the animation plays in 1p

i wonder if that's just because the camera bone isn't tracking exactly correctly or something

[brisk jewel]

afaik the camera bone has no effect on first person

can you show a video of it?

[zealous coral]

yeah one sec

[desert raven]

1st person view is defined by memorypoints

does your animation move the head selection?

[sacred oxide]

can one ask code based animation questions here?

[desert raven]

code based animation? @sacred oxide

model.cfg?

[vagrant fable]

Hello good afternoon there is some editor here. I need help with moderate urgency

[desert raven]

@vagrant fable wrong channel.

#discord_server for discord related things

[sacred oxide]

Aye, indeed

[desert raven]

for model.cfg?

and yes this channel works for that too. Though usually #arma3_model has been used for those since its more tied to it. But either is fine

[sacred oxide]

yeah

[brisk jewel]

something is weird about the camera bone

the bind pose fbx has it here, between the clavicles https://i.imgur.com/roFT3rL.png

all the player models have the camera memory point here, between the legs https://i.imgur.com/qg2xeqP.png

the shipped animations result in the camera memory point moving to above the character's head https://i.imgur.com/0DaqKKa.png

[sacred oxide]

how do reloads and different weapons work in arma 3? do you have to customise it to each weapon, e.g each AR?

[desert raven]

yes each weapon has reload gesture and holding rtm

you can use same ones too if they fit

but they often dont

[sacred oxide]

is this a long winded process ones guessing?

[desert raven]

For you. Yes.

not gonna sugarcoat it

[desert raven]

as far as I know the camera bone default pos is between the legs and it is animated to be above/behind the head in the movement rtms.

so exactly what you experienced

the bindpose fbx is probably for something else entirely

like motion capture data handling

[brisk jewel]

no, the bind pose is used for fbx->rtm conversion

the converter needs to know the fbx bind pose in order to convert the bone transforms to the game's coordinate space

shipped along with A3 tools FBXToRTM there's a couple of animation FBX like AmovPercMrunSlowWpstDbl. those have the camera bone in between the legs as well

[desert raven]

ah I never bothered with the FBXtoRTM after I found the blender plugins so I have no experience with those.

[brisk jewel]

mmh

i'm using motionbuilder instead. i wrote my own rtm-fbx conversion but really i'm lacking the game's bind pose

BISkeleton.p3d has bone translations but i'm not sure if it contains the true rotations

[zenith field]

Has anyone tried using motion capture with Xbox Kinect 2?

[subtle falcon]

No, I don't have the adapter to connect my kinect sensor to the PC. I've always wanted to try it though.

[zenith field]

https://aliexpress.ru/item/1005003626098645.html?spm=a2g0o.search0302.0.0.525b5b7bfbBOfX&algo_pvid=3e98b774-0832-4ef4-a2dc-e36b63021009&algo_expid=3e98b774-0832-4ef4-a2dc-e36b63021009-0&btsid=0b8b035c16386962234026462e9f78&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

[naive hemlock]

motion capture and translation into A3 is not all that easy, considering the setup required.

[regal dawn]

i honestly dont know much abt modding so i wouldnt know how hard it is to implicate such a thing but i was wondering if anyone is wiling to create a sort of marching animation for my unit, i have cerimonial parades and would kind be helpful if we had marching xDDDD msg me for more details. Money is there ;)))

[cerulean pivot]

what is relSpeedMin and relSpeedMax?

I think it's used to scale the RTM motion vector that you've defined in blender, correct?

[brisk jewel]

you know what speed does i assume?

[cerulean pivot]

yes

[brisk jewel]

they are the minimum and maximum modifiers applied to speed

the engine might play a running animation at any speed ranging from relSpeedMin*speed to relSpeedMax*speed

you the user can't control it from SQF. any manually played animation always plays at speed

[cerulean pivot]

well then there's something I don't understand. I imported a vanilla anim in blender, and RTM motion vector is 0, -5.7, 0

and yet in the game the unit moves at ~4-4.5 m/s

is it because the units are different?

[brisk jewel]

that vector is not units per second if that's what you're asking

it's the movement caused throughout one cycle of the animation

if you play that animation once, you will move 5.7 units

[cerulean pivot]

ah, that makes sense then

let me retry

[brisk jewel]

so the speed of movement depends on the speed of the animation

[cerulean pivot]

yep, it's correct now

[brisk jewel]

so in a sense, yes relSpeedMin and relSpeedMax do define relative bounds on the scaling applied to the movement vector, but only indirectly

[cerulean pivot]

thanks

[brisk jewel]

on a side note, that's probably 0, 0, -5.7 since Z is forward/backward

though +Z is forward for the engine and backward for oxygen

[cerulean pivot]

in blender it's correct

but * -1

(reversed)

[brisk jewel]

it might be that RTM uses the oxygen coordinate system for the movement, i couldn't say off the top of my head

in blender +Y is backward?

[cerulean pivot]

yeah

[desert raven]

-Z is Armas forward

in OB

[brisk jewel]

yeah, oxygen flips X and Z

[desert raven]

which corresponds to -Y in Blender

[zealous coral]

if i want to attach primary weapon to the back, which bone should it be following via constraint

spine3?

if i target the @Weapon memory point it seems to bend in the wrong way

[desert raven]

you mean in blender?

[zealous coral]

yeah, armarig with blender

i actually figured it out, it's because i was messing with an animation that moved the @weapon bone around due to it being a Wrfl animation

hmm what's the best way to get the game to play an animation, then "freeze" at the end pose of the animation, but without blocking user input (i.e. allowing the user to cancel the pose by hitting the move keys)

i tried having a CustomAnimation state that connects to a CustomAnimationFinalPose state (with a static pose that's just the final frame of the last state), and putting the latter under CivilStandActions; then i PlayMoveNow "CustomAnimationFinalPose" which properly causes it to play CustomAnimation

but then it doesn't stop on the static pose and goes straight back to normal stand/walk anims

would i want to make my own actions set that inherits CivilStandActions?

[zealous coral]

secondary followup question; if i want to play a gesture at the same time as another animation (say, walking), is it safe to do e.g.

playActionNow "Gesture_whatever";
playActionNow "WalkF";

or will the second call override the first (and if it does, how does one accomplish playing a gesture and a normal animation simultaneously?)

[cerulean pivot]

yes

[brisk jewel]

Yeah you want Stop = "CustomAnimationFinalPose";

[brisk jewel]

Primary animations and gestures don't affect one another

[cerulean pivot]

does anyone know what these properties are used for?
minPlayTime
interpolationRestart

also another question: is there a minimum anim play time before an anim can interpolate to another?

I'm guessing if playTime > minPlayTime you can interpolate?

[cerulean pivot]

it seems like minPlayTime is a percentage, correct?
as in:

minTime = minPlayTime * animDuration

[brisk jewel]

when interpolating from state A to B, interpolationRestart controls the behaviour of B.
B can start from time 0, it can start at 1-t where t is the current time of A, or it can start at t (sort of)

really this should be a property of an edge and not of a state, they kinda fucked up here

think of some transition animation, like putting your gun on your back, or taking it off your back. when you cancel the action and want to go the other way, you want to interpolate from A to B starting B at 1-t

for interpolating between running forward and running diagonally forward and right, you want to interpolate from A to B starting B at t (though really this mode is affected by the walkCycles of A and B)

for interpolating to a death animation you want to always start at 0

minPlayTime i've never seen. must be new in A3

[brisk jewel]

in A2 no, but maybe that is exactly what minPlayTime does. it makes sense to be able to do this, though it should also be a property of the edge

[cerulean pivot]

well that's the thing. there should be. otherwise I get this:

[cerulean pivot]

if I use this instead, the movement is almost correct, but:

1. movement is not responsive anymore
2. some transitions are still partly skipped (see the last "stand to prone" thing)

[brisk jewel]

It's so fast it's hard to figure out what's happening

Yeah it wouldn't be responsive if animations are forced to play without being cancelled

Need more information on what you're doing in order to provide more help

[cerulean pivot]

I've created an anim system for my "debugger" thing and I'm trying to replicate Arma's anim system as close as possible.
I have converted the rtms to my own format that I use in my "engine"
and I read the anims config to read the anim state info like connection, interpolation, speed, etc.
next I ask the unit to play a new anim every ~0.1 s
for the first video I consider an anim done and ready to play the next anim like so (using interpTime)

if (!animPath.empty()) {
        auto& nextAnim = animPath.back();
        if ((nextAnim.interpolated && animTime >= interpTime) || animTime >= anim.duration) {//
...

for the second I use minPlayTime:

if (!animPath.empty()) {
        auto& nextAnim = animPath.back();
        if ((nextAnim.interpolated && animTime >= minPlayTime) || animTime >= anim.duration) {//
...

not sure what else I should consider to make this match Arma's more closely

[cerulean pivot]

what's happening is that the transitions (e.g. stand to prone anim) are just interpolated immediately to the next anim (since they're in interpolateTo instead of connectTo)

[brisk jewel]

so how are the actual states in your graph connected and how do you play them?

oh you're not running this in game at all

what is decltype(animPath)::value_type?

[cerulean pivot]

it's a custom type (a struct of pairs: next anim node index, and a bool that indicates whether it can interpolate)

[brisk jewel]

just checking that you're interpolating depending on the edge and not the target

[cerulean pivot]

yes, it depends on the edge (I call it "Link" tho...)

[brisk jewel]

is interpTime another config field?

[cerulean pivot]

it's the inverse of interp speed

[brisk jewel]

oh. then your use of it doesn't make sense

[cerulean pivot]

you mean in the first case?

[brisk jewel]

yeah

[cerulean pivot]

rn I use it for interpolation from one state to another

[brisk jewel]

interpolationSpeed determines how long the interpolation from A to B takes, i.e. starting at 1*A + 0*B how long it takes to reach 0*A + 1*B

0 and 1 blending weight that is of course

[cerulean pivot]

yeah that's what I use it for rn

[brisk jewel]

okay. that's not how the code reads

[cerulean pivot]

the second one does:
if ((nextAnim.interpolated && animTime >= minPlayTime) || animTime >= anim.duration) {//

[brisk jewel]

yeah, that seems reasonable, if that is what minPlayTime does

on a side note, it's probably easier to use normalised animation factors, i.e. [0, 1]

anyway, need to see more code to say anything further about why it doesn't match arma

[cerulean pivot]

the only part that matters is this (the condition I use to determine if the current animation is done and the next one can be played)
the rest of the code is correct. right now my primary concern is the responsiveness. there is another factor in play here that I'm not considering

[cerulean pivot]

I think it's finally done (almost)

changed the condition to this

if ((nextAnim.interpolated && !interpRestart && animTime >= interpTime) || animTime >= anim.duration)

it looks correct so I think interp restart is actually used for what I do rn?

[brisk jewel]

i explained it before, it actually has 4 different meanings i think

depending on the value

0 is t (with walk cycle taken into account)
1 is 0
2 is 1-t
and any other value i think is t with walk cycle not taken into account

if i remember this correctly... i think i do

[cerulean pivot]

it could be that too..
but it seems it is also used to determine if an anim can be "interpolated" at all too
I noticed that all transition anims had interpRestart = 1 which is what sparked that idea (and it looks I was right)

[brisk jewel]

really

they should have 2 🤔

[cerulean pivot]

no it's either 0 or 1

no wait there is 2 too

I was using it as a bool

let's see what 2 means then

[brisk jewel]

1-t

[cerulean pivot]

yeah they were 2 my bad...
I meant they were not 0

[brisk jewel]

okay

[cerulean pivot]

what does walk cycles do tho?

[brisk jewel]

well you know of walkCycles right?

it specifies how many walk cycles the animation has

[cerulean pivot]

yeah

[brisk jewel]

well interpolationRestart = 0 somehow correlates the walk cycles of two animations

the idea is that you want to end up in the same phase within a walk cycle in the interpolation target animation

[cerulean pivot]

oof...looks like I was right the first time. I had mistakenly set the default value of minPlayTime to 1 instead of 0
that's why I was getting incorrect results
this is what I do now, and it works fine:

if ((nextAnim.interpolated && animTime >= interpTime && animTime >= minPlayTime) || animTime >= anim.duration)

(in the above code I've converted minPlayTime to actual time instead of percentage)

[brisk jewel]

does it work when you play A to 0.5 normally and then start interpolating to B?

[cerulean pivot]

sometimes...
I can't reverse the transition anims (they have to play almost all the way to the end; in the game you can interrupt them half way...)

maybe interp restart plays a role after all

[brisk jewel]

yeah this case is interpolationRestart = 2, are you not listening?

[cerulean pivot]

yeah but they also have a minPlayTime

so they ignore minPlayTime in the game

there is a property: IgnoreMinPlayTime, but it doesn't list the reverse animation

[cerulean pivot]

also it's 1 for the animation I'm talking about (stand to prone, and prone to stand)

[brisk jewel]

if ((nextAnim.interpolated && animTime >= interpTime && animTime >= minPlayTime) || animTime >= anim.duration)
you'd be better off handling the interpolation separately from the animation queue

the interpolation factor is not related to the time factor of any animation

[cerulean pivot]

the interpolation itself is separate

that code just determines when an anim is finished

it has nothing to do with interpolation itself

[cerulean pivot]

added walkCycles too

[brisk jewel]

nice

[cerulean pivot]

well now there's a problem with gestures...
it appears that the weapon transformations are absolute, not relative to a bone

or is that a problem with the rig I used?

[brisk jewel]

weapons do have some kind of special treatment

well the weapon bone does

launcher doesn't

see CfgSkeletonParameters/OFP2_ManSkeleton/weaponBone

gesture .rtm are not special, they're just like any other .rtm

what gesture is that? the video would be more informative if the character was standing still

[cerulean pivot]

it's a typical rifle reload gesture. if the unit stands up it looks correct ofc, but when the anim is not the stand-stop anim the weapon just stays there

as you can see the weapon movement is correct too, but the problem is its transformation is absolute

[brisk jewel]

i see. so it's just a bug in your program then?

[cerulean pivot]

also where is this?

[brisk jewel]

config

[cerulean pivot]

no, the problem is probably the rig

[brisk jewel]

are you reading .rtm for this?

[cerulean pivot]

no. I imported them into blender (using Macer's blender importer rig) and exported them as .dae, then I converted them to a format that I use in my program (custom format)

[brisk jewel]

seems like it would improve usability to handle .rtm directly

[cerulean pivot]

I wasn't sure how to read the format, but maybe that's not a bad idea

I could see how the blender importer script works

[brisk jewel]

well if you have any questions, just ask

i could also give you the code for my tool

[cerulean pivot]

this was empty

[brisk jewel]

oh okay, i guess it changed in A3 then

[cerulean pivot]

that sounds like a lot of effort...

[brisk jewel]

in A2 it's weaponBone = "weapon";

well the .rtm formats are very simple

[cerulean pivot]

yeah but I also have to set up a different mesh and rig for that, no?

I doubt it works directly with the blender rig I use

[brisk jewel]

well, depends on what you've done so far

your skeleton hierarchy isn't different from OFP2_ManSkeleton is it?

[cerulean pivot]

I think it is. I just use the macer's blender importer (not sure if you've used that before)

[brisk jewel]

nope

i use motionbuilder and made my own fbx import/export. that would be the tool i mentioned

it also binarises and debinarises rtms. that's why i offered you the code if you wanted to have a look at it

[cerulean pivot]

you tell me:

this is what I get in dae file after I export it

[brisk jewel]

which ones are the bones

there's @weapon, weapon, @Pelvis, Pelvis

[cerulean pivot]

the ones with an icon next to them are joints

bones are those without icons I guess...

[brisk jewel]

anyway, weapon and launcher are direct children of Spine1

[cerulean pivot]

they're not in that model

so I guess that's the problem then?

[brisk jewel]

hmm i couldn't say for sure

it might be

[cerulean pivot]

oof...I thought that's a free program.
no thanks

(I mean motion builder)

[brisk jewel]

yeah. mine is just a CLI tool

[cerulean pivot]

what does it do?

[brisk jewel]

dayz-edit rtm bin a.rtm b.rtm reads a.rtm writes binarised b.rtm, that sort of thing

[cerulean pivot]

can it export to fbx?

[brisk jewel]

yeah

fbx2020

dayz-edit rtm export a.rtm a.fbx

[cerulean pivot]

do you also have a mesh for that too?

[brisk jewel]

i don't know how useful that feature would be to you though. i just figured if you wanted to write your own rtm deserialiser, that part of the code would be of interest to you

[cerulean pivot]

no this animation thing is just a "gimmick" for me I guess. this thing I'm making is for debugging my AI

I figured some anim would be nice too

[brisk jewel]

https://i.imgur.com/JDGTrhW.gif

i've been using a modified version of the character from the A3 sample models

[cerulean pivot]

nice!
I guess that works for me too 😅

[brisk jewel]

oh the fbx uses a different skeleton too actually

it shouldn't really matter for the character though

your character is skinned for essentially the same skeleton

[rocky wyvern]

Is it possible to hide or scale limbs with gestures or animations by clipping them through the body?

[desert raven]

sure

character animations dont collide

[glad crypt]

having some trouble getting my RTM file to actually animate on Object Builder. I've applied multiple RTM Keyframes on Blender , exported it as .rtm, but when I put it on Object builder, it displays RTM Keyframes -0.5, 0 and 1. The rtm file size is only 13kb.

I have 6 frames in total between 0.0 and 1

[desert raven]

did you add all the frames in the export list

[glad crypt]

Only options I have when I export are Static Pose and Clip Frames to [0,1]

[desert raven]

well static pose is probably the issue

its static

not multiframe

[glad crypt]

oh my god

Yeah, it works now...

Thanks!

[desert raven]

dun dun duuuuun

https://tenor.com/view/feel-me-think-about-it-meme-gif-7715402

[glad crypt]

Well, seems like I'm still stuck in the "Jesus Pose" once I try to view the animation in Splendid Animation Viewer.
Things I have tried so far:
1.Re-installed Blender and Arma 3 Toolbox
2. Exported the .rmt with and without the default jesus pose in the RMT keyshapes.
3. Change the values "looped" and "speed" in config.cpp
4. Changed requiredAddons to "A3_Anims_F" in config.cpp

really hitting a wall here again, I feel like I'm missing something in the config or a file all together from my source folder.

[brisk jewel]

okay, let's see the .rtm

[glad crypt]

Sent you a Dm

[desert raven]

t pose could indicate the rtm either contains nothing or does not get packed into the pbo

or is not packed in right path

[glad crypt]

This, my config.cpp did not have the full path from P:, after adding the full path it works perfectly. Thanks @brisk jewel

I do feel like my lack of understanding of coding and syntax bites me in the ass with everything related to Arma😆

[cerulean pivot]

is it just me or is my gesture implementation a lot more "correct" than Arma's?

I use the exact same skeleton and mask as those of Arma's of course (I import the vanilla config)

[white juniper]

[brisk jewel]

what is the mask?

[cerulean pivot]

class GestureReloadBase: Default
        {
            file="a3\anims_f\data\anim\sdr\gst\gesturereloadmx.rtm";
            looped=0;
            mask="handsWeapon";
            canPullTrigger=0;
        };
class GestureReloadMX: GestureReloadBase
        {
            file="a3\anims_f\data\anim\sdr\gst\gesturereloadmx.rtm";
            speed=0.37;
            leftHandIKCurve[]={0.012,1,0.041000001,0,0.94099998,0,0.98199999,1};
        };

[brisk jewel]

handsWeapon[] =
{
    "head", 1,
    "neck1", 1,
    "neck", 1,
    "weapon", 1,
    "LeftShoulder", 1,
    "LeftArm", 1,
    "LeftArmRoll", 1,
    "LeftForeArm", 1,
    "LeftForeArmRoll", 1,
    "LeftHand", 1,
    "LeftHandRing", 1,
    "LeftHandPinky1", 1,
    "LeftHandPinky2", 1,
    "LeftHandPinky3", 1,
    "LeftHandRing1", 1,
    "LeftHandRing2", 1,
    "LeftHandRing3", 1,
    "LeftHandMiddle1", 1,
    "LeftHandMiddle2", 1,
    "LeftHandMiddle3", 1,
    "LeftHandIndex1", 1,
    "LeftHandIndex2", 1,
    "LeftHandIndex3", 1,
    "LeftHandThumb1", 1,
    "LeftHandThumb2", 1,
    "LeftHandThumb3", 1,
    "RightShoulder", 1,
    "RightArm", 1,
    "RightArmRoll", 1,
    "RightForeArm", 1,
    "RightForeArmRoll", 1,
    "RightHand", 1,
    "RightHandRing", 1,
    "RightHandPinky1", 1,
    "RightHandPinky2", 1,
    "RightHandPinky3", 1,
    "RightHandRing1", 1,
    "RightHandRing2", 1,
    "RightHandRing3", 1,
    "RightHandMiddle1", 1,
    "RightHandMiddle2", 1,
    "RightHandMiddle3", 1,
    "RightHandIndex1", 1,
    "RightHandIndex2", 1,
    "RightHandIndex3", 1,
    "RightHandThumb1", 1,
    "RightHandThumb2", 1,
    "RightHandThumb3", 1,
    "Spine", 0.2,
    "Spine1", 0.3,
    "Spine2", 1,
    "Spine3", 1
};

is it the same as A2?

[cerulean pivot]

handsWeapon[]=         { "head", 1, "neck1", 1, "neck", 1, "weapon", 1, "LeftShoulder", 1, "LeftArm", 1, "LeftArmRoll", 1, "LeftForeArm", 1, "LeftForeArmRoll", 1, "LeftHand", 1, "LeftHandRing", 1, "LeftHandPinky1", 1, "LeftHandPinky2", 1, "LeftHandPinky3", 1, "LeftHandRing1", 1, "LeftHandRing2", 1, "LeftHandRing3", 1, "LeftHandMiddle1", 1, "LeftHandMiddle2", 1, "LeftHandMiddle3", 1, "LeftHandIndex1", 1, "LeftHandIndex2", 1, "LeftHandIndex3", 1, "LeftHandThumb1", 1, "LeftHandThumb2", 1, "LeftHandThumb3", 1, "RightShoulder", 1, "RightArm", 1, "RightArmRoll", 1, "RightForeArm", 1, "RightForeArmRoll", 1, "RightHand", 1, "RightHandRing", 1, "RightHandPinky1", 1, "RightHandPinky2", 1, "RightHandPinky3", 1, "RightHandRing1", 1, "RightHandRing2", 1, "RightHandRing3", 1, "RightHandMiddle1", 1, "RightHandMiddle2", 1, "RightHandMiddle3", 1, "RightHandIndex1", 1, "RightHandIndex2", 1, "RightHandIndex3", 1, "RightHandThumb1", 1, "RightHandThumb2", 1, "RightHandThumb3", 1, "Spine", 1, "Spine1", 1, "Spine2", 1, "Spine3", 1, "pelvis", "MaskStart" };

almost. yeah

[brisk jewel]

hmm reading this it seems like the arma clip is correct

everything is 1 including pelvis

you still have bone transforms from the primary move

oh no pelvis is "MaskStart"

A2 doesn't have that. what is it?

[cerulean pivot]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I ignore that part

[brisk jewel]

is that a mistake?

[cerulean pivot]

no, all Arma gesture masks have that

[brisk jewel]

oh you ignore it

i misread

[cerulean pivot]

yeah when I import the config I read bone-value pairs.
if it fails I skip it

[brisk jewel]

uhh i reckon that bit is important

if you can't handle something you should error not just silently skip 😛

anyway, looking at the clips you posted, it looks to me like you keep the primary animation spine transforms during the gesture

all the spine bones are clearly 1 on the mask

the config might be dumb, but it seems to me like arma is more correctly handling it

[cerulean pivot]

the difference is that I interpolate relatively (before applying parent transformation)

Arma does abs interpolation

so my interpolation respects the bone hierarchy

[brisk jewel]

huh? there's no way that's right

[cerulean pivot]

it looks correct

[brisk jewel]

what happens if you look up or down as far as you can and then reload?

it works fine in A2, did they screw it up for A3?

[cerulean pivot]

when sprinting it looks almost the same as the video I posted (except the unit looking up)
otherwise it's correct

maybe it's intentional

but still it's weird that the unit "stands up" when reloading
imagine trying to run away from the enemy and keeping your head down, and you suddenly reload - you're screwed

[brisk jewel]

it's weird that that mask has all spines at 1, and that maskstart on pelvis

[cerulean pivot]

maybe because pelvis is the root bone

[brisk jewel]

yes, i think the important part is that it is the common ancestor of all bones in this mask

however that does not explain its purpose or behaviour

[grizzled igloo]

Hi guys, I'm replacing the vanilla animations and I'm currently replacing the static animation for "standing weapon", but the animation only uses the animation I replaced when aiming and firing, so I'd like to know what the problem is?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/105HVppuZgCrcwBr8i_OAQizZCLhpxOTV/view?usp=sharing

And I also checked the animation library, the two static standing gun animations have all been replaced

[desert raven]

well you probably need to replace the rest of the standing animations as well

you are likely going to see a looot of problems though

especially with reload animations

[grizzled igloo]

Like standing turn and standing gun forward?

[desert raven]

yeh

all of these

[grizzled igloo]

Oh, well, I did not expect that dynamic animation also has an impact on the static movement

[desert raven]

there is a command to check what animation is running

that could be useful to debug what happens there

[grizzled igloo]

Oh god, if you can tell me this command then I would appreciate it😄

[desert raven]

dont remember off the top of my head

but you should be able to find it in the wikis Arma3 scripting command list

[grizzled igloo]

okey cool

[zealous coral]

hm apparently the lowest-cost path from AmovPknlMstpSlowWrflDnon to AmovPercMstpSlowWrflDnon is via the "treat wound" animation

rather than the standing up animation

[brisk jewel]

you must have changed something?

[zealous coral]

is there any way to force the game to play the standing up animation instead other than by manually clicking it

hmm i don't think i did?

[brisk jewel]

so this is in pure vanilla with no mods?

[zealous coral]

it is from a full config dump from vanilla with no mods

so going directly between those two states has a cost of 0.01

but going from AmovPknlMstpSlowWrflDnon to Acts_TreatingWounded_in costs only 0.0001

and then from _in to _loop is also only 0.0001

etc

so the total cost through the treatingwounded animations is actually only 0.0004

so this is "correct"

it is just strange

[brisk jewel]

and those connect to AmovPercMstpSlowWrflDnon?

[zealous coral]

yeah Acts_TreatingWounded_Out dumps into AmovPercMstpSlowWrflDnon

oh i misread, the cost there is 0.001

so the total cost is like 0.0013

so basically if a man is kneeling with a rifle and you need them to do something standing with a rifle they always play like 6 seconds of treating wounds first if you use PlayMoveNow

[brisk jewel]

so you do observe this in game?

[zealous coral]

yeah

[brisk jewel]

okay. so it's just a crappy animation graph then

[zealous coral]

hm ok i'm actually wrong; my animation seems to loop

[cerulean pivot]

it plays correctly for me (both in the game and my own implementation)

[zealous coral]

weird

actually when i run it it seems to go through the same state twice before it loops into the treating wound stuff, but i'm just calling playmovenow once

so idk what's happening

[fast canopy]

If I read the issue correctly, open the folder where rpts are, and delete AnimDataCache

[zealous coral]

hm alright

[subtle falcon]

Well now there are elephants in Arma. Models and anims imported for the Pilanesberg map made by Icebreakr.

https://i.gyazo.com/ce202d7c9052a16f2815c80560aaa03a.mp4

I spent 5 hours trying to figure out why the model kept disappearing when you weren't looking at it directly. It was the boundingSphere. 🙃

[desert raven]

Very cool!!!

[brisk jewel]

replying to that particular message made that sound incredibly sarcastic 😃

[desert raven]

Ah true it was not all one xD

[crimson granite]

I've got a weapon where I want the front sight to be folded down both when there is an optic fitted and when the weapon is on the player's back - I'm currently finding that when it has an optic and it's on the player's back the front sight rotates all the way through 180 degrees - how do I get it to sort of reach a 'maximum' of 90 degrees and not go any further?

[zealous coral]

ah the ol' boundingsphere view culling

[desert raven]

hows the hit detection working btw?

the elephant is rather largeish creature

[subtle falcon]

Well, it doesn't work very well actually, but since I haven't finished all the LODs, I thought I'd spend more time on this later. 😅

[desert raven]

Let me know how that goes. I'm combating the fire geometry not extending beyond ~2meter sphere myself. No matter what the boundsphere is set to.

[dusky frigate]

🤯
Is there any tutorial for custom animations? want to animate my custom creature. I have made animations for unity and unreal. But arma has its own and weird method I dont know how to define custom bones (checked A2 model.cfg and models but still 🤯 )

[brisk jewel]

A2? are you targeting A2 or A3?

[dusky frigate]

A3
Checked A2 models to learn how selections, ... defined

[brisk jewel]

you have a skinned model?

[dusky frigate]

Yes

[brisk jewel]

well defining the skeleton hierarchy is simple. in model.cfg under CfgSkeletons you have a class containing an array of bones specified as (name, parent) pairs

[regal dawn]

How do I make the people with animations move? In the apex reveal trailer there are guys moving within the forest. I have put the animations on them but they don't actually move, just have walking animations.

Using Acts_SupportTeam_Move

[desert raven]

the are pathed with waypoints usually

and the clips are shot live in game

at least for long distance moving

some cutscene animations have bit of walking around but they are made for very specific compositions

[drifting plinth]

Hey guys, how would I go about tying a custom user action (with a custom key bind) to ManActions in CfgMovesBasic/CfgMovesMaleSdr? I want to emulate the "toggle raise weapon" logic but I am not sure how the internal logic goes in ManActions.
For example:
agonyStart = "";
relies on some internal logic, something that triggers it and through the animation trees lands on the "agony" animation.
Im trying to figure out how to configure what would trigger the action, like in this case a player getting shot, or like what I'm trying to emulate which would be something like toggling it with pressing 2 x Left Ctrl

[brisk jewel]

you use playAction to play an action

player playAction "agonyStart"

[drifting plinth]

Does it need to be defined somewhere first? or do you define it by referencing it in the CfgUserActions?
say I wanna be able to do something like player playAction "raiseWeaponUp"

[brisk jewel]

the action here is one from ManActions

does raiseWeaponUp exist in ManActions?

[drifting plinth]

No. But am I able to do it if I do something like:````ManRaiseWeaponAction:ManActions {raiseWeaponUp = "";};in the config and then reference it later on asplayer playAction "raiseWeaponUp"``` ?

[brisk jewel]

not like that, exactly

but yeah

you need

class ManActions
{
  jonmo_raiseWeaponUp = "something...";
};

player playAction "jonmo_raiseWeaponUp";

[cerulean pivot]

altho you should use the correct actions group

[brisk jewel]

it depends. if it's a gesture you can probably get away with it in ManActions

[cerulean pivot]

and you need to tell the animation which action group it belongs to

[cerulean pivot]

wasn't the question about anims and not gestures?

[brisk jewel]

hmm maybe it was. gestures are just animations on another layer though 😛

[drifting plinth]

That helps me out a lot though, I now know how to "start" the animations, now I just gotta figure out the animation logic which is explained better on the wiki

[brisk jewel]

@drifting plinth
#arma3_config message
this previous explanation i gave to someone else might be of interest to you

[drifting plinth]

Wow, the cost part of the interpolations here are really well explained, definitly going to make use of this

[brisk jewel]

would be good to have this on the wiki i suppose, but i don't have the energy to go revamp the whole cfgmoves page

[grizzled igloo]

Hi guys, I would like to ask a funny question, with the current animation mechanism of ARMA is it possible to make a reload animation like COD16?

[desert raven]

got an example clip?

@grizzled igloo

[grizzled igloo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLaeMI5Eu50 like this

[desert raven]

well the double magazine could not be dynamic

other than that sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOhD8OwE0Tc this is a good example how much can be done

though getting this right is from the more difficult end

[grizzled igloo]

Sounds good mate, and I have another question about the Memory settings in P3D, I was wondering if these can be automatically generated and exported based on the animation settings using software like Blender, or can they only be set manually in OB?

[desert raven]

there are couple of model.cfg exporters but there is very little in the way of tutorials on how to use them.

you would have to sync that and the reload rtm

it requires quite a bit of setting up

[grizzled igloo]

Seeing Model.cfg has given me a headache, lol

I thought there was a very good mod.cfg exporter

[desert raven]

it still requires a lot of setup.

it will be just different kind of an headache

[grizzled igloo]

haha, yes, hopefully the new engine will improve this, and finally thanks for your help mate😁

[fast canopy]

It's more Blender question, but... is it possible to do “move relatively to the bone” in the NLA Editor?

[desert raven]

@sacred oxide not posting about it on 3 channels is a start. pick 1 and stick to it

[sacred oxide]

my bad, didnt mean to post here, was posting two seperate questions on model makers and config

[desert raven]

focus.

[crimson granite]

Hey folks, I'm trying to import an .rtm (via https://github.com/4d4a5852/rtm_import) to Macser's ArmaRig and when I import my existing .rtm the pose all comes in properly, but the controllers for the hands become disconnected - is this a known issue/any workaround? How it looks after import: https://i.imgur.com/ZDeebUw.png (the orange handles near the bottom being the hand controls)

[desert raven]

this is normal, the import can not handle the IK constraints

and teh finger bones are not connected to their parents so they get the rotations wrong

you would have to do some fixing on the rig to get the import to work right

[crimson granite]

Right, understandable - thanks - in that case I suppose my follow up question is, is there a 'neutral' weapon hold pose for weapons? Basically the right 'stance' for the unit from their shoulders to their feet - or is this just masked off in the config when you apply the reload/hand anim/animation? I'm finding it difficult to understand what pose I should start my reload/prone reload/hand anims in

[desert raven]

there are poses for standing, crouch and prone holding rifle, that the weapon hold animation is blended with

[crimson granite]

Ok - and is it the same for reloads?

[desert raven]

reloads start from it yes

thugh reloads can be made to blend with it so the start is smoother

[sacred oxide]

or animate in FK, which niehter of us would recommend, any animation in FK takes twice as long to design @crimson granite

[crimson granite]

yeah that does not sound ideal

thanks both!

[brisk jewel]

yes

[dusky frigate]

Weight Paint:
https://i.imgur.com/h1l5nPu.png

Vertex Groups:
https://i.imgur.com/PjmbCLm.png

Don't know why Vertex Groups are different

[desert raven]

Because 0 weight is still data

And needs to be part of the selection

[sacred oxide]

is it possible to put an armature on an object, ik it to a part of body, so it stays in position as you animate the rest of body around that point?

e.g arm to a wall/fence?

[brisk jewel]

i don't think you can do any custom IK in game

though my knowledge pertains mainly to A2 and not A3

[desert raven]

not in game, in animation tools usually Id guess yes.

[sacred oxide]

in animation tools blender, of course not in game but thanks for the help

[desert raven]

yes that is possible in blender if the rig is made to support that kind of a thing.

[sacred oxide]

how would that be possible please? tried adding a cylinder object and make it the child of the left hand

[desert raven]

I dont really know how to explain it easily. I've used various keyframed constraints and IK targetting for that kind of thing

[brisk jewel]

MB allows pinning bodyparts. does blender not have something like that?
https://imgur.com/a/LEyIuuP

[desert raven]

such can be achieved. MB is geared towards that from the getgo though, Blender is more bare bones by default but it allows that kind of setup to be made

for $2K/year id expect there to be some off the shelf usefulness too..

[sacred oxide]

pivot /child of constraint frob object bone to hand, i thought would do that job @desert raven ?

[desert raven]

I dont remember off the top of my head how to do such stuff

and it depends a lot how the rest of the rig works

[placid shell]

How does 1 go about importing an .rtm into object builder? Right now I have my armature selected and arma object properties checedk for the rtm animations. Ive added the keyframes. I can export it as an rtm by itself or an fbx. But when i do the fbx there are no animations present.

[sacred oxide]

why dont you just do the whole animation pipeline process via blender and alwarrens arma toolbox addon for blender?

[placid shell]

its a custom rig

[sacred oxide]

custom rig, that can be used in blender, no?

[placid shell]

er...yes?

its not letting me post any pictures here :/

[sacred oxide]

just use blender, the pipeline process is alot easier and more user friendly

[sacred oxide]

use imgur/imgur.com

[placid shell]

i have blender and arma toolbox addon

[sacred oxide]

rig in fbx?

[placid shell]

im not sure. I can show you if you go down to voice channels

would i need to select the fbx node type when i export?

[sacred oxide]

lets do this

[placid shell]

Do I need to create a model.cfg and skeleton file to create my own custom rig that can work in a3?

[brisk jewel]

are you using a custom skeleton?

[desert raven]

Model. Cfg, yes.

[placid shell]

I've noticed that the sample rabbit skeleton is entirely connected via bones. In blender, you're able to "keep offsets" so no bone is required inbetween. Are bone connections required?

[desert raven]

not necessarily. depends how you build the armature and use it

[cerulean pivot]

how do you apply a transform to a selection in all keyframes in Blender?

in my rtm I want to move the entire model a few meters in x/y direction (absolute)

[desert raven]

take its root bone and move that

[median seal]

Is the paid version of Mikero's tools the only way to debinarize an rtm file?

[naive hemlock]

afaik yes

[brisk jewel]

I wrote my own debinariser. Maybe i should make it open source

[white juniper]

The last debinarizer that someone wrote and that got made open source (voluntarily or not) has since caused the far majority of stolen/ripped models.. so..

[crisp berry]

is rtm debin the same as p3d @white juniper ?

[white juniper]

they are seperate things

[crisp berry]

this talk here is about animations only, isnt it?

[white juniper]

Yes

[placid shell]

export p3d from blender. export .rtm from blender. Open p3d in object builder, start bulldozer in object builder. Set .RTM in object builder. No animations play when I use scroll wheel in bulldozer. What am i doing wrong?

[desert raven]

that does not quite work right

you would have to change buldozer rtm preview skeleton in the configs and the rtm might need to be binarized even to work

and it still does not always work

I dont personally bother with OB or buldozer when it comes to rtms

[cerulean pivot]

how is the camera bone used by the game exactly?

I tried importing a few rtms into blender to figure this out but the camera movement was so weird

e.g. it was pointing down and moving downwards, or kept swinging left and right

but that's not how it looks like in the game

is that a bug in the rtm importer addon?

or is there a trick for getting it to work properly in the game?

just asking first in case I end up facing problems with this later

[cerulean pivot]

I have a newbie question.
let's say I make a running animation in blender
and the character actually moves in the world
but when I want to export that for Arma, I want to remove the translation, as if the unit is tread-running, and instead use RTM motion vectors in the game.
is it possible?

[desert raven]

yes

though

not easy since youve already made it move

also depends a lot on the rig setup how easy that would be

[cerulean pivot]

I'm just using Macer's rig for blender

[desert raven]

did you make it move with the control master bone?

[cerulean pivot]

I can start from scratch. it's not a big anim

I'm just wondering how...

[cerulean pivot]

no

[desert raven]

well you can for example just scroll further in the timeline and make it there

and just export that range of animation

or you can make new action in the action editor

using the control master ar the main mover can be beneficial if you then want to make treadmill varian of the sequence

[cerulean pivot]

yeah I wanted to do this first.
but then I noticed that the hand IK bones are not a child of the control master...
so I moved the body instead 😬

I guess I can just move them under the control master, right?

this is my first time animating, so sorry if it's a dumb question

[desert raven]

you could make them child of control master

[cerulean pivot]

yeah that's what I meant 😅

[desert raven]

there is also an addon that lets you keyframe just about anything

so you could keyframe them to be child of the master or something else if required

keyframing different sets of constraints can yield nice results

[cerulean pivot]

sorry I'm not sure what you mean 😅

[cerulean pivot]

so basically, I move the unit using the control master

then once I'm done, I delete the specific motion curve from the graph editor?

[desert raven]

yeh that sounds about right

[cerulean pivot]

thanks. I'll see what I can do! 👍

[sweet pier]

I'm trying to make a video and am using POLPOX to help with animations, but when I choose a walk animation the character just walks in place

is there a script I need or an additional mod?

[desert raven]

polpox artwork supporter is note meant for video making

its meant for static screenshots

so yes, you will need to do a lot of scripting to make live moving sequences

[zenith token]

we need to release a model kit mod where you have individual body parts (feet, fingers, upper arm, ...). Then people can assemble them in editor and make stop motion films 😄

[desert raven]

uuh xD

hot damn what an idea

[zenith token]

the pain of animating a figure out of those individual tiny parts in eden.... without changing the camera... shudder

[cerulean pivot]

even if you ignore that part, how would you texture it?

[naive hemlock]

that is possible, but screw section count

[desert raven]

You would not need much of a live framerate for stop motion film making :D

[quick vortex]

still works, tho :p

it's limited, but if you only need stationary animations to play, it works good enough

[desert raven]

well yes, but people are asking on using non stationary animations

which its not meant for

[compact mauve]

is there a animation where a soldier is kneeling over a soldier in hand to hand combat and pushing a knife into the other soldier's chest?

[desert raven]

not in vanilla

[frank scaffold]

better yet you might be able to make something that lets you move a character's torso and adjust the hand/feet placement with IK

fake vehicle that has IK parts attached to elements that can be manipulated somehow

[desert raven]

Probably static object version of human with skeleton and animation setup that can mimic human poses and then pieces are attached to it

[next cloak]

Anyone in here got any good guides on making moving animations? Looking to create some malfunction clearing animations.

[desert raven]

there are general animation making tutorials for all popular programs

arma specific ones, not so much

[next cloak]

Yeah, figured that'd be the case. I want to figure it out but there isn't that much documentation out there it appears.

[desert raven]

Id suggest starting from basic animation stuff and working your way up from there

[next cloak]

I've done a fair amount of static poses already so I have some idea of what I'm doing but I want to take the next step.

[desert raven]

for example youtube is filled with tutorials on how skeletal/armature animations are done in blender

then there isnt really much anything else to it but using more frames

basically anyway.

[next cloak]

Yeah, I like to think I know my way around Blender when it comes to making animations but getting them in-game is really difficult.

[desert raven]

of course theres infinite amount of ways to do stuff

well the getting it in game part is not really documented much

it comes down to understanding how configs work

that part is not really something a simple tutorial can explain

[next cloak]

Yeah.

[cerulean pivot]

I should make a full wiki page about that I guess
you don't have wiki access HorribleGoat, do you?

[desert raven]

dont think so

[next cloak]

That'd be fantastic.

[cerulean pivot]

I thought you'd be more suitable, because you have more experience with this stuff

[desert raven]

Main problem is I dont really have the energy to write a book about it

[cerulean pivot]

I guess I'll just try to write up some stuff and ask you for advice 😅

[next cloak]

It would be an outstanding community service if you'd create a wiki page for it.

[cerulean pivot]

I'm writing it up rn. I'll ping you when it's done

[next cloak]

Thank you very much.

[cerulean pivot]

it'll take a couple of days to finish tho. I'll try adding to it little by little when I'm free.

[next cloak]

All good, I appreciate that you're taking the time to do it either way. :)

[next cloak]

Anyone have any pointers for how to lower the launcher position in-game?

At present the character holds the launcher way above his shoulder.

[drowsy nymph]

It depends to some degree how the launcher is positioned in the 3D model

To move it down for all launchers you'd have to replace all the animations for launchers - which is no small task since you cannot really import BI's existing animations to edit on a animation rig. But you can do it for your own specific weapon by moving it in the weapon model (or by isSelected animation) and make your own handanims to fit it

[next cloak]

Thank you, this helped a lot.

[fast canopy]

https://fxtwitter.com/polpoxEN/status/1485092247909826564?t=hpwaHQXWRrekS1eO4KHPYg&s=19
Barely learning how to in Cascadeur

[desert raven]

Cool!

[fast canopy]

I still really don't know what I can and can't with it, like how about "idle" anim? Looks Cascadeur's not good at such as far as I tried

Also, probably it's possible but not sure how to make a gun recoil

[desert raven]

its interesting looking program. need to find more time to use it

[smoky void]

Hi, defining a regular model.cfg animation for the Jet Blast Deflectors (JBD) I wonder if there isn't a way to tie in a sound to the animation right now? In Nimitz I basically have a script that calls animate + say3D to play the sound. Any pointers to an existing animation+sound config or example on the wiki?

current config in mode.cfg is ```cpp
class Animations
{
class jbd1_source
{
type = "rotation";
source = "user";
memory = "true";
angle0 = 0;
angle1 = "rad -60";
minValue = 0;
maxValue = 1;
axis = "jbd1_axis";
selection = "jbd1";
};

[subtle falcon]

I started to do some tests with Cascadeur when it came out but I stopped because I had other priorities. It's a nice program, you can do great things with it. I'm glad to see that other people are interested in using this kind of software. It's innovative and it helps to speed up the production of some animations

[plucky sierra]

So, I’ve got an animation for a vehicle made in blender. How would I translate it to be on the vehicle when it’s configured?

Rtm?

Or just make sure the key frames are on it

[desert raven]

theres is a blender to model.cfg addon, it could work for you. setting up RTM for vehicle to use is a lot more complicated

[cyan ivy]

class translation
{
    type = "translation";
    memory = 1;
    minValue = 0;
    maxValue = 1;
    angle0 = 0;
    angle1 = 1;
    
};

class CfgSkeletons 
{ 
    class Default
    {
        isDiscrete = 1;
        skeletonInherit = "";
        skeletonBones[] = {};
    };    
    class ELEVATOR
    {
        isDiscrete=1;
        skeletonInherit = "";
        skeletonBones[]=
        {
            "ass",  "",
        };
    };
};

class CfgModels
{
    class A_entrance
    {
        skeletonName = "ELEVATOR";
        sectionsInherit = ""; 
        sections[]={};    
        class Animations
        {    
            class ass : translation
            {
                
                type="translation";
                source="lift_source";
                selection="ass";
                axis="main_axis";
                animPeriod = 1;
                minValue="0";
                maxValue="1";
                offset0= "0";
                offset1= "1";
                memory=1;

            };

        };
    };
};```

I'm trying to create an elevator and I think I've got most of the model.cfg right but it still doesn't move
did I miss something?

[desert raven]

is p3d name A_entrance.p3d
is the elevator part named "ass" selection

[cyan ivy]

yes and yes

[desert raven]

can you select "lift_source" animation source in buldozer?

(enter, backspace, middelmouse to swap sources)

[cyan ivy]

it does appear when I do the scroll wheel thingy

the object is rather.. large
should I boost some value to reflect its size?
like MaxValue

[desert raven]

is main_axis 2 points in memory lod?

[cyan ivy]

yes

2 vertical points

Ideally I put them at the position the elevator has to start and the position it has to arrive

[desert raven]

currently the offset from 0 to 1 distance is the distance of those points

does it move at all?

[cyan ivy]

no it doesn't move

the points are something like 3km apart

how should I reflect that distance in the offsets?

[desert raven]

3KM object will not work very well

it will likely cause massive problems

[cyan ivy]

its a collisionless object
what problems could it cause?

[desert raven]

its calculations might activate everything in 3km radius

[cyan ivy]

activate?

[desert raven]

how things like collsions get caluclated on object and then checked around it

[cyan ivy]

even if there is no geometry?

[desert raven]

how is it elevator if there is no geometry?

and possibly yes

[cyan ivy]

basically instead of lowering the elevator I'm raising the entire building

[desert raven]

I dont know the exact details of this

https://tenor.com/view/what-huh-wat-wut-gif-13031409

[cyan ivy]

I was well aware making an elevator in arma was a failing quest, especially one this big
so I just decided to move the elevator shaft upwards while the actual cabin remains still

still even if it caused problems I'd expect it to move first and then crash my game or something

but nothing happens

[desert raven]

I just dont understand how that would work

[cyan ivy]

its like how old games (and some recent ones aswell) did train levels
instead of unnecessarily moving the train you just move the landscape
same concept just vertical

[desert raven]

yes but

you cant move the ground

and you cant move everything else

[cyan ivy]

its a closed room
and you can't see below you because of how the elevator is made
so you just see the walls of the elevator room go upwards giving you the illusion it goes down
I made a rough test by simply attaching the object to an helicopter and guiding it up
the effect works, just need to make it precise through model.cfg

[desert raven]

well if you want just that, you can attach whatever is inside the elevator to it and animate it up

[cyan ivy]

but how can I just animate it up?

[desert raven]

something wrong with your setup if it does not animate

fix that and it will animate

right now you are climbing backwards to the tree

[cyan ivy]

of course something is wrong with the setup
thats why I came here
but this is almost a copypaste of another object I made and that one worked
the only difference is that object is smaller

so is there anything in the model.cfg that should be edited to reflect the size and distance to travel?

[desert raven]

well start by making the axis smaller and see if that changes anything

I assume the axis is not 3km tall

no nothing in there relates to size

[cyan ivy]

the axis is indeed 3km tall
was hoping it could use the points of the axis to precisely catch the starting and ending points

I'll shorten it

[desert raven]

if it still does not move you have typo somehwere

[cyan ivy]

found the issue

I created the named selections for the axis but did not assign it to the points

[desert raven]

that would explain it

then it should default to 1 meter per 1 offset unit

[cyan ivy]

now lets hope it moves precisely how I need it to move

[desert raven]

if your axis would be 1 meter long

[cyan ivy]

will that make the animation "laggy"?

[desert raven]

possibly

its very fast right now

[cyan ivy]

the axis is still 3km long at the moment

[desert raven]

oh you meant the 1 meter

no that does not apply when you make the axis points properly named

if your axis points were 1 meter long

you could use offset0 = 0 and offset1= 3021.35 to make it go 3021.35 meters

[cyan ivy]

mhm I see
I have the precise lenght so I could do that

[desert raven]

well you got get it to move first

and if it does not move, then its likely there is some typo

or empty selections

[cyan ivy]

it does move
very rapidly
and in the correct position
I can fix the speed by just increasing the anim period I guess

so I guess the problem is solved

[desert raven]

or add move maxValue

[cyan ivy]

thanks for the help

[desert raven]

👌

[cyan ivy]

I feel stupid
I've been trying to slow down the animation but animPeriod does nothing
and boosting maxValue does slow it down but stops the animation too soon

[cerulean pivot]

animPeriod is defined in the config (animationSources) afaik

[cyan ivy]

so the one in the model.cfg is redundant?
or I guess its used for specific animationSources?

[deft fern]

not always

gear, gmeters, rpm & some other sources can be smoothed by using animPerioed

[white juniper]

https://twitter.com/80Level/status/1490998993496993794 <-

Embed plox

wtf

[desert raven]

Uuh thanks for the link!

[crimson granite]

can scope/lamp attachments be animated via model.cfg for stuff like isSelected?

[desert raven]

only as a whole as far as I know

[crimson granite]

aha so only on the proxy rather than the item itself?

[desert raven]

yes

[crimson granite]

cheers

[desert raven]

not parts of it

[crimson granite]

Was trying to figure out if I can do scope covers when the weapon's on back, it's not a big blocker to anything

[desert raven]

Unless Im mistaken that cant be done

[crimson granite]

yeah the only routes I can think of are not worth the squeeze (attachment switching)

[desert raven]

you could maybe swap the scope attachement when weapon is put away

[crimson granite]

exactly

[desert raven]

yeah

it could be made as player action too I suppose

so player has to put/swap the scope to covered one manually

[crimson granite]

right

[desert raven]

I mean if you are going for immersion

imo it would be silly if the cover just popped up when the weapon is put away

[crimson granite]

🤷‍♂️ I can't think of an interesting gameplay need for it

[desert raven]

make dirty scope variant

[crimson granite]

like maybe if you had some crazy 'if you dive whilst on dirt your reticle gets messed up'

lol similar minds

[desert raven]

if you move around a lot with cover not on it gets dirty

ye

in that case I think it would need to be players own responsibility to cover it

[crimson granite]

true

or if you were able to like uhh reflections on scopes

so things like snipers at a distance could give off lens glare

but I don't see a straight forward way of simulating that

[desert raven]

that might get more tricky

[crimson granite]

anyway it was just for cosmetics for this thing: https://imgur.com/a/r5KOmPE so no big deal - thanks!

[desert raven]

heh 😄

[dense mist]

quick question: is there anything I should be aware of in importing BVH files into the object builder to try to make custom animations?

[desert raven]

likely going to be a nightmare

Id recommend going through blender.

it is unlikely that your BVHs are Arma man compatible

@dense mist

[dense mist]

okay, using blender as an intermediary

I can do that

any tutorials for adjusting them, or is it just a long manual process?

[desert raven]

not really no

there are plenty of tutorials for how animating in blender works

but for this particular case, nope

probably many parts of it are covered in more general tutorials

[dense mist]

Well, I'll have to feel it out the best I can then. Thanks for the warning.

I'll probably try importing it directly into object builder first, see what breaks, and then get into blender and adjust accordingly.

[desert raven]

Im gonna say everything breaks. 😅

[errant dock]

anyone know mod which
reproduce "War Thunder shell hit camera?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0GLPu3FyOM
please @ me

[desert raven]

there is none. also #arma3_questions for such questions in the future

Armas engine does not support that kind of replay stuff

[cerulean pivot]

don't crosspost #rules

[safe patrol]

Hello! I trying to make my own animation, but everytime is static.
Probably i doing something wrong?
I exported animation from blender, copied model.cfg from example, and named just like my anim

In config i set:

file = "the_anim\misc\the_openPad.rtm";             
speed = -3;                                     
mask = "handsWeapon";            
InterpolateTo[] = {"AmovPercMstpSnonWnonDnon", 2};

[desert raven]

model.cfg does not need to be renamed. it just needs to exist with the rtm

assuming you packed the pbo with pboProject

but it could be you did not export all the frames you need

[safe patrol]

im sorry for asking stupid questions, but did i right made here?
http://prntscr.com/26unykn

i added to frames to Arma Object Properties, is looks like that:
http://prntscr.com/26unz91

but no idea, if there must be 10 keyframes, or...
when i open animation in animation viewer ingame - i see only first keyframe 😦

[cerulean pivot]

shouldn't the times be normalized?

You have 1.5, 2, etc. in timeline

[cerulean pivot]

Also when you export the anim, make sure static animation is not checked

[safe patrol]

ah, that was my error, i think 🙂

i had Static pose marked

[desert raven]

you also want your start and end frames for blender timeline to be set to your start and end+1 frames

so that the time of the animationa is 1

[cerulean pivot]

Yeah. Like I said it has to he normalized @safe patrol

[safe patrol]

you mean - make something like that?
http://prntscr.com/26uo50b

ah, one more question - is needed to replace RTM keyframes when i moved them on timeline?

[desert raven]

you also will want to export all the frames

not just your keyframes

and I mean these

when you change these you can see the timings in the arma properties frame list changing

[safe patrol]

ah, im sorry - didn't get - how to change this setting 😦

[desert raven]

enter number into the field

[safe patrol]

ah, i find that 🙂

[safe patrol]

thank you a lot!

have one more question:
when i press space button - to check, how looks animation - is too fast
Should i make more frames, or better - to setting it with config.hpp?

[desert raven]

you can set animation speed in config yes

but if your animation does not have a lot of frames playing it slowly can look bad

[safe patrol]

i have 10 only ( 7 of them with animation )

[desert raven]

you just have to test it

[safe patrol]

thank you a lot! It works 🙂

[safe patrol]

also thanks to @cerulean pivot! 🌞

ah i got one more problem :\

something happens with my camera, is moves down when animation is getting started

[desert raven]

your rig does not have animation bone perhpas

you could maybe also config it so that it does not affect the camera

[safe patrol]

Ah, understood. Thank you again!

[safe patrol]

trying to understand - how to add camera bone to rig
find that in default arma rig, but no idea - how to move it to my

[cerulean pivot]

the rig you showed already does have a camera. at least in the new version...

[safe patrol]

ah, probably i downloaded old one :
Thank you, will update to new one

Ye, this one works perfect!

[safe patrol]

Got one more trouble:
my character ( when animation started ) - moved half of the model - to under ground

[cerulean pivot]

you can already see that half of the model is under the "ground" in blender as well

Move the model

[safe patrol]

Got one more trouble with custom animation:
default camera position: http://prntscr.com/26vklpw
my camera move down and back when i start anim: http://prntscr.com/26vkn08

I used updated version of rig, moved character up ( to avoid half under ground position )
http://prntscr.com/26vknro

Is it possible to somehow get default position of camera?

[dense mist]

@desert raven thank you for your assistance a few days ago. I took a lot of what you said and went and grabbed a friend that knows how blender works.

I now have an rtm file to begin experimenting with in object builder, god help me

[desert raven]

god cant help you in that dark pit.

😅

[dense mist]

I have to try though

I'm THIS close to be able to make this idea work

[dense mist]

Not going well so far, but I think it might come down to failure to export properly

I'm not finding a specific option for .rtm files on importing into object builder though

if someone more familiar with the process of getting animation files in can assist, it'd be much appreciated.

[desert raven]

if you have rtms from Blender you dont need them in object builder

[dense mist]

Oh! Well then. That makes things easier.

[dense mist]

Hrm. Getting a build error 1 when trying to use addon builder.

Dammit, I'm close. I can TASTE it.

I can't tell if I've just set up the addon builder wrongly or if there's something wrong with the config.

[cerulean pivot]

better use pboProject with rtm files

addon builder can't binarize them (tho that has nothing to do with your error)

[dense mist]

Aye, that's true. Turning off the binarize option did nothing.

I'll download pboProject once the test mod proves the concept, just want to determine what the issue is

[cerulean pivot]

well what's the error?

[desert raven]

pboProject could be helpful in determining the error

Addon Builder has next to no debug information

pboProject has

[dense mist]

With you in a moment

Has to step away to install a gate