enfusion_model

[sly bridge]

my 2 pennies on the subject, feel free to do whatever makes you happy

[daring condor]

thats an issue with blender

lots of focus on the cool tech aspects and the programs function

[warm mist]

If you want to do something military themed the old German m24 stick grenades are a fun simple object to do. One of the first 3d models I did

[daring condor]

but little about actual technique

also if this is your first model then ill just be quite blunt

it will come out looking pretty crap

[sly bridge]

that’s mainly because most people moved from a different software to blender, rather than started with blender

modeling technics are (generally) software agnostic

[daring condor]

do a few smaller things to get the hang off how to do stuff

yeah

arrimus is fun

theres other stuff too

and then there is the classic

go to sketchfab or artstation

find an asset you like

and try to analyise the wireframe

[sly bridge]

indeed, one of the best people creating youtube content for modeling related things

[daring condor]

you can learn a lot from just reverse engineering stuff

[surreal ore]

How about just doing the BlendrGuru doughnut tutorial

[daring condor]

eh

the guy is meh

[sly bridge]

ohhh noes…

[surreal ore]

Over a million people have done it

[daring condor]

i think doing the first couple of videos is fine

to learn the UI

[sly bridge]

quantity over quality

[daring condor]

but then it gets useless quickly

also like

you learn nothing about hard surface

good job you learned how to place a taurus and do some deformation on the frosting

its more useful for an intro to someone who wants to do things like renders, not assets

for asset creation the tutorial is garbage

[surreal ore]

He's wanted to learn techniques, I would just assume a tutorial that many people have down would teach some techniques. Lol

[daring condor]

it teaches you the basics of how to use the software

and does so effectively

he goes through each step and mode to.. excruciating... detail

whenever i watch one of his videos i want to blow my brains out out of boredom

[surreal ore]

Sounds horrible lol

I personally think that the discord is great

Not his, not sure if he has one

[sudden charm]

Hello, has anyone here already brought a car into Reforger?

[sly bridge]

brought it from where?

[wispy crypt]

Hey I think I am doing something wrong. Trying to create my own prefab instance for a grenade doesn't seem to work for me. From what I understood no scripting seemed to be needed as it is just the model and texture being switched out. Yet trying to throw it crashes the game. Same if add my own components creating it from scratch. Tried different models as well. Has anyone experienced this and found a work around?

[shell hedge]

something might be missing in the new prefab

hard to say

[wispy crypt]

Mhm, yeah I am confused. Tried using exact same base groundwork as the existing grenade and tweaked it to be the right ammo type etc both trynna switch stuff and just the model itself etc

[polar dew]

So I'm a little bit of a noob when it comes to models. What does the occluder do exactly?

[shell hedge]

hides things

but I forget under which conditions

[polar dew]

Like if object X is behind object with occluder don't show object X? Or does ot have other functions?

[little kayak]

Q: for (me) unknown reasons I can't import bones into Enfusion, while they are present in Blender.
In this channel I found a YT video explaining how to handle that, but the model in the video didn't had multiple LOD's (while I have 3).

Do I have to add bones to each LOD, is just my naming wrong, or am I forgetting a step?

[surreal ore]

@little kayak got time to get into VC?

[little kayak]

sure

[surreal ore]

Give me like 5 minutes to get on my pc

[sudden charm]

just a vehicle model in the reforger game to drive

a raw vehicle model

[queen venture]

In this part of the tutorial, I am having a hard time figuring out what I need to do when using Maya. Have any other Maya users figured out what we need to do to add "custom properties"? It doesn't seem to be doing anything when I do the same thing with the "add attributes" feature. https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:Weapon_Creation#Checking_colliders_.26_materials

[last parcel]

you can change that part when importing as long as you name it correctly

[queen venture]

okay that is good to know, which part exactly do I need to name correctly? And where do I change it in the Enfusion Engine after import?

[last parcel]

that tab

[queen venture]

thankyou!

[calm rune]

How many colliders does a piece of clothing need? I know firegeo is one but are there others?

[last hill]

Uhh CharNoCollision or something like that if memory serves?

[digital forge]

Okay so I've imported my model into the workbench with a collider and such which I've tested and it works. I'm just worried about the fact that it's saying that all interaction layers are used for the collider. I'm not quite sure how to go about fixing that.

[bright raft]

You have to assign custom property to the collider. There is info about it in the wiki. I am on the phone so can't really find it

[digital forge]

I mean I'm using the enfusion tools addon for blender which already did that for me, I'm fairly sure. I'm also seeing a custom property field called Cover like I set in the collider layer presets.

[digital forge]

Ah no I figured it out. Needed to sort the layer preset in the import tab in the workbench as well. I had missed that part on the wiki. Thanks!

[calm rune]

Yeah I’m a little confused about it due to the fact that some vanilla clothing only had firegeo and some has both firegeo and char :/

[thorn topaz]

For anything canopy related, Boolean will become your best friend.

You'll want references too, lots and lots of references, as many as you can find, some recommendations for that-
Flickr, grubbyfingersshop, britmodeller.com, cs.finescale, ninetails.com, airliners.net, prime portal, dvids hub, svsm.org, cybermodeler.
These are but a few general examples.

If you're starting out I recommend checking out blender guru's (not the doughnut) chair tutorial, this will introduce you to the subdivision modifer and some of its quirks.
I suggest this because for aviation a combination Subvision+Shrinkwrap+Solidify+Boolean is an excellent workflow that will allow you to get many shapes in a small amount of time.

BUT you must understand their behaviors because each of these steps have many things which can go wrong but in essence here is the idea-

For subdiv, use as simple geo as you can get away with, the idea is to let the modifier handle the curves and you manipulate the shape via vertices.

Shrinkwrap - Requires a duplicate of the subdiv mesh with a higher sub count, the original mesh gets shrink wrapped to this new, more subdivided mesh (A mesh without boolean!)

Solidify- Adds thickness to your mesh automatically, it can be touchy if your thickness is too high, and sometimes doesn't like to be uniform.

Boolean- You cut windows and hatches with these, but boolean can be tempermental and sometimes make your topology messy, it can also create 'pinches' when applied to the subdiv modifer and cleaned up, which is where the next step comes in.

Here is an example of the three things listed above at work, notice how, as the booleans are ticked on, the reflection does not change.
This particular model is no longer shrink wrapped but you get the gyst.

[zinc wyvern]

Thanks

Altho, my problem with the canopy was the shape itself, I guess that isn’t a boolean thing?

[thorn topaz]

Depends on what part of the canopy you mean, for the flat part you could use a boolean create the flat curve along the front

[zinc wyvern]

I mean all of it

I guess my biggest problem is somehow joining it to the rest

Do you think it would be possible in a CAD? Would make the cockpit a lot easier to do

[thorn topaz]

In that case you would model the fuselage first, get the light to reflect off the body as accurately as possible (ignore the engines and wings).

Follow only the shape of the nose to the spine.

then model the canopy separate, first start with the circular/oval shape which forms the back of the canopy frame. You could then extrude that out and into the body, use a boolean to slice off the flat bit. Then extrude the back half until it is flush with the spine of the aircraft.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150671024@N05/35751508606/sizes/k/

In other words you aren't building the model with the canopy in mind at first, you add it the canopy and cockpit area as a cutaway/merging later in.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/130655349@N05/30453391746/sizes/l/

[zinc wyvern]

Erm I’m not making an Su-25

I’m making an A-4

[thorn topaz]

Oh right right, I got the blueprints mixed up there

[zinc wyvern]

But anyways, this

[thorn topaz]

same principal really, as for the CAD I could not say, no experience with that

typically the canopy buldges out of the airframe, for that reason you generally want to model the airframe, then model the back of the canopy curve, then marry that to the fuselage. If you try to model the canopy into it at the start, especially with a subdiv workflow, you're going to have many headaches.

[daring condor]

🐊

okay so if i was to make a plane or heli

id just get a 3d scan

and then use that to get the shape

😆

[shell hedge]

lots of modelers use these blueprint thingies, where you have something from all sides

[thorn topaz]

Whenever your working with anything round, you should find as many references from a variety of angles and especially glossy with reflections if you can.
You can gleam a lot from the way light bounces off things and it more oft than not fills in the gap left by blueprints.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/45945507@N05/49675805303/sizes/3k/

[shell hedge]

to outline it

[daring condor]

those tend to be really bad

well not raelly

but they are usually wrong

since they are taken from modelling kits

[thorn topaz]

think of blueprints as a guideline but not THE guide, sometimes the different views are scaled differently, one may be slightly warped, things may not line up. If you try to follow blueprints to 100% you're more often than not going to chase your tail

this is where your library of references (or winging it) comes in

[shell hedge]

haha winging it, get it, cuz airplane

[daring condor]

they aint making no plane

[thorn topaz]

I flew right into that one

[daring condor]

but i do love the krokodil

really sexi heli

[thorn topaz]

Mmhm! interesting with its curves and flat angles, not many designs like it

[daring condor]

was abandoned for a reason

but yeah i try to use 3d scans as my primary refs

especially regarding proportions

[thorn topaz]

terrible reflection/glare off the canopy glass iirc

[thorn topaz]

Hmm, interesting!

it doesnt certainly have a unique front that stands out yet oddly fits

[dense thunder]

Does anyone have a decal example/tut they can recommend?

I'm after making some custom road/car park markings

[shell hedge]

its just a texture

pretty much

[dense thunder]

no special settings needed or anything?

[shell hedge]

yea just clone an existing decal material and play around with it

[dense thunder]

ok thanks i'll give a look 🙂

[solemn goblet]

What the hell? Why do all your things say like "window_cut_left" instead of "cube.088" like mine???

[wheat bear]

anyone know what exceeding UV coords means when importing an fbx on the workbench?

[thorn topaz]

I named my boolean mesh to "window_cut_left" whenever you pick a target for your boolean modifier, it uses the target mesh name.
This includes the BTool Ctrl+ numpad - shortcut.

[solemn goblet]

(the joke is that I'm a disorganized mess)

[thorn topaz]

Oh right, I'm a bit- when it comes to modeling

https://tenor.com/view/guardians-guardiansofthegalaxy-joke-reflexes-drax-gif-5023198

[solemn goblet]

i'll get around to sorting it any day now

[thorn topaz]

there will be time to rename things later when you are certain they won't change into anything else

[solemn goblet]

I don't trust them yet, they keep speaking cockney slang at me and haven't yet calmed down

[opal scroll]

I see the modders are already working on helis

[daring condor]

@zinc wyvern can I DM you quickly?

[prisma delta]

theyve already put flying helis in game

i think they made their own flying physics

[opal scroll]

But they haven't released then yet

[delicate condor]

It likely is not ready for public use yet.

[shell hedge]

yes, the helicopter is not early access

[surreal ore]

Yeah it's not quite ready yet.

[zinc wyvern]

I plan on making a full-fidelity flight combat addon, we’ll see how that comes out

[late veldt]

Everyone wants realistic flyers and I just want someone to remake Crimson Skies. I am new to modelling, and focusing on buildings. I am looking for how I can add windows to my buildings, however as it shares a name with an operating system and I have a lack of base knowledge I am having problems with my SEO. Does anyone have any resources handy that might help teach me about light portals / windows.

[hidden yarrow]

Getting our F-16 ready for reforger aswell currently also in development for arma 3 tho making it with @slate ivy and @mystic crow

[bright raft]

Any cockpit shots?

[covert dune]

[bright raft]

Looking very good

[solemn goblet]

Daaaang that landing gear is sick

[tacit eagle]

landing gear is always the most difficult part of the model, next would be the cockpit

[opaque quartz]

Hi Everyone! I am attempting to create a custom inventory item. When I export/import, collision does not work the way I expect.

[opaque quartz]

Layer is set to Prop

Static Flag is checked under General -> Flags in object properties.

Collision does now seem to show up in the xob properties

But my character can still walk straight through my object.

[opaque quartz]

I possibly got to work by adding a RigidBody to my entitiy, I had to check Model Geometry and this worked, but I am concerned I am using the key mesh for collision as opposed to my box mesh that was a part of my UBX_Key

[surreal ore]

@opaque quartz how big is the key?

[opaque quartz]

oh its huge. way to big for a regular key

About the size of the player model

@surreal ore This is my first test case to see if I can import an object into the Game at all. Reimporting is easy enough that I figured a huge (applied transforms) scale like that would stop me from wondering if I needed to zoom etc. Just got it working with my previous comment, but still a bit confused about wheather or not I did the right thing by getting collision to work by using Model Geometry in my RigidBody component.

[surreal ore]

@Hatz#2896 https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:Collision_Layer

[chrome sleet]

I'm trying to leverage an existing xob file but when I include it in a prefab the vector where I manipulate it's location seems to be offset. Does anyone know how to fix that?

[last hill]

If it's your model, in your 3d software is it positioned at 0,0,0 with the transform position set? I use 3ds Max and setting my model root as 0,0,0 then hitting reset xForm tells the engine where it is in relation to the translation widget on Enfusion. If you are on Blender there is instructions on the wiki for position for models etc. If not your model, you might be able to manually set the offset if memory serves.

[chrome sleet]

Yeah it's one of the existing BI ones, I am just going to offset its resting position for now but it would be great to reposition that in the actual entity

[zinc wyvern]

Okay, I’m just jealous at the models here. Does anyone have any tips for a learning curriculum for 3D modeling? I can make something, but that something looks like trash

[little kayak]

Most of the guys have years of experience, either as a hobby or work related.
That said, YouTube is a great source of tutorials for Blender or other 3D software. So start with that and begin with small and simple objects before even thinking about building complex models like vehicles or weapons.

[zinc wyvern]

The thing is, I’m not able to think off stuff to do, partly because I don’t know what´s simple and what’s not

[last hill]

Start with a custom weapon crate or locker or something with basic shapes and work out from there. Or start with a basic shaped weapon item, or something along those lines, think of something not in the game, hell even a book or something like that, plenty of stuff that can be added, it's up to your imagination and what you feel the scope of the game can include. Then you get references and start making, break that model, learn from it and make the next one, break it, make it again etc etc. I've been doing that and so far, none of my models have ever seen the light of day, hence buying and importing for now still.

[little kayak]

My first model, without any experience, was a pumpkin (created for a one-time Halloween event). Took me weeks to build 🤣
Currently I'm working on a tactical tablet, which is already way out of my comfort zone...

So I suggest follow some tutorials and build the models they use as examples. The moment you get comfortable with specific things, you'll come up with your own creations or modifications which may or may not be useful to implement in-game.

Even small stuff like a banana, or cans of soup (aka simple cylinder) can be great assets for Arma.

[delicate condor]

Start from small parts for example.

[zinc wyvern]

I’m not sure what to expect too, is it like drawing where you get better over time?

[delicate condor]

A screw or a bolt or a bullet

Mostly yeas when you get more familiar with different tools and methods of making things

[whole briar]

Reposting a help request (I know that it is not an ordinary Model problem but related to it, maybe someone knows what to do): Hello there, I am trying to get a new gun into the game. i downloaded a free model from sketchfab, got it into workbench and made everything like in the sample weapon mod. My problem is, that the size of the weapon is way to big when spawning, i can't pick it up or do anything with it and even if added to arsenal it does not spawn in there. i was trying to understand what is wrong and saw that the model has no bones so there are no links for where to grab the gun, where to reload and so on and at that point i am thinking that this is why it does not work. can anyone tell me what to do now? tried to download other similar models from sketchfab but when importing to workbench none of it has bones, so i cannot check wether it is actually the problem or not.

[last hill]

So it depends on the scale of the base model that was downloaded. The engine uses real world scale I believe in metric format. If the model downloaded is incorrectly scaled (easy to find out in the 3d software) it will come across massive in the workbench.

There is a bit of work to get the prefab setup to allow it to spawn in the engine as a pickup item, with the prompts etc to pickup/equip/replace, then to get it to spawn inside the arsenal crate it needs to be using an override arsenal script, at least I have never been able to use duplicate or inherit successfully.

Inside the tutorial for new weapon it goes through the bone creations, if the person has them in the 3d software already and is exporting them out, just needs to go to import settings and check the box that says import skinning and heirarchy to bring them in

[whole briar]

First of all, thank you for the explanation regarding the size. so i would need to rescale the model in blender if i understand that right? Regarding the prefab setup i did all i needed to do in contrast to the sample mod weapon. This should not be the problem. I am new to this so i am still learning, but that the Asset (.xob) file has no bones in the engine means that you can't even use it in the game and this is actually the problem or am i wrong with this?

[last hill]

Well you can still use the weapon to a degree but the game will not have a clue where anything is, so for instance without the barrel_chamber and barrel_muzzle bones/empties the weapon will not have a clue where your bullet is coming from or exiting etc etc. Did you add the bones from the tutorial for new weapon? w_root etc etc? I use 3ds Max myself but the tutorials are aimed more at Blender so it should work great for you

[whole briar]

I was trying to add bones to the weapon in blender based on tutorials but did not manage to properly parent the bones to the gun for some reason. Everytime i was trying to create just one bone for the magazine and link it to the weapon, i saved it as an .fbx file and imported it into enfusion. Still no bones ingame

[last hill]

Did you check the boxes in workbench on the xob file?

After those boxes, click the button at the top to Reimport Resource (to bring in the bones if they exist in the model you are importing)

[whole briar]

thanks for the advice! but as it seems all of the different models i downloaded have no bones for no reason. so i will need to learn to add them manually as it seems. but do you think this will solute the problem with not being able to pick the gun up?

is it even common that free models on sketchfab do not have bones or am i doing something wrong? i just drag and drop the .fbx into the assets/weapons/moddedgun folder within workbench -> import as model -> open it up -> go to Import Settings -> tick the boxes and reimport -> checking on details -> still no bones, no matter which downloaded weapon i use

[last hill]

That I have found is a configuration issue in the prefab settings in the ActionManagerComponent section on the prefab.

So you won't have bones on most models that you either buy or download free, due to the fact that most people allow for more than one engine on their models. You will need to make and position the bones yourself in most cases.

Sorry that I misunderstood before.

[thorny rivet]

Does anyone know how to fix this?

[last hill]

If you have LOD models... this looks to be LOD related, are all of your LOD's oriented the same?

[whole briar]

did you find a way to solve this?

[whole briar]

thank you for that explanation! So if i see that right i need to add one core bone (near the barrel), a barrel bone, muzzle bone, trigger bone, rear and front sight bone, magazine bone and a hand grab bone right? so basically set all those bones, make the model without the magazine parent and link them all to that model (parent). the magazine is then added seperatly as an own .xbo within enfusion right?

[last hill]

So you want - w_root as the main parent, then under that you will want w_trigger, w_safety, barrel_muzzle (placed at the exit of the barrel), barrel_chamber (placed at the entry point of the bullet to the barrel, must be placed directly horizontal to the muzzle bone), slot_magazine, rear_sight, front_sight and eye (tells the game where the camera will position to look down sights). To start with you will want to weight paint all of your vertices to the w_root (to tell the game that if the w_root bone moves around, the gun does too), then if that works, go back in Blender and select the individual pieces you want affected by each bone and weight those components to the bones in question (trigger verts to w_trigger etc etc).

Easiest way to find out, look at the base game asset xobs and turn on bone display in the previewer and compare the positions to your bones.

[thorny rivet]

I didn't use any LODs

[last hill]

Then not sure why it is popping in and out as you move around, sorry

[whole briar]

What does "weight xyz" mean? I understood that i i need to place a main parent (ie horizontal near the barrel) and link all other bones to that. the main parent must be linked to the model right? But what after that does weight paint or weight components mean? (does that mean link or sth like that?)

[last hill]

I am not sure what it is called in Blender, it is called skin modifier in 3ds Max.

[whole briar]

yeah but does weight mean link those pieces or something different? Still not sure if i understood that right

[fathom bolt]

When we talk about weight we are talking about weight painting in blender

So you need to select the piece of your model go to weight paint and be sure that your model is in red color

I think you talk about that

[whole briar]

thank you for explanation @fathom bolt ! and what do i actually need to paint and what does it do?

[fathom bolt]

For weapon it’s prevent deformation with animation. So all the weapon need to be in red

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/sculpt_paint/weight_paint/introduction.html

Here is the doc of blender I think you have all here

[whole briar]

thank you! will do! actually i managed to set some bones that are recognized in workbench, for some reason every bone now has an start and end entry in enfusion, dunno why. if i add them to the prefab it works, even if it does not put the magazine where i set up the bone. but if i go to the game within enfusion it crashes when loading up after i dragged and dropped the prefab into the world

[opaque quartz]

@surreal ore Thank you, I've reviewed this. So why did Model Geometry work when just setting the type to prop did not.

[fathom bolt]

Here you can find a sample that I made for weapon creation :

https://mega.nz/folder/jv4TxJ5J#jgXcl-8YKSgFjih-rjUBbw

[fathom bolt]

With blend files and project for workbench

[thorny tree]

How do I add bones to an existing object?

[bright raft]

You can't

[thorny tree]

Okay. Well, is there a Tutorial how to add and export meshes with bones from Blender to Enfusion? Because when I tried, it doesn't show the set bones.

[bright raft]

You have to check this two options in enfusion import tab

Sorry, TheAussieMerc, used your pic cause I saw it earlier 😄

[thorny tree]

Damn. Thanks, it worked.

[tacit eagle]

Ručni bacač M57 ( that's it for today) for my other work see https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/238811-veles-rpg-at-pack/

[zenith quartz]

Started this a few days ago.

[tacit eagle]

you use Booleans? or is that Moi 3d

[solemn goblet]

That there is Blender with some hopscuts iirc. Magazine is looking suh weet

[zenith quartz]

Booleans yeah.

And thanks! Mag ain't mine, that's the one component here I didn't do, by Defcon. 😁

[tacit eagle]

is it for offical arma content or a mod

[whole briar]

Thanks @fathom bolt ! Will definitly look into that

And thanks for all that explanation and help in this channel!

[zenith quartz]

Mod.

[calm rune]

Looking at your sample. Did you just use the bones that were already in the sample BI provided us or did you add your own armature and just rename?

[fathom bolt]

I have make my bones like the m16, everything in the sample works correctly in game there is a project for workbench

[hazy shell]

Love it and you for making it 😛

[zenith quartz]

Thankya!

[tacit eagle]

what is it a hk 433? also I cant work with making a hi poly using Booleans, too much work cleaning it up

[sand pagoda]

do not clean it

use zbrush dynamesh pipeline

[zenith quartz]

Yes, 433.

I need to learn zbrush dynamesh.

Currently I just use Blender's Remesh method.

[shell hedge]

merge everything by phong angles

[tacit eagle]

I'm experimenting with instant meshes which is auto retopoly but used for sculpting

[whole briar]

Hey there, anyone got any idea why adding modded weapon to the arsenalconfig in workbech does not work for me? already tried to switch between default/weapon/ammunition

[tacit eagle]

@whole briar try asking in the workbench or possible the generic / scripting

[solemn goblet]

Looking good 😎

[tacit eagle]

thx I just have to do some welds in sculpt mode and few floaters

[solemn goblet]

What weapon is it exactly? I'm not gun savvy

[tacit eagle]

RB m57

[solemn goblet]

Oh wow, the angle made me think it was some type of recoiless rifle

Looking good, keep us updated when it's in-game

[last hill]

Second ever model creation from scratch, learning as I go but trying to be as accurate as possible. Rail in the background is the Block II rail. Still a long ways to go but this is what I have done so far, little under an hour and a half of work put into it, spent 2 hours looking for reference images in high resolution

[tacit eagle]

@last hill you have a high poly to bake from?

I would also bevel the sight protectors with 3 sides

[last hill]

I do not have any model to bake from, just making it. I'm going to be creating it in high detail (I chose this as my first model due to the basic shapes), then hopefully baking out the details to a lower poly model, if I can figure that side of things out. At the moment it's just a basic form which I am adding to.

Will add a small chamfer to the casing mesh and also increase it's thickness slightly, went too thin

[tacit eagle]

make it out of a plane, with the bevels like this

then apply a solid modifier to add thickness. 0 bias is best for detail

[last hill]

I'm on 3ds max, can't see solid modifier, I do have extrude etc but no solid modifier. Is that for Blender or am I missing that modifier?

[tacit eagle]

its called something else because autoschiet likes to use non trade standard names

i think its a modifier called shell

[last hill]

No shell modifier, Extrude creates thickness from a base plane/shape so assuming that to be the one

[tacit eagle]

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2021/ENU/3DSMax-Modifiers/files/GUID-E38BD284-3283-4311-AC29-3F699B2F04AA-htm.html

[last hill]

Hmm

[last hill]

Sneaky thing, missed it

[last hill]

Well.. unfortunately, should have been doing backups as I moved to new components, exported out the model to do a quick test of the so far, chamfers don't appear to work/import correctly, missing polys on the model that imports in, will check and see if maybe they are flipped or something in 3ds and try that but if not that, might have to start again

Fun times

[last hill]

Salvaged, welded vertices at a very low target distance and it reconnected the verts and has fixed the issue in import. Will be more careful. Bed time now though.

[tacit eagle]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/982010785893081161/993909661671628851/unknown.png?width=959&height=557

[thorn topaz]

Part of this is that there are multiple ways to approach modelling something and different techniques work better for different things.

If you're having difficulty in finding something simple then look around you, electric outlets, cups, cans, plates, electronics, misc objects, furniture and so on.
Even when you are used to it it's a good idea to try something simple to fiddle with techniques.

Since you are using Blender I have to ask, first and foremost, do you know how to lock a selection to a certain axis when moving? Do you know how to select a loop select, do you know how to move vertices along nearby edges, or to add edge loops, or extrude a set of verts to form new faces?

These are all very helpful foundation functions that can greatly speed up and keep your workflow clean.

[zinc wyvern]

I do know these

Altho thx for the tips

[bright raft]

Sorry to ask, are you the man who did the original AH64 model?

[thorn topaz]

If you are referring to the Franze apache or the arma 3 AH-64D Official Project, then yes I did.

If you are referring to the apache from Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead then no.

[tacit eagle]

lol look at this garbage I've made years ago

[bright raft]

Yeah I was referring to that. Stellar work man. Was inspiration for me, when I decided making Hatchet Uh60 with Yax.

[fathom bolt]

The Tiger ?

[zinc wyvern]

Ummm since getting good at modeling takes lots of time and I’m still very much a beginner, would someone be interested in a team-up? I’m talking mainly planes

[shell hedge]

you're in luck

here u go bro

[hidden yarrow]

Nice plane 10/10

[daring condor]

Why work on something that doesn't have sim yet?

Especially as a noob

[hidden yarrow]

well to be fair making models especially good ones will take a while

maybe by the time hes done its added

[last hill]

Slowly getting there, learning more about the tools as I go. Still a ways to go, details to add, bolting platform and tweak the picatinny mount more, basic shape/mounting plate formed. Should be pretty good going forward, learnt to not use Chamfer after last time and so far no issues in rendering on the engine itself. It's taking shape, still a while off yet. I know it's a very basic model, but will keep tweaking it based off my reference images

[calm rune]

For someone who is new at modeling any particular reason why you chose that over blender?

[last hill]

Have had it a long time now, found it easier to use and didn't really know anything about Blender until recently. Used my tax return on this a year or so ago and kept using it. I primarily mucked around in it. Yeah was a waste of money but I was dumb lol.

[calm rune]

Ah, gotcha.

[bright raft]

As next tax return I strongly suggest Substance Painter

[tacit eagle]

I threw that autoschiet stuff in the trash and never looked back

[shell hedge]

my 3d modeling tool of choice is better than your 3d modeling tool of choice

[shell hedge]

painter is very fun to use once you learn to navigate the jank

[bright raft]

Agreed. It is relaxing when I start some YouTube video in the background and can play around with all the materials

[tacit eagle]

you can also texture paint with blender

[shell hedge]

print your model on cardboard, glue it together, paint it and then use photogrammetry to bring it into the game

[delicate condor]

this would be pretty HC

👍

[last hill]

Will look into it. Tax return in a couple weeks.

[pliant bolt]

Cries in negative tax return 😕

[stiff goblet]

tbh, i don't think you'll be able to buy perpetual licenses for substance painter much longer. i think adobe will integrate the substance products into its subscription model in 1-2 years.

[shell hedge]

they're already available for in an adobe subscription

individually or painter+designer+sampler

[stiff goblet]

i know, but you can still purchase perpetual licenses on steam.

i think that will go away in a few years and the only option will be subscription through creative cloud.

[shell hedge]

oh I didn't even know

but that's my fault as I don't use the tools section on steam at all

why did they make Stager?

[stiff goblet]

yeah. the subscription is a pretty bad deal for consumers. atm you can get a perpetual license on steam for 129 euros per product (let's assume sampler, designer, and painter since stager is whatever) or pay monthly for 20 euros. if you're going to use the software for more than ~1.75 years, it's cheaper to purchase the licenses than to pay adobe subscription model.

[shell hedge]

for sure

[whole briar]

hey there, does someone has a skeleton preset .fbx built on an arma model he wants to share? I got one of a tutorial for hats, followed all of the steps, it works with it, but the hat is offset and floating. was looking into comments on YT many people got the same issue. think the model is not accurate and the headbone is missing.

[last hill]

You talking about making stuff in 3ds?

[whole briar]

yes, making stuff in blender. So hats, clothes and stuff like that. i am looking for a skeleton preset, cause the one i got from the tut has some kind of issue. still learning rigging with weapons but for a whole skeleton i do not have the skills right now to build a whole skelly rig myself

[last hill]

If it is floating and back wards, you need to import the head mesh into Bldnder as well to get it positioned, then rig the hat to the head bone using weight painting. I am 3ds max but the process is apparently the same/similar.

[whole briar]

the whole skelly rig is done by empty axis there is no bone. when looking into hat rigs ingame there is a headbone that is connected to all the face axis. that is missing in preset

[last hill]

The sample literally has a head and body, but if memory serves the head is just a mesh

So you need to get the skeleton from the body template sample.

[whole briar]

thank you! will try that

[whole briar]

if i start my project with the sample mod addon, how can i duplicate the sample templates? they are locked up for me

[last hill]

Download the zip from the pinned samples, it's not locked on the zip file as it isn't encrypted.

I am not at my PC mate so I can't get the link to it all sorry. Doing this from memory

[tidal latch]

two questions:

• Did you correctly skinned your hat? For start, you can rig just to head bone
• Are you sure that you have imported skinning in Wokrbench import settings?

[whole briar]

what do you mean by import skinning into workbench?

so i used the sample rig now and the body to scale the hat in blender perfectly to the head, assigned it to the skelly, imported it to workbench, made the item object with collider, everything is perfectly alligned in blender -> result is still the same issue, hat floating behind, above and left of the head

[delicate condor]

vertex weighting on head selection(s)

[whole briar]

only thing i can say is that the hat is completly painted dark blue in blender weight settings

[delicate condor]

that means 0 weight

red would be full weight on selection/vertex group

[whole briar]

ah and what ive seen again is when importing to workbench, there are still no bones. its 0+169 and not 3+169 dunno why

[whole briar]

so i need to paint it to red ?

[delicate condor]

possibly

or you can just assign it to the head group in edit mode

that adds selected verticles on a group by set weight (slider below the group list)

[whole briar]

but is missing weight responsible to the floating problem or does this create a different problem?

and what am i doing wrong that bones are not imported and just the 169 axis?

[calm rune]

make sure you check off both these boxes and reimport.

[surreal ore]

@whole briar the weight is for determining bone influence

No weight no bone influence

No bone influence no movement

[whole briar]

So ... I painted the hat red now in weight and now when reimporting i got finally the headbone and the other axis in adition so 1+168 now. that is good, thank you!

but when i updated the prefab, restartet workbench and spawned hat ingame, it is still offset

[surreal ore]

Then your not doing something right

You need to watch a simple rigging tutorial

[delicate condor]

is the new exporter sensitive to the origin of the exported model?

[surreal ore]

That's probably what it is.

Not applying transforms before export.

Armature is at 0,0,0 and hat is at 0,0,1 or whatever

[whole briar]

thank you for all your help. it was not the applying, i think i messed up the skelly copy. some of the axis like left_foot_ik, right_hand_ik and stuff like that was far offset and not assigned to root bone. not pretty sure if that is responsible for the head problem, but this is a problem anyway

will delete all of that and restart the whole attempt next days

[chilly dragon]

Are you selecting custom properties and unselecting add leaf bones when exporting? I believe it there should only be 163 bones in total if im not mistaken?

[whole briar]

i unchecked custom properties and unchecked leaf bones boxes before exporting

[chilly dragon]

keep custom properties checked

[calm rune]

uncheck leaf bones but check custom properties

[whole briar]

all right, trying it again with that advice

[tidal latch]

don't forget to rotate mesh in workbench import menu too by 180 degrees

as for why it's like that, you can search discord for the answer - it was already explained twice

[calm rune]

I got annoyed having to rotate it 24/7 so I just rotated the skeleton in blender and saved it lmao

[tidal latch]

that will break colliders/fire geometry

[calm rune]

All of mine seem to be fine :/ or are you talking about basebody ones?

[tidal latch]

base body for sure

I wouldn't be surprised though if some issues with geometry would appear at later stage though

[calm rune]

It’s strange though because In the sample the colliders are flipped anyway so if anything rotating the bones would line them up correctly

[thorny rivet]

Does anyone know why I have only one material, when there should be two?

[stiff goblet]

You can't export objects with the .XXX auto naming scheme of Blender. Enfusion doesn't like it

Change the name of the materials to something like M_Gun_01 & M_Gun_02 (maybe a bit more descriptive) and it should work properly.

[last parcel]

or you have the same material id for both, so you need to change that

don't know how to do it in blender though

[sand pagoda]

also you should keep right folder structure and hierarchy

[calm rune]

Just click this box and type a new name.

[last parcel]

i don't need that info, seeing as i don't use blender 😉

[shell hedge]

whats this

[tight hollow]

forbidden fleshlight

[fathom bolt]

lightsaber ?

[tight hollow]

Yes

[fathom bolt]

really ??

[tight hollow]

Idk I'm not the creator

[fathom bolt]

oh 😄

[bright raft]

I guess some kind of rpg

[shell hedge]

big stick

[thorn topaz]

Whoa, THAT UH60? I love that addon! The attention to detail and the smoothness of the model, it was so refreshing to see a brand new blackhawk.
Everything about that asset is amazing in both form and function. You did a fantastic job and inspired me to (at least hopefully) model a UH-60A someday.

[bright raft]

That is amazing to hear it from you 🙂 I hope to do AH64D model for next ARMA (either Reforger or 4) just like yours in previous installments, with as much features as possible in engine.

[shell hedge]

AH64D NATO name: FPSKiller

this guy gonna remake DCS in arma

[cloud rampart]

Is there any blender of the heads of reforge?

The one of the samples are not the same from the game

[last hill]

Not that I am aware of. If memory serves from my looking at the samples, no there aren't. But the one provided is one of the base game heads I thought? Don't quote me.

Short answer is no.

[cloud rampart]

I tried differents headgears on the samples provided and nothing, finished doing recalibration to the model and riggin step by step

so, will continue by that way

[solemn goblet]

I think BI themselves have some head shenanigans going on

As in, some heads don't even fit the helmets right. I think they are at least properly rigged.

[lethal frigate]

I see no problem 😂

[fathom bolt]

You want to do an helmet ?

[cloud rampart]

i have done two beret and where very difficult to put on the exact spot, and some heads have different form and the headgear get big/small

[fathom bolt]

Ok cause I have a rig.blend for headgear….

[cloud rampart]

From the samples or custom? The samples one have that problem and need to readjust many times to get it right

[sand pagoda]

🥴

[fluid wing]

i have an unfinished Mod back from 2015 in ARMA3 that could better fit into Reforger. I am a Terrain Dev and never get enough knowledge to finish this model, textures, cfg, and animation. I wanna share this project so we can finish this. Just PM me. Take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEmjbbcR6qE

[delicate condor]

uuh kool 😄

never enough utility vehicles in Arma

[tacit eagle]

I remember seeing that in 2015

[last parcel]

been trying out fusion 360 for a couple of days really like the program so far 😄

[tacit eagle]

your going to be in a world of hurt trying to get that into game

Cad programs do not translate at all into CGI work

[last parcel]

the only hard part is making lower poly but meh it still saves me time in the overall end

[calm rune]

What in the world kind of highpoly geometry is that!? Lmao

[last parcel]

its from fusion 360 imported into 3dmax where i later make lowpoly

[calm rune]

Damn. So strange seeing the edge flow look like that for a highpoly lol

[tacit eagle]

it can work if you do normal smoothing but its far from ideal for baking

[fathom bolt]

Custom

[cloud rampart]

Can u share It?

[stiff goblet]

i gotta say, i've never heard of someone using fusion 360 for game asset modelling. that is definitely a first.

[fathom bolt]

When I’m on my PC yes

[fathom bolt]

i use two blend file one for the weight and another for the skeleton.

for an helmet i start with "weightref" to set the good weight and after that i finish in "skeleton" to export correctly

[whole briar]

Hi there, does anyone know when i upload or update my mods i got my uploaded workshop picture in there and after some hours they all turn to just white?

[bright raft]

I think that it might be a bug, when you have loaded local mod. If you delete it and check workshop it should be ok

[whole briar]

What should I delete? I tried it with set thumb and preview image and ist shows the image for quiet an hour before turning it white

[bright raft]

Then I dunno. You should try asking in workshop channel

Morning's work:

[whole briar]

Thanks for the fast reply anyway 🙂

[hidden yarrow]

you use booleans and bevel workkflow? or subd?

[zenith quartz]

You did all that just this morning?!

[bright raft]

Booleans and bevel. Personnal preference over subd

[bright raft]

Yep. Waiting for a friend to come so launched WAN show on yt and it just went

But it still requires UVs etc. Pretty sure some pro would do it under 30 mins

[hidden yarrow]

lol

[zenith quartz]

Y-yeah... Under 30 mins.

[bright raft]

Well ok I dont know that. I am not in the industry so it was just a guess 😄

[bright raft]

That looks so freakin cool

[zenith quartz]

Thanks!

And yeah idk maybe I'm just very slow.

[bright raft]

How many polys? I assume some of the edges looks beveled because of cavity in matcap

[zenith quartz]

Right now it's like 40K but that's because some parts are highpoly

I haven't worked to optimize it yet.

[bright raft]

That's still pretty good. Push it closer to 30k and I think it would be great

[zenith quartz]

Yessss I'm very excited to get it in engine.

Albeit terrified to animate it.

[bright raft]

yeaaah animating is kinda hard imho ;D

[zenith quartz]

I think today shall be the day I focus on the grip finally.

I hate grips...

[bright raft]

I model only the shape of it. I find making grip pattern in substance painter easier

[zenith quartz]

Yeah that's my plan too.

[calm rune]

Do you use the mech machine addon with boolean cleanup when doing these areas?

[zenith quartz]

Tbh you could do that quite easily with the right sphere.

Guessing knobs aren't attached.

Then you just take a UV sphere, rotate 90 degrees, and match cylinder up to the existing circles on the sphere kinda

then bevel

[tacit eagle]

booleans 🤮

[bright raft]

No, in this area I did exactly what Avery said. I created sphere (from cube with subd), and matched rotation. Then flatten sides and used loop tools to make them circular. After that I bridged edges between sphere and scope tube.
After that bevel

This is what it looks like

Maybe a bit messy, but looks good enough

[bright raft]

Whats wrong with them?

[tacit eagle]

they give you shit results that you have to fix later by retopologizing

[bright raft]

I prefer that for low poly models over retopologizing everything with subdivied model. Just my workflow that I like to think works fine for me

And my workflow is mainly low-poly -> high poly so there's that

[bright raft]

I did not boolean this part, and on this model I rarely used boolean. All I am saying, is if used smart, booleans can be useful and are not necessary evil

[solemn goblet]

retopo on booleans is cathartic though

[bright raft]

Indeed it is

[solemn goblet]

I kinda wish Blender had mayas quad draw tool

There's probably a plugin somehwere that remakes it 🤷

[tacit eagle]

quad remesher addon

[bright raft]

Probably yeah. I never used Maya though, only 3ds max long time ago. Made f18 cockpit with it

[tacit eagle]

its the 60 dollars but can also be free

[calm rune]

$15 for 3 months. Good addon tbh.

[solemn goblet]

Retopoflo 3 is p good for it

[calm rune]

Might be my 3rd most used addon.

[tacit eagle]

not for hard surfaces

[solemn goblet]

I mostly just say heck it and bake from highpoly even if its shit

because 'shit' might not be shit post bake lmao only when it is do I go back and fix it

They call me the gambler 😎

[tacit eagle]

I dont pay for subs, its disgusting

[solemn goblet]

I'm part of the fully no sub and fully legal gang

Feels good man. Affinity Designer is my best friend.

[sly bridge]

what?

[sly bridge]

what?

[solemn goblet]

no subscriptions, all legal

otp (one time purchase)

[tacit eagle]

yep I hate subscription plans

[solemn goblet]

My tools are: Blender, Affinity, Substance Painter (steam) and uh... Davinci Resolve if I'm feeling funny

[calm rune]

I like them especially when its cheap and I know I don't need it 24/7

[tacit eagle]

davinci why?

[solemn goblet]

The low low price of zero shillings

Or do you mean, in regards to 3D? There is no reason for it in terms of 3D but sometimes presenting you can color correct video.

[tacit eagle]

substance painter is free in the unreal tool kit right

[bright raft]

No

Quixel Mixer is

Or am I wrong?

[solemn goblet]

I got it back in 2018 and the 2018 version is perfectly fine even for Reforger

[tacit eagle]

whats so good about it, cant blender do the similar?

[solemn goblet]

As Substance Painter?

[bright raft]

Maybe large portion of stuff can be done in blender. But Substance is just better suited for painting meshes

[solemn goblet]

Technically. Managing layers in Substance is so much easier. Even if you have a major fundamental understanding of PBR, Substance will be easier.

[bright raft]

Its very similar to Photoshop in terms of UI, has pretty good integrated baker

[bright raft]

exactly

[solemn goblet]

Oh, the bake by mesh name is excellent too since you won't need to explode your models

[bright raft]

And you get shit ton of brushes, generators and filters out of the box

[solemn goblet]

Yep. It's easy to fall into the trap of 'substance effect' though. The tools can be a little 'too easy'. Having a hobby like tabletop modeling might actually help you avoid it lmao

[bright raft]

If there is one tool I'd suggest to any 3d artist, its definitely that

[tacit eagle]

im making this for that guy who made the trailer concept in enfusion

[solemn goblet]

I have to make undersides like that too, hope it's not too much to ask you to share how you go about it.

You're doing basically the same method I do but maybe you interact with the mesh differently...

[tacit eagle]

undersides?

[solemn goblet]

Yeah, the frame or whatever of cars haha. I have never driven a car I do not know what they are called

[tacit eagle]

well im just doing a blockout now, you use a 2d plane and use solid modifier

[solemn goblet]

Yeah I mean, that works

[calm rune]

Any recommended websites for getting good reference photos or blueprint photos?

[tacit eagle]

yeah google, yandex, opera

yandex is probably the best tho

google and all the western garbage is too censoring

youtube is also a good place for reference photos

sometimes many people will not photo certain angles but will video them in a walk around

scale model sites like scalemates that have instructions are another good site

[hazy shell]

Looks fantastic so far !

[dim pier]

Can you import an .fbx with textures imbedded in it to enfusion?

for example:

blender monkey with textures saved as a .fbx

when imported into enfusion it has a blank material

[solemn goblet]

I've only ever done this into Blender, I think for Enfusions sake you will have to import the materials separately.

[surreal ore]

You have to import the textures for the materials. Enfusion will make the materials for you. You have to assign textures to the materials

[tacit eagle]

do you guys think I should make custom wheels or use the ones from the Ural? the ones from the ural have tire inflation while the trailer does not

[light eagle]

Maybe this would be a better place to ask this. I have multiple skins for a vehicle I'm working on. That vehicle has multiple prefabs associated with it that also have multiple skins available. Is there a better way of handling vehicle variations with multiple skins OTHER than making a prefab (inherited from base) for every variation and skin combo? Just setting my textures in the prefab, my vehicle would have nearly 40 different prefabs.

[prisma delta]

Do you have a link to the trailer concept? I've been thinking about doing some trucks and trailers too but I have no idea how to make something like that work

[tacit eagle]

go to enfusion physics

[prisma delta]

thanks, that's awesome. I hope we'll be able to load vehicles and equipment up onto them in the future. I'd even like to do some forklifts and stuff to move loads

just full-on logistics simulation lol

[tacit eagle]

nah. loading ammo and stuff in to trucks is far better for gameplay making everything overly complex and pedantic is disrespectful to peoples time. I just think its cool to have trailers to transport tanks and Ifv since they use a lot of fuel and wheels are quicker than tracks. I just think this would help the community in longer missions.

[prisma delta]

life roleplay is a pretty popular arma mod, and people will literally spend hours collecting "apples" or "mining" rocks

[calm rune]

Gonna have to disagree on that one. The realism aspect is what a huge portion of Arma players love. Opens up a lot of new gameplay styles too for servers such as Life servers.

[zinc wyvern]

Hey guys, am interested in teaming up with a good-ish 3D guy for vehicles, mainly planes. If anyone's interested or has a better place to put this msg, don't be afraid to DM me.

[sly bridge]

#creators_recruiting

[zinc wyvern]

Ahhhh, didn't even notice that how deep it was buried. Thank you

[zenith quartz]

Almost done.

[zinc wyvern]

I admire you

[zenith quartz]

Thanks? Haha. 😄

[solemn goblet]

I also admire you Avery

[delicate condor]

boomsticks 👍

[tacit eagle]

yes they are old I will have to do some rework on them tho

[dim pier]

When ever I import my model colliders aren't being recognized

[shell hedge]

same thing when you move the collider to root? also make sure the names match

[light eagle]

what are your export settings?

[dim pier]

Haven't tried moving collider to root

[dim pier]

Here are my collider settings in blender

[light eagle]

and your import settings in reforger tools?

[dim pier]

what do you mean by root? Would I have everything in one collection instead of collections for LODs and Colliders?

[light eagle]

check export skinning, then reimport

[dim pier]

I'll give that a try

it might take a while as the model is rather large

[light eagle]

you using the reimport resource button correct? (dumb questions I know)

[dim pier]

um idk I checked that export skinning box then hit the reimport resource (pc) button

[light eagle]

Also, that geo looks like it really needs to be clean up. Have you gone over the wiki on geometry guidelines?

[dim pier]

No but this was more of a experiment. I've been able to get the model in game fine just can't get collisions

[light eagle]

If your reimport doesn't work, I would create a simple box mesh collision, block things out. You may be having issues with that overly complex huge trimesh geometry.
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:FBX_Import
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:Vehicle_Creation

Both have sections going over basic guidelines for geo. Simple as possible is best choice. Do as much with as little as possible. Keep overlaps to just one at most.

[light eagle]

Beautiful work as always

[tacit eagle]

does anyone got any idea how this suspension works ?

does it just pivot? that seems like thats not right

[dim pier]

reimport didn't work i'll have to give that a try

[tight hollow]

Is that the america class aircraft carrier?

[dim pier]

Wasp amphibious assault ship

[tight hollow]

Nicee

Looking quite nice

[tacit eagle]

the one from arma 2 is not to scale

the deck is shorter and not wide enough

[fathom bolt]

How did you do the pattern of the wheel ?

[shell hedge]

i vote baked displacement

[fathom bolt]

Cause I need to do the pretty same pattern on my wheel

But I think it’s 3D no ?

[shell hedge]

yes

you can also do something silly like bake your displacement on a rectangular plane and then wrap it onto a wheel

[fathom bolt]

Interesting I need to learn that

[shell hedge]

if you spend more than 2 minutes on it you might get something interesting

[stiff goblet]

this is how i do something like this in blender

1. take a plane and model the wheel so that it has the proper shape and such.
2. use an array modifier to extend the wheel longer (you have to make sure that the modelling is "tiled" so that there are no gaps)
3. use the simple deform modifier, set it to "Bend" change the axis so it's in the right orientation, then set the rotation to be 360 degrees.

base shape for step 1

array modifier

[shell hedge]

o yes that too

[stiff goblet]

simple deform modifier

[shell hedge]

probably easier too since you dont have to mess with a texture

[stiff goblet]

you'll have to play with the axis and such to get it to work properly.

[stiff goblet]

ye. also, you can modify the shape whenever you want by going into edit mode and modifying the base shape. it will update the entire mesh.

in 30 secs you can change the whole shape

[shell hedge]

I mean same with texture but yeah

[stiff goblet]

it requires more effort with a texture bc you have to

1. modify the OG mesh
2. bake
3. reimport the texture

with this workflow you just go into edit mode and make the changes

[shell hedge]

all I need to do is click save in substance designer

but defo need to edit the mesh if I want the general curvature changed

[fathom bolt]

Awesome !

[stiff goblet]

it's not much longer, but it is longer imo. this is also a good workflow for tires bc by disabling the deform modifier, you get a flat plane you can use to bake your texture, you can easily reduce the poly count to get some simple geometry for your low poly, etc.

[fathom bolt]

Thanks 👍

[shell hedge]

yea or just start off in low poly to begin with

[stiff goblet]

both works :P just use the one that lets you work as fast as possible. personal preference imo

[shell hedge]

probably saner to start in low poly than mess with poly reduction later

for games anyway

[stiff goblet]

sometimes. for a shape like this, you can get a high poly that has clean edge flow super easily since you are only modelling a single object, then reducing is just removing some of the edges. doesn't take too long and you have control over where the hard edges go. that's not really something you have when using a displacement texture since for the hard edges, you have to have a super duper high poly count.

[shell hedge]

just like your pictures

[stiff goblet]

in general, i think using modifiers in blender is a great way to model. you can make a high poly from that low poly mesh by putting on bevel modifiers and calling it a day. can also modify it by using displacements, poly reduction, other modifiers. it's a really non-destructive way to work and lets you go through iterations super quickly.

same way it works in 3ds max (though i kinda hate 3ds max tbh)

[shell hedge]

yes the modern way to do things is to use these functions as often as possible

they make u do things faster

not to mention they are more precise than a human anyway

[whole briar]

hey there, anyone got an idea how i can get my hands on the arma standard uniforms to retexture them in substance? samples have no standard uniform fbx

[shell hedge]

there's no way to export the models

but there is a character template that might help you make your own

[whole briar]

yeah i have seen the character model, but sadly not a uniform fbx. some uniforms got the exact model i just would need to retexture

[delicate condor]

You will likely do retexture the old fashioned way of painting textures by hand in image editor

[shell hedge]

noooooooooooooooo

[delicate condor]

Models get released for retexturing very rarely. Though character base has been exception in the past too

[dapper oar]

you could put in a feature request on the feedback tracker for retexturing samples/texture templates for the characters.

[delicate condor]

Should be easier to preview a texture in the workbench though

[whole briar]

sounds good!

[whole briar]

problem is that i can just retexture the camo but not add details that way.

[tacit eagle]

I use neither

[sand pagoda]

wheeled version of spg-9

[bright raft]

That is shit tone of detail man. Awesome work

[tacit eagle]

I have a spg 9 too

[sand pagoda]

pgok-9

not started it yet

[tacit eagle]

you want it?

[sand pagoda]

hmmm, probably no

will make my own

but, nice work

[thorny rivet]

Can someone help me with turret component for cars, please?

[thorny rivet]

Problem solved, big thanks to SpaceStrider!

[tacit eagle]

Anyone knows how much polygon limit ARMA Reforger have?

Including interiors

I mean, Vehicles of course.

[shell hedge]

at least 7

[tacit eagle]

is there no maximum limit then?

[bright raft]

There is no limit per se, (well maybe there is, defined in Directx) but you should always try to make it as low as possible.

And number of polys depend on model you are making. If it is a weapon, 30k ish should be enough for example

[shell hedge]

for lod0***

[bright raft]

Yes, exactly. Forgot to mention about LODs 😉

Rather big oopsie

[shell hedge]

lod1 can be like 3

plane with an image of the gun

[bright raft]

XD

[stiff goblet]

per model, i would imagine the limit is something like the bit depth of the engine. certainly not something that should ever be reached by a single mesh :P

[shell hedge]

challenge accepted

[tacit eagle]

Sounds like can be add more polygons than A3

[stiff goblet]

make sure to take a photo of your melted PC ;) i'd love to see it.

[stiff goblet]

a good way to understand what your targets should be for certain objects is to look at the official meshes. You can open them in the engine and see how many vertices they have.
a house for example (just the base mesh) has around 60k tris, interior is similiar, then all the detail meshes on top.
so at the highest level of detail, you'd probably be around 150-200k for a house. with LODs that will drop as you get further away obv

[bright raft]

Probably. But even in A3 I could add meshes with pretty high polycount

[shell hedge]

2.5 mil polys froze workbench during import

will wait a few mins

[bright raft]

It does freeze it, but it can import after a while I think

[shell hedge]

the mesh is only 90 mb

[stiff goblet]

i know unity has a limit of 65535 vertices per mesh, which i think comes from the FBX importer? i'm not totally sure.
So there has to be a limit here as well, it's not 16 bit. maybe 32bit? if so, you could have 4.1B vertices per mesh if it's unsigned. super reasonable :D

[shell hedge]

if this takes more than 10 minutes i dont know if i want to try my 8 mil poly mesh

will just leave it overnight I guess

use the pc as a heater for more comfy sleep

[delicate condor]

It's already possible to use more polies in A3 than you should

What's possible is not what you should be aiming for

Unless you want people to ask why your mod runs at 5fps

You can see used polycount when you open vanilla vehicles in workbench if I remember right

[shell hedge]

yup all meshes have the counters in workbench

[short bear]

wz.88

[tacit eagle]

big wheels

[bright raft]

Redoing MK18 frontguard for my mod

[eager hill]

Looks great, but remember to make those rail guards or whatever they are called as an attachment for the weapon.

[whole briar]

anyone made some progress regarding creating uniforms? when i scale my jacket to the skeleton, got memory points, skeleton and a cube colider, enfusion crashes when loading it into workbench. some got any idea?

[plucky rover]

what tires are those?

[tacit eagle]

ja-190

[plucky rover]

oh, are they contemporary? i've never seen treads like that, was curious what type they were

[tacit eagle]

they are big 1.3m

[plucky rover]

that is pretty big

i like the design

[tacit eagle]

I think this is the same but smoler

[mossy pond]

All in all how hard is porting a model in to reforger just basic shit

[little kayak]

depends on what you want to port, from what, and what kind of source files you have

[mossy pond]

fbx

[surreal ore]

Its easy dude.. Just gotta use the right export settings. In some cases you may end up having to triangulate before export, sometimes something weird happens when you import causing you to lose some verts. Other than that its pretty straight forward

What you really need to look into though is how colliders are handled and the naming conventions of objects within your model.

[whole briar]

Anyone got his hands on uniform rigging? Managed to get a uniform into the game now basically but still got some offset (floating) and the uniform is stiff so does not follow the character movements (ie arms movement and crouching). Anyone got ideas or willing to answer some questions on that topic? I worked through a couple of rigging tutorials but there are some differences an reforger or I am a bit confused. What I did was rescale the uniform to the bodyexample on the rig, deleted the body, connected the jacket to the rig with empty groups , assigned the armature (whole rig) to the jacket, got memory points and a collider. Weight painted the jacket to red. Got it into game, basically it works ingame instead of Offsets and stuff on the character so not moving with the arms properly or the body when crouching

[last hill]

You need to paint the weights to individual skeleton bones, not just one or two,

[whole briar]

you mean to the jackets or the bones themselves?

[last hill]

So the clothes, get weight painted to the body positions they need to be, so arms to arms etc etc.

[whole briar]

Do I understand that right? The skeleton is patented to the jacket and after that I need to weight paint the different parts and that fixes my problem? So ie I paint the arms blue, upper torso red and lower torso blue again ?

[last hill]

No. blue means it is NOT affected. You need to paint it, the more red, the more it is affected. Take your time and if you're not copying the paint weights from the sample clothing you will need to be careful of how you paint it.

[whole briar]

there is an sample clothing .fbx ? havent seen that if there is one please tell me where i can find it so i could try to modify transfer it

but basically do you think that is why the uniform does not move with the arms and stuff or did i miss steps regarding rigging? i thought that just using the sample skelly and parenting it to the clothing would be enough

ok well i found a bodymodel and a full equiped model in the samples but when i look at them on weight paint everything is blue

[last hill]

Move to the main chest bone and see, if you haven't got the bone selected it will all be blue if memory serves

[whole briar]

If I select a chest bone alone I can just do that in edit or pose mode but if I do that I cannot select weight paint.

[calm rune]

@whole briar This blender file and this video will tell you everything you need to weight your clothing properly for reforger. If you do not figure it out then I have absolutely no idea how I to help you lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEAvSDrS_n0&ab_channel=CGIZONE

[whole briar]

Thanks for the video but the file is empty for me

[calm rune]

Works fine. I just downloaded it and opened it.

You should see this when you open the blend file. Minus the color over the body. Had to do that bcz discord thinks it is a nude body lmao @whole briar

[whole briar]

when i want to open it it shows an error that the file format is not supported

[calm rune]

Do you use blender? @whole briar

[whole briar]

yes i do

watched the tutorial, did everything mentioned. when goint to posemode and moving the bones neither body nor clothes move with it i do not eben see colours like in the video

[calm rune]

If you can not see the weight colors and you followed the video then well you missed a part because it works for everyone else but you lol

[whole briar]

thats actually what im asking myself what went wrong. i do not see weight colors except of blue in like every model i try 😄

[calm rune]

You are gonna have to stream one day and let someone follow along.

[whole briar]

can you tell me what was meant by that ? i cant select a bone and go to weight painting then

[calm rune]

If you followed the video completely then when you go into the vertex window you should see all these vertex groups and when you are in weight paint mode you should be able to click on each group and it should show the corresponding weight on your clothing.

[whole briar]

So ... i worked with an older version of blender, installed the latest one now and this time i can open the file and see all those weights, finally! So i guess, i will need to copy the body from your file, replace it with mine and copy the weight as mentioned in the tutorial?

[calm rune]

That would work yes.

[whole briar]

is the body model in the file scaled properly for reforger or do i need to rescale?

[calm rune]

the body is the same scale as the in game body

[whole briar]

thank you, you brought me one step closer! Thanks and cheers for your time and patience!

[calm rune]

no problem!

[whole briar]

so ... got it done in blender. everything is rigged, weight paint transfered and working. deleted the bodyobject, exportet it as fbx with unchecked custom properties and unchecked add leaf bones, imported it to the game, reimported texture hirachy -> bones are there. edited the new asset into worn model of the prefab, saved game, closed workbench, started again, loaded game up, set prefab in world, equiped it -> same issue. Uniform is floating (offset) and still stiff and not following the body

[chilly dragon]

Did you check export skinning before reimporting resources?

[whole briar]

yes, and export scene hirachy

[chilly dragon]

How many bones does it say that your mesh has?

[whole briar]

sadly not able to check that in actual project, tried to use another rig from the sample and now the workbench instantly crashes when loading into project

ill try to do a new one and tell you

i tried to different models. will tell you how much bones my first model has. Basically i have done my own, and secondly for better understanding i opend the blend file from the sample, deleted everything except of the jacket, collider, memory points and bones. loading into the workbech goes quickly, but when reimporting for the skinning and hirachy the workbench always crashes and can't load into project again without crashing

when i use my first own model, it takes like 10 minutes to load into workbench and same time for reimport for the skinning and hirachy

totaly strange

[chilly dragon]

I’d try only exporting your mesh, you can do that by selecting it then in the export tab there should be an option to export selected. How many faces does your model have?

[whole briar]

the mesh is the object without rig, coliders and so on or what do you mean?

its 0+161 bones

[chilly dragon]

Just the actual model of the jacket without anything else. If that’s after you’ve exported skinning then you haven’t weight painted the object correctly

[surreal ore]

@whole briar

are you around?

[whole briar]

So you mean if I import it and the workbench crashes it is a weight paint problem? I know it is a bit of confusing cause 1 got one extrem long loading model that ist completely offset and stiff and one that crashes the workbench

[whole briar]

Will be again tomorrow just reading and answering atm

[chilly dragon]

No the 0+161 bones, the zero should be like 40 or something for a jacket. The number before the zero indicates how many bones the object is affected by. Since it’s zero your either reimporting the resources in incorrectly or you haven’t weight painted it

I’m thinking it’s crashing and or taking so long is because your model is too large of a file

[whole briar]

Hm … the crash thing should not happen because of size, cause the import process goes quick as it should just when reimporting it crashes quite quickly. Might have something to do with not being able to load bones correctly or sth like that. When I do not let workbench rotate the model when reimporting it’s loads up to 96% then crashes. If I let workbench rotate the model by 190 degrees when reimporting it crashes at 18%.

For the own model that might be the case even if I can’t imagine that this is the case cause it ist quiet just a jacket. But I have seen in blender the jacket uses a full texture. Can I delete this in some way to prove your point? Maybe that is the problem.

For the weight paint stuff I completely transferred the weights of the bones to the jacket and checked it by clicking vertex groups should be fine.

What I noticed is that on the crashing model when I move bones in pose mode the model follows, when I do that with my own model it does not follow the bones in pose mode. The bones just leave the body without bodyparts following. I can’t see the difference to the other model on rigging

[whole briar]

So this is how it looks like no matter how i make the blender file, no matter how i import it and so on. when i replace the worn object in the prefab file with the rigged cloth object, this is the result

As you can see everything should be correctly rigged and imported. exported file with checked custom properties and unchecked add leaf bones as an .fbx file

[tidal latch]

what did you used as template?

are you also exporting empty objects in Blender?

Character_Template has 162 elements in in Bones tab, where your character has 156

[whole briar]

I used the character animationrig example for the jacket and the rig

i now noticed that the crashes occur when there is more then one armature in the object

i opened up the character template in the samples and saw that the collider is a fully rigged person. my collider was just a cube, what could explain the stiffnes of the object on character. so i tried to copy the rigged collider into my project, when sorting it was recognized as collider.

problem is, when i delete the armature from the collider all the collider objects get deformed. when i leave it in there and load it into workbench it crashes again because of 2 rigs in the object

[tidal latch]

that files is just for animations

use Character_Template for rigging, animation rig, as name suggest, can be used to create animations. It's completely not designed for rigging of characters and equipment

[whole briar]

ok if i now look into the template, do i see that right that i need to split up my jacket into many different parts or can i just delete the body and parent it to the rig?

[tidal latch]

you can first transfer weights from base body to your jacket and then you can delete base body and just export the jacket

[whole briar]

For the BDU it is working now! Thank you very much!

[whole briar]

For my own jacket model it still loads very long time and when i reimport it workbench crashes again

[tidal latch]

Can you show some pic from Blender maybe?

I hope that you didn't copy pasted armature from the previous blend file. The FBX file which you want to import should contain ideally one armature

[whole briar]

no, i made the opposite of that. i saved the working thing as a kind of template for me. i copied the own jacket (without vertex groups or modificators) into the "template", weight transformed from the working jacket, deleted the jacket and sorted all objects. when moving bones in pose mode the new jacket moves with it.

will make a blend screenshot

[tidal latch]

and do you have some errors in the Console Log maybe?

btw: your jacket is missing _LOD suffix

object should be called Jacket_LOD0

also equipment like jacket should have only fire geo for the jacket - not the whole character

[whole briar]

the whole character collider worked well for the BDU, i thought if that works ill leave it like that. renamed the jacket now and looking for the console log in workbench now

is there a way to open the log from workbench or do i need to look it up somewhere on the PC?

[tidal latch]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:Resource_Manager#Log_Console

[delicate condor]

Might try put this into Reforger when tracked vehicles become a thing

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/331868308112408576/997326321053089842/0130-0850.mp4
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/331868308112408576/997327937797890209/0130-0850_bright_01.mp4

which brightness level works best for your screen? (trying to gauge what to use in the future)

[tacit eagle]

tracks are going to be hard ; ~ ;

have you see how war thunder does theirs

its very strange it has a bunch of single sided meshes that are layed inside of the large track

[delicate condor]

its pretty much how older Arma games have done it too

maybe bit more layers

its preformance cost efficient

[tacit eagle]

its nothing like what ive seen from arma

[delicate condor]

the tech of scrolling texture on plane is similar

remains to be seen what Arma will have in the future

[tacit eagle]

I hope the devs make the view ports work like in il-2 ; ~ ;

this is how tracks are done

[bright raft]

Nice one. looks like PL01 concept

[sly bridge]

slooowly adding more geometry to my A3 models. T1 re-uved and re-baked

[shell hedge]

how can I control draw distance of my entity?

[little kayak]

Check the biki page about LOD's, which explains when and how a specific LOD is shown and how to manually set the LOD factor (which still takes user settings in account)

[shell hedge]

I want the entity to DISAPPEAR after a certain distance

not switch lods

[delicate condor]

It is! (with few artistic interpretations since all I had to go on with was the few photos online and the model kit)

[bright raft]

I bet, I think it was just a mockup so there isnt much info on it. Nevertheless, model looks goood

[bright raft]

Nice one. Subd or bevel workflow?

[sly bridge]

openSubD

[eager hill]

What software have you used for baking? My bakes from Substance Painter don't look that good, so I'd like to know whether it's a software difference, my settings or my models

[bright raft]

How do you bake them in SP? You might have better results with Bake by Mesh Name option enabled

[fierce shard]

maybe is a dumb question but why cant my fbx model be imported with textures?

[bright raft]

Because you need to import them separetely. FBX contain information about materials assigned to model, but textures need to be imported and assigned in correct channels in Enfusion to said material

[fierce shard]

so like manually?

[delicate condor]

yes
Also your model needs to be uvmapped and texturred accordingly.

[sly bridge]

substance painter but with custom cage

it seem there is some issue with the AO bake, but will bake it for hp directly and transfer it

[sly bridge]

you can also just explode the entire mesh, it was the only option before being able to hide meshes

[bright raft]

Yeah, that is also the option. And sometimes required because even if By mesh name is enabled, shadow is still present on AO on parts that are hidden by different meshes

[eager hill]

Bake by mesh name is enabled

[bright raft]

And what issues you mean specifically?

[eager hill]

Custom cage is most likely the reason why your results are much better than mine

[eager hill]

Weird artifacts on corners for instance. Like a black line on beveled edges

[sly bridge]

black lines on beveled edges is also a sign of bad UVs

a hard edge should always have an uv island split

[bright raft]

Sometimes issue can be with bevel itself in HP, like overlapping edges

[leaden trench]

If you show me a screenshot of the issues with your bake and also your UVs I can probably tell you how to fix it. Seam placement is very important to get good results. If you have aliasing near edges set the supersampling to 8x.

[tacit eagle]

did you normal smooth your low poly? I know that non smooth low poly will have horrible artifacts

[thorn topaz]

That particular sidewall does not lend itself well at all, its not so bad with the T26E1-1
Though it seems strange to me that they have several tanks with 3D tracks on some tanks but not others.

Though jittery behavior is also observable on the 3D tracks so that may be one of the cons

[tacit eagle]

let me check in asset viewer

[thorn topaz]

seems to me that it comes down to performance and stability but only being able to have faces in two axis vs looking much better and getting some jittery motion in multiplayer. personally I'd take the 3D tracks if given the option, but they also work completely differently too

[tacit eagle]

yeah apparently in the asset view the tracks are 2d plans but in game they use the 3d meshes

[thorn topaz]

for all of them? even the M4 series?

[tacit eagle]

I checked the russian vehicles so BMD 4, 2s3, ww2 T80 and they are in fact 3d tracks not 2d

So I guess in arma we could make lod 0 use real tracks and for further lod switch to arma 2/3 style of track

[delicate condor]

Im coming prepared

[thorn topaz]

lookin good!

[tacit eagle]

how do you make your models goat, they look super sharp

softer edges tend too look better than super sharp ones

[delicate condor]

have not added beveling and stuff yet

it looks sharp because it is sharp

[tacit eagle]

you gonna bevel them with vertex selection

I hate using that method, complex geometry does not play well with bevel modifiers

[thorn topaz]

bevel modifier with the limit set to Weight and using the Bevel Weight in the Item-Transform tab works pretty well, plus you never having to re-assign the weights compared to verts, much easier to adjust.

[tacit eagle]

is the scaling off?

[thorn topaz]

nope, that be the poor sacrificial starting cube

[tacit eagle]

; ~ ;

[thorn topaz]

there are just two different weights between the two sides, one has .87 and the other .20

[tacit eagle]

I should move over to the newest blender

[thorn topaz]

yes you should, 3.1.2 is amazing, cycles performance is also SO much better

[unreal reef]

I would love to test it when they do. Though you may be able to get it in before that since someone managed to get a working helicopter in so a tank would be possible to(when someone does something that we thought was impossible, it opens the door to other many other things we think are impossible)

[tacit eagle]

does it really matter who is first? I think is smart to wait for bi to release everything to see how its done.

[delicate condor]

No

and Id rather wait for proper simulation types 😅

[solemn goblet]

I hope they use some sort of modular skeleton array for tracks so you only need to make one 'link' and it just works. That's incredibly wishful thinking but it would be awesome and implicate a lot of systems within it.

[thorny rivet]

can someone please help me with bones for turrets?

[shell hedge]

I can definitely see bones used as tracks as it'd be one of the simpler methods

considering they already use bones for things like flag animation it doesn't seem too far fetched

[burnt surge]

Is it still the same to make all the Geometries manual by hand (and being convex) and engine doesnt calculate it itself?

Or are there now some improvements?

[tidal latch]

you can use trimeshes for firegeo

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:FBX_Import#Collider_usage you have to do colliders by hand and here are few considerations

[whole briar]

I got a now full working model of a jacket igame, but when sun moves and shadow with it the model turns from its original colour more and more to black till one side is literally the darkest black i have ever seen. i think there must be an issue with AO. Someone got an idea what is causing this?

[tidal latch]

collision geometries have to be quite simple otherwise you are going to suffer from performance penalty

[whole briar]

ah and there is a light (AO) falling at kind of a spot on the right shoulder seems that only this spot is impacted and the rest of the jacket is not

[tacit eagle]

https://i.imgur.com/kWo6jJG.png

https://i.imgur.com/F62fCVZ.png

[tacit eagle]

just need to add the brake lines, and make the whole frame one giant mesh.

[fluid fern]

Hi, I'd like to come back to you to know if there was someone who was doing 3D modelling of railway tracks (like the A3 CUP mod)?

[tacit eagle]

railway tracks would not be so hard to model

just have to have consistent dimensions (track gauges size ) and create bare tracks / above ground tracks that have ties and stone and in sections such as 0,5, 10, 15, 22.5, 30

and also switches sections

[bright raft]

Did oyu figure out custom animations and poses or will it use vanilla LAW anims?

[dire estuary]

I got custom animations for weapons figured out. Still working on character animations at the moment

[bright raft]

Yeah same here. Got my Carl Gustav on hold because of that.

[dire estuary]

What CG version?

[bright raft]

M3 Export (I think)

[dire estuary]

Nice one!

[fluid fern]

Would it be possible to generate it via a spline afterwards? As for the roads

[thorny rivet]

can someone help me with making bones for turrets, please?

[dire estuary]

I have never succeeded in creating a UCL_ geometry, always fails at import. Is there a trick to get cylinders to work? Triangulated etc etc

[calm rune]

If it fails to import you can just scroll down and manually set it and reimport Obvi this is not UCL but it is the same concept for every collider.

[plain galleon]

oh thank you 🙂

[dire estuary]

But isn’t that just converting it to trimesh? That is the worst regarding performance? I mean I could do an _UTM from the beginning

It doesn’t solve the issue in the end?

[tacit eagle]

@fluid fern dont know never worked with splines in the terrain editor, but other things work with splines why not

[whole briar]

I could help you with that within the next days I am working on an ground turret myself atm. My turret basically works but got problems with ads of the mounted weapon. But with the turret bones I might can help out

[thorny rivet]

The problem is solved thanks Zelik, I can help you with the ads for the turret

[calm rune]

No it keeps whatever collider mesh you imported. You just need to go in and set the layer preset to whatever it is suppose to be then hit the reimport button again. Also when naming colliders it is, ex: "UTM_" not "_UTM".

[whole briar]

Would appreciate that thank you!

[tidal latch]

you can take a look at character example colliders - afair there are UCLs there

[plain galleon]

not sure for model or configuration, but in order to make a use magazine well, like we used to in a3, there needs to be the proxy (a3) or pivot/snap point..

now here is my problem, how have any of you solved it? (if you have)

guess perhaps best to follow bis lead.. but it seems our (that is Megadeth's model) is a better solution

[delicate condor]

oof the mag snap is not at the top?

[plain galleon]

not unless I am missing something

[tidal latch]

Child pivot

What you have shown is just model center

Snap point is a separate empty object/bone

[last parcel]

granQ what i found out when i made my model is that the pivot and zeroing needs to be on point

same with the pivot point

[plain galleon]

yeah but for the mag? there is nothing beside the zeroing right?

[last parcel]

i think so yea if i remember correctly when i did it atleast

[tacit eagle]

do you think this will bake nicely? also do I have to just make a single wheel and copy the rest of the wheels in enfusion?

[stiff goblet]

looks fine to me. you will probably have issues with this part of the wheel though since there is intersecting geometry. if the geometry is also like that on the high poly, it would be better to seperate the treads and the main part of the wheel and use bake by mesh name.

[tacit eagle]

ok the treads and tire are seperate

guess ill try some test baking

[stiff goblet]

yeah, that's usually the best way to handle it. just do it and see what problems arise.

[tacit eagle]

because I made the hi poly treads to blend with the tire

so it looks like one single piece

[stiff goblet]

it might bake alright in that case, but i can't be 100% sure. just have to try it

[light eagle]

Is there a built in water occluder yet for vehicles?

[tacit eagle]

wut dat? is that what prevents water from being displayed inside the vehicle?

[sly bridge]

not yet afaik

[bright raft]

How do you guys add panel lines to models? For example some helicopter model. Would you add every panel in highpoly version?
I am considering doing them in Substance painter by hand, and using them as anchor points for generators

[tacit eagle]

I use the solid modifier, and shrink wrap :3

[bright raft]

Hmm, didn't think about it. Must try it out

[tacit eagle]

I can even generate rivets that follow lines and each vertx has a rivet

and space those evenly

using space in loop tools

[bright raft]

Rivets are pain to place by hand in substance so I might try that as well

[tacit eagle]

you have to convert the instance rivets into real geometry and then you snap it to the plane with individual pivot point and align

[stiff goblet]

I would create a tileable texture that has the shapes and colors you want for the panel lines then use mesh decals to add them to the mesh if you are trying to be super performant and you're planning on using tilable textures.

if you aren't doing that, then you can paint them in substance painter. Here's a quick tutorial i found on how to make them using painting and masks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfDNyP0nDjI

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Kagoyr
here's an artstation post and you can see how the guy used mesh decals to add detail without painting it directly into the texture.

[bright raft]

That looks interesting. I'll check both ways. Thanks

[stiff goblet]

i usually use the mesh decal approach as you can also add high quality text, logos, etc with them. and don't have to worry about a low resolution since you aren't trying to fit small details into a texture that is made for a giant object. it also gives you the flexibility to use tiling textures, which is what most of the props in the game seem to be using.

[tacit eagle]

I like doing things with meshes because I can make changes, say making the AV-8 and TAV-8 with little effort

[stiff goblet]

in terms of workflows, i believe it's the industry standard for adding small details to large objects.

i had a tutorial somewhere on how to use mesh decals, but i can't find it :(

[bright raft]

Hmmm, but using decals for panel lines and rivets for example, I will not be able to use those later in Substance procedural textures and generators, right?

(I do intend to use them for markings etc)

[stiff goblet]

no. the decals for the panel lines only makes sense if you want to use tiling textures/the PBRMulti workflow that BI uses. If your entire mesh fits into the 0-1 UV space, then you can just paint them in substance painter.

how big is the mesh?

[bright raft]

Well its an Apache, and currently have 4 texture sets for it (exterrior)

[wary eagle]

Hey this is probably not a good channel for this question, but is it possible to make an entirely custom playable entity with it's own animations? Like if you wanted to make a wolf or some kind of monster or something.

Like it would be playable, but it would operate differently from the normal human biped

[shell hedge]

I'm 90% positive it's possible

[wary eagle]

have you ever done something similar?

[shell hedge]

not in reforger

[fossil crater]

Yes it is, but not right now if you want different mechanics for it as long as scripted commands are broken

[wary eagle]

It would pretty much be identical to the normal human biped but just different animations.

Maybe more weapons slots than 2

[fossil crater]

Then just swap the anims

and the mesh/skeleton for your new entity and reuse the graph

[wary eagle]

Sorry, I'm a lay man

The graph?

[fossil crater]

be careful though, some stuff there, in the script and in the c++ side would require certain bones to be present

[fossil crater]

the animation graph

[fossil crater]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:Animation_Editor#Animation_Graph

[wary eagle]

@fossil crater So what's the simplest way to make a new biped? Is it as easy as literally copy and pasting the normal human and replacing the meshes and animations? Or is it very involved? Apologies for being lay.

[fossil crater]

It depends how different it will be in terms of the skeleton tbh

If you are misssing some bones that are needed by the logic in the animation graph or the scripting or the c++ side then you will have a hard time

If you want to reuse the player stuff that is

You could also do it from scratch but that is not possible right now as scripted commands do not work yet

[wary eagle]

I'm going to commission one of my sculptor friends to make a Predator for me. The idea is to have a mod that just adds a Predator.

If that informs your logic about this at all

[fossil crater]

Scripted commands are basically where you control the simulation of specific modules/states of the simulation of your character and in the Command Handler you would handle each one of these individual modules, when to end them for example (although the scirpted command itself can ask for itself to be ended), when to trigger another one, etc

[wary eagle]

Could you give me an example of one that would be relevant to a Predator?

A Predator for example ^

[fossil crater]

If it fully resembles a humanoid then I recommend to just take and replicate the entire vanilla character skeleton so that you mostly do copy/paste and replace

[wary eagle]

I'm gonna pretend I didn't say that because it was dumb

Yeah that's smart

I'll ask my friend if he can make it with the normal Arma rig in mind

@fossil crater But like having the character operate differently from the normal human biped isn't currently supported? Like say him being based around melee combat for example, or having something like a more than two max weapon wheel/different inventory system layout.

[fossil crater]

Well the first one should be easy to implement. To clarify, with mechanics not being able to be done I meant mechanics that require animation related features to some extent

Like for instance, making a player being able to duck inside a vehicle

[wary eagle]

Oh I see

[wary eagle]

So having a hotkey mapped to him turning invisible and tapping on his little wrist gizmo would be an issue

But turning invisible with a hotkey could be done, just with no animation accompanying it

[fossil crater]

well, for your specific example. I would think a predator does not need to use the pointing gesture. So you could mod/hijack that for your turning invisible action

and then just replace the animation tied to that with your custom one

[wary eagle]

Oh, very interesting. That's a really smart idea.

[fossil crater]

Preferably it would be better to just be able to do your own but given the last dev report, what we are talking about is currently being worked on

so

[wary eagle]

I haven't really been following the mod tool news. Have they been updating the tools pretty frequently?

[fossil crater]

https://reforger.armaplatform.com/news/dev-report-8

[wary eagle]

Very interesting.

Apologies for the spam but is it possible to make a custom hud for a custom character? @fossil crater

AVP 2 Predator hud for example

[fossil crater]

yes but if you want to ask stuff like this then go to the proper channels as it is off topic for this one

[wary eagle]

Alright.

[fluid fern]

Hi, I'm using arma2 assets for everything related to railways and I had a question.
In blender, are all the game-materials in the geometry all functional? I think I tested with Wood but I had no shine on my object, moreover I was going through it while with the metal base it's ok

[wary eagle]

Could you show me how to do this, please? File paths and whatnot.

[tidal latch]

Game materials controls physics, sounds and other game related things. Those game materials should be only applied to colliders

[fluid fern]

Is that so? I thought that was all there was

[tidal latch]

for sure, game materials are not affecting shine - this is purely controlled by emat assigned to visual mesh

in any case, if you were going through some object then most likely issue was with layer preset instead

[fluid fern]

Ok thanks

[fluid fern]

Hi, can you help me, on my picture i have my color on wagon but not in toolbar (extension .ent)

[light eagle]

right click thumbnail and click the refresh Icon option

[fluid fern]

Thanks 🙂

[zenith quartz]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/834465694967136376/999438317974200460/unknown.png https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/834465694967136376/999438123056517160/unknown.png

Just finished this highpoly.

[tacit eagle]

Are pee gee something something

[dense thunder]

can we add terrain surfces to mesh? if so can i get a point in the right direction

[delicate condor]

no guides on that at the moment I think. basically should be just assigning terrain surface material on mesh

[dense thunder]

i'll keep trying, i get it assigned it just turns black

[zenith quartz]

Maaan I really hate making low poly meshes.

It just feels wrong. Simultaneously too high poly and too low detail. D:

[chilly temple]

Me over here having 0 idea on how to make 3D models