STALKERGB's Weighting overview

[slatts 1978]

Is that a serious question?

The vertices are weighed to the skeleton. If your goggles are weighed to the head, having them blue will mean they don't move as tightly with the head skeleton as having them red.

yes that is a serious question

i was told to look at this and all i dont understand any of it, so sorry for being a noob

[STALKERGB 6]

when you say "BLUE heavily affects them" do you mean that something that floats in the air, like my goggles, will be lowered down? or is it not that obvious? lol

@cinco, looking at some of your other posts, attitude check is in order.

To give a slightly less sarcastic response;

The more RED the verts are, the more they move with a selection.

The more BLUE the verts are, the less they move with a selection.

So to give an example, if the "head" selection turns 100 degrees to the right then something weighted 100% to "head" (meaning the verts are RED) will move the 100 degrees. If it was only weighted 10% (making the verts BLUE) it will only turn 10 degrees to the right.

So with your goggles you will need them 100% weighted to the head (making all the verts RED) so that they move in time with the head itself. If they are too high or low that will just be a case of trying to line them up in O2 so when they are applied they are in place.

Edited March 5, 2011 by STALKERGB

[slatts 1978]

@cinco, looking at some of your other posts, attitude check is in order.

To give a slightly less sarcastic response;

The more RED the verts are, the more they move with a selection.

The more BLUE the verts are, the less they move with a selection.

So to give an example, if the "head" selection turns 100 degrees to the right then something weighted 100% to "head" (meaning the verts are RED) will move the 100 degrees. If it was only weighted 10% (making the verts BLUE) it will only turn 10 degrees to the right.

So with your goggles you will need them 100% weighted to the head (making all the verts RED) so that they move in time with the head itself. If they are too high or low that will just be a case of trying to line them up in O2 so when they are applied they are in place.

cheers, they are lined up with the head in O2, but in game they hover above his head and 180 degrees the other way

Edited March 5, 2011 by Slatts

[STALKERGB 6]

Thats to do with the position and direction of the proxy as far as i know, if you rotate your goggles round the centre pin (should be an option "relative to pin" when you rotate) so that they are opposite where they are now, in game they should be right.

EDIT: This post might help.

Edited March 5, 2011 by STALKERGB

[slatts 1978]

got it :)

[STALKERGB 6]

First 2 posts updated with working pictures, have changed one or two things too. Was about time I got this back up to scratch. Any weighting questions are welcome :)

[scifer 10]

I'd like you to know how helpful is this overview. For many times I have quit character modeling, but now things are beginning to work.

Thank you very very much!

---------- Post added at 05:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:42 AM ----------

Once you have painted an area and you want to add it to a selection you can either do what was shown above (right click then select "new" and then name it) or if you want to add it to a selection you already have you can right click in the selections window and create a new selection, call it something like "LeftArmAdd". Then while holding "ctrl" on your keyboard, select "LeftArm" so that both selections are highlighted. Now you can right click on "LeftArm" and select "Redefine" from the options:

1. What is the point in adding a painted area to a selection created by me with a random name like "abc"? Cause I think it won't move. Will it?
   
2. Why create "LeftArmAdd" since you will redefine "LeftArm" along with it, ending up with two identical selections?
   
3. Is it possible/convenient to do all this process in 3ds MAX?
   

Thanks again. You are one of the very few hopes for the community.

[scifer 10]

Currently I'm trying to weight a woman witch is smaller than the male model. Do I have to scale it up in order to the animations work properly?

[Synide 0]

Currently I'm trying to weight a woman witch is smaller than the male model. Do I have to scale it up in order to the animations work properly?

Probably. It depends on how much your new character model is different in size, shape and volume. The majority of the animation files (.rtm's) have been created to work with a standard sized character model. If you then apply these .rtm animations to a new model that is too different it's going to look odd.

Here's an extreme example. Imagine you have a current .rtm that moves the standard sized characters left arm across the front of his body and replaces a mag in a weapon being held by his right hand. Now imagine your new character has an enlarged stomach, chest area and you apply the same animation. It'll end up looking like the left arm/hand is now moving through the new characters stomach/chest on it's way over to the right-hand side. Not, very good eh?

The anims are size specific. Generally, people have not made characters dramatically different in size and shape because they'd have to go ahead and create an additional set of animation .rtm's to cover all the moves this new character would be performing. While it is feasible to do this, in practice it's takes time and alot of patience and technical ability. If you have a mocap setup and a refined workflow to move the data into .rtm format then it's not so much of a hardship to have a different sized character. But, most modders don't have this sort of workflow available to them. So, they'd have to create each required .rtm by hand essentially. A rather daunting process.

-Sy.

[STALKERGB 6]

Currently I'm trying to weight a woman witch is smaller than the male model. Do I have to scale it up in order to the animations work properly?

To follow Synide's answer, one of the key parts of your model that will have to be the same size/position is the hands, if these are out of place it can look very messed up. With that in mind, the rest of the body has to fit the specific position of the hands so unfortunately really limits how tall or fat a model could be, as an example, the female model I'm working on at the moment is almost exactly the same size as the male models I use, the only real difference is "she" is slightly thinner and the shoulders are less square. There isn't a whole lot you can do unfortunately.

1. What is the point in adding a painted area to a selection created by me with a random name like "abc"? Cause I think it won't move. Will it?

2. Why create "LeftArmAdd" since you will redefine "LeftArm" along with it, ending up with two identical selections?

3. Is it possible/convenient to do all this process in 3ds MAX?

1 - The only selections that will move are ones defined in you model.cfg, so as you surmise, creating one called "abc" won't do anything special. The reason I use my own selections is kind of my answer to number 2.

2 - I create something like "LeftArmAdd" because if you begin painting weights onto a model and then define it to "LeftArm" it will overwrite what was already on LeftArm. A solution to this would be to select "LeftArm" before you start painting. The reason I don't do this (and create my own selection) is purely because it allows me to make mistakes without any serious consequence. So if I mess up what I was defining to LeftArmAdd I'll only have to re-start or re-correct that small selection as opposed to having to re-do or start again with the whole "LeftArm" selection. I hope that makes sense lol!

3 - As for MAX, I'm sure there would be a way, unfortunately I have almost no experience with it (I use modo) but someone more versed in it might be able to help :)

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Hi as this seems to be the main thread for weighting questions I have a tough nut for you all to crack.

I have a armored car model with a turret mounted minigun on top and an ammobelt curving from the top of the gun to a drum magazine behind the gunner and I am trying to make the ammobelt move and rotate around to compensate the raising and lovering of the gun.

I've got ~30 bones for the ammobelt and model.cfg configured so the are all tied to the source= "maingun" and the whole thing works like wonder in bulldozer while I rotate the "maingun". But in game the belt part animation does not work. the whole belt moves like it was just a stationary part of the gun.

So my question is what am I missing?

As a side note I got a tank with a missilepod that rotates with the main gun but with a different axis, so basically the same idea that with this car turret. I am stumped.

Update:

I did some testing with the tank and the car. I made a box with a couple of extruded sections and tied the other end fully to otochlaven and the other end to otocvez and the middle verticles to otochlaven with blueish weight. Now with the tank the weights did work, but with the car they did not. So it seems that the weights work with a tank but not with a car.. If so that sucks.

Update II

It seems that the problem was the angle, value and phase restrictions I had set to the bones.. :I My bad. Have to work more on this it seems.

Edited April 8, 2013 by HorribleGoat

[UK_SPAWN 1]

Hi all, say you were doing a terminator/robot/power armour etc, could you have a very tight set of red weighted verts at the extremes of the knees and elbows, but have 0 weight on surrounding verts like the solid metal parts, so they do not bend or deform atall? also is there any more information about how to fully do your own character from scratch with own animations?

cheers,

[Macser 776]

If you create a completely new character with joint locations that differ from

a standard unit,you will need to create animations to accommodate that.

If you're taking that approach,then you can weight a model any way you want to.

That's entirely up to you.It would obviously mean a lot of work.

Blender can export to the BVH format.Which in turn can be imported into O2PE

for conversion to RTM.I'm using this process for OFP/CWA at the moment.

And it works just fine.Because the RTM format can be used by any of the

Arma series games,this process applies to all of them.

[UK_SPAWN 1]

okay thats cool, i dont want my joints to be different position, just slightly less organic, so for example how the ARM rolls down the fore-arm id like only the wrist and elbows to rotate (unrealistic i know, but for a robot its not).

Can you do the animation directly in O2? or maybe even max i am more familiar with? i have the 3ds max arma2 toolbox and can get working guns,buildings and vehicles in game however i dont know where to start with character as all iv seen so far is the fireman thing where you put your model on top of the skeleton, which already is quite apparent wont work properly for the robotic model i have in mind.

is anyone working on tuts for making characters?

Cheers Maczer

[Macser 776]

You can animate in O2,yes.But it's not exactly user friendly.There's no IK involved.

So it would take a long time to create anything dynamic.That's assuming you haven't

thrown the PC out the window first.

Max did once upon a time,have two scripts for import and export of RTM.

Unfortunately they won't work with current versions.I think the last version

they were compatible with was 2009.This would allow you to work with the bones

system,or Character studio.

With Arma and upward you have a physical representation of the skeleton.

With that you can create your own rigs and apply your own weighting to

a mesh.

I'll link the Armature I did for Blender.In case you want to have a look.

It's already set up.And the armature(Rig) could be applied to another mesh.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?170910-ArmaRig-for-Blender

[UK_SPAWN 1]

okay that is nice of you, i do have blender so ill have to look at it. I have the example models from BI and was already building my 'robot' around the mesh of the 001 LOD, trying to keep the knee joints, elbows etc in the same position as before.. so after that i attach all the 'parts' of the model together, and then add a skin modifier right? once iv done with the skin mod, i can import it to O2 and then?... or i can just do weighting in o2.. either way that's my next step after making the actual model.

oh, does every single vert in the mesh HAVE-TO have weight, or can some have 0 weight, or would you weight it all at MIN and then just weight the joints more?

also lol, do i have to/how do i attach my mesh to the skeleton?

Thanks for your help so far.

:)

[x3kj 1247]

If it is weighted 0, the object stays in place no matter how the animation goes. Often leads to warping etc. If at all, you would paint 100% to a certain bone

Because if you paint 100% to a bone the piece will stick to it no matter what.

If you have a solid metal robot, you can propably simplify the weightpainting, as there would be no parts that need to bend/deform.

The easiest way to paint 100% weight is selecting the vertices and making a new selection in O2, named after the bone it should be weighted to...

[UK_SPAWN 1]

Excellent, starting to understand the process, appreciate the help a lot, the idea you say is what i thought about. but i was thinking 0 weight would make it "stay still" but i understand what you mean, i will just have to test it.

when i have this down, im going to create the "ultimate noob guide to making a character from start to finish" so people like me can get into this easier.

[UK_SPAWN 1]

Alright, thats all okay now and i can weight the parts so they work correctly, thanks for the help Fennek and Maczer.

[ewaldt 13]

Hi all, i'm new to modeling for arma 2 and oxygene.

My question is : what workflow use to make lod resolution without rebuild named selection for each lods?

I have made the 1.00 lod resolution of my character, do i made the same way for the other load :p.

I think duplicate the load 1 and reduce polycount with the same named selection, but oxygen is not easy i use maya and my modeling knowlewdge to do that but in this way i have to reaffect the named selection.

Thanks

Etienne

[UK_SPAWN 1]

Hi all, i'm new to modeling for arma 2 and oxygene.

My question is : what workflow use to make lod resolution without rebuild named selection for each lods?

I have made the 1.00 lod resolution of my character, do i made the same way for the other load :p.

I think duplicate the load 1 and reduce polycount with the same named selection, but oxygen is not easy i use maya and my modeling knowlewdge to do that but in this way i have to reaffect the named selection.

Thanks

Etienne

Yes youv got the right idea.

If you have made LOD 0/1 you can Duplicate that and reduce ploys. Just remember that sometimes the LODs change,

Like with a MAN the head is not in LODs 1 and 2, instead there is a head PROXY, and on LOD3 there IS a modeled head.

Best thing you can do, is also open a BIS Example Character/Model at the side and compare as you go.

Cheers

[ewaldt 13]

Hi and thanks with late.

etienne