Character tutorials

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

Gudday,

I'm a modeler for a project currently in development by a small team but believe I could be of far more use if I knew how to import and rig characters myself rather than relying on the other guys to get through the extensive lists of imports to my stuff.

I am a complete nub with all things development, BIS and O2, but was hoping someone might know of an absolute idiot's guide to importing and rigging character meshes for use in arma 2. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

Having been absent for a period of time whilst I try to get some uni exams squared away, I thought I'd pop back to see if anyone was kind enough to offer some advice here. I was sorely disappointed to see that regardless of 200+ views, not a single person replied to this thread.

I truly wish I had heaps of time to scour the internet with a magnifying glass to find what I need. The little time I had at the start of the year used up watching and reading modeling tutorials and trying to advance my modeling skill which I do as a hobby to occupy my mind so I am not eating, breathing and pooping medicine, from something like this:

to things like this:

and this:

Now, I like to think I have come a long way, however, what I am now after is some information, a tutorial if you will, on how to rig characters. I imported the base Arma 1 soldier skeleton into max, that you can see in the background of image 3, but there were no rigged groups that came with the item. So having made a completely independent model from the skeleton, I am left with the task of getting that model to work as a character in game. So I thought I would come to arguably the most incredibly talented group of ARMA modders in the world and ask for help.

So please, can someone help me with this? What is a good way to rig the character to the skeleton? Can this process be done in max without losing groups and riggings when imported to O2? Is there any way to do it so that I am not having to select individual of the thousands of verticies to add to group individually?

How do you guys do it in the least painstaking way possible?

Kindest Regards,

Scorpy

P.S, help me with this and I'll give you a free physical if you're ever in town!

Edited June 21, 2011 by Scorpy_cfs

[STALKERGB 6]

Hey bud,

When it comes to rigging characters (most commonly called weighting in O2) there isn't really a very quick way to do it. I created an overview of the key areas a while ago, might be of some use to you:

Linky to STALKERGB's Weighting Overview

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

Thanks a whole bunch for that. It was good to hear confirmation of my fears that there isn't a quick way to do it as it was kind of putting me off hoping that a more simple method might exist. I was happy to see the weighting concept however and once I get fairly comfortable with it, I can see the practical use of it. eg, I was seriously considering not connecting a hose from the rig to the face mask as it would look horrid when stretching. This weighting could potentially make it look quite satisfactory with a turning head.

Speaking of head, I need to study for this bloody brain and behaviour exam tomorrow. So once my exams are out of the way, I'll try and work through your tutorial and let you know how it turns out.

Thanks again.

[slatts 1978]

also this link here should help

http://www.ofpec.com/addons_depot/index.php?action=details&id=68

this includes the proxies needed for soldiers in arma2 and the LOD's needed(level of detail)

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

Ta, couple more questions, it appears when I follow the tutorial that if I use the basic selections of the BIS soldier, then the head for example on my model next to the BIS model will move in relation to the BIS model head. This makes me believe that there needs to be a way of reproducing a center axis or skeleton or something in my model that the selections are linked to. That didn't sound like a question but feel free to correct my reasoning.

Secondly, I noted that some selections are being animated, and others are not, eg, I have completed the head selection and there is obvious movement during animations. However, when I link an arm selection as in the tutorial, there is no movement at all during the animation. What have i done wrong here?

Regards,

Scorpy

[STALKERGB 6]

Ta, couple more questions, it appears when I follow the tutorial that if I use the basic selections of the BIS soldier, then the head for example on my model next to the BIS model will move in relation to the BIS model head. This makes me believe that there needs to be a way of reproducing a center axis or skeleton or something in my model that the selections are linked to. That didn't sound like a question but feel free to correct my reasoning.

Secondly, I noted that some selections are being animated, and others are not, eg, I have completed the head selection and there is obvious movement during animations. However, when I link an arm selection as in the tutorial, there is no movement at all during the animation. What have i done wrong here?

Regards,

Scorpy

I might have completely mis-understood the first question but as long as your model is placed in the "centre" in O2 (open up a sample model from BIS and you'll see that their infantry models are placed in the middle of the O2 Y, Z and X axis) then the model should "fit" the BIS skeleton. You don't need to worry about this too much unless your model is a different shape to the BIS Skeleton. I have had this issue with making a female model, I wanted her to be shorter and slightly thinner than the male models but because it didn't fit the BIS skeleton it caused nasty warping of animations. If that's not what you meant though, just say.

As for the second question, this sounds like it could be a case of UPPER and lower case selections. See, you can define, lets say "leftarmroll" as either:

LeftArmRoll

or

leftarmroll

As far as I know, the only one that seems to work for the animations is the Upper case version. Annoyingly, I use lower case for in game but to test have to change to Upper case. Should probably sort that lol. So try with the upper case and see if it sorts the issue.

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

Yeah ta, that's exactly what I was after. Initially I thought that I'd need to have both models centered but then realised I couldn't give a toss what the bis model did, it could warp all over the place for all I cared, as long as my model was animated properly. As such the bis model is only there for colour reference of weighting.

As for the second thing, Edit* I have done what you suggested but can still only animate one selection; the first one. Anything I try to define after that will not animate. For example, I defined the head selection which animated fine and then went to animate the left arm which would not animate. I started from scratch in case I'd done something wrong. I started with the left arm to make sure I could get that right before moving on. It animated fine so I went back to the head which did not animate.

Thanks again for your attention and expedient replies.

Edited July 2, 2011 by Scorpy_cfs

[STALKERGB 6]

Hmm, sounds like a weird error, haven't come across something like that before, so just to check with your process here:

You define the selection "Head" (or the lower case version)

Then you define LeftArm, LeftArmRoll, LeftForArm etc and they fail to animate?

Do you have a model.cfg file at all? It might not have been explained to you yet but it's used for making the model animate in game.

EDIT: Just thought, you might need to reload the animation in O2, it won't update to the new selections if you don't. So if you had done the arm then applied the anim, then gone on to do the head, it won't animate the head until you reload the anim. You reload the anim exactly the same way you apply one first time round.

Edited July 2, 2011 by STALKERGB

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

That's done the trick, thanks again.

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

Thanks again for all your help.

Still needs a lot of work but this is where we're heading with it...

Will clean it up a bit more and see what it looks like in game, I think O2 exaggerates some problems that may not be there so to see it full animates will be more useful

[STALKERGB 6]

Seems to be coming on nicely, as you say, for most of the time in game, your model won't have to pose in such a way that shows a lot of the little errors and what not with weighting. Generally, when I test weighting in game I run a dancing animation in slow-mo so I can see where there are strangely weighted areas on my model.

[Scorpy_cfs 10]

Edit: previous issue resolved. Any thoughts on why the hands might be really bright even at night?

Ta

Edited July 5, 2011 by Scorpy_cfs

[STALKERGB 6]

Edit: previous issue resolved. Any thoughts on why the hands might be really bright even at night?

Ta

SOunds like a strange RVMAT issue, the rvmat is a file that applies a number of different textures such as normal maps/specular maps/ambient shadow and so on, sometimes if the rvmat can't find all the required textures it can produce some strange results. In the BIS sample model for Arma2 there should be a rvmat for hands/face in there that it might be worth looking at.