arma2 skeleton - how do I get this on into e.g. 3ds max

[ttt 1]

heyho,

reading the last 3 days through the editing info regarding arma2 and character models.

Now what I really need as last thing before I start are the bones of the male soldier.

What I have is the visual representation. But I need every bone as object or dummy with it's own position and rotations and parent / child dependencies (at least the last one could be drawn ouf of CfgSkeletons)

There is a file called "SkeletonPivots" under "\ca\anims\Characters\data\Skeleton"

I guess this one will be linked automatically to the empty spot in the model cfg calling

// location of pivot points (local axes) for hierarchical animation
pivotsModel="";

So, anyone knows how to get the skeleton? Maybe even BI could release a simple file in fbx format or something like that?! Would be very kind and helpful. (animations & skinning debugging)

[Sealife 22]

The skeleton and pivots are in the male.p3d iirc ,

Look at the edit lids too , memory should reveal pivot points , I guess export 3ds from O2 and tick separate objects ,this will retain there name in the model I think, I guess this will make good thing to refference for armature for anime ?

[Synide 0]

Hi,

The more relevant question is... even if you get you're 'skeleton' setup etc. over in 3DSMax how were you planning on getting the animation over to A2/OA?

- Sy.

[Sealife 22]

o2 can accept .bvh files so i guess he will go that way for ease ? i do my building and animal animations export 3ds tho and imnport all frames :) , if i was good

rigging i would do humans too with BVH .

[ttt 1]

exporting as 3ds (in any way you might be able to) doesn't help. the pivot of every object is always 0,0,0 and so the rotation

exporting animation is not my goal and as far as I know there are plugins for that.

for exporting the model I'll write a maxscript to export a universal bistudio txt.

If there is not already one available

Anyhow.. Anyone knows if it might be possible to extract the data out of animation files?

Is there no one making character models or is everyone just weighting the stuff in oxygen ?

[STALKERGB 6]

Is there no one making character models or is everyone just weighting the stuff in oxygen ?

There are people making character models but for the large part they will probably be derivatives of BIS models so require much less weighting. My newest Brit models have almost completely had to be re-weighted as I've changed most of it over the last year but I've done so in O2 for lack of an automated/better solution.

[Synide 0]

exporting animation is not my goal and as far as I know there are plugins for that.

Ahhh, I think I understand now... So I take it then your only desire to have 'skeleton' of bones/joints over in 3DSMax is so you can 'see' if you're weighting your new character model correctly so that when it eventually does make it over into the game side of things that when a anim gets applied it'll deform as expected.

I'm not aware of any plugin (at least currently available to the public) that exports anims directly over to the game format from 3DSMax. There is a tool that's part of the VBS2 product that can transfer the info.

for exporting the model I'll write a maxscript to export a universal bistudio txt.

If there is not already one available

Yeah, you could do that... it's better than using .3ds at least... and the .bitxt format is easy to understand... But, have a look at Soul_Assassin's 3DSMax Tools that should get you there.

Anyhow.. Anyone knows if it might be possible to extract the data out of animation files?

The A1 .rtm's can be read and applied to characters in O2. If you wanted to bring that animation data into 3DSMax you'd have to make your own process to do so.

The A2 and A2/OA .rtm's are not in a readable format.

As Thromp said. You can create your own skeleton based on the location of the point that resides at the 'right-angle' of the triangles in the Edit 2.0 LoD from the male.p3d, which you should be able to get over to 3DSMax fairly easily.

Initially I wouldn't worry about the rotation of the locators (or whatever they are called in 3DSMax) for your 'skeleton' the more import aspect is each ones relative position to it's parent.

I suppose I could post a .fbx of the 'skeleton' of joint locators from one of my earlier modo scene files it might get you a ways to your end goal... FBX format OFP2_ManSkeleton.

You'll note that all of the locators in this version are in their default rotation at the time of creation. Why, because various anim apps. have differing ways they want to orient things when you start applying IK/FK solvers etc.

The main thing is their relative location & heirarhcy. Also, there is a 'weighted' proxy mesh in there. I'm not sure in the mesh influence deformers from modo will carry over to the .fbx file but if not the weightmaps should. You'd ofcourse be attaching/binding the locators to whatever equivalent 3DSMax uses for your own 'new meshes'... dunno.

You'll also note there's all the 'facial' locators there as well... generally you'll probably never need to use those and you could quite easily get away with removing all of them. They're all the ones that are parented to the 'Head' locator.

Anyhoo, hopefully that'll help.

- Sy.

[Sealife 22]

exporting animation is not my goal and as far as I know there are plugins for that

Ah completely misunderstood your Goal sorry ,

weights etc i have no idea ,sounds like you have a plan tho wiht bis.txt , good luck

[ttt 1]

thromp: no that wasn't bad info you gave me!

synide: thx! I'll have to see if I need to set the rotaion too but right now I'll start creating the model. Then I have enough motivation to deal with the other stuff.

had problem to export weights from a skin modifier with Soul_Assassin's 3DSMax Tools, but maybe I wast just too stupid. I'll try again