The newbie modders request immediate assistance!

[NordKindchen 12]

I think I found informations about the LODs in a tutorial for character modelling. Maybe LODs from characters will give you some information on the LODsystem of weapons.

Just search on Armas FB page.

Hope this helped a bit.

Greetings

Update

Just found what I was talking about.

[Messiah 2]

The BIKI seems more than adequate for explaing what each LOD does?

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/LOD#What.27s_a_LOD.3F

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Oxygen_2_-_Manual#LODs

etc etc

[kremator 1064]

I also have a lot of free time on my hands until my next military assignment so I want to start Modding for ARMA 3 as well!

I want to make Zombies, Aliens, Insectoids, Xenomorphs, Predators and I have zero experience to boot ;)

Over the past few days I have been collecting information and installed the BI Tools. I basically need to learn how to Code, Model, Texture...everything but I think I might start learning how to do simple re-skins of units and go from there.

I hope the Army don't want you soon then!

[John Spartan 89]

There is also an option to ask author of certain mod/addon how did he got that feature done. Most of the lads around here will definitely help you out within their area of expertise. That's how I got started with help of one of the veterans - Franze. Just send a PM if you cant find any posts via search function.

[-=Borz=- 10]

To be honest there are so many small pieces of info scattered around these forums, that is not very motivating to put all the required info together for a newbie.

It would be awesome if BI produced a complete DVD (or series) for sale with all these resources, video tutorials on how to use BI tools step by step, end efficiently, etc.

Thousands would buy it for sure and it would help them getting more people into the game, as more and more content and ideas would be constantly added. Everyone would benefit from it.

I guess they would sell this more than the game itself.

It would also help them produce and find new latent talents ;)

Or perhaps a BI academy online with some instructors (which might be people already modding islands, units, vehicles, mission making, creating videos for intros, etc who are not employed) ;)

[STALKERGB 6]

You have to have a team at minimum of five to really product a above good product.

It depends what you plan on actually doing to be honest. It's completely possible to release a very high quality mod as an individual. As an example there are lots of weapons, infantry and islands that have been made either individually or by only a few contributors.

To shed a bit of light on my personal experience, I began modding in 2008, 3 months after starting I'd released what was basically just a retexture (although there were small model changes to the BIS samples). I had absolutely no experience in anything tech related, couldn't model/code etc. Most of the progress was through trial and error. Plenty of times during the process I had no idea why something was behaving in a particular manner, often it was a case of changing one thing at a time until it worked.

5 years later and I'm still learning new stuff but at the beginning I'd have never imaged I'd be doing it so long, or still learning!

You would think that someone has come up with a manual for this community modding sector. But every time someone points out this short coming. Someone knock them down for being logical.

I get a couple emails a week from people asking for advice or help, and I'm always happy to give it, often it's prompted me to plan on writing a step by step guide for how to get an infantry addon completed. The issue is, although often the questions I get are similar, each response I give tends to be different enough that it would be hard to cover in a one size fits all guide.

[mecharius 2]

I personally find the documentation comprehensive but fragmentary. For instance I recently decided to try how to make a helmet for arma 3. There are a bunch of articles and some good addons that you can follow but the problem for a total beginner is that each article assumes a fair chunk of knowledge and reading it triggers another question and another google search. After searching here, at armaholic, on google etc, I end up with 30 tabs open and nothing done :)

Whilst a start to end tutorial would be lovely, at the end of the day this would be a huge amount of work for somebody to do and would need to be maintained somehow as the software (e.g. Blender/Max or arma tools) changes. I guess as this is a hobby its a compromise between this person spending time making new sweet mods, or writing documentation. Personally I'd prefer a mod to play!

[astast 12]

Whilst a start to end tutorial would be lovely, at the end of the day this would be a huge amount of work for somebody to do and would need to be maintained somehow as the software (e.g. Blender/Max or arma tools) changes. I guess as this is a hobby its a compromise between this person spending time making new sweet mods, or writing documentation. Personally I'd prefer a mod to play!

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and feed him for life... (And maybe he'll have a new hobby too ;) )

I would make a guide... It's just i only know a bit about modeling and that isn't needed.

[max power 21]

I case in this case, if we're talking about fishing, the search function and google are your fishing poles.

I think most modders enjoy spending their time modding and not writing documents.

[mecharius 2]

Meanwhile, this thread looks promising: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?154474-Zachs-Full-on-guide-to-Custom-Weapons!