Is this type of animated prop even possible in the Arma 3 engine?

[r8gato 18]

I work in the industry and have also worked on several mods blah blah, and don't consider myself completely incompetent in game development. That being said, the Arma tools/animation pipeline have made me feel really re-think my intelligence.

I'd like to start modding Arma 3, and I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction with a 'simple' ingame animated prop like the one linked in the image below.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1961216/Arma3_Dev/MiniRadarSystem.jpg

I've got the basics down as far as getting static art assets into the game, but can anyone point me to any tutorials/configs/.cpp files/tools that would allow me to specifically add a looping animation to a keyframed model in 3dsmax --> Oxygen 2 --> Arma 3.

I've watched a lot of youtube tutorials and browsed many Arma dev forums for tidbits of knowledge, but still have not been able to find the specific details that would help me. I can't even recall seeing this sort of animated dynamic prop in Arma 2 or Arma 3, otherwise I would try and reverse engineer it.

Thanks for any help :)

[sakura_chan 9]

Arma uses a proprietary animation system for static objects, basically it is just two points used as a rotational axis and then a small model.cfg file that tells it how to move. You can choose what "source" it is assigned to, so to make it rotate you would link it to the "time" source. I can't recall anyone posting a step by step tutorial though. Maybe look up the config file for the lighthouse in arma3?

[Messiah 2]

Like Sakura said, animations are defined via two points that form an axis (both for rotational and linear movement), and then the part in question being made what i called a 'named selection' - exactly what it does on the tin, it's a selection of the model that's named.

Those are then inputted into a model.cfg file, just simply written in notepad/notepad++ or whatever you want to use. It defines what part of the model the animation uses (the named selection), what the axis is, how much it rotates (if its a rotation animation), speed, and of course the source of the animation (which can be speed of a vehicle, the user selecting an action, the suspension, whatever). Time is what you'll want, as what you're essentially going to need to animate is a big clock hand, that rotates a little quicker than normal ;) - and as time is infinite, then it will rotate on and on and on.

[r8gato 18]

Animated prop is working!

Thanks guys!

I couldn't exactly pinpoint the source of the animation within Arma 3's 'Lighthouse_F' model...

So I just dug a little deeper here:

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Model_Config#Animation_Properties

and

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/CfgVehicles_Config_Reference

--------------------------------------------

Here's my model config for anybody that might care to see it.

Obviously those aren't smiley faces to BinPBO hehe

--------------------------------------------

class CfgSkeletons

{

//skelRefClass

class Default;

//skelClass1

class Mini_Radar:Default

{

isDiscrete=1;

skeletonInherit = "";

skeletonBones[]=

{

"Mini_Radar_Base","",

"Mini_Radar_Rotator","Mini_Radar_Base",

};

};

//skelClass2

};

class CfgModels

{

class rotation;

class Default

{

sectionsInherit = "";

sections[] = {};

};

//modelRefClass

//modelClass1

class Mini_Radar:Default

{

sectionsInherit = "";

sections[] =

{

//section

};

skeletonName = "Mini_Radar";

class Animations

{

class Mini_Radar

{

type = "rotationY";

source = "time";

animPeriod = 1.0

sourceAddress = "loop";

memory = "true";

angle0 = "rad -360";

angle1 = "rad 360";

axis = "Mini_Radar_Rotator_axis";

selection = "Mini_Radar_Rotator";

};

//animsMini_Radar

};

};

//modelClass2

};

--------------------------------------------------------

The model is in game with animation looping!

I'm so happy, I'm gonna go drink a St. Patty's Day beer in celebration!

:)

Edited March 17, 2013 by r8gato