Arma Toolbox for Blender - Arma 2/3 exporter script

[Macser_old 0]

Excellent scripting Al.I just happened upon it today. :)

So far,no major problems to report.Although mass doesn't seem to get exported.

Does that still need to be finalised in O2 PE?Or are there any special requirements

to get it exporting from Blender?

I've heard more than one person mention the Inter-quake model format as a possible starting point,

for getting animations out of Blender.Although I've no idea how the output of that could be converted to RTM.

Animation is one aspect of modding that,sadly,doesn't seem to get much attention.

But in any case,well done. :)

Edited May 16, 2013 by Macser

[Alwarren 2767]

Excellent scripting Al.I just happened upon it today. :)

So far,no major problems to report.Although mass doesn't seem to get exported.

Does that still need to be finalised in O2 PE?Or are there any special requirements

to get it exporting from Blender?

I forgot to mention that, mass gets exported only if you have a selection ComponentXX, with XX being 01, 02, 03 etc, and only in the geometry LOD. I should mention that I suppose, or make the selection automatically when none exists.

I've heard more than one person mention the Inter-quake model format as a possible starting point,

for getting animations out of Blender.Although I've no idea how the output of that could be converted to RTM.

Animation is one aspect of modding that,sadly,doesn't seem to get much attention.

But in any case,well done. :)

I had only done weapons so far so I never got too much into animations. I might need it later though because I eventually will want to have the correct reload gesture on all my weapons, so doing animations will become necessary.

I will have to study this in detail. Blender's weight painting will probably allow for much easier weighting of meshes than e.g. O2 can do (and yeah, that was a pun :D). I usually work demand-driven, i.e. as soon as I need it I will implement it, and as I have been busy with the attachments I haven't had time to look at the Remingtons yet and hence had no need for anims.

I suppose I will need to import the BIS skeleton into Blender and make a rig out of it. Since I also considered looking at making custom uniform pieces, that part will become important for me in the future.

Problem is, between this, the modding itself, ArmaDev, and mission making, my time gets used up pretty quickly :)

[Macser_old 0]

I forgot to mention that, mass gets exported only if you have a selection ComponentXX, with XX being 01, 02, 03 etc, and only in the geometry LOD. I should mention that I suppose, or make the selection automatically when none exists.

Hmm.For me,it only seemed to work for Component01.The other components have no mass.

Perhaps I'm missing a step?

You just created the geometry object and broke that down into it's vertex groups?Naming them as Component01,etc?Correct?

I'm using this in A2 as it happens.

Problem is, between this, the modding itself, ArmaDev, and mission making, my time gets used up pretty quickly

I understand completely. :)

[Alwarren 2767]

Hmm.For me,it only seemed to work for Component01.The other components have no mass.

Perhaps I'm missing a step?

You just created the geometry object and broke that down into it's vertex groups?Naming them as Component01,etc?Correct?

I'm using this in A2 as it happens.

I'll take a look, might be a genuine bug in the code. I never used more than one component for the Geometry LOD, so it might be the issue.

~~ Alwarren

[JoeysLucky22 1]

While checking out my exported p3d in O2, I came.

You are a godsend Alwarren, a true hero to the ARMA community!

Just one note: I also had the initial problem mecharius mentioned with exported p3ds not generating and the path going to some weird "..\\..\\..\\" but was easily solved :)

Thanks again man you made my modeling process much less painful :)

one additional note: I think I'm having issues with the fire geometry. It's being recognized as a "custom" LOD, but no model shows up?

Edited May 21, 2013 by JoeysLucky22

[Alwarren 2767]

While checking out my exported p3d in O2, I came.

You are a godsend Alwarren, a true hero to the ARMA community!

Er.. Thanks! Glad you like it :)

Just one note: I also had the initial problem mecharius mentioned with exported p3ds not generating and the path going to some weird "..\\..\\..\\" but was easily solved :)

I think it has something to do with not having anything selected, I'll see what I can do about it. Which path do you mean was weird, the save path?

Thanks again man you made my modeling process much less painful :)

one additional note: I think I'm having issues with the fire geometry. It's being recognized as a "custom" LOD, but no model shows up?

Is it custom in O2, or in Blender?

[Macser_old 0]

I haven't had any problems with the fire geometry being exported.And with components.

JoeysLucky22,did you apply scaling and transforms before exporting?Using control+A?

[StankyKneePads 1]

Hello fellow Blender Users.

For a while now, I've been using my own custom export script for Blender for my M4's and Accessory pack. I've decided to release it to the public now in the hope that others may find it useful or might be inspired to try their luck with modelling/modding themselves.

Current Version: 0.0.1

Download:

Armaholic

FriedenHQ

Installation is simple - download the file to some place on your disk, open the User preferences in Blender, go to the addons page, and click "Install from File". A more thorough introduction and usage tutorial can be found here. More on Blender, including the download (Blender is completely free), can be found on their web site.

Current features include:

1. Sharp Edges. Sharp Edges are exported correctly by either flagging them as Sharp or using flat shaded. No need for edge splitting or for using another program to define smoothing groups.
   
2. All-in-one editing. A single .blend file can hold all your model’s LOD’s, including Memory and Geometry. For example, I use layers to organize my models, with the render LOD’s in layers 1 to 5, the Pilot View in layer 6, shadow volumes in layers 7 and 8, Geometry in layer 9 and Memory in layer 10, but you can have your LODS anywhere, even all in one layer.
   
3. Specific Arma Properties. The Arma Toolbox adds extra properties to your objects like Named Properties and Mass.
   
4. Support for Named Selections. Vertex Groups are exported as named Selections, along with vertex weigts.
   
5. Support for face textures and rvmats. Blender’s internal materials are extended to carry extra information on face textures and rvmats.
   

In the future, I plan to add more features like better proxy support, Bulldozer preview, model.cfg editing, and animation support including vertex weighting (via Blender's weight painter), and maybe P3D (and ODOL) import.

The focus of this was to make as much of the pipeline of getting models into Arma available from within Blender. At this time, I don't need to export my weapon models into O2 anymore, I can export them directly from Blender. I only use O2 for some very minor things (like sorting polygons for the Collimator sights).

While I have written this all by myself from scratch, Kudos must go to Leopotam for his initial Blender export script. It inspired me to try modding in the first place, and this one borrows from the panel layout of his script.

If you have any feedback on the Arma Toolbox, don't hesitate to contact me. Details are on the download page.

Enjoy! :)

So with does this export to .pbo to to make our models just ready to plop into Arma 3?

I don't think I understand exactly what it does.....

[Alwarren 2767]

So with does this export to .pbo to to make our models just ready to plop into Arma 3?

I don't think I understand exactly what it does.....

What this does is allow you to use the Blender 3D software instead of Oxygen 2 for most of your modelling work. It will export a .P3D model tat you can use e.g. for addons. This plugin will not create pbo's. It's an exporter and toolbox for Blender, nothing more, nothing less.

Hope that clears it up for you.

[StankyKneePads 1]

Obviously I've never imported any media into Arma 3 so, after exporting to .p3d what needs to be done in order to make a model ready to drop into Arma 3? (Static prop to make it simple)

[Alwarren 2767]

Obviously I've never imported any media into Arma 3 so, after exporting to .p3d what needs to be done in order to make a model ready to drop into Arma 3? (Static prop to make it simple)

Check this tutorial, it's very good and still valid.

[TeaDrinker 10]

Hello Alwarren, fantastic plugin dude! Are you going to add UV support? Thanks.

[Alwarren 2767]

Hello Alwarren, fantastic plugin dude! Are you going to add UV support? Thanks.

Not quite sure what UV support you mean, because UV's are already supported...?

[Heinrich Kramer 172]

Hello, Alwarren.

First of all, I am new to modelling and Blender in general, but i recoginzed that it is much easier to do than in O2, so I am glad that you created this tool :)

but as every newbie to some aspect of something, I am having a bit of trouble, especially with the LODs. So far, I have Selected the Edges and Sharpened the Edges like you said on your homepage, then I have selected the whole model and set the first Custom LOD to 100. Now I don't know how to save the LOD settings so I can open the second LOD to configure. Didn't think it was the Keyframe option but I am really unsure, all it does is colour the LOD menu in purple.

Do you have any Tutorial or a quick tip what I am missing here?

Thanks in Advance,

MfG SYSTEM | Winz

[Alwarren 2767]

Do you have any Tutorial or a quick tip what I am missing here?

The LOD setting in the toolbox is on a per-object basis. So, for example, to create two lLOD's, do the following:

1. Open up Blender with an empty scene. Delete the default cube and lamp
   
2. Press Shift-A and select mesh->cube to create a new cube object
   
3. On the Properties panel (press N if it isn't visible), find the "Arma Object Properties" and click "Make Arma object"
   
4. Select the LOD you want for this object. I'll assume for now that you want this to be 1.00, so leave it as it is.
   You now have the first LOD. you can edit this as you see fit by going into edit mode (Tab key).
   
5. Make sure you are in OBJECT mode for the next step though (the "Mode" combo box on the bottom should say "Object Mode"). You might want to switch to a different layer to make things easier (press '2' to switch to layer 2) but this is optional. Either way, in OBJECT mode, press SHIFT-A again to and select mesh->cube to add another cube object
   
6. Again, on the Properties panel, find the "Arma Object Properties" and click "Make Arma object".
   
7. Adjust the LOD settings. For example, enter "2.0" in the Custom Distance field
   

There, two LOD's :) You can no export this and see the effect in O2.

Hope this helps.

[Heinrich Kramer 172]

It Worked, Perfectly.

Thank you very, very much for your help and for the tool.

Greetings from Berlin

MfG SYSTEM

[Alwarren 2767]

You're welcome :)

[AmericanFAC 1]

Awesome, hope to see the ability to create and modify rtm's via blender in the future.

[PepinKr 3]

I tried your script but its not working, when i export into a p3d no file is created :'(

btw i'm using 1.67 (latest version) of blender.

[Alwarren 2767]

I tried your script but its not working, when i export into a p3d no file is created :'(

btw i'm using 1.67 (latest version) of blender.

Oh my, that's not saying much. What are you trying to export? Have you made it an Arma object? Have you set the path of the O2script.exe? Have you checked the debug log?

[PepinKr 3]

Well, i missed the link to your tutorial.

Everything is working now ! ^^ sorry for the dumb question and thanks for this very handy script !

[Alwarren 2767]

Glad to hear it works now :)

[shinkicker 5]

Does this work with 2.67b?

I tried playing with the following line:

bl_info = {

"name": "Arma: Toolbox",

"description": "Collection of tools for editing Arma 2/3 content",

"author": "Hans-Joerg \"Alwarren\" Frieden. Largely inspired by Leopotam's original, but doesn't share code",

"version": (0, 0, 1),

"blender": (2, 6, 7, b),

"location": "View3D > Panels",

"warning": '',

"wiki_url": "http://www.friedenhq.org",

"tracker_url": "http://www.friedenhq.org",

"category": "3D View"}

But no luck.

After trying to load under addons '__init__.py' I don't get the properties screen shown here:

http://friedenhq.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/user_prefs.png (133 kB)

I don't mind downgrading if need be as blender is my main modeling tool now and with your script meaning no more dammed O2, well sign me up please!

Edited July 18, 2013 by shinkicker

[Alwarren 2767]

Does this work with 2.67b?

Yes, it should, I am using 2.67b myself. Try to open the console window (Menu: Window->Toggle System Console) and see if you get any error message there.

[shinkicker 5]

I am an idiot and RTM this time. I was trying to load the script instead of the zip archive.

Edited July 18, 2013 by shinkicker