Arma Toolbox for Blender - Arma 2/3 exporter script

[subminuentisch 10]

Ok guys i got it. now i am having another problem. when i export the texture related to each part is not staying like i had it on blender. some how it changes. what could it be?

Could be the settings in the rvmat file try that should pretty much just put the texture on there,also make sure you have set the rvmat and paa in the material settings for every blendermaterial that is used in each object(lods,pilotview etc) that you export.

ambient[]={0.2,0.2,0.2,1};

diffuse[]={0.2,0.2,0.2,1};

forcedDiffuse[]={0,0,0,0};

emmisive[]={0,0,0,1};

specular[]={0,0,0,1};

specularPower=100;

PixelShaderID="Normal";

VertexShaderID="Basic";

class Stage0

{

texture="Mod\texture\path.paa";//change accordingly

uvSource="tex";

};

Edited June 25, 2014 by subminuentisch

[branzik 109]

Hello, great toolbox:-) Is it possible to import to blender from object builder with selection which are allready prepared?

[Alwarren 2767]

Hello, great toolbox:-) Is it possible to import to blender from object builder with selection which are allready prepared?

Do you mean named selections, or selected polygons? The named selections are imported as vertex groups, but selected polygons from Object Builder are not. In theory, it is possible, but so far, I haven't considered it.

[branzik 109]

Sorry for bad explanation:) Yes I mean selected polygons. And from Blender to OB?

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[Alwarren 2767]

Sorry for bad explanation:) Yes I mean selected polygons. And from Blender to OB?

Odesláno z mého GT-N7100 pomocí Tapatalk

Ah, well, no, that is currently not possible. I will think about it, but it is a rarely asked feature.

[branzik 109]

When you need make selection for character model it is much easier to do this in blender then in OB :-)

[RacerX 55]

Is there a tutorial on how to use this toolbox? I have a model with textures on it and it works in arma 3 with a borrowed config file. But I cant find any info on how to get animations to work and how to set up config file for the animations

[blackpixxel 53]

Is it possible to do UV texturing with the toolbox?

The rest is working great! Thank you for this addon that improves the model editing alot!

[Alwarren 2767]

Is it possible to do UV texturing with the toolbox?

Yes. You can assign a face texture for editing. However, you need to assign a material to assign an in-game texture and material. You can find details in the manual that comes with the exporter.

[blackpixxel 53]

Thank you for your fast response. I still dont fully understand how it will work. So I can add a Blender Material. There I define the .PAA and the RVMAT and then I can Unwrap the Model on the Material?

[Alwarren 2767]

Thank you for your fast response. I still dont fully understand how it will work. So I can add a Blender Material. There I define the .PAA and the RVMAT and then I can Unwrap the Model on the Material?

Texture and UV coordinate are two different things. You don't need a texture to have UV coordinates. Assigning one is just easier to work with.

The face texture you assign is not exported. To define the texture and RVMat, you assign a material to all faces that should use the combination, and enter the texture name and RVMat in the extra Panel.

Do you know how it works in O2?

[blackpixxel 53]

Well, in O2 it is pretty easy, except the fact that the unwrap-function did not work for my model.

So, is it possible to use a .jpg copy of the via Toolbox defined texture for the Blender Material and do the UV mapping then (because I have to see where I place the faces)? And the P3D will then use the same UV coordinates just for the defined Arma-texture?

It is just a bit confusing for me, the manual that comes with the toolbox did not really help me at that point.

[Alwarren 2767]

Well, in O2 it is pretty easy, except the fact that the unwrap-function did not work for my model.

So, is it possible to use a .jpg copy of the via Toolbox defined texture for the Blender Material and do the UV mapping then (because I have to see where I place the faces)? And the P3D will then use the same UV coordinates just for the defined Arma-texture?

It is just a bit confusing for me, the manual that comes with the toolbox did not really help me at that point.

The manual assumes that you know your way around in Blender, and maybe that is the problem.

Let me try to explain.

You can use a jpg or tga or png copy of the texture to do the unwrapping. You can simply split the main window, and open the UV Image editor in one of the splits. Select the obect, TAB into edito mode, and press 'A' until all faces are selected. In the image window, click on the "open" button (or Image->Open for the UV window's menu) and select the texture. Provided your viewport is set to "Textured" (in the "Shading" rollout) you should then see the texture in solid mode.

I am not quite sure what you want to achieve there, though. Usually, you need to unwrap first before you make a texture, unless you want to use a different texture from another object on your own object.

[blackpixxel 53]

I think I understood it now. It was less about Blender but more about the link between the texturing in Blender and how to get it then to Arma.

Thank you for your help!

[copusirum 10]

Nice TUT

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

[Macser 776]

Hey Al.

I haven't really had any problems since I first started using the toolbox.

In fact it works very well.So I don't have any complaints,or even questions

about it's general operation.

But I'm still curious about the way it handles animations where the entire skeleton

is transformed in a given direction.Walk/run cycles still loop back on themselves even

though the character is moved by the vector value.

Do you intend to sort that out at any point?

Thanks for a very useful addon in any case. :)

[Alwarren 2767]

I plan to sort this out, but my knowledge of animations in Arma is limited to hand and reload anime/gestures so I will need examples to work with in order to understand what the actual problem is. Right now, the movement is supposed to be derived from a specific bone, I'll have to check if that actually does anything.

[Macser 776]

If someone other than myself could try it out that would probably be of more help.

If another user can get it working properly then the error is mine.It's quite possible

I'm missing something very obvious.

If you try the animation without using a bone as motion vector,the animation will play

from the first frame to the last.Then it will loop.As you'd expect.But the character

will go back to it's start position at frame one.

The distance travelled is +4.8 meters from frame 1 to frame 25,for example.On the next

loop the character should advance +9.6 meters.But instead it "resets".So the character

is back at the start position.-4.8 meters.So although the animation plays from start to

finish the character doesn't go anywhere.

When a bone is used as motion vector,the animation plays in the same way.You

can see the animation looping back on itself.The only difference is,this time the

character is being moved.

In O2PE,and presumably Object builder,the animation looks fine.

[Alwarren 2767]

Weird, the exporter should use the vector that the bone travelled as the motion vector. I'll check if this is exported correctly.

[Macser 776]

Admittedly I'm not doing a good job explaining it. :)

The motion vector does seem to work.In that the whole skeleton will move.

But the looping is still visible.You can actually see the animation jumping back

to the first frame.Playing.Then jumping back to the first frame again.

All the while the entire skeleton is moving along.

[Heinrich Kramer 172]

Hiho, this time i don't want to report a bug, but a nice find.

we had the problem, that units with copied weights didn't get exportet.

after messing a bit around with it, i figured that the method seemed to be wrong, creating values blender wasn't able to handle.

when you set the method to "nearest vertex in face", blender copies the weight correctly and exports the model without major hiccups, although you should open them in Object builder and recalculate the normals (F5)

hope this works for all of you

[Alwarren 2767]

Hiho, this time i don't want to report a bug, but a nice find.

we had the problem, that units with copied weights didn't get exportet.

after messing a bit around with it, i figured that the method seemed to be wrong, creating values blender wasn't able to handle.

when you set the method to "nearest vertex in face", blender copies the weight correctly and exports the model without major hiccups, although you should open them in Object builder and recalculate the normals (F5)

hope this works for all of you

Thanks for sharing your experience, since I haven't done any units/uniforms myself so far, I haven't run across any of these issues and I'm grateful for any feedback.

Recalculating the normals should normally (no pun intended) work automatically. The exporter usually runs O2Script.exe with the new model, and that (at least in my experience) normalizes the normals automatically. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a script command to do this explicitly. I guess I have to make a bug report on the tracker :)

EDIT: Added a ticket to the tracker for the normalization. Please vote up!

Edited August 2, 2014 by Alwarren

[Macser 776]

I don't have A3.But out of curiosity I used the A3 example models.I transferred the weights

from the example character,to the example vest(with selections removed).Using nearest vertex.

After which I recalculated the normals(in Blender).After which I exported to P3d.

In O2Pe the normals seem fine,as long as I don't try to recalculate from there.

If I do.I get artifacts.Needing another press of F5 to correct them.

Looking at the wiki,most of the algorithms seem to be undocumented."Nearest face",

"Nearest vertex",etc.So it seems they haven't had much in the way of testing.

[Heinrich Kramer 172]

@Macser: Using the new Object Builder, all the faces faced downwards, so recalculating them once did it for me. Part of these Processes are still Black Magic to me, though.

@Alwarren: Upvoted your ticket.

[Von Quest 1163]

Forgive me if this is premature, or in the wrong thread...

I just started to get into modeling yesterday, and was wondering if Blender is the better way to go? Is Blender a better, more powerful and user friendly software compared to O2/Object Builder in ArmA3?

I had a hell of a time just getting started, and ended up going to bed super frustrated with an old ArmA2/O2 tutorial and getting-started process of this part of the hobby. I love ArmA3 and have a great time with this creative outlet; BUT am very disappointed with the lack of documentation and official tutorials from BIS.

I'm guessing since I'm finding threads like this; that I should be using mostly Blender? What are the Pros & Cons if I can ask verses O2/Object Builder?