Arma Toolbox for Blender - Arma 2/3 exporter script

[Alwarren 2767]

Well this isn't really the right thread to discuss this, but let me reply anyway :)

The question whether to go for ObjectBuilder or Blender was easy for me - Blender is a much more powerful and easier to use program than O2/ObjectBuilder. I hear there are people actually using ObjectBuilder for modelling, but I have never understood who people can do that - for me, it's way too awkward to use.

That doesn't mean that you should stay away from it. In fact, I would say try it out and see if it works for you, but my guess is that you are way better off with Blender.

Getting started in any 3D program is going to be frustrating. I do not recommend to dive right into Arma modding. I would first watch tutorials on basic usage of the package you want to use. If you are interested in Blender, check out blendercookei.com's basic tutorials (like http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/blender-basics-introduction-for-beginners/), or check YouTube. You should first of all learn how to use your modelling package of choice before you try to do anything "sensible" with it.

[tansvanio 1]

This is really great work Alwarren, congratulations! I cant help but wonder ... have you ever considered making making an youtube video sort of documenting/tutorial of your export script, modelling a simple item from scratch and implementing in game??

I cant wait until you develop this further and us blender users can forget about O2/Object Builder, that software is just messy.

Cheers!

[Alwarren 2767]

This is really great work Alwarren, congratulations! I cant help but wonder ... have you ever considered making making an youtube video sort of documenting/tutorial of your export script, modelling a simple item from scratch and implementing in game??

Yeah I have, but for one thing, I don't have the "tutorial voice", and secondly, it takes so much time to create one, which I didn't really have so far.

[tansvanio 1]

Well, thats a shame :) Regardless, I look forward to any further documentation you might provide to help us navigate trough your addon.

[Alwarren 2767]

Well, thats a shame :) Regardless, I look forward to any further documentation you might provide to help us navigate trough your addon.

Anything in particular? I mean, the thing already comes with 20 pages worth of documentation, I actually think that is quite a lot. What part do you find lacking?

[tansvanio 1]

Nothing in particular. In my opinion to get a good grasp at your blender script one should already know how to use Object Builder/Oxygen 2, wich by itself itself is no easy task. For instance, new Arma modellers could benefit a lot from having a guide with only blender in mind, forgetting that O2 even exists. Like my previous suggestion with the video, something more pratical and showed for.

Of course things are easier said than done and you already have done an amazing job with this, I am just leaving my friendly input.

[Alwarren 2767]

I see what you mean, but that's more of an introduction to modding than to the toolbox. I suppose that it would be beneficial, but it's beyond what I wanted to do for now. Maybe some day, when I have more time.

[Macser 776]

I know people probably don't want to hear this.But it is a good idea to learn how O2Pe/Object

builder works,first.Even though Blender and the toolbox vastly increase speed and flexibility,I still

find it useful.Usually at the end of the process.

O2/OB is also a more controlled environment for a beginner.A better place to study the

organisation of a P3d.

Blender will need to be studied before using it too.Though there's much about it you can

disregard in the early stages.But you really need to understand the basics.Especially the

layout of the UI.This would apply to any 3d modelling software.Plugins and addons are

extensions of those programs,rather than being self contained. :)

[Flannel 10]

First of all, thank you very much for creating this toolbox! I have just learned the Blender basics, and it lets me avoid having to relearn everything for the Object Builder UI. I am unfortunately having a problem with LOD settings.

I have managed to get an object into Arma by selecting 'View Geometry' as its LOD setting in Blender. I set up the Material tab with a texture path, and exported a p3d. This worked very well, got a textured model in-game fairly easily. However, when try to add another mesh as 'Geometry' or 'Geometry PhysX' LOD, the addon builder gives off an error about named selections and bad file format when I try to pack the .pbo:

<model = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 3\@DEV\stretcher\stretcher.p3d">
Invalid named selection 
Invalid named selection 
Warnings in c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\arma 3\@dev\stretcher\stretcher.p3d:0
Bad file format (************).
Loading of model C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 3\@DEV\stretcher\stretcher.p3d failed
</model>

I have set up a vertex group in the Geometry PhysX LOD called 'Component01' with weight 1.0, which is what I thought should work.

When I open the p3d in Object Builder, the Geometry Phys LOD does exist, and has the named selection. When I copy the mesh and remake a new Geometry Phys in the Object Builder, the resulting p3d works without issues. (It even copies over the named selection without needing changes.) Any ideas where I could have gone wrong?

[Alwarren 2767]

To be honest, I haven't quite understood what you are attempting.

"View Geometry" is not a LOD that is usually textured, but rather a geometry LOD. You would need to set it to "Custom" with a specific distance setting in order to make it a rendered object.

When you say you have set up a vertex group in the PhysX LOD, have you actually assigned vertices to it? If you create a vertex group in Blender, it does not assign any vertices to it. You have to specifically click the "Assign" button to assign selected vertices with the selected weight to the group, unless you use weight painting.

[Flannel 10]

Oh yes, the "View Geometry" thing was my bad. I had a lot of LODs set up initially, but decided to remove all but one of them for a first in-game test. Somehow I thought that was the one to keep. Seemed to work perfectly fine, but yes, I put that back to Custom 1.0.

This didn't fix the issue I had though, and the vertex groups seem to be set up correctly. Double clicking the named selection in the Object Builder does select the vertices of the geometry box I put in.

Regardless, I seem to be able to get a working p3d by reapplying the LOD property for the geometries in the Object Builder and saving again. I'll find the mistake I inevitably made somewhere along the way, but for now, I can keep going. Thanks a lot for your help!

[Von Quest 1163]

Anyone else having problems?

Getting into modeling with this utility for Blender, and now my model is squished!

The tutorials I went through looked good, but now moving onto simple SCUBA Tanks,

the tanks are squished down and out-of-proportion when loaded into OB/O2.

Ideas? I have the ArmA utility clicked 'on' for the object; a simple cylinder.

I even started a new one that was an extra simple single tank, and same deal...

squished! Help??? The sign I made and put into ArmA3 worked great. What went

wrong with my SCUBA Model? Very NEW to this...

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

UPDATE:

Ok, went through the thread again... Used Ctrl+A for 'transform' and that seemed

to do the trick. I don't remember doing that for the tutorials though, but that was

a couple weeks ago.

And to respond from my earlier posts, YES indeed, this IS the place for those type

of questions! This is a great utility!! A big leap forward if getting into modeling for A3.

Thanks for this!!! :bounce3:

Consider some tutorials of your own by chance for this part of the hobby?

Edited September 2, 2014 by Goblin
fixed

[Alwarren 2767]

UPDATE:

Ok, went through the thread again... Used Ctrl+A for 'transform' and that seemed

to do the trick. I don't remember doing that for the tutorials though, but that was

a couple weeks ago.

This is a peculiarity of the exporter, it ignores global transforms - I should probably fix that. But right now you need to apply transforms before exporting.

And to respond from my earlier posts, YES indeed, this IS the place for those type

of questions! This is a great utility!! A big leap forward if getting into modeling for A3.

Thank you :-)

Consider some tutorials of your own by chance for this part of the hobby?

I probably should, I just don't like to hear my voice recorded :-)

[SeijukuZey64 10]

i have a qeustion by this help ?

i have the version 1.5 from this Plugin and my Blender version is 2.66, and import a Arma 2 OA Model and become this error name

how fix this Problem ?

Edited September 26, 2014 by SeijukuZey64

[warlord554 2065]

Couldn't live without this tool. Many thx. Only real problems I have are random reversed faces.

Is this normal?

[Alwarren 2767]

i have a qeustion by this help ?

i have the version 1.5 from this Plugin and my Blender version is 2.66, and import a Arma 2 OA Model and become this error name

http://imgh.us/errorMDL.png

how fix this Problem ?

Is the model you are importing binarized? Because that is how it looks like. The toolbox cannot inmport those, you need to ask the original author for an unbinarized version.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Alwarren

[Alwarren 2767]

Couldn't live without this tool. Many thx. Only real problems I have are random reversed faces.

Is this normal?

No, but normal may be the keyword. Is this your own model? Sometimes when you e.g. extrude faces from à single edge in Blender, the normals might be wrong. Enable backface culling in the Display tab to see those cases, and if you have them select all faces and press CTRL-N to correct normals. This is not an issue with the toolbox though.

Is that what you mean?

[warlord554 2065]

Great call brother, I had only vertex normals showing while viewing finished projects before export, should have been using the Faces. Excellent advice, and sorry I tried to blame your awesome tool :p haha

Thanks again

Edited September 26, 2014 by WarLord554

[Alwarren 2767]

Great call brother, I had only vertex normals showing while viewing finished projects before export, should have been using the Faces. Excellent advice, and sorry I tried to blame your awesome tool :p haha

Thanks again

LOL No worries... Blender can be a bit bitchy about the normals sometimes, I had that problem in the past so I guessed it would be that :)

[SeijukuZey64 10]

Is the model you are importing binarized? Because that is how it looks like. The toolbox cannot inmport those, you need to ask the original author for an unbinarized version.

from the Oxygen 2 version ?

[Alwarren 2767]

from the Oxygen 2 version ?

If you can, send me your model via EMail and I can have a look. It might be a very old version that is no longer supported, but if it comes out of ObjectBuilder/Oxygen, the importer should work, unless it is binarized.

[Macser 776]

Al.A while ago I mentioned some animation issues.Where the animation plays then

jumps back to it's start position,instead of continuing on.This is for dynamic animations,like walk/run cycles.

If I export directly to game this is the usual behaviour.Regardless of the settings in the toolbox's rtm menu.

I tried running the generated rtm through O2Pe,and exported it again.With some auto timing applied,it

worked perfectly.

The rig I'm using is the same one I use for BVH export.Which is probably a bit more complex than it needs to be.Anyway.I was wondering if the exporter would be basing the anim center on the root bone of the armature?Even if you specify a bone for the motion vector.Because my root bone doesn't usually move during a sequence.At the most it might rotate on it's axis.It's set up that way to combat foot skate.

[Alwarren 2767]

If I export directly to game this is the usual behaviour.Regardless of the settings in the toolbox's rtm menu.

I tried running the generated rtm through O2Pe,and exported it again.With some auto timing applied,it

worked perfectly.

I suppose the issue lies with the way that I get the bone's motion vector, it's probably in the armature space instead of global, which would mean it doesn't move at all. I need to check that, I hardly get to anything other than CUP these days. I have made a couple of fixes anyway to the toolbox in order to make my CUP work easier, and I changed the proxy handling so that the longer proxy names no longer run out of characters.

[blackpixxel 53]

Not sure if it was already mentioned, but the Toolbox does not export multiple UV layers, which would be needed for multimat's. Would be nice to have this added if it is possible, because now I have to use Oxygen to make the second UV layer.

But otherwise the Toolbox is awesome, it makes everything much less complicated and safes a lot of time, since much Blender functions are better than oxygen's counterparts!

[Alwarren 2767]

Not sure if it was already mentioned, but the Toolbox does not export multiple UV layers, which would be needed for multimat's. Would be nice to have this added if it is possible, because now I have to use Oxygen to make the second UV layer.

But otherwise the Toolbox is awesome, it makes everything much less complicated and safes a lot of time, since much Blender functions are better than oxygen's counterparts!

Argh, is the released version really that far behind? I've added multiple UV support a long while ago, please don't tell me I haven't released that yet...

Okay, new release incoming....

EDIT: I just checked, current on our home page is version 1.5, which should have support for multiple UV sets already. Make sure you are running this version. I just checked and the version on Armaholic is old, I'll notify Foxhound.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Alwarren