The Millionth request about character importing into Arma2 !!

[road runner 4344]

First of all I'd like to apologize to the mods, and to the guys who are constantly bombarded with the same repetitive questions, I'm an old man, forgive me, my brain retention isn't what it used to be these days :p I've downloaded and created so many tutorial PDF's it's like an almanac, and video's too, but I'm still not quite figuring this one out..

Anyway, so I have way too much spare time on my hands at work these days, here in redders Basrah, and I need something to pass the time of day, so I thought "oh I used to make mods for Ghost Recon back in the day, I'm not bad at re texturing , and 3ds Max "(or so I thought!! ) and have decided that I'd actually like to see my incarnations and creations actually work in the game!.. so I have a few questions that the modding guru's may be able to help me with..

First up, I normally use Johnny's excellent SF as model bases, although I do know these were already ported over from Arma1, and ADDuke was kind enough to send me one of his head creations, with the ops core FAST, what can I say?? I'm a a lover of this helmet, seen so many in my times out here and they're super Shmexxxy!! Anyway enough babble... I'd like to see this on say..oh ALL of Jonny's models, am I right in believing that I'd need to DELETE the current heads in the un binarized.p3d files, due to Arma2 using Bysta Proxy?

I also believe that the bysta model released was only for scale and creation and that it's used in the game via proxies, it's release was more of a guide for as it's already a proxy within the config.cpp etc files?? For example when I open Jonnys TL, and check the LOD's section, there's no mention of bysta there?

What I was doing was taking the helmet itself and merging it with Jonny's guys, after deleting the character headgear, thinking it was that simple, so I check the animations, and Jonny's lad moves, the helmet stays exactly where it is!! ...HELP!!!! :o:o So then I'm thinking ah, I'll use the bysta head, and sometimes I can get the headgear to move with the character, but the face looks like it's from Resident evil, and eyeballs, mouth, teeth etc all stretch that even Jim Carey from the mask couldn't mimic it!

So after I created like a dozen head swaps thinking I was the mutts nuts, and days of tinkering, the bollocks don't work, and it's winding me up a tad :D so some more research and googling and all sorts, I thought okay aardvbark said in several threads, use the AT glasses addon as a guide and use the headgear as proxies instead.. smashing, some progress perhaps? so I unpack it, open it up, and first thing I notice is that they're facing the opposite direction from any of the other character p3d files I open, and are sitting approximately in the middle of the torso..which some other guys doing the same thing I'm trying to do had issues with, if I then use the sample head, and also the "safety catch" p3d, as a guide for the headgear, would I be right in assuming that the "floating head/gear"issue will not happen?

I'm sorry for the long winded post, I'm old and cranky and getting frustrated, I've watched icewindo's character weighting video over and over, and the brain dead part of me is still not getting the part of www.makingallyoureffortworthwhile.com

I think I need to be beaten with a common sense stick, but I think I'm missing a vital part of character modelling!

Cheers fellas, and again, apologies for the same repetitive questions, one thing I have noticed, not many people after they sort this out, actually post their soloutions..

[aduke823 63]

Hey Buddy,

Sorry I just threw that head at you and left you hangin'.

Sounds like what you want to do is just add the helmet onto one of Johnny's models.

It's a lot easier than making new head proxies.

Hit me up on Skype if you can.................... "ad_mh60k".

[road runner 4344]

I'm slowly beginning to understand more about proxies etc, thanks AD what you sent me has helped me understand a lot better, I can see now why new heads appeared in between the legs, as that's where the proxy markers are located (strange place) but yeah, I'm now re hashing a lot of the edited jonny's models, I chucked over 20 max files into the bin, and have started again, a whole lot quicker than editing mesh all the time!! :D

I'll crack on with this, and thanks for your help

[road runner 4344]

Arrrrrghh Meltdown!! I chucked my handwritten step by step of how to get edited models to animate/show in O2,by mistake into the bin this morning, so I have a dozen models, with no LODS, and cannot for the life of me remember how I was doing this before :'( as in getting them to animate using animations, I think I'm just going to resign myself to the fact I'm getting senile... what was I saying there again??

All I've done basically is move pouches about, added a few more etc in 3ds max, exported then as 3ds files, imported them, and then converted them into P3D's..useless ones at that, I have copied EVERYTHING from the sample soldier into the LODS window, deleted the original sample soldier mesh and..................................nowt, zero, zen, zilch, nada, the triangles move when I apply and animation, but the main model stands there.. like a pointless signpost!!

Any of the character making Gods about that can point me in the right direction?? apart from the road away from modding LOL :D