How to "zero" your gat and your scopes

[EricJ 759]

Zeroing our new shiny rifle or pistol is really simple and easy to do:

1. Open your gun, Choose the Left view and make sure you select the "View - Pilot" LOD in Object Builder.

2. Look at your iron sights and ask yourself if I were to shoot my gat how would it look?

Answer is like this:

http://562.50megs.com/Arma3/Zero.jpg

As you can see the red "dot" is the "eye" memory point that comes from your Memory LOD, so in order to properly zero your weapon simply change the geometry if needed so that the front sight post is halfway inside the hole (as in the picture above) and centered in the rear sight as so. Simply paste the "eye" memory point and place it on your weapon as so, remember to use the View - Pilot LOD because naturally that's your view when you look down the sights. Once you have it like the above image Cut and Paste the "Eye" memory point into the Memory LOD and save, PBO it and take it to the range. Remember that real people who have shot a weapon in various capacities (combat, sport shooting) learn the fundamentals of shooting so naturally when they see the front sight post they assume that it's lined up with the tip along with the rear sight aperture (whatever design it may be, I'm using my M27 sights for this tutorial) so naturally the sights should be lined up realistically on the model. Scopes should always (Hey BIS.... the ARCO... hint hint) should always be lined up in the center of the scope as well, common sense as ALL optics are centered inside the circle or whatever geometry that it has. As far as looks its a crapshoot in-game but at least you know how to align your weapon properly and that means spending some time in Object Builder, and in-game to verify zero as with this setting prone and zero set for 300m I can reasonably hit a target with the setup in the image.

Also another good technique is to center your "konec hlavne" and "usti hlavne" memory points as much as possible in the center of the barrel, and you can just hopefully have your Background LOD showing once you place them in the Memory LOD.

And I KNOW somebody's going to bring up ballistics and all that shit. This isn't the topic for A3 ballistics, it's for modders who can't zero their weapons right.

Edited August 18, 2014 by EricJ

[enex 11]

Thanks Eric, helps me qite a bit!

[EricJ 759]

No problem!

[EricJ 759]

Another tip if your scopes aren't lining up with your iron sights (such as with M4s and the like):

http://562.50megs.com/Arma3/zero2.jpg

This is the current build of my AK Tactical Rifle. As you can see through the geometry again I'm still looking "down" the sights. The red line is the Top Proxy, which is used for positioning your scopes on your weapon. Remember that the proxy is the "center" of your scope or default BIS scopes (as when you build a scope, you center things as much as possible in the wireframe, this reacts with the proxy above. So anyway with the top proxy highlighted and locking X I slid the left edge (remember you're looking from behind in the Left view in Object Builder) to the approximate center, so when I look in game the scope is well centered on the Picatinny rail mesh of the model.