Prxy handling and alternate loadouts on air vehicles

[Varanon 892]

I've been converting the Arma 2 AV-8B for CUP to Arma 3, and since I want to spare myself from doing two models, and beef up the old thing a bit, I was thinking about alternative loadouts. So, I have set up my model as follows:

There are six GBU proxies, 1 to 6, starting from inside to outside. Proxies 7 and 8 are sidewinder missiles on the outside pylons. All proxies are wrapped in selections and animations are defined to show and hide them.

It seems, though, that all magazines are loaded in order of appearance in the config, starting at proxy 1 ALWAYS. So, if I want to make a AA config with just two sidewinders, they are always loaded into proxies 1 and 2 (the inner pylons), which of course means the sidewinderis mounted on a GBU proxy which means it doesn't fit (not to mention that it's not supposed to be on the inner pylon.

Even when filling up the other pylons with, say, GBU's, only leaving the outer pylons for the sidewinders (i.e. magazines are a 4 round GBU magazine and a 2 round sidewinder magazine), the sidewinders end up on the proxies meant for the GBU and thus not fit.

So, how can I make them appear on the correct proxies ? I have a hunch that it doesn't work. I was assuming that loaded magazines would always use the proxies corresponding to their CfgAmmo proxyShape entry, but that does not seem to be the case.

The only other possibility I see is to load the sidewinders onto the wrong proxies, but hide them, and show "dummy" proxies that have the sidewinder proxy fixed (and hide those depending on ammo count), i.e. the way it's done with the 70 mm rockets, but that's a pretty shitty solution IMHO (but it seems the only working one). Plus it requires a weapon proxy model that does not correspond to the proxyShape entry, because thos would not work with an appropriate magazine loaded.

Any ideas ?

[firewill 3873]

maybe you can using [FRL]Myke's AirWeapon Proxy tutorial for ArmA2.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?113118-Tutorial-Weapon-proxy-handling-on-Planes-amp-Choppers&highlight=proxy

i'm currently using this for ArmA 3 and works fine.

[Varanon 892]

maybe you can using [FRL]Myke's AirWeapon Proxy tutorial for ArmA2.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?113118-Tutorial-Weapon-proxy-handling-on-Planes-amp-Choppers&highlight=proxy

i'm currently using this for ArmA 3 and works fine.

Thanks, but it is hard to apply to standard Arma assets since they don't fit the rails (see the explanation at the start of the document about centering).

[firewill 3873]

Thanks, but it is hard to apply to standard Arma assets since they don't fit the rails (see the explanation at the start of the document about centering).

yes, thats why i'm made new missile model and config for centering issues. BIS Assets is not align for pylon..

[Varanon 892]

yes, thats why i'm made new missile model and config for centering issues. BIS Assets is not align for pylon..

Yeah, since it's all for CUP and we have some control over it, I think we'll recenter the models to the mountings instead of the center axis.. meh, just a lot of work, fixing all proxy models and then also all proxies in the models using it

[eggbeast 3673]

well it takes about an hour max.

open the bombs or missiles, select geometry LOD right click in the properties box, add new and type autocenter and then value is 0

you might also want to centre them from the top view so the middle of the bomb from front to back is in the middle of the origin

then move the bomb to sit just below the origin in front view, doing a move in Y axis of say 0.2m on ALL LODS

then in the aircraft, rename all your proxies to be the SAME MUNITION, be it sidewinder or gbu, you can then rearm every pylon without a problem.

centre them on the pylon front to back, and set them right at the bottom edge of the pylon rail.

if you want to use racks it's a little more complicated, as you need to make the rack into a proxy model magazine and add it to the plane like a bomb.

same for rocketpods

we've kitted out the harrier to accept 8 different loadouts in arma 2. and they can be dynamically changed, because of this proxy work. we can change rocketpods, racks and weapons at will. To my mind Rock first achieved this properly with the Typhoon, based on Mykes developments.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?181411-FRL_Air-mod-WIP

good luck - message me if you need any help. We've already done every plane in arma like this.

[x3kj 1247]

Thanks, but it is hard to apply to standard Arma assets since they don't fit the rails (see the explanation at the start of the document about centering).

Have you tried the empty magazine proxy trick? It's also mentioned in the tutorial. The proxies display magazines. But you can only fire from a magazine if you have a weapon for it. Therefore, create a magazine with a proxy model that is empty (or contains something else - e.g. "caps" to close off pylon stuff or whatever). Add it to the magazine array in stead of the sidewinder or GBU. Done. As long as you make a magazine that is not compatible to any weapon you have no chance to be able to fire it.

[eggbeast 3673]

example of different harrier loadouts using this technique

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t247/eggbeast/harrier_fleet-1_zps05e02ce8.jpg (104 kB)

all on the same model, using blanks like fennek says

and here's the proxy numbering plan we used

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t247/eggbeast/av8proxy_zps7986616b.jpg (126 kB)

Edited October 14, 2014 by eggbeast

[Varanon 892]

Thanks for the hints guys. The problem is really that the waepons are not centered correctly, but I'll change that. It's the cleanest solution and the most future proof

[eggbeast 3673]

yeah mykes method is the ONLY way to make planes and weapons for arma. a mark of true quality!

[Zarickan 10]

Currently making a mod for Arma 3, that aims to allow players to make custom loadouts for the three jets already in the game, using vanilla weapons.

I have currently made magazines with 1x of each weapons, and a dummy empty one along with guns that fire them.

I have however had some problems when adding the weapons, with weapons not appearing, or on the wrong pylons.

Here are the hardpoints on the buzzard numbered (Red ones for CAS, blue ones for AA):

http://i.imgur.com/iphhFTR.png (132 kB)

Here is what happens when I add (To buzzard CAS) asraams's to 1&2 macer's to 3&4 and sharurs to 5&6.

http://i.imgur.com/CRP38an.jpg (144 kB)

And here is what happens when i add (To buzzard CAS) asraam's to 3&4&5&6 and Sharur's to 1&2

http://i.imgur.com/8TOz6dh.jpg (155 kB)

Anyone got an idea as to how I can fix this?

This occurs on all the vanilla jets, not just the buzzard.