Uniform Weights

[evrik 844]

Hello all, I am hoping someone out there has the skills we at 3CB (www.3CommandoBrigade.com) are looking for. We have a uniform mesh for a new custom British Uniform (courtesy of Cunico) and we would like some assistance with weighting it to the arma 3 skeleton and getting it into game. If anyone out there in the community has experience of weighting a uniform, and / or would like to see a new uniform for British-based clans, we would really like to talk to you.

 

Thanks,

 

Evrik.

[=kct=blackmamba 44]

Hi Evrik,

 

As far as i know the weight of a uniform is determined in your config.cpp and not in your model.

Look for the following line in your uniform class.

         class ItemInfo: UniformItem
         {
                 uniformModel = "-";
                 uniformClass = "A Unit's Uniform";
                 containerClass = "Supply40";
                 hiddenSelections[] = {"camo"};
                 mass = 40;
         };​

The bold underlined part is uniforms weight.

[road runner 4344]

He means the weighting of the vertices, and not the mass weight for the gear.

[PuFu 4600]

you made my day 

 

Hi Evrik,

 

As far as i know the weight of a uniform is determined in your config.cpp and not in your model.

made my day,

weighting is the process of assigning certain influence (from 0 to 100%) for each vertices in relation to each individual bone

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Vertex_skinning

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Rigging

[Jackal326 1182]

[evrik 844]

Thanks for the replies. It was indeed some information / expertise / help on assigning weights for each vertices to each bone in the skeleton that we are looking for. I should have made that more clear. Our 3CB units are currently limited as we can only reskin the vanilla AAF uniform. We really want to get a model of a uniform in game so that we have complete control over the positions of things like pockets, kneepads, leg holsters etc....and fit our vests and backpacks correctly to the uniform. We have the mesh, but our group currently lacks anyone with the knowledge and experience to take that mesh and apply it to the arma 3 skeleton, with correct weights for all of the vertices. It is something we could spend hours on, and with trial and error, we could probably get it right, but we have so many BAF projects already on the go - Apache, Wildcats, Chinooks, Merlins, Opfor Pack, Ridgebacks, Artillery, 60mm Mortar, Land Rovers... - that we are looking for some outside assistance from a member of the wider Arma community. 

 

PuFu, I'll check out those links, thanks.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Alwarren made an example of his work to adjust CUP's modified Arma 2 models to fit the unit Arma 3 template in Blender (using his own plugin to export the model). Involves him transferring weights from the official .fbx sample model then adjusting them with the weight painting tools to improve the mesh deformation and fit inside the example tactical vest without so much clipping.

 

 

Might be worth looking at for pointers.

[evrik 844]

Great. Thanks for the video. I'll give it a watch.

[shinkicker 5]

I just take the arma example model in Samples, line it up with my new uniform and then use 'Skin Wrap' in 3DS max to transfer over. From there I add in some static animations (prone, arms in air etc) and then clean up the vertices when things contort to much. 

 

An example done using skin wrap:

 

[evrik 844]

That certainly sounds possible. I haven't read anything on doing it that way. I will pass that on. Thanks.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I haven't read anything on doing it that way. I will pass that on. Thanks.

 

It's actually what Vespa from BIS wrote about in the suggested guidelines for character modding since the game came out:

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Modding_Characters

and you can see Alwarren doing it to the model in the video I posted with the equivalent skin wrap function in Blender.

 

But you will still likely have to adjust the weights in certain areas to improve the way it deforms in certain poses (again, shown in the video) and that requires some basic knowlege of how to paint the weights.

[evrik 844]

Yes, that prior knowledge is where we fall down as a group. The amount of available spare time to learn it all as well. ;)