Creating New Animations

[Fortran 1]

Can anybody run through the principals for creating new animation RTM's for new objects for A2. I understand and can create vehicle animations as they are just rotations/translations etc and require no real "bones" as such, only points for the axis but creating "skinned" animations is a different story.

I am currently working on a parachute model which I need 2 animations for, one for it to unfold and one to re-fold. After reading through pretty much everything I can find I get the concept, although creating them is tougher. From what I understand, if I wanted to get it working I would need to do the following:

1: Create bones for my model inside Max, skin them to the mesh with Skin or Physique then create the animation.

2: Export out the RTM using the Maxscript RTM tool (can't remember the name)

3: Export my 3ds model (as normal) without the animation data/bones/modifier

4: Set up the named selections in O2 and re-weight everything (3ds format doesnt export weights)

5: Use the animation RTM to animate

However, aside from the fact im sure im missing something, how to create the named selections in Max to be the same as the ones you can setup in O2, for example in O2 you make a selection of verts/faces and create a named selection, how to do this in Max and assign a bone to only effect that named selection ? Also how to see the RTM working inside O2 ? I have the animation tab open but I cannot import RTM's and even if the RTM is inside the same folder and the model.cfg is setup with the skeleton/model name selections and the config is pointing to the RTM animations I still cant see them.

As you can see I am pretty confused about the whole process. I have animated for games before with no problems, setting up skeleton/bone systems and skinning the mesh to the bones and exporting the anims but the process in ARMA/I/II has really lost me.

If anybody could give a step by step of the process clearly to me for getting a new animation working, out of Max and into O2 I would really appreciate it.

[teacup 2]

First i would set up the parachute model in Max, create bones, skin the mesh and weight the skin. Importing the skinned mesh into O2 might be a bit tricky but maybe not impossible: not sure about 3DS, but you could write a MaxScript to export that "Universal Bistudio TXT" format, which supports weights as well. If not the weights, at the very least you should be able to export your selection sets. Haven't tested, but OBJ file format is also supported, and OBJ groups might translate into O2 as Named Selections. Worse case scenario: you have to create the selections manually in O2, and also weight all vertices by hand (using the Max scene as reference). Not great, but then again, how complicated can a parachute be?

Then animate in Max, and export. Write the config and preview in the game.

One more thing about RTMs: the file format in ArmA2 changed (and we don't have any new exporters yet), but as far as i can tell legacy RTMs are still (partially?) supported. Worth a try. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[Fortran 1]

Hi teaCup, many thanks for replying mate, will give your suggestion a run through and see how I get on. Which file is the skeleton/bones exported in for the ARMA engine ? Or is the animation RTM format literally just a set of vert positions over each frame, thus no need for an actual skeleton in the p3d ? If so how to keep the vertex weights without the skin modifier ? If i collapse it then weighting will be gone and if I export with the modifier in the stack O2 won't recognize it ? Would I have to bake the vertex weighting ?

Edited August 14, 2009 by Fortran

[teacup 2]

You don't need any bones in the P3D. The vertices contained by those "Named Selections" are xformed directly in the game. The old RTMs contained frames, made up of transformation matrices, one matrix per "bone". But the bones are virtual, they're not explicit objects in the model file (or in the animation file for that matter). So in a sense, the skeleton one uses in Max, Maya or MotionBuilder to animate, that hierarchy of bones, is never exported as data into the game engine.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/RTM

[Fortran 1]

Magic thanks again teaCup, just needed to get it straight as to how the engine handles anims, my experience with other engines always usually includes a skeleton plus the weighting in the actual gamefile. Thanks again for clearing this up for me, much appreciated.

[soul_assassin 1750]

http://sandro-de-parma.narod.ru/OFP/

heres the old rtm exporter for max. Anims that I made with this (static) still work in ArmA2. There is also a rigged biped which is very nice to work with.

[Fortran 1]

Thanks SA :) already grabbed a copy of it earlier but appreciate your help mate.

[icecoolwrx 0]

Is it just me or does the rtm exporter for max make the animations move in opposite directions then you have set?

[t_d 47]

The new A2 RTM format is just a binarized version of the already known RTM files. So using "old" RTM files is like using cpp instead of bin configs. I would define a skeleton for the model btw. The new binarize needs a skeleton to create binarized RTMs so probably a skeleton is needed for RTMs in general.