Tools Released

[STALKERGB 6]

Do the new tools have the ability to set up hand positions on the weapons as they are in ArmA2? Such as holding a vertical grip etc.

Haven't checked properly yet but i can't see anything that would suggest you can, its already possible to get infantry to use specific animations for holding grip pods etc. the front grips just have to be placed in exactly the same place as the Mk48 one atm when the animation is used.

[MehMan 0]

I was told it's a simple static rtm and the engine somehow blends the animations. What I've been told is that custom reload animations as you see in other games is still not possible, but I think they might be considering that the squad leader does the hand commands irrelevant of his animation stance.

[rstratton 0]

some weapons have their own rtm now

class m8_carbineGL : m8_base {

scope = 2;

value = 8;

muzzles[] = {"this","XM320Muzzle" };

model = "\ca\weapons2\m8_carbineGL\m8_carbineGL";

picture = "\CA\weapons2\data\W_m8_carbineGL_CA.paa";

UiPicture = "\CA\weapons\data\Ico\i_regular_CA.paa";

displayname = "$STR_DN_XM8_GL";

dexterity = 1.600000;

class Library {

libTextDesc = "$STR_LIB_XM8_GL";

};

descriptionShort = "$STR_DSS_XM8_GL";

handAnim[] = {"OFP2_ManSkeleton","\CA\weapons2\Data\Anim\XM8GL.rtm" };

};

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Indeed.

Shame BIS hasn't released the blasted ArmA 2 skeleton so we can make our own .rtms for holding weapons though. :bored:

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the fact ArmA 1 models' arms distort suggest there is a different skeleton...

Edit:- Forgot to say I'm very pleased with the new version of O2 so thanks for that BIS. I sincerely hope island makers like Opteryx can get similar improvements in their tool of choice.

Edited August 14, 2009 by da12thMonkey

[.kju 3244]

Once the community wrote the tools itself, now they only complain and demand they say. ;)

Roller, WRPtool - it is very doable.

[Thunderbird 0]

First, thanks for the tools. I guess that the sample models (MLODs) won't take a hell of time to get released.

Regarding the upcoming sample models, please get the kindness to introduce them all, including the plants/fooliage/Buildings/Blood splash (If it is a model and not a *couple of animated textures*.. etc

That would be more than appreciated.

there is no other sim engine to produce large scale environments

FUEL can deliver such kind of large scale environments, it can compete with ArmA II in these regards (even if it is not a military simulator or a FPS). FUEL engine is quite solid even if it doesn't deliver the same environment quality than ArmA II.

Cheers again,

Regards,

TB

Edited August 14, 2009 by Thunderbird

[maruk 80]

To correct you here, there is at least one new feature in Arma II Visitor 3: support for six layers terrain texture.

As to Visitor 4: it is not even out yet for professional paying customers and yes, its beta was used for Chernarus at later part of Arma II development (the transition was quite painful process for map designers internally...). To put it simple: Visitor 4 is a powerfull map editing tool, developed by large team over 2 years or so, and we need to make it also commercially viable for our company and simply sell it too professional users which is complicated for something released for free. I understand your frustration but I am currently not sure how and when we can do anything about it (e.g. Visitor 4 Personal Edition).

Perhaps there can be ways how to give some more new life to Visitor 3 PE but we need to think about it more...

I have to say you don't deserve any thanks for this BIS, not a SINGLE new feature in visitor, same bugs too. What a disappointment. I truly regret having wasted so much time working with this pile of shit in the hopes that arma2 would at the very least bring about some new features and bug fixes to ease modders pain, but no... ultimately I guess I have no choice but to cower and bow with my ass held high and bare as there are no comparable alternatives to quench the creative drive to produce large scale game environments.

---------- Post added at 12:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:27 AM ----------

To start with, entire Arma 1 is out in open for the community and most of the content is still suitable as basis for Arma 2. To speed up the process, it would be good to know what are the main issues at the moment when modding for Arma 2 so that we could prioritise tasks internally well.

First, thanks for the tools. I guess that the sample models (MLODs) won't take a hell of time to get released.

Regarding the upcoming sample models, please get the kindness to introduce them all, including the plants/fooliage/Buildings/Blood splash (If it is a model and not a *couple of animated textures*.. etc

That would be more than appreciated.

Cheers again,

Regards,

TB

[loki 1]

very nice to know from the top.

thank you

:)

[soul_assassin 1745]

indeed Maruk, thx for the explonations. As for sample priorities:

- first and foremost soldier model It is vital that is correctly rigged (right selection names)

- perhaps models of VTOL vehicles.

If there are any changes in model.cfg defenition (more sources etc.) that would also be useful to know.

Again Thnx

[da12thMonkey 1943]

To start with, entire Arma 1 is out in open for the community and most of the content is still suitable as basis for Arma 2. To speed up the process, it would be good to know what are the main issues at the moment when modding for Arma 2 so that we could prioritise tasks internally well.

Thank you for the interest Marek.

In my opinion, the primary difficulty that addon makers are facing is distortion of the arms on soldier models based on the ArmA 1 MLODs.

Several community members have attempted to introduce new player models to ArmA 2, but have found that the several new weapon holding animations (inverse kinematics?) cause un-natural contortion of the models and are therefore considered incompatible with ArmA 2 by their respective authors.

Citing a few examples of this we have: StalkerGB's British units, Operation Northstar's Canadian Units, Virtual Military Engineers' Chinese units and SJB's SAS units.

There were other discussions about the sort of other sample MLODs that would prove usefull in this thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=80955

The discussion was generally sympathetic towards practical reasons for keeping many of BIS's p3ds binarised, and many agreed that the ArmA 1 MLODs provided a suitable basis for many ArmA 2 community projects as you yourself have noted. However, the need for a few new example models or improved documentation is clear in cases where we wish to emulate new possibilities that the ArmA 2 engine has presented us with; such as localized damage to building models and weapon-specific character animation.

[teacup 2]

Guess this is the best spot to scribble my little request.

I know support for animation files was never in the tool pack, but is there any chance you guys could share your animation exporters as well? Or even better, would you mind dropping by the Biki and describing the new RTM file format in a few words, so we can write some exporters ourselves? Dankeschon.

[soul_assassin 1745]

Second that :)

One other nice thing i noticed that Texview 2 stopped crashing if i use File>Open

[waycool 0]

Are the Arma 2 tools compatible with STeam version of Arma 2??

[Waterman 0]

To correct you here, there is at least one new feature in Arma II Visitor 3: support for six layers terrain texture.

As to Visitor 4: it is not even out yet for professional paying customers and yes, its beta was used for Chernarus at later part of Arma II development (the transition was quite painful process for map designers internally...). To put it simple: Visitor 4 is a powerfull map editing tool, developed by large team over 2 years or so, and we need to make it also commercially viable for our company and simply sell it too professional users which is complicated for something released for free. I understand your frustration but I am currently not sure how and when we can do anything about it (e.g. Visitor 4 Personal Edition).

Perhaps there can be ways how to give some more new life to Visitor 3 PE but we need to think about it more...

Thanks for the info Maruk, I understand that you need to make Visitor4 commercially viable but I personally was hoping for a kind of Visitor3.5 with at least some of the new features implimented. Support for 6 layers is welcomed, but I would like to see Visitor be able to cope better with larger terrains.

Perhaps you might have seen my thread: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=82444 How do we use the new Arma2 textures and layers? I noticed the Arma2 detail textures used in chernarus dont have rvmat files like that used in Arma1 as far as I know, which is necessary in the layers.cfg when importing the Satellite and Mask pictures. The Visitor3 manual could be updated to better explain this process? Also people have been having trouble getting Arma2 plants working in Visitor3 as well. I also keep getting the error "{error} LandGrid reference exceeded the range [1023, 1023], it is [3373, 1483] " when I try to place any object on large terrains.

Edited August 15, 2009 by Waterman

[.kju 3244]

MLOD for vegetation and object would be golden.

For one to tweak and improve them. As well as using them as a base to create new

trees/bushes/objects.

[OChristie 0]

@Maruk

Thank you for summarising V4, I suppose we will jsut have to sit back and wait. :)

[Mr-Murray 0]

Thanks for the early release of that Tools!!! :bounce3:

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

@ Maruk

Thank You, a word from the top is always encouraging, it shows that someone who actually matters is listening to our frustrations.

- It may sound kind of silly, but can we ever expect to see a "play movie" type command or must we continue to still camscript everything?

[[aps]gnat 28]

yep +52 .... needs a few things.

- Visitor 3.5 (not because I make terrain, but because ArmA2 community NEEDS others to make terrain)

Things like the Road-Tool need fixing/improving too (+proper script to cut flat road into slope).

- all model.cfg

- soldier mlod and skeleton etc (again because the community needs it)

- All mlods or at least 1 of each type (including sub types like MV22)

Thanks.

Install Tutorial

(yes I know, the FSM tool is not the RTM tool I was thinking of LOL )

hmPd4KBpcT8

[.kju 3244]

In terms of world editing, information on the conversion process would be most welcome.

After all many people like to port their ArmA I worlds to ArmA II.

Making a world takes easily hundreds of hours. So instead of redoing it from the scratch

a port is a very good option. Especially performance wise the worlds run great in ArmA II.

More concrete how to get rid of these from rpt/binarize.

bimpas no longer expected on terrain - reexport ca\sara\sara.wrp

Old style material 201 used in ca\buildings\strazni_vez.p3d
Old style material 202 used in ca\plants\smrk_velky.p3d
Old style material 204 used in ca\buildings\benzina_schnell.p3d
Old style material 207 used in ca\buildings\army_hut2.p3d

ReportStack: 
Info: Irradiance map used - shaders with irradiance maps are obsolete

[hamis 0]

Well,we need 2 more tools.First is something like Pbox for OFP,so we can view p3d's inside pbo's.Second is like WrpTool for OFP,so we can add/replace objects on original islands also.

[icebreakr 3149]

We need info how to write a proper FAQ for proper A2 config.cpp., since there are many new things. Not to mention a tool that you could draw ILS/landing and it would write the proper coordinates to config file, so AI can use airports.

And conversion tool for old roads.

[.kju 3244]

What do you want to convert of the road p3ds?

[icebreakr 3149]

Because I cannot pack along 199MB file of roads, 432MB of old plants and not to mention bunch of buildings/objects BIS forgot to put along to make things compatible, here's few of them: cihlovej_dum_mini, hut04, hospoda_mesto, hromada_kameni etc.

Trees can probably get replaced automatically, since they are all totally new.

Yeah, my map is 77MB long uncompressed and that is acceptable for wide audiences, not couple of gigs :)

[.kju 3244]

Well a2 has also a roads.pbo. Did you compare them?

Maybe there are parts of it still in there?

Do you need the complete a1 roads.pbo?

Repathing objects inside a PEW/WRP is a child's play with moveObject. :)