Quick guide on how to make your A1 infantry work in A2

[norsu 180]

It seems you only need to do the following:

Copy Geometry, Memory, Hit-Points and Fire Geometry lods from the example soldier.p3d BIS released. It's best to remove the old lods completely from your model before applying the new ones. Then use the new model.cfg also given by BIS.

Result:

For best results you should also copy the hands from soldier.p3d and use the new head as proxy (also found in soldier.p3d). Note that the new head model has only two lods, 1.000 and 2.000. This means for bigger lods you'll need to copy the head part from soldier.p3d directly.

If someone has more tips and hints please post them here :).

Edited August 21, 2009 by Norsu

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Good effort Norsu.

[Jackal326 1181]

Good stuff. Glad someone made the break-through I've been working on for almost the past 24hrs, and sadly bearing no fruit :)

[NightHawk2009 10]

Good work Norsu.

If people were to import A1 models and other related materials it would require people to download the files and play with mod right? Is there anyway of doing the above without this requirement?

[TeRp 1]

Are you guys binarizing your infantry?

Our infantry works fine when not binarized, but as soon as we binarize it, ArmA 2 crashes immediatley :(

[rstratton 0]

Pls could you let us see your arma.rpt on binarised units, as it seems impossible for rtms to work without error , if your Arma1 models do not have correct sections in the Res lods.

[takealready 1]

Well norsu looks like we were working on the same thing at the same time. I posted my findings here.

I'm so jealous of you now, but at the same time you've saved me another day of problem solving.

I must also say it's because of the thread u started that inspired me to figure how to port the models.

Nice work on figuring it out. We all invested a lot of time making/editing arma soldier models, to have to do it all over again would have definitely sucked.

[Binkowski 26]

Thanks Norsu, I'm assuming just use the LODS from the sample models that BIS released in ArmA1? I'm going to try and do this with my US Army units and see the result.

[gT.SWAT-guy 0]

Thanks Norsu, I'm assuming just use the LODS from the sample models that BIS released in ArmA1? I'm going to try and do this with my US Army units and see the result.

BIS just released Arma2 sample models Link

and thanks Norsu for figuring all of this out. :)

Edited August 22, 2009 by gT.SWAT-guy

[Binkowski 26]

Thanks SWAT-guy!

[norsu 180]

Also an interesting fact is that you can change the head model in unit config. This means your addon can include several head models you just mix with different bodies. For example you could make a head model with gasmask and apply it to all ARMA2 characters (not sure about women) using only config. No need to make different soldier models anymore :cool:.

I can't remember now which config line it is but I think it was "facetype" or something.

[Binkowski 26]

Well, I followed the steps here and my units are crashing when I put them into the editor, the RPT says something about me using old style RVMAT files. That probably is the case, I've tried binarized and unbinarized, both with the same result.

[T_Roc 0]

got it working pretty well, only problem is the hands right now.

Serious warping there.

[Jackal326 1181]

I'm not getting anywhere near as much distortion as I was previously. The left arm still flickers ever so slightly when walking with the MK48 lowered (as if patrolling with it), but besides that everything seems fine. I just need to figure out how to correctly define a new custom head model for use with my units, as I need to top of the head cut off for their headgear to fit properly without any clipping.

[norsu 180]

I just need to figure out how to correctly define a new custom head model for use with my units, as I need to top of the head cut off for their headgear to fit properly without any clipping.

I'm interested why you need to cut off any heads, shouldn't any head gear fit a head without the need to take off ones scalp ;)? But anyway the answer for your question is in characters.pbo root config.bin file. Unrap it and look forwards from line 5706, there you should find all face configs. Also look in characters.pbo folder Head for another config.bin -that too has useful information in it.

I haven't tried anything with this new head system yet but hopefully we can also add woman heads to our custom bodies :D.

[Binkowski 26]

Edit. Problem solved, disregard. Was an issue with one of my models.

Edited August 23, 2009 by Binkowski
Issue Resolved.

[Jackal326 1181]

Well, I resolved the issue by simply editing the head-gear (it was a UK-style bush-hat, that, to get to sit right on the ArmA1 heads, I had to remove the tops of the heads). Anyway, I've run into another issue. Whenever one of my units wears glasses, they're clipping through his head (they spawn about 2-3inches inside the unit's head). Any ideas how the positioning of the glasses proxy is defined? I can't see any memory points that might be responsible, nor can I see any direct proxy references, so any help would be appreciated.

[Binkowski 26]

Well, I resolved the issue by simply editing the head-gear (it was a UK-style bush-hat, that, to get to sit right on the ArmA1 heads, I had to remove the tops of the heads). Anyway, I've run into another issue. Whenever one of my units wears glasses, they're clipping through his head (they spawn about 2-3inches inside the unit's head). Any ideas how the positioning of the glasses proxy is defined? I can't see any memory points that might be responsible, nor can I see any direct proxy references, so any help would be appreciated.

Same problem with the glasses here. I have no idea where it's mapped / proxied to.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I think the glasses go on the NVG proxy. They disappear when you put on NVGs at least.

IIRC both of you had a custom NVG proxy in the ArmA 1 versions of your addons right? You might need to shift the proxy, then edit your NVG models accordingly so that they are worn correctly.

[Synide 0]

Jackal, Is your head part of your main model? Or, have you implement BIS's new method of having a seperate head model? You would only define the 'head proxy' in the ResLods and not in the others.

You might need a 'pilot' MemoryLod point.

If you are using the newer technique of a proxy head, that is making all your resolution lods headless and replacing them with a 'proxy' centred at the 'LandContact' point call 'bysta' (which you can change via config and renaming of assests etc., if desired).

And, again if you are using this newer technique is your 'new head' setup in a similar fashion to bysta.p3d? And, is your head dimensionally slightly different to the 'standard' default head (bysta.p3d) dimensions?

These are all the sorts of things you'd have to eliminate as issues and check are properly defined etc.

As a wild guess I'd imagine you are still using the A1 character method of having the head topology still in the ResLod's of your character. And, possibly you might need a 'pilot' point in your MemoryLod.

Most BIS characters supposedly use the headless ResLod's technique but there are a number of char models that use the previous method. These tend to be more the sort's of character models that would not normally be playable (npc's).

I know it probably sounds like I'm stating the obvious but, when BIS release something like the example character models do you (and others) try building them 'as is' to make sure that you can get a fully working useable character in-game prior to trying to implement your own slightly different chars?

The reason I ask this is because if you can build the BIS example character model for A2 and have it working flawlessly then the most obvious method of resolving your problem is to then compare what is different 'tween yours and theirs.

The upshot is your glasses buried in your head issue could be a number of different little things... you just gotta work through each area and check, setup, confirm through a process of elimination as your probably well aware.

[Jackal326 1181]

I've implemented the head proxy, using the default BIS head model (not a modified one as I had originally planned). I'm going to attempt da12thMonkey's suggestion regarding the NVG proxy. If that doesn't work, I'll cross that bridge if and when.

[Synide 0]

So your using the 'default BIS head model'.

Have you ripped the head out of your ResLods and replace with a 'proxy' pointing at bysta.p3d? This should be centered at 0,0,0 as per the example model. Edit opps, you mention you've already done that...

The relative offset for the nvg proxy hasn't changed but you should still check the offset. Are you using your own glasses? If so, are they offset similar to the nvg proxy and with an autocenter=0?

[Jackal326 1181]

Well, its confirmed its the NVG proxy. Just tweaked its relative position, and now the glasses are too far from the front. Just a case of trial-and-error to get it in the right place :)

Thanks for the help da12thMonkey and Synide.

EDIT: Just found an easy way to get it sorted (for all of those who have suffered this problem along with myself and Cameron), it makes a nice change to find an easy way to do something before you start, as opposed to finding it out just as you finish the last edit.

Anyway, I just repathed the proxy to use the glasses model, repositioned the proxy to fit, and then simply edit the custom NVG model to fit in with that proxy position.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Jackal326

[Binkowski 26]

Thanks Jackal, I'm going to try that tomorrow or whenever I have time and post my results.

[norsu 180]

If you are using the newer technique of a proxy head, that is making all your resolution lods headless and replacing them with a 'proxy' centred at the 'LandContact' point call 'bysta' (which you can change via config and renaming of assests etc., if desired).

Actually the new head model, bysta.p3d, has only lods 1.000 and 2.000. For rest of the character lods you'll need to copy the lowpoly head from soldier.p3d.

Also I've noticed that there's only five lods now in characters instead of six like in A1. The fifth lod has only one big lod texture that has all textures which the model uses combined.

I remember Synide that you found a way to combine uv maps to make single textures. The old scripts that we used in OFP times don't seem to work anymore.