Pilot RTM

[Fortran 1]

Just wanted to ask, are the new A2 Rtm's binarized or compiled somehow ? I have been attempting to open up one of the pilot anim RTM's from A2 in O2 on the soldier sample model (to edit it to create my own pilot RTM) but no joy at all. For example if I unpack the A10 pbo from A2 and try to use the A10_Pilot.rtm file in O2 nothing happens, I just get a single frame at -5.000 and no movement. However if I open up the guitar addon created by USSRsniper and load the rtm file it works perfectly. Is the new rtm format protected somehow now ? I really wanted to try edit an exsisting one rather than go through all the pain of trying to pose the sample soldier all the way from scratch, especially when I only need to tweak the existing pilots pose a little to make it work.

Also from testing a little, what is a "good" way to get a static pose from the standard soldier example, any amount of movement or rotation of the mesh just results in horrible tears/buldges and deformation of the mesh. Its like trying to pose any solid mesh with no skeleton...its almost impossible to get a decent result.

[TeRp 1]

Yeah, same thing here.

It looks like BIS forgot to add the new rtm system to their latest o2. :(

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Just wanted to ask, are the new A2 Rtm's binarized or compiled somehow ?

Yes, they're binarized. It's a point of much frustration for me at the moment.

In order to pose the skeleton you need to use the selections with a hyphen (-) prefix so that you have the entire limb, then rotate them around the joints.

To position the centre of rotation properly on the joint you need to make sure "Points\Transform 3D\Show Local Axis" is checked. You can justify the axis of rotation along the bone by selecting the joint proxies within the skeleton model (they look like small right-angled triangles, located near the top of the bone) and using "Points\Transform 3D\From Proxy". Then lock the rotations to the X and Z axis with the buttons in the tool bar and manipulate the bone selection via rotation (ctrl+RMB).

Bones with a suffix 'roll' need to be locked to the Y axis.

The repositioning of the axis was automated upon selection of the correct limb with the old ArmA 1 skeleton MLOD, so you don't need to faff around with the proxies if you use that, so long as the local axis is shown.

The old skeleton doesn't include the facial animation bones etc though so I'm not sure whether it'll cause some problems with the new soldier models or not, but from what I've seen it's okay to use.

ArmA 1 .rtms load fine as well, because they're not in the binarized format.

[Fortran 1]

Thanks for responding guys, glad to know its not me going nutts. Also many thanks da12thMonkey that was exactly the kind of explanation I needed to get started with this! Thanks alot mate. Luckily I only really need this for the view-pilot pilot proxy for the plane im working on as the main LOD proxy can be any pilot anim really as you can't see far enough into the cockpit to see the hand positions are off...so hopefully I can use the original A1 model to pose it as you can't see the face anyway.

Edited September 2, 2009 by Fortran

[soul_assassin 1723]

Soon enough I will add animation module to the max plugin im working on with a rigged soldier. Old ArmA1 rtms work in A2 apparently as well.

[modemmaik 53]

Yess, A1-rtm's work in A2. Only one issue left:

The view in A2 seems to be somehow shifted to the right about half the distance between the eyes. In the RAH-66 project, I had to correct this (using Ofpanim) for the A2-animation, else the pilot's view would not have been centered to the crosshair.

[NutzMcKracken 17]

Soon enough I will add animation module to the max plugin im working on with a rigged soldier. Old ArmA1 rtms work in A2 apparently as well.

Is this part of the current Max plug in Soul?

At the moment Pilot proxies are killing me with the F-111.

I have your plugin working, but already have configs set so not using the plugin to its full potential.

@ anyone.....is there any good RTM tutorials out there that are solid with either Max or Oxy2. Been following gnats and Soul's tutorials.

Currently working with 2010 3DS at home and 2011 3DS Design (Viz) at work.

Getting very acquainted with Oxygen 2 quite a bit now, but also taking a class on 3DS at work.

[STALKERGB 6]

@SirSmok@lot, tutorial below.

Hope da12th doesn't mind but ages ago he PM'd me about rtms (and how to create one cuase I had no idea!). The PM had a ton off info so its a pretty good tutorial to be honest. Anyway, the contents of the message is below. Hope it helps.

The ArmA 1 skeleton is available in the original set of MLODs that BIS published. If you don't have it already you can download it from here:

ftp://downloads.bistudio.com/Tools/BIModels.zip

Open BISkeleton.p3d with O2. If you look at it in buldozer you'll see that it just looks like a very simple manequin with basic geometric shapes for the body part selections. these selections are the 'bones' of the skeleton.

You will see that the named selection window contains twice as many selections as a normal character model; there being duplicate names of the selections with a hyphen (-) in front.

The ones with the hyphen in front are the ones you will use to animate as they will select and move the entire limb attached to that bone, not just the bone itself.

In order to create an animation it is important to make sure 'points\transform 3D\show local axis' is switched on. This means when you select the bones/limbs the centre of rotation will switch to the position defined as the joint within the skeleton. You can see the position of these joints in the memory LOD of the skeleton.

Say for example we want to lift the character's left leg. We would use the '-leftupleg' selection and the axis would shift to the position of the '-leftupleg' joint vertex in the memory LOD.

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Looking at the axis we can see there are red blue and green lines that show the direction of the x (red) y ( green) and z (blue).

Continued in next post

Edited June 16, 2010 by STALKERGB

[STALKERGB 6]

Using the buttons in the second row of tools restricts movement of the bone to the selected x, y and z directions.

If you select x, and rotate with the mouse (ctrl+rightclick and drag the mouse cursor) you can lift the leg up and down.

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If you select z the leg will move side to side.

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Y will twist the bone. You only want to use this when using a selection named '-***roll' such as '-leftarmroll' or '-rightuplegroll' because as the name suggest, these bones are designed to be rolled and twisted.

You can load existing .rtms onto the skeleton by right-clicking the keyframes animation window and choosing 'from matrices' or the option to apply it to all LODs (this is useful previewing anims on proper models where you want the shadow LOD to move too when you look at it in buldozer). Find the .rtm you want to edit and click on it to open.

You will see that the keyframes fill up with the various frames of the animation. You can switch between frames by double clicking on them and the skeleton will move appropriately.

Continued some more...

---------- Post added at 07:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:18 PM ----------

The name of the keyframe corresponds to the time in seconds at which the animation frame occurs. For static crew anims you will see that the first frame is the default position of the model, and has a negative time code and you have two frames with the same pose with positive time codes.

You can then edit the animation using the selection manipulation procedure I outlines earlier.

I haven't looked at the gun holding anim you wanted to edit, but if the all the keyframes are the same (apart from the first one with the default pose), you can just edit one keyframe, then delete the others, go back to your edited keyframe and right click the anim window to create new keyframes to replace the ones you deleted. The new ones will have new pose you've created, rather than having you editing all the keyframes individually to get the same result.

If you want the animation to be ergonomically correct for a model you want the character to be interacting with; use 'file\merge' to add your model in with the skeleton.

It's best to make a version of the model with only one selection so it is easier to select and delete before you export the new animation, since the rtm references all existing named selections when the files is exported.

To export the new .rtm, delete anything that wasn't part of the original skeleton, right-click on the selections window and click 'delete empty' to remove selections for objects you deleted.

Then right-click the keyframes window and click 'export matrices' to save your new .rtm.

[NutzMcKracken 17]

Thanks tons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That will help immensely!!!

Working on cockpit at the moment and just getting the dials straightened out was a task and thought the Pilot proxies would be fairly clear.