da12thMonkey 1943 Posted September 5, 2012 WIP Wednesdays Week 36 - Sep 5th - A Better Posture < NEW Real life has sent the cat among the pigeons at RKSL Studios this week, so responsibility has finally fallen to me to write a couple of informative; if not interesting, posts for “WIP Wednesdaysâ€. Technically the subject of my first couple of posts aren't 'work in progress' per se; they relate to how we went about resolving an issue that arose fairly early in the development of Messiah's Foxhound (which I'm sure you are all following very closely), but they will cover an aspects of addon development that we haven't touched upon yet: Animation – Both .rtm animations for character models and model.cfg animations for the vehicle and how they come together in making a functioning vehicle addon. This week I'm discussing .rtm animation and its application in vehicle crew proxies with a semi-anecdotal tutorial. Prepare you're reading glasses - it's quite a big 'un! Week 35 WIP Wednesday - Oh S@#% this wont float... - 22m Patrol/Pilot boat Week 34 WIP Wednesday - Look ma' it floats - Rigid Raider Mk1 Week 33 WIP Wednesday - Enforced Labour - Enforcer RWS update Week 32 WIP Wednesday - "The best laid plans..." ... of mice and men, often go awry. Week 31 WIP Wednesday - "Be a MAN my son..." - British Army Trucks Week 30 WIP Wednesday - Tempting Fate, AW159 and Bed baths - Hospital, Helicopters and Student Nurses Week 29 WIP Wednesday - The Dog ate my homework...honest! - Excuses excuses. Week 28 WIP Wednesday - 404 Not Found - Excuses excuses. Week 27 WIP Wednesday - Rapier Wit... or not - UK GBAD System Week 26 WIP Wednesday - Release the hounds - Messiahs new Foxhound model Week 25 WIP Wednesday - E3, RTT, RWS Week 24 WIP Wednesday - Talking Tyffs Part3 - Plugins Week 23 WIP Wednesday - Talking Tyffs Part2 - Cockpit Video and Voice over Week 22 WIP Wednesday - Triffids, FSM, Pandas and the Website. - Website news and not much else. Week 21 WIP Wednesday - Carrier Country - UK Mod - All change. C to B and CVFs. Week 20 WIP Wednesday - Class MFD, Blood, and Close Protection duty. Week 19 WIP Wednesday - UAVs, a Gorilla, a box and a Wet Tesco bag. Week 18 WIP Wednesday - CBF Shipbuilding and its role Week 17 WIP Wednesday - He's not THE Messiah he's a very naughty boy! Week 16 WIP Wednesday - Projects that time forgot Week 15 WIP Wednesday - Typhoon update click here. Week 14 WIP Wednesday - Modeling and the F-35C. Week 13 WIP Wednesday - Challenger 2. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfbite 8 Posted September 7, 2012 Good stuff man interesting read. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted September 12, 2012 WIP Wednesdays Week 37 - Sep 12th - Back in the Swing of Things < NEW In this week's entry we continue our coverage on the processes used to create animations for ArmA addons. Following last week's look at .rtm animations we now turn our attention to the model.cfg. The model.cfg is a text-based configuration file that is processed during binarisation of a MLOD model for ArmA, that defines the sections, skeleton and animations for that model so that the game engine can interface with the model and make it react to various inputs from the player and game world. It has three main parts: First, class CfgSkeletons which as the name suggest, defines the skeleton – the way individual sections or 'bones' in the model are connected together in a hierarchy, such that they may move together as linked objects in response to an animation source. This is followed by class CfgModels which instructs the game engine on which skeleton to use for which .p3d, and also contains the third element; class Animations where the movement the skeleton for that model is programmed, using the model's memory LOD as a point of reference for the axes of movement, and the source that trigger's these animations is defined. Week 36 WIP Wednesday - A Better Posture. - Animation Tutorial Part 1 Week 35 WIP Wednesday - Oh S@#% this wont float... - 22m Patrol/Pilot boat Week 34 WIP Wednesday - Look ma' it floats - Rigid Raider Mk1 Week 33 WIP Wednesday - Enforced Labour - Enforcer RWS update Week 32 WIP Wednesday - "The best laid plans..." ... of mice and men, often go awry. Week 31 WIP Wednesday - "Be a MAN my son..." - British Army Trucks Week 30 WIP Wednesday - Tempting Fate, AW159 and Bed baths - Hospital, Helicopters and Student Nurses Week 29 WIP Wednesday - The Dog ate my homework...honest! - Excuses excuses. Week 28 WIP Wednesday - 404 Not Found - Excuses excuses. Week 27 WIP Wednesday - Rapier Wit... or not - UK GBAD System Week 26 WIP Wednesday - Release the hounds - Messiahs new Foxhound model Week 25 WIP Wednesday - E3, RTT, RWS Week 24 WIP Wednesday - Talking Tyffs Part3 - Plugins Week 23 WIP Wednesday - Talking Tyffs Part2 - Cockpit Video and Voice over Week 22 WIP Wednesday - Triffids, FSM, Pandas and the Website. - Website news and not much else. Week 21 WIP Wednesday - Carrier Country - UK Mod - All change. C to B and CVFs. Week 20 WIP Wednesday - Class MFD, Blood, and Close Protection duty. Week 19 WIP Wednesday - UAVs, a Gorilla, a box and a Wet Tesco bag. Week 18 WIP Wednesday - CBF Shipbuilding and its role Week 17 WIP Wednesday - He's not THE Messiah he's a very naughty boy! Week 16 WIP Wednesday - Projects that time forgot Week 15 WIP Wednesday - Typhoon update click here. Week 14 WIP Wednesday - Modeling and the F-35C. Week 13 WIP Wednesday - Challenger 2. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stiltman 3 Posted September 13, 2012 Awesome work on that mount animation, and thank you! ive been thinking of a way to get m240 on the Troop Carrier to animate properly and finally thanks to you guys and this tutorial ive managed to get it animated really good! Thank you! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
da12thMonkey 1943 Posted September 13, 2012 (edited) Nice to hear someone's learned something from it. :) Have you actually got the turret working ingame? I haven't actually had the opportunity to see how well such an animation works with the intricacies of setting up "class turrets" in the config (slaving the mourse cursor, player view etc. to the turret movement), because the vehicle hasn't had a config.cpp written for it yet. For all I know I might have to simplify it in practice - it's far too early to tell. :o That particular animation was merely done to see what we might be able to do once the vehicle's ingame, and indicate if there was anything that would need changing immediately w/r/t the size and position of the top-cover hatches, and positioning of the mounts (as mentioned in the .rtm tut I did last week): It just happened to prove to be a decent example of programming class skeleton and an animation with multiple, linked, moving parts; which finds application in ArmA amongst a whole host of things, like aircraft landing-gear, bolt-action rifles etc. Edited September 13, 2012 by da12thMonkey Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stiltman 3 Posted September 13, 2012 Yes, ive tested it ingame to and it works, i recorded a really quick preview for you Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
da12thMonkey 1943 Posted September 13, 2012 Noice! :cool: Glad to know it's definitely something that's feasible, and I wasn't wasting anyone's time: gives me something to look forward to.:) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
b00ce 160 Posted September 13, 2012 Thank you very much RKSL Team, you got my model.cfg woes sorted. :D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
da12thMonkey 1943 Posted October 3, 2012 Week 40 - Oct 3rd - General Purpose Progress Report < NEW It's been a couple of weeks since we've published something 'visual' for WIP Wednesdays, and as hectic real-life commitments continue to dominate my colleagues' free time; I've made a concerted effort over the past few weeks to finish one of my models to a standard where I'm happy to show it off. With the onset of ArmA 3 lurching ever closer (though facing hurdles that we at RKSL could only imagine in our worst nightmares), I thought it was about time to attempt to improve the visual quality of certain British weapons that we will need to have available for arming the vehicles that Rock, Messiah and CBFASI are producing so diligently. The most obvious target for this work was the famed "Gimpy" - the 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) that adorns soldiers, trucks, tanks, helicopters and ships alike. Week 37 WIP Wednesday - Back in the Swing of Things - Animation Tutorial Part 2 Week 36 WIP Wednesday - A Better Posture. - Animation Tutorial Part 1 Week 35 WIP Wednesday - Oh S@#% this wont float... - 22m Patrol/Pilot boat Week 34 WIP Wednesday - Look ma' it floats - Rigid Raider Mk1 Week 33 WIP Wednesday - Enforced Labour - Enforcer RWS update Week 32 WIP Wednesday - "The best laid plans..." ... of mice and men, often go awry. Week 31 WIP Wednesday - "Be a MAN my son..." - British Army Trucks Week 30 WIP Wednesday - Tempting Fate, AW159 and Bed baths - Hospital, Helicopters and Student Nurses Week 29 WIP Wednesday - The Dog ate my homework...honest! - Excuses excuses. Week 28 WIP Wednesday - 404 Not Found - Excuses excuses. Week 27 WIP Wednesday - Rapier Wit... or not - UK GBAD System Week 26 WIP Wednesday - Release the hounds - Messiahs new Foxhound model Week 25 WIP Wednesday - E3, RTT, RWS Week 24 WIP Wednesday - Talking Tyffs Part3 - Plugins Week 23 WIP Wednesday - Talking Tyffs Part2 - Cockpit Video and Voice over Week 22 WIP Wednesday - Triffids, FSM, Pandas and the Website. - Website news and not much else. Week 21 WIP Wednesday - Carrier Country - UK Mod - All change. C to B and CVFs. Week 20 WIP Wednesday - Class MFD, Blood, and Close Protection duty. Week 19 WIP Wednesday - UAVs, a Gorilla, a box and a Wet Tesco bag. Week 18 WIP Wednesday - CBF Shipbuilding and its role Week 17 WIP Wednesday - He's not THE Messiah he's a very naughty boy! Week 16 WIP Wednesday - Projects that time forgot Week 15 WIP Wednesday - Typhoon update click here. Week 14 WIP Wednesday - Modeling and the F-35C. Week 13 WIP Wednesday - Challenger 2. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
slatts 1978 Posted October 3, 2012 Ab-so-lutely beautiful :D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
babylonjoke 22 Posted October 3, 2012 eheh very nice! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Isola 10 Posted October 3, 2012 Rock, are you going o release something fot arma2 , typhoon at least, i hope! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Badassdom 0 Posted October 3, 2012 (edited) Rock, are you going o release something fot arma2 , typhoon at least, i hope! Im gonna take a wild guess and say rocks response will be, its done when its done. Anyway, a quick search on armed assault.info gave this result http://www.armedassault.info/index.php?cat=authors&id=334 Edit: But i feel your pain, all that eyecandy makes me hungry Edited October 3, 2012 by arkengel Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 3, 2012 Rock, are you going o release something fot arma2 , typhoon at least, i hope! Erm... We've released a load of stuff for ArmA2!?!? Typhoon FGR4 Merlin HC2 Puma HC1 Lynx AH7 Lynx Ah9 And others... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfbite 8 Posted October 3, 2012 More Dakka I love it! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
slatts 1978 Posted October 3, 2012 More Dakka I love it! For a second I was teleported back to 2003 and using a PBR with dual M2's.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Isola 10 Posted October 4, 2012 Erm... We've released a load of stuff for ArmA2!?!?Typhoon FGR4 Merlin HC2 Puma HC1 Lynx AH7 Lynx Ah9 And others... yes i know rock,but you know...i saw your new typhoon version ,tornado other things on this WIP 3d,i'd only want to know if all those great things are also for arma2 or only A3....:p see ya m8 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 4, 2012 (edited) yes i know rock,but you know...i saw your new typhoon version ,tornado other things on this WIP 3d,i'd only want to know if all those great things are also for arma2 or only A3....:psee ya m8 Ah OK. Your earlier reply seemed to suggest that you weren't aware we had released anything. Just as a point of interest I was talking to a few guys about this very assumption tonight. If you count contributions/donations to other teams we've released over 30 addons into the A2/CO community in one form or another. They may not be tagged as RKSL but we made them. Or we helped those mod teams get their content in game and working. But in response to your ArmA3 specific question... The short answer is that I plan on releasing the updates for ArmA2 on all the addons currently released. I've tried to cover this in some of the WIP updates we posted earlier. After that there are a couple of factors that determine what gets released for which game: Time - The team has grown a lot recently but each of use has our own projects. We aren't all working on a single addon so projects are still very much dependent on one person's free time. ArmA3's release date - Some say its Q3 2012 others, its Q1 or Q2 2013. The sooner we see ArmA3 in stores the less gets released for ArmA2. Personal Interest - Right now the Tornado has my interest (and another IAP project its about 60%/40% work share) but there are only a few things to fix on the Typhoon before we can re-release. But they are annoying, tedious things to track down and fix. But again I'll be very honest here; after a frustrating day of paid work I cant be arsed to come home to more frustration. So the v2.X Typhoon has just been pushed aside again in favour of something less stressful. And a whole lot more fun. Any clearer? Edited October 4, 2012 by RKSL-Rock im too tired to actually type what i mean. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Isola 10 Posted October 4, 2012 (edited) No problems rock and everything's clear , i'm One of your biggest fan and i know very well your addon's quality . I daily use all your released stuff for A2/CO , unbeatable! When you play with something like that ,you don't want to miss a single inch of it Edited October 4, 2012 by Isola Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
scarecrow398 43 Posted October 5, 2012 After that there are a couple of factors that determine what gets released for which game: ArmA3's release date - Some say its Q3 2012 others, its Q1 or Q2 2013. The sooner we see ArmA3 in stores the less gets released for ArmA2. Any clearer? TBH, that is the one thing that annoys the hell out of me, BIS say it will be out soon, mod makers stop and wait for A3 as its only a few months then it gets pushed back, people eventually start work again and then it gets close to the date, people stop work waiting then it gets pushed back, ect. By no means the mod makers fault, hell if i was working on it i wouldn't release it either when it only has to be re-released a month later with updates, i would rather there just be a 'Coming soon' for the last 12 months with a steam of media and only announce a date when its several months from completion rather than, essentially teasing everyone for a year... Though then there's the 'duke nukem' problem where the developer it drags out over a decade :P Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
=kct=blackmamba 44 Posted October 5, 2012 i didnt even know u guys were still updating and expanding the RKSL mod. like someone above said, i loved to read trough the recent updates. looking forward to see wat uber quality update comes out of the hat. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
markb50k 1 Posted October 5, 2012 Happy to hear the Tornado even mentioned. Man, i've been waiting patiently on that sucker for a while now. Would gladly like to see that one instead of a new Typhoon, since the one we got is pretty spectacular already. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rksl-rock 1301 Posted October 5, 2012 No problems rock and everything's clear , i'm One of your biggest fan and i know very well your addon's quality .I daily use all your released stuff for A2/CO , unbeatable! When you play with something like that ,you don't want to miss a single inch of it Thank you! Always nice to get feedback :P TBH, that is the one thing that annoys the hell out of me, BIS say it will be out soon, mod makers stop and wait for A3 as its only a few months then it gets pushed back, people eventually start work again and then it gets close to the date, people stop work waiting then it gets pushed back, ect.By no means the mod makers fault, hell if i was working on it i wouldn't release it either when it only has to be re-released a month later with updates, i would rather there just be a 'Coming soon' for the last 12 months with a steam of media and only announce a date when its several months from completion rather than, essentially teasing everyone for a year... Though then there's the 'duke nukem' problem where the developer it drags out over a decade :P OK I'm rolling out the "Fanboi" flag for this one... then I'm going to put down the flag and put on my Project Manager's hat on. I'm not worried about the slipping dates. But I do get the frustration, really I do. After nearly 11 years modding BIS' games I'd like to think I have a "good" appreciation for just how complex this game is. The more I dig into the game engine and the innumerable patches the more appreciate just how much work goes into ArmA development. So given some pretty unimpressive first releases in the past I'm glad to see BIS taking their time to get ArmA3 finished properly. Also from Marek's statements about PhysX, Rotorlib, various other titbits leaking out of the BIS rumour mill we all know there have been hiccups along the way. And now with the arrest of Ivan and Martin BIS are facing some pretty major hurdles. (If you don't know Ivan Buchta is the Creative Director and Lead for ArmA3) Ivan is a very hands on guy and he is going to be hard to replace even for the short time he's locked up. Personally it wouldnt bother me if the entire BIS team downed tools and went to camp out on the Greek Embassy's door step until the guys get released. But like you I want the game asap. However I'd really like it to work properly right out of the box too. Give them time. We'll get it eventually. OK so the Fanboi flag is firmly on the ground now. PM hat fastened on. Ok so we were originally 'promised' Q2-2012. Then as the deadline approached Its slip to Q3/Q4 and Marek explained the move form PhysX 2 to 3 and other issues. So yeah I can see the reason for the delay out into 2013. Changing tech, software and markets mean the requirements change. Ask anyone working on large software projects, its a nightmare. And lets face it, its not unexpected in the games market is it. But if you look at the news we have and if you have any experience of writing code, testing of any sort of game modding you'll realise just how monumental changing the core physics engine in the middle of the development of any game is. Everything needs to be retested. AI, environments, vehicles, Modules, ballistics. missions the lot. And that takes time (and money & resources) So again, as much as I'd like the game now, I know its just going to take time. But I really don't think we're even close to the "Duke Nukem" scenario just yet. From my own perspective as a modder, well I have plans for both ArmA3 and ArmA2. I'm looking forward to A3 as much as anyone else. I have plans to exploit the new features in a lot of things. But I'm also hoping to release some kit for ArmA2 right up to the release of the new game. ArmA3 hasn't stopped me making stuff, but the screen shots has made me look at my own projects and made me wonder how I can improve them so they look as good in the new engine. Now that has caused a delay. I imagine I'm not alone in that reaction too. i didnt even know u guys were still updating and expanding the RKSL mod.like someone above said, i loved to read trough the recent updates. looking forward to see wat uber quality update comes out of the hat. Yeah there are quite a few update due for the previously released stuff. I've just not got around to pushing them out due to a million and one reasons. I could make a tonne of excuses but mainly its just that I've not had any decent time to bottom all the issues before getting distracted by other jobs. Then they get put back on the shelf and forgotten about for a while. i didnt even know u guys were still updating and expanding the RKSL mod.like someone above said, i loved to read trough the recent updates. looking forward to see wat uber quality update comes out of the hat. Yeah I know a few people that say that :P I have a love/hate relationship with the Tornado. I find it pretty hard to get started again after taking a break. The Typhoon, its just easier for some reason. (And the V3.X model for ArmA3 is a completely new model!) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tankbuster 1746 Posted October 6, 2012 Excellent post, soldier. Well said. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CameronMcDonald 146 Posted October 6, 2012 Jumped back a few pages, saw the GPMG - bonerific! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
