ArmaVersity - Est. 2013 - Are you ready to go "Back to School"

Hello Arma modders!

We are a small but very passionate group of modders (Sahrani Mod Developers) who are dedicated to sharing not only all the assets and IP we produce for Arma and it's sequels, but also the wealth of knowledge we are being given access to by way of advice from some of the most solid, and long standing pillars of this community!

As some of you may know we were given the incredible opportunity to bring the Armed Assault campaign map Sahrani to Arma 2. We are almost done with our initial Arma 2 release!

It was during this process as well as developing the DayZ Sahrani Mod that we came across Google+ and it's "Hangout" feature... it is truly amazing. It has allowed some of our less experienced modellers to show our more experienced modellers exactly what they are working on and what is giving them problems real time..

We have now used it several times to do development sessions where our productivity is just drastically increased.

From this birthed an idea... ArmaVersity

We intend on having weekly or monthly get togethers where anyone is welcome, new, old, experienced, or completely new to modding.

I think we may in the spirit of Arma (and depending on how much interest there is) establish a rank system where you are expected to patiently sit and listen the first few visits... then can get direct help.

This is all still being fleshed out so please offer up any and all suggestions!

The end goal is to have this process, allow the newer guys to pay for their education by re-writing or updating the tutorials for each specific type of asset or modding type. Then have that How To overviewed by the teacher to ensure accuracy. We will start with modelling, but are likely going to branch out to Script and Terrain sessions as well.

This should create a library of MUCH MORE thorough, up to date, and robust how to's.

I want to do anything and everything we can to keep information produced available here, the biki, armaholic, dev-heaven, OFPEC, PMC, AND the DayZ sites as well.

I have only just started really fleshing this out, THIS WEEKEND, so it's a big WIP, but I think it should come together pretty fast, it seems to be getting support from people I bring it up to.

Please show your support by Joining our Open Modders Group on the BIS Forums (or subscribe to this thread) AND our Google+ group so you can easily join the hangouts.

Lessons should be slightly less intense than this:

A great idea and interesting project! Im very keen on joining and learning more about modifying Arma, especially in creating new units/objects and scripting. :ok:

We are still buttoning up a couple projects, and trying to get some last things coordinated.

Look for some public hangouts to begin in the next 3-4 weeks.

You can join the group now and you will get updates!

ArmaVersity had it's first test run session last night!!!

It was VERY exciting, two guys who are competent 3d modellers began getting trained by M1lkm8n on the steps required to take a building from the A1 MLOD, and build out all the LODs in O2 and get it 100 percent ready for in game use.

We are going to have these same two do 2-3 more sessions on buildings that are nearly identical so they are all reaching the same steps at the same point... hopefully by the end of 2-3 sessions we have 3 new enterabil buildings with all the LOD's AND 2 FULLY TRAINED new eager modellers ready to give back.

I will be monitoring and recording the sessions in order to build tutorials that should be AMAZINGLY easy to follow for any kind of learner...

One thing I've found is the Youtube video tutorials are not well documented enough, and the written tutorials lack visual aides to make it more clear.

I am also in the middle of preparing a VERY basic Mission/Cinematic Tutorial with some examples packaged in SMD Sahrani, DayZ Sahrani, AND the SMD_Assets package.

Due to permissions and lack of support for dependencies in most DayZ launchers we will likely have to splinter the SMD_Assets packages to SMDZ_Assets and SMD_Assets to avoid you arma folks getting all kinds of lovely "Cannot load zombie animations" warnings lol... I'm sure that would go over well...

this still going off? i want in please :)