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Animation - explanation of the magic behind

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Hey!

I have been working with custom animations for our assets again and ran into a problem I can't seem to solve.

I have a unit that uses custom skeleton and custom animations with highly stripped custom cfgMoves class and while forward walking works fine, going backwards plays the animation only once and then just glides along.

Ive made a video out of it here:

As you can see the forward animation works fine, but going backwards bugs out.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sfwvrwckcbqdl0p/LoDR_Walker_AnimationProblem_01.avi

This one shows the animation playing in the animation viewer

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x08eeiwohxumbkf/LoDR_Walker_AnimationProblem_02.avi

I've checked via script that it still plays the same animation, but nothing seems to happen.

I've messed around with the config values, tried the same ones as with the forward movement and unedited ones.

At some point some version of the backward animation worked, but cant use that since the skeleton has changed a little and this problem showed up before the changes anyhow.

Heres the animation class I currently have put together. Most of it is the same I have for the forward movement.class AmovPercMwlkSnonWnonDb: AmovPercMwlkSnonWnonDf 

 

Scratch that! Tumbling and fumbling in the dark I found the lost light!

Messing around with the config and either adding this: 

interpolationSpeed = 1.4;

or 

adding the "AmovPercMwlkSnonWnonDb" to the interpolateTo[] = {}; lists of couple of other move animation classes seems to have solved the problem. The backward animation now works!

Wuha!

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Question regarding the A3 bust sample model!

All of the right/left sided Face_ bones seem to be on different side than their selections on the face mesh. Is this how they are supposed to be?  (Except the lips, the brow and eyelids apparently?)

Im in a process of recreating a poseable face rig for a customized head in blender and this baffels me.


Eh, nevermind I guess. Now that I have it rigged it seems to actually work very well. :D

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Hey guys,

 

 

Any word on the FBX tool being fixed? I have 3DS Max and the latest Motionbuilder, and would really like to enhance my skills in animating (The current rig I use is in Blender, but would really like to use yours if I can export it into ArmA 3).

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

Rawner135

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Any news o Terrain Builder updates? Could really use clearer snap took with snap point indicators and such and maybe some values on how far it looks for a snap and maybe even snap by selected object type option.

At somepoint something has changed as the snap points dont get written into the template file anymore. But the snap is still quite hard to use.

For some reason it there seems to  be some sort of autocentering going on with the snap points that makes them offset form the mesh in TB
.

Oh wait I've posted this in the totally wrong topic. :P Sorry about that. 
 

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If you were wondering how to use old variant of walk / tactical movement e.g. for cutscene purposes, here is the trick (now available only in DEV branch and will be part of Eden update):
 

// Walk
0 = [] spawn {
	while {alive player} do {
		player playMove "AmovPercMwlkSlowWrflDf";
		sleep 0.5;
	};
};
// Tactical movement
0 = [] spawn {
	while {alive player} do {
		player playMove "AmovPercMtacSlowWrflDf";
		sleep 0.5;
	};
};

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If you were wondering how to use old variant of walk / tactical movement e.g. for cutscene purposes, here is the trick:

 

// Walk
0 = [] spawn {
	while {alive player} do {
		player playMove "AmovPercMwlkSlowWrflDf";
		sleep 0.5;
	};
};
// Tactical movement
0 = [] spawn {
	while {alive player} do {
		player playMove "AmovPercMtacSlowWrflDf";
		sleep 0.5;
	};
};

 

Same as above if someone needs sleepless alternative ;) :

walk = "AmovPercMwlkSlowWrflDf";
bob playMove walk;
bob addEventHandler ["AnimDone", {if (_this select 1 == walk) then {bob playMoveNow walk}}];

tact = "AmovPercMtacSlowWrflDf";
bob playMove tact;
bob addEventHandler ["AnimDone", {if (_this select 1 == tact) then {bob playMoveNow tact}}];
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Same as above if someone needs sleepless alternative ;) :

walk = "AmovPercMwlkSlowWrflDf";
bob playMove walk;
bob addEventHandler ["AnimDone", {if (_this select 1 == walk) then {bob playMoveNow walk}}];

tact = "AmovPercMtacSlowWrflDf";
bob playMove tact;
bob addEventHandler ["AnimDone", {if (_this select 1 == tact) then {bob playMoveNow tact}}];

Cool, I made it only as basic example - this is much better solution. ;)

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Thanks for doing this, it'll really come in handy when I come to the animation side of my project.

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Do anyone here know if its possible to set up custom animation for a rifle when its put down/resting (Double tap on CTRL) Or any other way to move the weapon around at this stage.

I have a rather differently held weapon in our mod (a minigun) that I've managed to make pretty decent holding pose, but the weapon resting pose goes really wonky with it.

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Hi all, I have only recently got into creating custom animations and have had quite a bit of success, however though when I trigger my reload animation in the prone I get an odd effect where the body goes almost vertical from the waist up and points to the sky.  Has anyone experienced this before, is it a config or a RTM issue, and do you have any suggestions on how I can fix it.  Any help would be grateful I'm at my wits end about it.

 

Edit: Just as a follow up I worked out the issue and it was entirely my fault I had a curly bracket and a semicolon in the wrong place.

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I now have my animations and rigged character in game. Seems if a joint extends even a tiny bit beyond the mesh, it won't move, so that is resolved now.

I am now wondering how to get walk cycles to work? My character stays on the spot.

There is the following section in O2, but no documentation on how to use it.

89482f2dc1.png

Has anyone used this before? What values map to each entry field?

I'm interested in this section of objectbuilder too. The slider will play my animation as i configured it, but how i get it in game is beyond me.

I've tried naming the animation in the "key" section, assigning a 1 or 0 in the "value" section; moving the slider and repeating the process.

I'll save the .p3d and open objectbuilder again and both animation keyframs will be missing from the list.

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I don't know about OB, but in O2PE you have to save the animation as an RTM. When you save the P3d that's all you're saving. The RTM can then be loaded up and played on your mesh. 

 

Getting it in game will need a suitable config. I don't know the equivalent class in A3. In A2 it's CfgMovesMaleSdr. You'd have to then redirect the relevant state to your animation. I can't be much more specific. Someone who's already explored that might shed more light on it.

 

In the original OFP there was a very handy class called StatesExt which was made to do exactly this kind of thing. So the user wouldn't need to rewrite an entire CfgMoves section. Unless I'm missing something, this appears to have been removed.

 

Shinkicker mentioned his character moving on the spot. That's because the engine uses the step values to determine the distance travelled. If the animation did move it would add the step value, moving the character twice the distance they should, in game. It will also cause the animation to visibly "loop" back on itself.

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I'm interested in this section of objectbuilder too. The slider will play my animation as i configured it, but how i get it in game is beyond me.

I've tried naming the animation in the "key" section, assigning a 1 or 0 in the "value" section; moving the slider and repeating the process.

I'll save the .p3d and open objectbuilder again and both animation keyframs will be missing from the list.

It is exactly as Macser said.

 

I don't know about OB, but in O2PE you have to save the animation as an RTM. When you save the P3d that's all you're saving. The RTM can then be loaded up and played on your mesh. 

 

Getting it in game will need a suitable config. I don't know the equivalent class in A3. In A2 it's CfgMovesMaleSdr. You'd have to then redirect the relevant state to your animation. I can't be much more specific. Someone who's already explored that might shed more light on it.

 

In the original OFP there was a very handy class called StatesExt which was made to do exactly this kind of thing. So the user wouldn't need to rewrite an entire CfgMoves section. Unless I'm missing something, this appears to have been removed.

 

Shinkicker mentioned his character moving on the spot. That's because the engine uses the step values to determine the distance travelled. If the animation did move it would add the step value, moving the character twice the distance they should, in game.

You have to create relevant state in CfgMovesMaleSdr config and configure it to fit your needs. I don't know which movement type you have, so can't tell you what exactly is needed to be configured. But I can assist in my spare time if you will PM me. Have a nice day!

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Hey all,

 

I've recently started animating and would like to use my animations in the eden editor, however I am rather lacking the knowledge on how to put it in there, I've searched for this but there are non-definitive methods on how to go about this. Is there a comprehensive how-to for this?

 

I'm currently at the *.rtm stage, do I need to make a *.pbo for this? If so how to I do it? How do I initiate my animation within the eden editor?

 

I thank you all in advance as I've been stuck on this for a while now.

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Hey all,

 

I've recently started animating and would like to use my animations in the eden editor, however I am rather lacking the knowledge on how to put it in there, I've searched for this but there are non-definitive methods on how to go about this. Is there a comprehensive how-to for this?

 

I'm currently at the *.rtm stage, do I need to make a *.pbo for this? If so how to I do it? How do I initiate my animation within the eden editor?

 

I thank you all in advance as I've been stuck on this for a while now.

You would probably start with defining new states in CfgMovesMaleSdr and setting them up properly to work with your RTM files.  ;) 

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Hi sorry for another question, I have made a number of reload animations I have now come to realise how out of sync some are with the vanilla reload sound affects.  I take it this is because of where my key frames occur compared to the vanilla ones, is there an easy way to find out a list of the key frames online or do I have to do some magic de RTMing with Mikero's tools to sync these up?

 

Thanks

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You would probably start with defining new states in CfgMovesMaleSdr and setting them up properly to work with your RTM files.  ;) 

I was asking how to actually do this, step by step, what you left here was another vague trail to follow as I've found everywhere else. Not be rude but this keeps giving me dead ends on getting the eden editor to use my animations.

 

Steps include:

1. How to implement animation(s) into eden editor via "Do I need to be a specific format?" "Where do I put the files?" "What's this config.cpp and what do I do with it?"

2. How to initiate said animation(s) in the eden editor via "How do I run my animation(s)?"

 

I'm not some veteran that uses arma software daily, so please don't expect me to 'get' what your saying like all of you wizards.

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Dropping animations into Arma is not the simplest thing and explaining it from the beginning (starting from config.cpp etc) Is not easy and very time consuming.

If you have read the original post of this thread it explains the essential classes where animations are defined, which I believe is the primary purpose of this topic.

You might get better answers by starting your own topic and explaining more throughout what you want to animate and where you need help at. But demanding answers is really not the way to go.

People here have busy lives and most of what you need is in fact already asked and answered here on the forums.

If you want to mod Arma I would suggest you start form the basics (whats config.cpp and so on) and work your way from there.

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I've tried searching but not even the forums can help me with this issue, plus demanding is a strong word there, not sure where you got that from.

 

As I do not know how big the scope is for implementing an animation into the eden editor, this could be hindsight that there needs to be a stickied tutorial created by the wizards who use the software, that way the learning curve and explanation (which I find a lot lack there of) to implement modding much easier and simpler.

 

Maybe I should create a separate topic however I don't think this will succeed my goals, for what it could be worth.

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I've tried searching but not even the forums can help me with this issue, plus demanding is a strong word there, not sure where you got that from.

 

As I do not know how big the scope is for implementing an animation into the eden editor, this could be hindsight that there needs to be a stickied tutorial created by the wizards who use the software, that way the learning curve and explanation (which I find a lot lack there of) to implement modding much easier and simpler.

 

Maybe I should create a separate topic however I don't think this will succeed my goals, for what it could be worth.

You should definitely start with studying modding in general, basic config knowledge and then you can start with the original post.

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Anyone else get a problem with third person view of animations

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15 hours ago, Heisen_a said:

Anyone else get a problem with third person view of animations


Never heard of such. Could you maybe elaborate your problem?

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2 hours ago, HorribleGoat said:


Never heard of such. Could you maybe elaborate your problem?

Indeed I'll PM you some images etc.

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Hey, guys. Many thanks to @smookie for his efforts explaining this all.

 

My question is not about scripting animations in, but about producing animations themselve, for Arma specifically. As I know that @smookie did it initially on his own for his addon. Any experience he (or somebody else) could share with us? Specifically, whether it's possible to create some simplistic animations at home, with inexpensive equipment, or perhaps without equipment at all? Let's suppose we don't care much about resulting quality, whether it will look awkward or something; we are fine with some crude, schematic animations, the main criteria is it to be as easy to produce as possible. What needs to be done to receive a final Arma animation file with ".rtm" extension? What is the format of this file, how to produce it? Is it some kind of standard file format to store motion capture data? Is it possible to get motion capture data from some other game, or from some kind of generic motion capture collection library and re-purpose it to use in Arma? How it's done?

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