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Note: Some of the information below is obsolete, specifically regarding creation of duplicate animation workspace. Post 1.3 update, you can open a vanilla animation workspace (uh1h.aw, mi8.aw, etc.) and use File > Duplicate Workspace - which will do much of the manual work below automatically.

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https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:Weapon_Animation/Setup

To start making animations, we need to follow the steps in the linked wiki above. The tutorial goes over weapons, but they apply to vehicle animations as well. Look below to see some notes:

• We want to create a new animation workspace but probably want to inherit some animations from vanilla helicopters.
• You could use a duplicated template or existing template for your animations, there are pros and cons to each explained in the linked wiki.
• If your helicopter has wheels, consider using the Mi8 template for it’s suspension set up. Alternatively, if your helicopter has pilot opened doors, the UH might be a better fit. Regardless of what you chose, you will have to take time configuring the animation graph to suit your model, and animations for doors, etc. can be created using Blender.
• Regardless, follow established naming conventions which will help keep your project organized (don’t just leave the duplicated file named after the original!)

Animation Workspace

Once you have created your animation workspace, you’ll need to duplicate an existing graph, again this is linked in the tutorial and the steps should be followed thoroughly.

You can then assign the Animation Workspace to the Helicopter prefab’s AnimationComponent.

Upon creating an animation workspace and taking the above steps, your animation sheets for the player and vehicle will have rows/columns but no data.

It is possible to duplicate the ASI files, and edit them in text editor:

Manually duplicating entire workspace

Alternatively, you can refer to the Mi8/UH animation workspace (.aw) in order to figure out what animation files (.anm) correspond to those positions of the ASI files. Once you have identified an animation, it is as easy as dragging and dropping that animation to the cell that you want that animation to apply to.

In certain circumstances, the vanilla animations apply to bones that do not exist in your model or animate to the wrong positions. Let’s go over some key ideas.

• Some bones are commanded to move to a global position rather than a local one, leading to your v_body bone (or others) being warped because the animation was built for a different vehicle.
  • We can edit the graph to prevent this - such as removing that bone from a ProcAnim node’s bone list.
• Some bones get rotated to offset values, similar to the issue above. Sometimes applying translation/rotation to the affected meshes (which the bones move) can fix this. Other times, exporting a custom animation may be required. If all else fails, delete your bone, apply transforms, and recreate the bone and reskin your mesh to the armature. Blender can certainly be finicky in this regard.

Exporting Custom Animations for Vehicle

With Arma Reforger Tools open, and Blender 4.2 LTS with Arma Reforger Blender Tools - you are able to get the current list of export profiles. More information is contained at these links: