[Animation] Animating for Battlefield 2

[Chuc]

Tutorial available for public distribution.
Note: These animation scene are only compatible with 3DsMax9.

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING YOU NEED THE FOLLOWING:

1. 3D Studio Max 9 (Not 3DsMax 2009, Not 2014, v9) With the POE2 BF2 Extended Tools For 3Ds Max9
2. The BF2 Editor with a working "pr_edit" mod
3. The Project Reality Animation Export Examples provided below
4. The will to work things out on your own

Project Reality Animation Export Examples

These animation export files are only to provide you with examples of how Project Reality sets up and dose weapon animations for different types of weapons so you can learn how to apply these to your own animations. Using these animations for any other purpose is a breach of copyright law. By downloading these files you agree to only use them in this manner.

Download: https://files.realitymod.com/resource...s_18-01-14.zip (260mb)



Chapter 1 - Introduction to BF2 Weapon Animation

Download Link

Skeleton Setup Max Scene

Note: You need CamStudio Movie player to play the encoded .avi files, it is available here.

You will also need the following BF2 tools to be able to import and export to and from the bf2 engine.

Spoiler for Bone Selection Mini-Tut:

Most of what is explained in the video, however one very important thing is the ANIMATED selection sets of which for third person animating, is quite tricky to remember the first time.

Exporting is tricky in that there are certain bones you need to export depending on the kind of animation.

Stand
Standing fire
Zoom
Zoom fire
Prone Fire
Reload
Prone Reload
Idle animations
Stand deploy

All those animations require you to ANIMATED select all the bones EXCEPT for -

left_upperleg
left_knee
left_lowerleg
left_foot
left_ball

mesh9
mesh10
mesh11
mesh12
mesh13

right_upperleg
right_knee
right_lowerleg
right_foot
right_ball

mesh14
mesh15
mesh16

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Next is the crouch still animation.
The problem I've encountered is that once you export the crouch still (and also the prone still animation, since they're
exported in the same way) you are UNABLE to import it again, so be careful.

Same ANIMATED selection, except this time also DESELECT the root bone.

Do the crouchturnleft, crouchturnright in the same way as the standturn equivalents. However this time you need to select
ALL the bones for export.

-----

Zoom fire animations are what I would consider my favourite, don't ask why..
Exported in the same way as the stand animation. Also, if you want to line up the sights with the eye, bring the sights to the right eye bone, and have the point where he's looking just under the bone. Once you exported the zoom fire animation, take the last frame of the zoom fire animation and copy it throughout the sequence and export that as your zoom animation.

Do the same with the prone_fire animation.

-----

The last and probably most tedious is all the other animations, like running, crouch walking and prone crawling. For these you need to select ALL the bones for exporting. To make life easier, set up IK constraints between the left ullna and the weapon, and also save the finger positions so you can easily import them again without having to tinker with them by eye every time.

-----

Unfortunately, I've been unable to work out how to properly export the Crouch deploy and prone deploy animations without them looking all super funky.

Chapter 2 - Setting up for Export

PASSWORD IS pr

Explained in this video

• Weapon Export Rundown
• Pivots, where to put them?
• Importing into a preexisting MAX animation scene
• ANIMATED Selection Sets

Chapter 3 - The BF2 Editor

Explained in this video

• Object Editor
• Animation Editor
• Foley Syncing

A useful tip if the editor is refusing to load the correct animations is to "Add Effect" (the plus sign close to the BAF animation's name), and add a randomly named effect and it will reload the proper animation for the weapon you've loaded. Because the editor doesn't save anything unless you tell it to, you don't have to worry about unintentionally adding an effect.



Chapter 4 - Animation System Files

Chapter 5 - First-Person Animations

PASSWORD IS pr

Chapter 6 - Animation Principles and a complete reload animation from scratch

PASSWORD IS pr



Extra Reading Material

https://www.killeenisd.org/schools/h...principles.pdf

If you are really nerdy I can highly recommend buying the book "The Illusion Of Life" - Disney animation. This is where these 12 principles originate from.

In terms of applying these principles to the world of 3D rather than 2D, here is a pretty good article on the subject:

CGSociety - Applying the 12 Principles to 3D Computer Animation by Disney's Isaac Kerlow

IBrokeRU's channel, talented first person weapon animator, also making his own series of tutorials.
YouTube - ImBrokeRU's Channel



Good luck, and I'll reiterate by saying that anyone can do this, with the right amount of dedication.



- Last Updated: 18th of January 2014
- Files Re-Uploaded & Download Links Updated: 7th of November 2017

[addaco]

Thank you

[Tomato-Rifle]

Great , i also think i already have have CamStudio.

[addaco]

Taking a while to upload

[Chuc]

Uploaded.

[Wilkinson]

Omg your Skeletons:O YAY

[motherdear]

330 mb

[addaco]

Chuc, this may sound gay, but I love you XD

[Z-trooper]

Cool, will check it out at some point chuc'ster

I'm forced to throw this one in if people don't know anything about animation, it is the core basics:

12 basic principles of animation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They are not program specific, but core concepts of animation in general (originally made by the disney artists for 2d cartoons). Highly applicable for 3d as well. I can recommend getting the book as well as the "Drawn to Life" series.

I feel the urge to stress a Newtonian rule while I'm at it:

Every action has a reaction
(For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction)

[Chuc]

Originally Posted by motherdear

330 mb

You should see the original video tutorials that I learned from, they broke 1.4 gigs =\