Oxygen 2 - Manual

Basic setup

External Viewer: C:\program files\bohemia interactive\arma\ArmA.exe -window -buldozer -noland

• -worldCfg= - you can force using specific world config (weather settings)

• -name= - you can force specific user game settings (your ArmA instalation has separate user settings that can for example disable shadows in .../My Documents/ArmA)

• - addons... used to specify a text file which ArmA.exe will use to load project-specific extras (sunlight, clouds, and sky textures)

• -cfg= - used to specify a basic configuration file (graphics, memory, size and position of viewer window)

• -noland - option to not display any ground

• -window - option to run viewer in window instead of fullscreen

DLL Folder - path to O2 installation

Path for textures - path to work disk (usually P:\)

Source Safe Database - login to Microsoft Visual Studio Source Safe database

Terminology

Point – individual point in space

Vertex – point of intersection of two or more edges

Edge - connection between two vertices

Polygon – planar surface with any number of edges

Triangle – polygon with with three edges

Quad – polygon with four edges

Face – in O2 faces can be triangles or quads

Normal - a normal is a line which is perpendicular to the plane of a polygon. In O2 it appears as a blue line at each vertex.

Skeleton - simplified representation of a model that has moving parts

Bone – base component of a skeleton used for animation, each bone represents a moving part

Section - is created everytime when there's need on the graphics card (GPU) to change parameters. This happens when information about each object, texture and material is read from the CPU or when bones limit is exceeded. The overhead for transmitting instructions between CPU and GPU then slows down the performance of scene-drawing, which could normally draw hundrets of polygons or textures.

The time it takes to render a scene depend largely on these factors:

• number of vertices in the scene

• textures - resolution and the number of times it appears in the scene are both factors. If the texture has transparency, even more calculations need to be performed.

• number of sections in the scene

Viewport Navigation

The origin point for coordinates (xyz = 0,0,0) is marked by the intersection of the red grid lines. Gridlines are spaced at 1m and all units in O2 are measured in meters.

TAB – cycle between viewports (or click in any viewport with mouse to set the active viewport)

arrow keys – scroll in viewports

CTRL+arrow keys – faster scrolling in viewports

ALT+RMB – rotate camera (only works in 3D Preview viewport)

ALT+LMB – scroll in viewports

ALT+RMB+LMB - zoom (mousewheel can also be used to zoom)

F9 – reset to 4 viewport mode (3D, front, top, left)

Space – center active viewport to pin

S – switch between selection masking modes that will be displayed Buldozer (unselected=red, selected=shining, none)

Buldozer navigation

pan camera W, E, S, arrows (same as Lmouse+drag)

rotate camera A, D

rotate object NumPad_arrows (same as Rmouse+drag)

CTRL + camera movements - slower movements

Numpad_5 – reset camera and center object.

Numpad +/- - zoom

[ ] - decrease/increase speed of RTM animations

SHIFT [ ] – spomalení animace //unsure of exact function

Enter / Mousewheel cycle through animations defined in model.cfg

Back space cycle backwards through animations defined in model.cfg

change weather RWIN+U / RWIN+I

change time of day RWIN+T / RWIN+Y

toggle display of textures RWIN+X

Buldozer Menu

Start/Restart - launch or restart Buldozer viewer

Other > Attach - Attach O2 to an existing instance of Buldozer

Other > Detach - Detach O2 from Buldozer

Other > Stop - Stop updating to Buldzoer

Other > Run Script - Start a script in Buldozer

Other > Refresh Viewer - Refresh Buldozer

Hide Textures - Toggle display of textures

Hide Materials - Toggle display of materials

Hide Proxies - Toggle display of proxies

Hide Hidden Faces - Toggle display parts set as 'hidden' in O2

Multiple LODs - Toggle display of multiple LODs

Show Shadow – Toggle display of shadows (uses ShadowVolume to cast shadows on Resolution LODs)

Beware Unsupported Textures - Toggle checking for unsupported textures. Buldozer will sometimes crash because of unsupported textures, this will check if the model has links only to PAA and PAC textures. Turning this on may decrease performance.

Bring to top after update – If this option is active, buldozer will be moved on top of other windows after each update

Selection Masking > Mask Texture - Unselected faces will be masked by a texture

Selection Masking > Mask Material - Unselected faces will be masked by a material

Selection Masking > Highligt - Selected faces will be fully lit

Selection Masking > Crop - Unselected faces will be hidden

Selection Masking > Disable - No selection masking

Selection Masking > Change Masking Texture - Set path to a texture to use for masking

Selection Masking > Change Masking Material - Set path to a material to use for masking

Ground object... – Setup an object to use as a default ground surface (can be useful for viewing shadows cast by objects)

Markers... – Setup an object to be shown in place of isolated vertices (can be useful for viewing memory points)

Autocenter - Automatically center view on object

Center to Pin - Center view on pin location

Center to Selection - Center view on selection

Freeze Animation - Freeze RTM animation

Environment Editor - Opens a dialog window to adjust settings for time of day, weather, fog and lens apperture. Also allows saving current settings as presets.

Pin Tool

The pin tool has many uses but basically is a moveable reference point, which can be activated and deactivated.

R – Sets cursor to 'move pin' mode. Click to place pin.

C – Centers pin to selection, or when no selection exists, centers pin to whole scene.

Space – Center active viewport to pin

Shift+C – Activate/deactivate pin. When active many functions will use the pin - such as rotate, scale, insert point.

You can use PIN mode also for simple snap.

Select LMB part of the mesh you want to snap to another. Keep the LMB pressed and move with pointer to desired snap location.

Creating and selecting objects

At the bottom of the O2 window there is a status bar which displays total vertices and faces and selected vertices and faces.

Insert creates a new point at the cursors location. If the pin is activated, the point will be created at the pins location.

LMB selects objects (drag to select an area)

Ctrl+LMB adds to selection

Ctrl+Shift+LMB substracts from selection

Delete - deletes selection

F6 - create new face from selected vertices (you must have only 3 or 4 vertices selected)

D - removes faces, but vertices remain

CTRL+Delete – removes vertices and merges adjacent faces; preserves UV coords in most situations.

ALT+Backspace – Undo

CTRL+L - Lock selection

CTRL+Shift+L - Unlock selection

CTRL+A - Select all

Editing

The most important selection modes are available via toolbar icons

Editing modes:

F2; O – select whole objects

F4; V – select vertices

T – select polygons

Z – zoom mode

RMB drag to move selection

Shift+RMB drag to create a copy of the selection

Ctrl+RMB drag to rotate selection, activate pin to rotate around pin location

Ctrl+Shift+RMB drag to scale selection, activate pin to scale from pin location

All the functions listed above can be done with numeric values Menu: Points > Transform 3D > Move / Rotate / Scale. It also allows the function to be performed on the whole scene in each LOD by using the 'apply to all LODs' checkbox.

Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V copy and paste. Can be useful between LODs and also between instances of O2

X / Y / Z keys are used to constrain viewport movements to specified axis. Each viewport will display the axis it is currently constrained to beside the viewport name.

P - opens a dialog box to flatten selected points in the selected axis, and it can optionally flatten to pin's plane.

To merge all selected points into one, use Menu: Points > Merge or to merge using proximity threshold use Menu: Points > Merge near

IMPORTANT! Points can only be merged if they have the same vertex properties. While these are no longer necessary in the ArmA engine, they may be present in older models. Use Shift+E to view and edit properties of selected vertices.

For boolean operations, use Menu: Structure > Carve. It will use selected objects to create breakes in the unselected objects. It's not suitable for very complex shapes, and even with basic shapes it might generate some unnecessary geometry that should be manually cleaned.

Local Axes

For manipulation with charcter model selection (bones) a feature for local axis was introduced.

You can define local axis for each selection by a triangle that is named in work selection together with the mesh (work selections start with minus letter)

- hlava

Than after you enable local axis mode in menu, you can manipulate with the mesh in work selection using standard editing tools.

How to define sceleton with local axes and hierarchy:

- select proxy defining axis
- menu from proxy will setup PIN
- select all faces in hierarchy that will be afected by this axis
- menu Selection from local axis will make a work selection (marked by "-" )
- make a named selection with the proxy and a bone 

Hiding and Locking Selections

CTRL+H hide selection

CTRL+I invert selection

CTRL+Shft+H unhide selection

CTRL+L lock selection (note: a locked selection cannot be moved, but can be deleted)

CTRL+Shift+L unlock selection

Measuring

Measurements can be made using Shift+F11 to measure between the pin and the cursor.

Sharp and Smooth Edges

Edges in O2 can be either sharp or smooth. When selected, smooth edges are shown with bright red lines and sharp edges are shown with dark red lines and heavier lineweight. All newly created objects have smooth edges, which means the lighting is calculated using gouraud shading. A sharp edge is like a crease that prevents light from being averaged between adjacent faces.

All face lighting is calculated with surface normals. Normals can be displayed in O2 using File/Options/view normals=ON. A face will have a normal at each vertex. Sharp edges will have normals that are perpendicular to the faces they represent. Smooth edges will have normals that are positioned at the average angle between the faces they represent.

U – make selected edges sharp

I – make selected edges smooth

W - reverse face (flips normals)

Q – uncross face

F5 – recalculate normals

After rotating objects, it's usually necessary to recalculate normals by hitting F5. If there is some reason to prevent recalculating normals, they can be locked from the menu Points > Lock Normals after which they will appear pink instead of blue.

Import / Export

It's possible to import files of type 3DS, OBJ Export is not available in Oxygen 2 Personal Edition.

Import from *.3DS

• specify desired selections to import

• checkbox option allows creation of named selections in O2 based on selection names in MAX

• set unit of measure (O2 uses metres)

• option to convert TGA textures to PAA, and also import animation

• set the destination LODs for all MAX selections