[Woolie Wool]

The .pof compiler seems to have a bit of an issue with independent wing subobjects (for rotation) on fighters:

http://www.ferrium.org/mantis/view.php?id=89

TL;DR version: PCS2 ****s up the subobject centers and bounding boxes when saving such a model to .pof, but not other formats.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I know exactly what the problem here is and it's not PCS2.  Your pivots are centered by world corridors not offsets so even though it looks correct in the modeling program it's flipped when exported.  Set your ship to top view.  Mark down the world coordinates of the pivot.  Center the pivot to 0,0,0 by typing in the world coordinates.  Now move it using offset back to the correct position.  Reset x-form and re-export.  It should now be correct in PCS2. 

I've seen this one so many times it isn't even funny anymore.  The alternate method is to center the subobjects to 0,0,0 before export and them mover them back to the correct location in PCS2.  If you are using something like truespace you will need to keep moving the center and object until they are both at 0,0,0 Sometimes it's a pain because you move one the other goes half the distance the other direction. 

The above methods I've done both in MAX and the second one in TS7.6 with success. 

[BengalTiger]

When I import a turret to an existing ship via PCS 2, it loses it's assigned texture and gets the first one that's used by the ship (in this case, an imported turret gets "tercoc01" as it's texture).

Is there any way to fix or avoid this, without going all the way to making the ship a .cob and glueing the turret in TrueSpace (and that procedure seems to mess the model up even more)?

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Try a different version of PCS2.  The older one without collada support seems to work better at this then the newer one does. 

Also sometime adding the texture before doing the import of the object works. 

Best bet is taking it into a modeling program and doing it there. 

[BengalTiger]

Alright, I'll see how an older version works.

[MastaRyan]

How do you change a turret from missile to gun? I gave the Hades six BFGreens, and since one of them is in a missile turret, it won't fire.

[chief1983]

You edit the POF to have it be called a turret instead of a missileturret I think.

[Droid803]

Turret type is handled by tables exclusively.

If it's not firing, change "Default SBanks" to "Default PBanks" for the turrets in question. Nothing to do with PCS2.

The POF only contains the data for the "now targeting (whatever)" in the top left corner, nothing else. All turrets are fully swappable between Secondaries and Primaries through tables. I could set  $name=IM_A_FATSO or whatever I want and it'll fire whatever I want just fine.

[chief1983]

My bad.  Was thinking the difference in game was somehow related to the POF for some reason.

[Spicious]

This seems like the most likely place to get answers from modders using the Collada importer, so:
Do you have any objections to/preferences for filtering out textures as described here (specifically the third option). Would you find the option to disable said filtering useful?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Ignore any texture of the form prefix-* where another texture named prefix exists

That's probably the best choice, as was already pointed out. And yeah, it could always come in handy to toggle it.
Would it be possible to filter out unused textures as well?

[Spicious]

Would only including used textures solve the other problem?

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Well, yeah, but I've seen more than one POF with textures that don't seem to be used anywhere.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I've also seen quite a few models with 2 or more copies of the same texture.  Now there may be times that you want this but most (if not all) of the time I've seen it it's been a mistake.  Only reason I can think of for having 2 copies is for duplicate objects where you want to be able to use texture replacement on one or both.  Not even sure if the engine allows this. 

[Droid803]

I think most of those originated from models that had two different textures, but were changed to one (like all the retail models losing the alphabetical character at the end of the texture names sop TCOV1A and TCOV1B both became TCOV1).

[JGZinv]

What FUBAR said above is actually on purpose on several models I've rigged.
Basically the modeler used the texture twice in different mtl editor slots in Max.
Once for the ship itself and then once for parts of debris.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Yea that is usually where it comes from but all the ones I've seen have not been on purpose like that.  Things like LOD0 and LOD1 using the same texture but different slots in max because of an import and not cleaning up the materials.  Good example would be things that are used on multiple ships like turrets.  You import from another file, set the path and stuff to be correct so you can do a test export.  Works so you do the rest of the turrets but don't bother to set the path of the texture so now you have 2 textures with the same name but different paths.  Exports as 2 textures.  Easy to fix? Yes.  Do a lot of people miss it?  Yes.

[Spicious]

Although the importer is including multiple copies of a texture if present, the first instance of it is likely to be used for everything using that texture, with possible exceptions if paths differ.

Only including textures that are used probably wouldn't affect that; it would just cut anything not used at all. I think this will work for filtering out extraneous textures. Let me know if you see problems with it.

Edit: sig build updated. Give it a try.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Is there any way to specify rotation and axis in max and have PCS2 set it on dae import?  I don't know how many times now I've forgotten to do that in PCS2 on a reconvert.  It's not something a global import picks up either. 

[Rga_Noris]

So this is probably just small potatoes, and really just a nag. I use the Blender-collada-PCS203 route, and everytime I get into PCS the thrusters are always way off. Usually way low and too far forward from their original place. All other points (subs, gunpoints) are in place perfectly. It's not a huge deal to move them in PCS, but it would save some time.