[The Claw]

Ok, I figured that it might be a good idea to start up something like this, so that the experienced members of the community can help people like me, who frankly, do not have a clue  
First question: How do you create sub-objects in Truespace, including information on the location of lights and the whole glue-ing stuff.

 Please feel free to post new questions and answers (obviously)... This will hopefully help the flow of modding knowledge in the community  

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"Supernova, ya supernova, supernova goes pop
supernova, ya think it's over but the supernova don't stop" PM5K
Death:"Arnold Judas Rimmer... your life is over. You will travel with me to the-"
#knees death in the groin#
Rimmer:"Remember matey, it's only the good that die young"
Kudoth, god of pointless educational programs.

[Bobboau]

first off make the hull out of one object, for turrets and things like radar dished you just have to push the light button (location varys from vertion to vertion) and place the light in the general location of the object then click on the glue as sibling button and click on the object, for multipart turrets glue the light to the barel and the two of them to the base.

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Bobboau, bringing you products that work.............. in theory

[Warlock]

Ok here's one

Mostly for us convertion folks  

With a model that's made out of multiple sub-objects, is there a way to glue these so that the model becomes one object?

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Warlock
DeathAngel Squadron
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[IPAndrews]

 

Originally posted by Warlock:

With a model that's made out of multiple sub-objects, is there a way to glue these so that the model becomes one object?

Use boolean join. Make sure the two objects overlap where they are supposed to join. You can only join solid objects. If your object has a hole in it, you'll have to rebuild it solid. Look out for boolean join moving points around where you least expect it and leaving really, really small faces in the region of the join. The later isn't so much of a problem if you are careful.

[JarC]

 

Originally posted by IPAndrews:
Use boolean join. Make sure the two objects overlap where they are supposed to join.

Isn't this just what causes these tiny, hard to find poly's in higher detailed models?

 

Look out for boolean join moving points around where you least expect it and leaving really, really small faces in the region of the join.

I understood that you could minimize or even completely prevent this by converting the sides to be joined, to flat (multi-vertex) poly's? (preventing at least the overlap and resulting inward folded poly's)

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JarC (ICQ) "Dave? Will I dream?"
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[This message has been edited by JarC (edited 04-19-2001).]

[Sushi]

Alright, here's what I've got- a 3ds model, untextured, that I think will be best textured in TS. It currently exists as multiple objects, and has about 260 polys. Should I import it into TS like this, or boolean everything together first? If I Boly everything, the model face count jumps to about 470!



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Sushi- the OTHER white meat!
Accelerate your game-Velocity Mod

[Nico]

This polycount is okay (a bit high for a regular fighter, but anyway). But I don't like boolean. You should better try to weld vertices, you can control what you're doing, you lower the vertice count and don't change ( or even lower it ). Ok, weld is sometimes are to achieve, but that's better I think

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venom2506
Member of the Robotech mod for FS2

and of Hidden Terror, the Shivan campaign

and My own page

[The Claw]

I am not familliar with the tools you are using, but I know if you use anim8or to import the .3ds file, then use the Join Solids function, you can weld together individual objects and then merge the points. That's what I use (actually, I create my ships in Anim8or).

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"Supernova, ya supernova, supernova goes pop
supernova, ya think it's over but the supernova don't stop" PM5K
Death:"Arnold Judas Rimmer... your life is over. You will travel with me to the-"
#knees death in the groin#
Rimmer:"Remember matey, it's only the good that die young"
Kudoth, god of pointless educational programs.

[JarC]

 

Originally posted by The Claw:
actually, I create my ships in Anim8or

Hmmm....I've downloaded one of the earlier beta's while back, is it any better yet?

Does it have anything in particular that you don't find in other 3D tools?

I see it is still at a 0.x release...think I'll wait a bit longer...at least until it's 1.x


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JarC (ICQ) "Dave? Will I dream?"
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[IPAndrews]

 

Originally posted by JarC:
I understood that you could minimize or even completely prevent this by converting the sides to be joined, to flat (multi-vertex) poly's?

Yes. Using non-flat polys is generally a bad idea. Booleans are tempremental at the best of times. Using booleans with objects built from non-flat polys is probably an even worse idea.

[morris13]

 

Originally posted by Bobboau:
first off make the hull out of one object, for turrets and things like radar dished you just have to push the light button (location varys from vertion to vertion) and place the light in the general location of the object then click on the glue as sibling button and click on the object, for multipart turrets glue the light to the barel and the two of them to the base.

Once you've done that do you glue the turret to the hull as well?

[The Claw]

 

Once you've done that do you glue the turret to the hull as well?

[/b]
As far as I know, yes... either as Sibling or Child, I think sibling.
 Now here's one... How do you edit the lights in Truespace (after they are positioned over the turret) so that the radius of the sub-object isn't massive?
 (Axis and Radius isn't it? How do you edit them in Truespace 1?)


------------------
"Supernova, ya supernova, supernova goes pop
supernova, ya think it's over but the supernova don't stop" PM5K
Death:"Arnold Judas Rimmer... your life is over. You will travel with me to the-"
#knees death in the groin#
Rimmer:"Remember matey, it's only the good that die young"
Kudoth, god of pointless educational programs.

[The Claw]

#Bump# Ouch. Godamned chickens all over the place
#BOK#
 Uh-oh...

------------------
"Supernova, ya supernova, supernova goes pop
supernova, ya think it's over but the supernova don't stop" PM5K
Death:"Arnold Judas Rimmer... your life is over. You will travel with me to the-"
#knees death in the groin#
Rimmer:"Remember matey, it's only the good that die young"
Kudoth, god of pointless educational programs.

[Jabu]

I think you should glue turrets as child, not sibling.

[The Claw]

If I glue them as child, I get loads of dodgy unaamed sub-objects which aren't actually there. In fact, I think it happensif I glue as sibling too. But as I'm importing from .3ds format, all I do is press the navigate down button, identify the right section and glue a light to it. Seems to work fine, apart from the radius thing which gives my very large turrets.
 Heres an idea, would I be able to change it with a Hex edittor?

------------------
"Supernova, ya supernova, supernova goes pop
supernova, ya think it's over but the supernova don't stop" PM5K
Death:"Arnold Judas Rimmer... your life is over. You will travel with me to the-"
#knees death in the groin#
Rimmer:"Remember matey, it's only the good that die young"
Kudoth, god of pointless educational programs.

[Nico]

I think if you put the axis of the part/light object just in the right place (center), the big turret pb should not happen... worth a try I think...
Do you mean that when importing objects from 3ds files, you don't unglue subparts, you just glue the lights to the levels it is supposed to belong to, and it works? Damn, I must try that! Thanxthanxthanx  

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venom2506
Member of the Robotech mod for FS2

and of Hidden Terror, the Shivan campaign

and My own page