Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Krackers87 on July 24, 2003, 12:14:59 pm
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(http://swooh.com/peon/Bubsy87/pictures/unknown.gif)
Dont know what to name this so im looking for names. Also it is the first turret with a full 360 degree axis.
It is also my first model or texture.
Only two problems with it.
1 it has no detail levels (yet).
2 For some reason the sphere in the middle doesent show up on the targeting hud.
As soon as that is fixed ill release it. Also it is an alien turret.
I need name ideas.
Dont insult it its my first.
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Well it certainly looks interesting - nice use of maps - but could we have a bigegr piccie, and some more angles?
I'm guessing it's not Terran or Vasudan - have you buit it with a specific race or universe in mind?
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not realy. It would have to be a pretty advanced race because the way it works is by creating a field inside the barrel where it can materialize any form of laser/plasma fire.
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http://swooh.com/peon/Bubsy87/untitledv.bmp
1.6 mg Bmp
Edit: Smaller Jpg
(http://swooh.com/peon/Bubsy87/untitledvf.JPG)
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Is that globe free-floating? Interesting...
For the sake of having a definite orientation you might want to alter the ring section to have a front and back...
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Originally posted by Krackers87
Dont insult it its my first.
Better than my first attempt :lol:
A few tips. Paint the ends of the tubes with a different texture or alter the UV map for that part cause it looks a little bad cause the textures area little odd looking at that point.
I take it that the sphere is a completely seperate object or sub-object from the rest of the model. If so make it rotate (A better idea would have been to have the middle portion rotate around the sphere while it and the barrels stayed still but I doubt you'll be able to do that considering how the model was probably built.
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the ring rotates with the barrels and the barrels rotate up and down. I have finished the LOD's but i cant fix the prob with the sphere not showing on the HUD (for now lets just say theres so much power running through it that it scrambles your hud.
Those things kick ass with ultra AAA beams. Their tracking and speed is amazing and while they fire a bit funny (this is a very new type of turret), like out of the cracks in the barrel on the top, they owned 27 shivan fighters in just over 2 mins.
Im gonna release it in a few minutes after i fix the tex and if i get the sphere fixed ill update it.
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Call it a probe or satelitte.
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A very rare structure not human and resembles close to nothing of ancient, Vasudan or shivan technology. The only turret with a full 360 degree radius and fast tracking ability's. Only spotted on two occasions and both times they have caused heavy damage to patrol cruisers. No fighters have ever come back after encountering one of these turrets. They emit massive amounts of energy which keeps anyone from scaning it and also gives difuculty targeting it. The inner sphere houses what must be the power plant and for unkown reasons will not show up in the targeting box. These are normaly equiped with AAA beams but have also been armed with many other capital ship class beams or lasers. It would seem as though that it cannot fire physical projectiles and only plasma or laser weapons. It's energy levels would sudgest that it has a small but extremely volitale explosion.
http://swooh.com/peon/Bubsy87//Mods/AlienDefenseSatelite.zip
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I'm guessing that your sphere isn't showing up due to a dodgy sub-object arangement... but that's just a guess. For the record, the HUD target box is supposed to display the second LOD if it is available.
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Originally posted by Krackers87
.....No fighters have ever come back after encountering one of these turrets. ....
Doesn't this make it too powerful to play against?
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Originally posted by TopAce
Doesn't this make it too powerful to play against?
not realy, try for your self. Capships could tear them up. Its from its tech description. Just dont try taking one with an AAA beam on
alone.
It shows the ring and the barrels but no sphere. (unless i havent played since i put LOD's in but i cant remember now..
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Why not? Trebuchets, at least five of them -> 3000 meters, target, fire, fire, fire ... no turret. :) . If not enough SHIFT-R. Wait and the whole thing from over the beginning.
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i have found several errors with the turret and will be updating it shortly.
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Originally posted by Krackers87
i have found several errors with the turret and will be updating it shortly.
Turreting is always difficult if you don't pay enough attention and don't keep the sequence(for example place the axis before gluing etc.
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i think it has something to do with when it blows up. FS2 open crashes befor the mission loads.
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Originally posted by TopAce
You surely haven't read Karajorma's tutorial :)
why do you say that?
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Karajorma's tutorial is known forumwide. Newbies may read it, I recommend it.
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i see. Does anyone hgave any ideas why its not working?
i just crashes when it blows up. Im working on several things that may fix it but they might not work.
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Originally posted by Krackers87
i see. Does anyone hgave any ideas why its not working?
i just crashes when it blows up. Im working on several things that may fix it but they might not work.
I had the same, too. Doesn't the model have debrises set wrong? Or too many shockwaves in the table? You can have at most three as I know.
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Yes, my thinking as well - have you built debris? If so try leaving it out. Have you set any split points? You won't be wanting those for something smaller than a cruiser, so I'd guess you haven't bothered. Did you set an unusual explosion in the table entry? A good tip for testing for dodgy table entries is to rename your model to cargo03 and see if it works... then you'll know if it's a model or a table problem
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Originally posted by TopAce
Karajorma's tutorial is known forumwide. Always a target of everyone to make fun. :)
Not everyone. Only by you! :)
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well i figured out the specific problem. Th turret around the sphere blows up just fine but the sphere itself makes the game crash when it dies.
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i removed the debris but it still crashes
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I suggest you redo the turret. I remember my problem with this, that was with my first turrets, do exactly as told, my problem was I put the Local Light far from the base itself, and that probably crashed my ship.
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how do you set split lines with pcs?
also can someone please give me the link to the modelview that has editing capabilities pls?
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Check the FAQ. I updated it for links that work yesterday. :D
What do you mean by split lines though?
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where the ship seperaters when it blows up. Where do you place those?
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the modview link doesent work
can you zip it and e-mail it to me?
[email protected]
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Works fine for me. Maybe I missed one. Which particular link in the FAQ did you try? It should point at Geocities.
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thats the one in modding
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I've just tried that link. It works fine. Does it offer to save the file and then fall over halfway through? Does it not find the file at all and give you a file not found message?
You make split panes same way you make any other subsystem in modelview/PCS. Call the subsystem "Split 1" and make sure it is of the type Internal Hidden Point rather than real subsystem.
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I did it by doing r-click save as. You might want to warn people cause just clicking wont work.
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this is the error i get
FS2 caused an Integer Divide by Zero in module FS2.exe at 001b:0043962b.
Exception handler called in Freespace 2 Main Thread.
what do you think it means?
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Hmm. I liked the look of this. I even was thinking of making an Alien looking AAF for it, but then I tried the model in fs2 against four Maras.
It got wasted. The arms were blown off in under 30 seconds and if fs2 hadn't crashed at 38 seconds (damn dx8) then the main core would have went from 9% to zero in a few more seconds. I suggest more hit points. ;7
Also, slow down its rotation time (just a little) - it looked like it was having some sort of seizure (while it was still there) every time it rotated to fire.
Normally I'm a placid kind of guy and will go easy on people's work, hell I can't do any better, but I was quite impressed with this when I saw it. :blah:
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it didnt crash because of DX8
its crashing because of something about how it explodes
since i uploaded it i have changed many things but i see no need to upload it again unless it stops crashing.
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my mom says that its tryingh to divide something by zero when it explodes. I dont know what its dividing but i got it to work by using the Mjolnir as a template. It works like a charm now with more shield armor and the debris is in there. Also it's not spazing out anymore.
Only probems are that I had to remove the LOD's so this should be used with faster computers. Plus its a bit on the large size concerning faces (1224).
Anyways the important thing s that it works!
I have updated the D/L so go ahead and replace the model and ships entry with the new ones.
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Originally posted by Krackers87
my mom says that its tryingh to divide something by zero when it explodes. I dont know what its dividing but i got it to work by using the Mjolnir as a template. It works like a charm now with more shield armor and the debris is in there. Also it's not spazing out anymore.
Only probems are that I had to remove the LOD's so this should be used with faster computers. Plus its a bit on the large size concerning faces (1224).
Anyways the important thing s that it works!
I have updated the D/L so go ahead and replace the model and ships entry with the new ones.
I'm sorry, but how in hell did you get 1224 polys into that thing? It looks like a bunch of unconnected primitives to me. Not that the design is bad, in fact it is rather intriguing. Anyway, you probably had a light by itself or something (or perhaps an object with 0 mass) that was causing that crash
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exactly 1000 in the main part including debris. used to be 552 before triangulation
Shield is 224 with triangulation
The barrels are the big problem each containing close to 200 faces (and theres 4)
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For future reference, don't triangulate. It's like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Just convert it, Look at it in FS2 and not any faces that are acting up. Then use the polygon draw tool in TS to correct any non-flat faces.
Triangulation is quick but you can easily triple the poly count doing it.
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What do I lost if I don't triangulate a model? Why is it necessary at all?
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Originally posted by TopAce
What do I lost if I don't triangulate a model? Why is it necessary at all?
Okay.
There are three big problems in modding that can cause a model to have bad moving textures/holes in the side of the ship.
1) Non-flat faces. Any face which is curved in any way will display oddly in FS2
2) Connectable Polygon Vertices - You must be able to draw a line between a vertex and every other vertex in the shape without leaving the boundries of the shape.
3) Vertices in a line. You can not have 3 Vertices in a line.
(look at this page (http://underworld.fortunecity.com/pacman/106/fs2mods/shipcreationguide/creatingstablegeometry.html) of IP Andrews ship Creation guide for pictures if you didn't get what I mean).
A triangle can not ever suffer from any of those problems. It also can't have more three vertices so it will never suffer from the 20+ verts problem that means it won't convert in PCS.
For this reason some people triangulate their models to avoid all these problems. However triangulating turns ALL the polys into triangles which drastically increases the poly count of your ship. It can also triangulate faces differently on each side of the model resulting a ship that is no longer symetrical.
For this reason it's better to fix problem faces using the Polygon Draw tool in TS.
If you're using 3DS MAX I believe the whole thing is moot anyway cause I believe that max automatically triangulates anyway.
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Apparently you can triangulate faces individually or in groups in TS: select the face you want and hit the triangulate button (or control and click to select multiple faces)
Of course, I may be imagining this...
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Apparently you can triangulate faces individually or in groups in TS: select the face you want and hit the triangulate button (or control and click to select multiple faces)
Of course, I may be imagining this...
Just tried it. Doesn't work in TS6 so I imagine it doesn't work in the others either.
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Must have been imagining it then :nervous:
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Not even UV facing works on only selected faces, but it would be very useful if we UV Map every face planarry.