[Blazar]

What are the OpenCollada export settings?

All my rigging (turrets, guns) get messed up when importing in PCS2 after exporting model from Max to .DAE

This is mine:
http://www.2shared.com/photo/uq7Ieq8a/Export_settings.html

I have followed the tutorials here to the letter for 3 times.
Still there is a big mess in PCS2.
 I use PCS2.1 Alpha Release April 1 2012.
Could there be something wrong with that?

[zookeeper]

There is a lot of things you might have missed. One of the most common mistakes is to forget to reset xforms (and to subsequently collapse the stacks; I'm not sure if it's actually required) before export. "Messed up" doesn't allow for many educated guesses.

[Blazar]

Indeed, you are correct, i had little time to explain:
messed up meant that the number of dummy's / points i had made in Max is almost half in pcs2 and that the location is far off.

I did reset x-forms before exporting and collaps the stack (just as i've learnt in the great tut's here in the Modding section).

[zookeeper]

Okay, so it's just that the firepoint locations are off and some of them don't show up at all? Well, that narrows the likely candidates down to these: either there's something wrong with your helper hierarchy, and/or you didn't reset xform on the dummies, and/or you did reset xform but did so without first unlinking the objects from each other. Reseting xforms on a parent (which has some transforms) very much screws up the children, although you'd see this already in Max (also, there's a handy xform reset script in the maxscripts sticky so you don't need to unlink the hierarchy first).

Just to make sure your helper hierarchy is correct, this is what it should be like:



[attachment deleted by a ninja]

[Blazar]

Thank  you very much.
I did reset x-form but i only clicked on the detail0 model. I didn't selected all of the models; dummies plus turret.
I did first unlinked the hierarchies first.

Nice script, will use it.
I will try it out and check the setup.
Although i have a different setup, in naming from Scooby_Doo:

turret01>helper>firepoints>firepoint
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,63643.0.html

Maybe it doesn't matter  that much. Thanks again for the support.

[zookeeper]

Although i have a different setup, in naming from Scooby_Doo:

turret01>helper>firepoints>firepoint
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,63643.0.html

Maybe it doesn't matter  that much. Thanks again for the support.

The one in my pic is the "new" kind of setup, which all new PCS2 builds (new meaning anything from the last 18 or so months) expect. They might or might not still recognize the "old" setup as well, I'm not sure.

[BlasterNT]

Quick question-What are the orientations of the "affect pivot only" arrows supposed to be relative to the front and sides of the turret?

[zookeeper]

Quick question-What are the orientations of the "affect pivot only" arrows supposed to be relative to the front and sides of the turret?

Generally, it doesn't matter; you're supposed to reset the xform of all the pictured helpers anyway, at which point the pivot orientations will reset to the default world orientation. However, if you use the "vec" feature of new PCS2 builds (link, link), then you'll obviously need to retain the orientation of that helper.

[BlasterNT]

Hmm, but you reset x-forms on everything else after placement? 

[zookeeper]

Hmm, but you reset x-forms on everything else after placement?

Not sure what you're asking.

You're supposed to reset xforms of all geometry before exporting. Whether you want to also reset xforms of helpers depends on whether you need the orientation of a helper for anything; helper orientation and scaling can help you export normals of thrusters, firepoints, glowpoints, docking points and eyepoints as well as the radius of thrusters, glowpoints, special point subsystems and path points.

Personally, I tend to export as much of those as I can so that I need to do only a minimal amount of work in PCS2, but unless you have a lot of normals/radii to set, I'd suggest just reseting xform on everything and setting all the aforementioned things in PCS2. Note that you don't even need to set firepoint normals for a turret which has an $fvec and $uvec.

[BlasterNT]

Is there anything bad about not resetting x-forms on multipart turrets on angled surfaces?  I'd personally prefer keeping the bounding boxes diagonal, in that case. 

[zookeeper]

Is there anything bad about not resetting x-forms on multipart turrets on angled surfaces?  I'd personally prefer keeping the bounding boxes diagonal, in that case.

Well, try it and see. They ought to appear rotated all wrong in-game.

As for bounding boxes, their exact shape and size should make no perceivable difference, as they're not hitboxes. The subsystem targeting brackets might be affected by the bounding box, but frankly I doubt anyone would notice the difference.