[TrashMan]

I'm making several ships - from fighters to battleships.

On two of the large ships all turrets move as one object (alltough they turn and fire), so they fly trough the spaceas tough the rotational axis is the center of the ship - does anyone have a clue, and on one of them they don't fire at all. The tbl files are o.k., turrets are in PCS, with the rotational axis (y) for turret base and arm.

[StratComm]

Oops, missed something.  I'll bet that your heirarchy is messed up (all turrets glued together then that group glued as subobject to the hull) so check that.

[Bobboau]

check there axes

[LAW ENFORCER]

They might have damaged theri axes? All the more reason to buy swords! Swords for everyone!

[TrashMan]

I followed the instructions to the letter.
All the turrets glued as siblings, and then glued to the hull.

All turrets have rotational axes set (Y). beats me..

One other thing - the "I'd like to blow PCS to little bits" sindrom.
I used it at leat 100 times, and yesterday is the FIRST time it didn't do the "Illegal operation" bit.

It screws up normal faces of my models. One fighter I made 7 times from scratch. This last time, I made it painfully slow, to make sure that EVERYTHING in its geometry is perfect! PCS converts it (has 3 lods); lod's are "relativly" o.k., debris is o.k., the ship flies around but wont fire, alltough everything in PCS is set, and the tbl file is allso o.k.?????'

[TrashMan]

Ahem....Help?

[Killfrenzy]

I've not had any real problems with PCS......but I've had LOTS of problems with barrelled turrets and I've just given up with them - I go with the Sathanas idea!

[StratComm]

OK, I must not have been really clear there.  Hull and siblings should be sibling.  Heirarchy should look like this:

Model
|-----Hull(LOD0 Geo)
|-----AnySubSysModels(If Used)
| . . . |-----SubSys(Geo)
| . . . |-----H_SubSys(LocLight)
|-----...
|-----Turret01 (Turret order isn't essential; don't stress over it)
| . . . |-----Turret01(Geo)
| . . . |-----TurretArm01(when applicable)
| . . . | . . . |-----TurretArm01(Geo)
| . . . | . . . |-----H_TurretArm01(LocLight)
| . . . |-----H_Turret01(LocLight)
|-----Turret02
| . . . |-----Turret02(Geo)
| . . . |-----TurretArm02(when applicable)
| . . . | . . . |-----TurretArm02(Geo)
| . . . | . . . |-----H_TurretArm02(LocLight)
| . . . |-----H_Turret02(LocLight)
|-----Turret03
| . . . |-----Turret03(Geo)
| . . . |-----TurretArm03(when applicable)
| . . . | . . . |-----TurretArm03(Geo)
| . . . | . . . |-----H_TurretArm03(LocLight)
| . . . |-----H_Turret03(LocLight)
|-----...
|-----TurretXX (Last Turret)
| . . . |-----TurretXX(Geo)
| . . . |-----TurretArmXX(when applicable)
| . . . | . . . |-----TurretArmXX(Geo)
| . . . | . . . |-----H_TurretArmXX(LocLight)
| . . . |-----H_TurretXX(LocLight)
|-----Detail1 (LOD1, MUST be named Detailxx or detailxx; order of details is ESSENTIAL)
| . . . |-----Detail01(Geo)
| . . . |-----H_Detail01(LocLight)
|-----Detail2 (LOD2, same conditions as detail1)
| . . . |-----Detail02(Geo)
| . . . |-----H_Detail02(LocLight)
|-----Detail3 (LOD3, same conditions as detail1)
| . . . |-----Detail03(Geo)
| . . . |-----H_Detail03(LocLight)
|-----Debris01
| . . . |-----Debris01(Geo)
| . . . |-----H_Debris01(LocLight)
|-----...
|-----DebrisXX(Last Debris should be at most 6 unless you are running a source mod that allows more)
| . . . |-----DebrisXX(Geo)
| . . . |-----H_DebrisXX(LocLight)
|-----H_Hull(LocLight)

EDIT: Space removal is a pain; this should make sense (I hope)

Someone save a copy of that and/or add it to a tutorial on ship building

[TrashMan]

I followed the tutorial to the letter... but then that tutorial sucks (this is the 4th,..no 5th so far)!

the only thing left is to glue a turret to the hull, then select another turret and glue that to the hull and so on...sigh (the ship has 90 turrets). The glue all turrets as sibling doesn't work - it looks that way.

[StratComm]

No no no, don't select the turret first.  That creates a REALLY messed up heirarchy.  That tree wasn't ment to be a tutorial on it's own, it's just a list of how things ought to look in TrueView (I think, though I've never used it) to make subobjects behave normally. You should select the hull and then glue all the pieces together at the same time (click each one while the hull/turret group is selected and you are gluing in sibling mode) and this should create the appropriate heirarchy.

[Anaz]

TrueViewTrueViewTrueViewTrueviewTrueviewTrueviewTrueViewTrueViewTrueView

[TrashMan]

So that's how you do it. FINALY SOMEONE WITH SOME GRAY MATTER IN HIS HEAD! I read 6 tutorials and no one explaind the actual gluing proces!!!

I can now finally finish the Iowa and the Paladin.

[TrashMan]

Today I made LOD's 1,2&3 + debris for Iowa and paladin. I allso got the hierarchy right. (doublecheck).

PCS still screws up! It mixes up the level of detail, alltough they are correct in the hierarchy. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh!

[karajorma]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Today I made LOD's 1,2&3 + debris for Iowa and paladin. I allso got the hierarchy right. (doublecheck).

PCS still screws up! It mixes up the level of detail, alltough they are correct in the hierarchy. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh!

Have you tried Cob2fs2? I use that program for all my converting. Sure it isn`t as convinient as PCS but it seems to deal with models that PCS can`t deal with.

[StratComm]

For really big/complex models though cob2fs2 won't work and PCS will.  Really annoying too since PCS tends to corrupt faces on large models yet it is the only one that will convert.

[TrashMan]

I don't know how to use pof2FS2!

The models are complex and big. I had to remove a few turrets from Iowa, for it had more than 180 subobjects!

[StratComm]

the 180 works?!? are you using a source mod?  That seems really, really high to me.  And as for cob2fs2, you have to run it from a dos shell and it outputs to a file called test.pof.  With 180 subobjects though I almost garuntee that it will fail.

[TrashMan]

As I said, I removed the surplus submodels. But it still won't convert it (It has about 2000 polys). I'll try to use the cob2fs2, but I doubt it.

I WANT TO GRIND PCS TO DUST!!!!!

I still managed to convert one model - a frigate.