[blowfish]

I'm on a mac, and recently I've been trying to mod some missions in TextEdit.  All has gone well, except for the fact that I can't really figure out rotation.  I understand Pitch, Bank, and Heading, but in the mission file there are nine numbers defining an object's rotation.  Does anyone know what exactly these numbers are?

[Wanderer]

That is the orientation matrix.

[Admiral Edivad]

which, translated in a language comprehensible to people who never studied a matrix, means.... [**please insert correct answer**]
serioulsly, what is an orientation matrix?

[karajorma]

Which way the ship is pointing.

[Wanderer]

Pointing could be handled with single vector.. That matrix constains information on the ships banking - or roll - in addition to the info that sets the ships nose pointing somewhere.

Usually best left alone unless you really, really know what you are doing. In fred for example ship can be rotated freely or set to point to a specific place and the fred then handles the rest so unless you are doing the mission by hand you really shouldnt even try to use it.

Isn't there something like wine for macs as well.. bootcamp or what ever it is?

[Polpolion]

AFAIK, it would be something like: [ xlocation ylocation zlocation]
                                              [ xrotation yrotation zrotation]


EDIT: This is wrong

[Goober5000]

The orientation matrix is simply pitch, bank, heading except using vectors instead of angles.

[blowfish]

The orientation matrix is simply pitch, bank, heading except using vectors instead of angles.

Seems like kind of a weird way of doing things, especially since not all of the data is used (I could be wrong on this, though), but OK, that kind of makes sense.  I will try to work with vectors, and hopefully I will find an XP install disc somewhere so I can use FRED under BootCamp.

[blowfish]

Okay... So I got ships to point where I want them to, but when they warp in, the warp effect appears somewhere off in space.  Is there some specific format these numbers are supposed to be in or something?

[Aardwolf]

To store an orientation, all you need is two quantities specifying two components of the forward vector, a boolean determining which side of the plane the third component is on, and an angle determining the roll.

The first two are on the range [-1, 1], the boolean is an element of {0, 1}, and the third component ranges from 0 to 2 pi.

Therefore, all you need is 3 numbers (since the boolean could be used as a +2 or +2pi to one of the other numbers.




What do you mean, the warp effect appears somewhere off in space? Are you using scripting or something?

[blowfish]

No, I am not using scripting.  I just had the rotation numbers really high (another object's position relative to this object's position), and the warp effect appeared way off in space.  I managed to get it closer to where it is supposed to be by reducing the numbers until they were all less than or equal to 1, and the warp effect *appears* to be in the right position, but its orientation is still messed up.  I have no idea why this is happening.

[Aardwolf]

that's odd...
and i'm not sure what the range needs to be, but my [-1, 1] thing was not in the number system fs2 uses afaik

[blowfish]

I know what the rotation numbers mean, I just can't get them to work right.  The ship is pointing in the right direction, but the warp effect is not.

[Aardwolf]

What are you using?

Are you trying to do some fancy manipulation of warp effects?

[blowfish]

What are you using?

Are you trying to do some fancy manipulation of warp effects?

NO!  I'm just trying to get a frakking corvette to warp in facing the right direction.