[Jonathan_S47]

I am working on a bomber that has 3 defensive turrets. I followed Karajorma's turreting tutorial. however when I finished and I clicked on rotate button in model view. the barles flew off their base and whent into orbit around the bomber and the turret bases themselves started spinning around the ship. The seem to be rotating on a different axes that what they are suposed to. I don't know what whent wrong or how to fix it sence this is my first attempt at modeling. any ideas?

[diamondgeezer]

Go in to your modelling proggy, TrueSpace for preference (), and set the offending subobjects' axes to the center of the objects. Thus they will rotate about their center. Yes.

[Jonathan_S47]

I did that when I was making them. they ignore it for some odd reason.

[diamondgeezer]

That is odd. You sure you set them to the center of their objects and not the center of the scene? Easy mistake to make...

[Jonathan_S47]

I just redid them to see if that was the problom. It didn't work. they still go flying off the bomber.

[StratComm]

are you moving the center of the geometry, or the geometry-light subgroup?  Truespace is terrible about giving you a million and one places to screw something like that up.  Typically the light should be in the center of the turret as well, rather than at (0,0,0) though I think that if you set your turrets up correctly this isn't an issue.

[Jonathan_S47]

The geometry. I don't have the light made when I create the axes. they act like they are rotating around a compleaty different axes then the ones I set up for them.

[StratComm]

Then the center of the group will probably be wherever you put the light, and you are gluing the two together when you create the light at the origin.  You don't have to delete the whole thing and start over though, just edit the axis on the turret group to be the center of the turret and you should be fine.

[Jonathan_S47]

That worked. They where all spining around the firing point for turret01. I compleaty redid the lights and the axes and I seem to have goten that part working. Thanks for the help!

[karajorma]

Just quickly Jonathan. Was it a fault in the tutorial that messed you up or something silly you did wrong or what? Any improvements you suggest will be added to the tutorial for the next people who go through it.

If you've got a before and after copy of your bomber that might help me too.

[Jonathan_S47]

I had a little trouble reading throught the tutorial but that is because I loose my place in paragraphs too easly. I also tend to have probloms comprehending words properly sometimes. I learn better by actualy seeing something and reading the words with it rather than just reading words. You might want to consider adding more images that actualy "show" what you are doing.

I will send you the before and after copys as soon as i figure out wich ones they are. I am going to need an e-mail address to send it to you though.

[karajorma]

Send them to [email protected]

I'm currently working on a more general tutorial for the complete beginner so the advice is definately helpful. This time I'm taking tons of pictures.
 You're right about losing place in a paragraph easily. I've noticed I do that a lot when I'm following a tutorial too (constantly flipping between browser and the application doesn't help much either)

[Jonathan_S47]

Sent. sorry about the size of the file.

[karajorma]

No problem. My account could handle it

I like the bomber. It's pretty good for a first attempt. It could do with a bit more rounding though. I've noticed that you've triangulated the model which is generally a bad habit (Sledgehammer to crack a nut). If the model was untriangulated you could use the extra polys to round the ship out a little more (it's a little boxy at the moment and would be improved no end my making it a little more round in certain places).

The texturing is pretty good for a first attempt too.

Why not post a pic and get everyone else's comments too though. We all love to see new models

EDIT : BTW I assume you hadn't got round to making thrusters yet rather than forgetting them completely!

[Jonathan_S47]

Thanks. The triangulation is a result of an older version of LithUnwrap that I tryed using to make the texturs (It required the model to be triangulated in order to be privewed). I just made glow points for the thrustes. I finaly got the bomber into the game last night. I am currently trying to work the bugs out of it. When the hull reaches 0 the game crashes. I think this must be a table problom so I am going to rewrite that. I would like to post a pictuer of the bomber but I don't have any webspace to do that wright now. I am going to be talking to one of my brothers to see what he can set me up with.

[karajorma]

I was in a good mood and I already had the models so

Here you go.

As for the game crashing when you reach 0 hull that sounds like a debris problem to me but I can't think what exactly would be the cause. I do remember hearing of this before though.

[Jonathan_S47]

It probalby is a debris problom. currently the ship doesn't have any so the game gets confuised. Is there a way to tell the game not to look for debris?

EDIT: I have noticed when I target the ship that targeting brackets do not appear. also the distance deisplayed in the traget info box is insainly high even though my missiles and turrets lock on to it.