[Col. Fishguts]

Originally posted by StratComm
I think it's the group pivot, because even if the geometry is set to the right pivot before you glue on a light and then the light (and the resulting group pivot) are out of place, the turret still rotates wrong.  Best advice until anyone can prove it one way or the other is to tell people to set both.

Ah yes...I forgot to mention. It's indeed the group axes that get used, the object axes are ignored.
Thus. Select the group of the barrel in TrueView -> press axes button -> move the white x/y/z thing to where you want the pivot of your barrel to be -> save before TS makes something stupid

Or ask IPAndrews how it works (that's what I usually do )

[karajorma]

Originally posted by StratComm
No you don't, no you don't, no you don't.  I've seen this myth propogated so many places it's scary.  For multipart turrets (or any other subobject without the $rotates=n flag) you don't need to define rotational axes.  The game figures those out on its own.

That will probably be my fault. I tell them to do that in the turretting tutorial so things work in modelview. IIRC I did that because PCS does seem to assign a rotational axis and it picks the wrong one as far as modelview is concerned. If you're telling me that the game completely ignores the data regardless of what it is then I'll play around with one of my models and then update the tutorial accordingly. (I'll sort out this thing with the axis while I'm there).

[Darkhill]

I do realize now that my problem with the barrels is the axis is at the center.  Moving it to the bottom is starting to be a real problem.  This is what I'm doing, tell me what I'm doing wrong.  Click on the object itself, click on the axes button, little white thing appears but when I move it it moves the object around, I can't physically move it anywhere.  Then I had the idea of moving the light to the base of the barrel and using the center axis button.  Made it better but it still has a problem, look at the picture to see.

http://sco.minos.net/test/turret1.jpg

In Modelview what direction are the pieces supposed to be going?  FS2 models both pieces go in z.  But when PCS converts it the base is like x and the arms are z.  When I change them both to z I get the problem like above.  

I know turrets have to be on the top or bottom, but does it have to be a perfectly flat surface?  The front turrets on the modified corvette are at a bit of an angle.

[karajorma]

What I always did was press rightmouse on the little pointer button so that the object info box was open. Once I clicked on the axis button the axis was sellected and then I could move it about by simply typing in the place where I wanted it.

Much more accurate than moving it about by eye.

[Darkhill]

I missed the fact that you can move it around with the object box.  I kind of half way got it to rotate right now.  The white x,y,z does it have to be pointing perfectly down or just in that general area?  And I thought in FS2 the bases moved around and the barrels moved with them then the barrels moved up and down?

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by Col. Fishguts


Ah yes...I forgot to mention. It's indeed the group axes that get used, the object axes are ignored.
Thus. Select the group of the barrel in TrueView -> press axes button -> move the white x/y/z thing to where you want the pivot of your barrel to be -> save before TS makes something stupid

Or ask IPAndrews how it works (that's what I usually do )

I've found, when messing with V models, setting object axes does the trick but setting group axes too messes it all up.

[StratComm]

Ok, the cob format isn't really that convoluted and hasn't changed in what, 7 years?  I seriously doubt that there is a difference and yet we've got probably six differing (and conflicting) instructions on what to set.  When using PCS for conversion, unless something has changed since I got the Max plugin working, then group axis is important.  And I've never seen it cause any problem to set both, even were one is not being used.

You aren't using cob2fs2 for conversion or something, are you?