[Titan]

well, now that summers winding down, and the neighborhood pools closed, my friends cant play football with me all day, and a number of other reasons, im back  and ready to get back to figurin how to mod.

my one question is, once you get the texty thing done, (whats it called, it goes along with the pof.... ugh) how do you get it and the pof into the game?

whoops, make that two questions, what type/size ship do you recommend for a first try?

P.S. can you guys show me the newst version on the welcome beam it changed during the 4 or so months i was active, i wonder how much its changed now.

anyways,  hope you guys all let me back in an forgive me for my absence.

[Mobius]

That's my favourite. The Earth Alliance Silver Beam^TM. Welcome-back to the HLPBB!!!

<I sent you a HB PM, remember >

[Titan]

yup. HLPBB?

[Flipside]

Hard Light Production Bulletin Board

1: .tbl files are quite easy to master once you get the hang of them, the trick is to refer to the Wiki often, and use a similar type of ship as a template.

2: Probably best to start with a fighter or bomber, as those need the least work in Truespace etc to get to compile and work in-game

[Titan]

but im already halfway done with the 'victory class broadside cruiser prototype'.

i have a question about it though. it has two pieces (right now) a central, and a side. theres 5 one piece turrets on the side, i haven't glued the lights on or anything yet. can i make the turrets, and do that part were i glue them onto the side piece, then copy the whole thing, mirror it and then put it on the otherside? short story: do pre-glued copied turrets still work?

[Mobius]

Check The FAQ^TM. There's a section about modelling 

[Titan]

the oracle? im slowly looking throught that. i dont think it has anything about copying turrets.

edit: also, is it possible to have a really rapid firing cap ship wep? cuz the fighter weps fire really slowly

edit2: did anyone ever finish that campaign in my sig? the one on the bottom?

[Titan]

nvm, karajama says in the tutorial, quote, "If you were making a proper ship you'd probably want to copy this turret several times and stick them all to the hull. You would then name each turret in order e.g. turret02, turret03 etc." unquote. i'd say thats pretty clear (kara, im gonna hold you to that, and if it messes up the model i've spent all day making (a LONG time for me), im gonna be comin after your hide, boy)

[Hades]

Kara is an Admin(TM) now, I think you don't want to tangle with him...

[Titan]

awwwww........... anyway, i noticed when i copy the turrets, them and their sphere+light are the same names as the originals. i changed the names of the second batch of turrets. do i have to change the names of the lights and spheres?

[Mobius]

Yes, I think you should. Each light should have a different name. Don't ask me why I know it

[Titan]

should i name them like "turret01", "turret02", etc. or should i name them just "light01", "light02", etc. with the second one, i only have to do 5 turrets, the first i have to do 10....... (it has 3 laser and 2 missle turrets on each side, in a pattern like LMLML were l=laser and m=missle)
edit: should i figure out how to post a screen so i can show you guys what it looks like now?

[Mobius]

The best way to be sure of something is...converting a POF to COB and check everything by yourself

[Titan]

i have two more questions:

1. if i make anything in caligari thats bigger then the grid, it keeps getting all distorted, like things that are supposed to be straight, halfway along them the turn at a 60degree angle. what should i do? im using 3.2 if it matters.
                                                                                                                     _____
2. i wanna make a ship that has a piece shaped like (from the front) this: (_____) (kinda like the stormy troopship in star wars) should i try and bevel out a rectangle, or just used a squished out cyilinder.

[--Steve-O--]

regarding lights i've done it one of two ways: the hirearchy lookes like this (it works fine for me)

• Turret01
            turretbase
    +Turret01-arm
            turretarm
            turretarm
     * LOC LIGHT turret01-fp_01
     * LOC LIGHT turret01-fp_02
  
  OR  (i dont use this way to often)
  
  
• Turret02
             turretbase
     *LOC LIGHT- H_turret02
    +Turret02-arm
             turretarm
             turretarm
     * LOC LIGHT- turret02-fp_01
     * LOC LIGHT- turret02-fp_02[/color
  
  single part turrets:
  
  
  • Turret02
              turretmesh
     * LOC LIGHT- turret02-fp_01
       
    
    
    
    Copy and paste is the only way to do turrets, only thing is you have to go through and rename all the groups and lights for each turret, a bit tedious especialy if you number something wrong. thats an easy fix though, just double check your work.

[Titan]

turretmesh? 

[--Steve-O--]

if i make anything in caligari thats bigger then the grid, it keeps getting all distorted, like things that are supposed to be straight, halfway along them the turn at a 60degree angle. what should i do? im using 3.2 if it matters

IN TS you dont have to build things to scale. its actually easier to build small within the grid and the scale the whole model to the size you want when its done. as for the distortion, i get that too if my view point is set inside or right next to a models mesh and the try to look down it length while in wire view. the lines and verts seem to double back on you. moveing the viewpoint around will fix this if that what im thinking of. but try scaling the size down that should fix any other distortions revolving around model size.

i wanna make a ship that has a piece shaped like (from the front) this: (_____) (kinda like the stormy troopship in star wars) should i try and bevel out a rectangle, or just used a squished out cyilinder.

kinda like a rectangle with round sides right? you can bevel if you dont mind boxy sides, but it seems that to many bevels in one spot make my TS have a fit. if you want nice round sides then you can drop in a cylinder and delete the lines on the upper and lowermost edges with your FACE/VERT/LINE edit tool, and then stretch it out. this is easiest using the front view, diable the "Y" and "Z" buttons in the upper right corner, and the using the object scale tool. this will stretch it out width wise but not expand it height and length wise. give that a try.

[--Steve-O--]

turretmesh, these are the cubes and other parts that make up the turret. you dont have to name these at all as PCS really only pays attention the the group and light names. but i find naming the parts comes in handy when texturing it with lithium. if im lazy though i'll just leave parts named "cube" or "cylinder" and such.

[Titan]

face/vert/line? 

btw, is it possible to have a player ship with 11 turrets? (its a small 7man gunship, 2 men per5 turrets, two sides. a gunner for main gun, pilot/sensor officer, and coordinator/communications officer) 'cuz theres bombers that have turrets. just wondering.

also, when i open modelview and try and open my cob with the cob-to-pof thing, i get this message: "seek failed on an unnamed file" whats goin on? 

edit: btw, im done with my first ship, gonna move on to the Valiant class Battle Cruiser. this is for a mod independent of freespace. if anyone cares, the basic plotline is: humans, after years of civil war, have united to expand their species boundaries outside of their home system. however, then soon stumble across a warring pair of alien species, and tensions rise as humans attempt to decide who they're going to support

[akenbosch]

yes, player ships can have turrets. just keep it low...you dont want the damage report filling the screen.


and why are you using modelview? get the latest version of pcs2 from bobbaus sig and use that.