Hi.
I had a lot of questions, but didn't really want to make a dedicated thread for each of them. Things could get pretty spammy that way, so I figured i'd post them all here. I hope that's okay.
Modelling:
-How do you go about detailing? I'm working on my second project at the moment, a fighter, and there's probably more opportunities to add detail/greebles then on my previous project, but i'm not exactly sure how to approach it. I understand that there's the knife tool, and the subsurface modifier, but i'm not really sure how to get greebles in the vein of HTL models. Part of this is I don't know how to make nice looking greebles, but also because it seems like a waste of polys, memory, and a substantial increase in time needed to UV/texture just to, say, put a little bump around the edge of a wing - that you won't even see ingame from more then 200m away. Am I looking at this the wrong way, or is there a right way and a wrong way to detail? And how
do you go about it?
-Making my debris took me longer then making the actual model, and it looks worse then the retail debris. Is there an easier way to go about it then randomly slicing stuff up with the knife tool and filling in the remaining faces (and moving stuff around to make it manifold? Specifically, the "full volume" debris
this link talks about.
-Modelling with UVing in mind - what does this mean?
-I'm not going to lie - it's a little intimidating just starting out and spending all of 2 hours trying to extrude a tube with ends of different sizes, and then you finish and have wonderful models like the Erebus to compare what you've done to. Now, obviously the answer to "How to get better" is "Practice"; Rome wasn't built in a day, after all, but would anyone care to share some general tips for how to improve? I see most of the stuff that's been done and I go "I actually don't know how you could make that". I figure there must be some way to go about it: after all, you could hypothetically 'practice' just by making cylinders over and over.
Texturing:
-Is there a "Texturing for dummies" guide somewhere? I followed
this as an example (I didn't make the model in the tutorial, I just looked at it for reference regarding UVing and texturing) and I was confused and afraid. The closest I got to something remotely usable was a dummy white texture with random splotches of colour which I used for testing. I dread texturing more then anything else - and quite frankly would rather experience UV hell over and over then try to texture at this point in time.
Ingame:
-I'm working on a fighter at the moment that i'd like to constantly spam BP-esque flares out the back, as a method of defence (Similar to what's planned for the UEF Bombers). I remember somewhere there was discussion of mounting flares to capships, but i'm not sure if this was ever followed up/followed through on. I'm aware you can do this in FRED/script it, but i'd like to actually like to link it to the fighter itself - so you can place it into a mission and it will just work. I've not experimented with countermeasures before; I believe it might be a bit more complicated then just making a turret and having it shoot countermeasures, or something. How, if possible, could this be achieved?
-Likewise, i'd love to be able to give fighters abilities independently: Fighter A has the ability to boost engines with unlimited afterburner, Fighter B has the ability to regenerate shields, Fighter C has the ability to change weapons temporarily, etc. I'd still like to link these weapons to the actual fighters themselves, rather then checking the ship class and then activating the appropriate ability in FRED. This would likely require LUA scripting, of which I have zero experience (I tried to follow the guide on the wiki, and ended up knowing less then I knew before I started). Is this possible to do? (As an extension: Would it be possible to add the Capship turret targeting script independently, if it's not already?)
-Correct me if i'm wrong, but I believe when a beam is fired it doesn't move with the ship; it will attempt to stay firing on the targeted co-ordinates (Unless it's a fire down normal beam). If this isn't the case, is there a way to change this behaviour? As an example: Say the beam targets (an object) 20 degrees up and 30 degrees to the right of its normal; even if the ship turns sharply it will keep firing at that spot. Likewise, if a slash beam was to cut an arc across the target 40 degrees above the horizon, if the ship rotated suddenly then it would by and large miss (more then slash beams usually do). If there is a way, is it possible to tie it to that ship? (eg: preferably not hidden behind an AI profile flag)
-I once tried to recreate a missile I saw once upon a time that had a single large missile that split into many smaller sub-munitions which proceeded to home in (accurately; significantly more so then piranha/slammer children) on the target. I haven't had much luck trying to mimic this kind of behaviour with spawned children missiles; and I fear I might be missing something simple. Is it possible to do something like this?
-Likewise, is it possible for SSM strike missiles/children of SSM strike missiles to home in on their 'target'?
-Is there a way for a "CIWS" flagged weapon's explosion to instantly destroy bombs hit by the shockwave without upping the damage, the EMP/Electronics flag, or significant armor.tbl trickery? I believe bombs either have 25 or 50 HP by default, so an explosion of 20 damage shouldn't be able to destroy them instantly.
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I believe that's everything for now - i'm probably missing a few things, but that's more than enough.
Thank you very much in advance!