I thought this would be of interest to modders considering making an animated ship model (like me with the Babylon5 mod) with moving parts or sections.
Since I use 3DSmax and cannot export a mesh to the TXT format I have played about with existing models in the game. In this example I have :
- based the experiment on the Pirate Cutthroat, which in my case replaces the TEC Cobalt Frigate.
- replace the 2D flag, with the 3D Pirate Skull mesh (seen on the Pirate base)
- removed unneccassary particle effects
- adjusted the rotational speed on the skull mesh
- used a transform matrix to move the axis of rotation in line with the ship's z axis
- moved the skull to the center of the ship mesh
http://rapidshare.com/files/102030373/animated_ship_mesh.wmv.html
I think you will agree there is great potential in this method when you consider the mesh that makes up the skull could easily be a secondary part of the ship model.
Not really because they have designed the ships so far to disguise its absence, what they could do is add them as a kind of point defence to the new military outposts which would blend it into the game world without it sticking out like a sore thumb. If they started to update one or two ships designs then you could argue most capships would need an overhaul.
Its how to tap into it though, I mean Gauss gun turrets sort of do it already if you could somehow bolt/link it on to another movable mesh.
If SD/IC wanted to be really clever get the engine to pass the vector to a 2nd processing thread to calculate the rotation angles & steps and pass them back for rendering the animation. You would probably want it as a graphical option to help out single core PCs though. I'm not sure how the scence rendering works atm obviously you wouldn't want to waste resources trying animate something you are not actually looking at.
Which is probably why they didn't put the turrets in. The scale of the battles in Sins makes it so that you rarely keep any one ship zoomed in that close for any amount of time. Plus, the ships don't move, so investing time on making animated turrets which wouldn't move most of the time doesn't make sense.
I don't think annimated turrets would be particularly hard for performance or difficulty (after all its just some maths calculations ontop of some good code). Time, is the issue. Both in programming and assembling the meshes and the file formats etc etc. You would only make so many turrets move anyway, most of the Advent and Varsia don't need it anyway (sleek designs look crap with turrets).
Yeah but the TEC look stupid without them. I mean who makes a ship the size of the Marza and doesn't put a nice big turret right on top where all that wasted space is? Same with the Kol. It could really use some turrets on the sides.
Stardock probably didn't want this to be a TURTLE game (The Tec Heavy Cruiser just looks like a WWII tank!)
How do I do this?
Tutorial anyone?
also starwars ships will look hugly wit out moving turret ewwww fix turbolaser ......
With this as a certainly accomplished mod, my thought is that perhaps IC will include it in an expansion at some point in time. The mod certainly has "Hollywood" style written all over it! Very very good! But i think, the devs cant allow the modding community to outdo them, it is after all, their game. It makes me hopeful that some of the things you are doing will be incorporated into the main game, and perhaps they will ask you to do some of the work? As an employee? With inside tools and of course the job, this could be applied as you said, in increments. Certain animations for certain Craft or modules, perhaps small at first, moveable dishes on repair bays, or open-swinging hangar bay doors, or aero-stabilizer fins for the fighter/bomber craft. Then perhaps the Capitals and Frigates with turrets or moveable sections, as your B5 model, or something less ambitious, perhaps like projecting or retracting gun emplacements, or shield arrays that are physical, instead of the force-field effects we have now. Certainly not on all of them, but certainly some.
The concern for animations that might not be seen due to zoom-out effect might be addressed as something that only activates at a certain zoom-in level? This i dont know, but thought it might alleviate the animations processing in the models when they are zoomed out. But activated when zoomed in? I dont know if this is possible, but am thinking of how it may be accomplished.
like:
If Zoom = X3 or
X2 or
X1 Then
Do
Animation
Goto End
Or
If Zoom not = X3 or
End
This of course may not be workable in the files or tools and may require hardcoding, at this point i am guessing, but looking for something that may work. You certainly know much more than me, hope i havent offended by my noobish suggestions.
You certainly have accomplished a very very very cool thing! I hope it makes it into the game. Good luck,
-Teal
just some ideas from a newbie, hope i havent offended by not knowing what i am talking about. I just get ideas, some of them work, alot dont, but it is a learning curve for me. Thanks for listening.
What would be really good is if you can play around with your idea and then show us, doesn't need to be fancy just some primative shapes will do.
can i preetttty please have the model?
look at it this way if it gets finished everyone will have it...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CIS5y1MrIko
I don't know how I missed this. And you all thought I was crazy to ask about rotating sections way back before the beta started.
Now a Nexus mod could be created as well.
Stiletto spam FTW!
what do you have left to finish it?
I need support for:
- lots more flair points on the main mesh object
- flair point support for the particle system mesh
- fire arc control on the weapon dummy points
- support for animated turrets i.e. alt/azimuth rotation points which are fed by co-ordinates or vectors
then I can finish it...
I can give support on:
.... nothing i fail sorry
Don't worry the pink space ponies will come to the rescue after Entrenchement is sorted.
Well we could always yell at the devs. Although the results it has created in the past have been mixed/nonexistent.
No please don't do any yelling that wont get us anywhere, think of it more like a tug boat nudging with a small force over a long period of time against the big cruise ship. If you make a sound and solid arguement which gathers support the momentum from the community and will of the developers will do the rest if they so choose, and if not then life is to short to get hung up on such matters either enjoy the game as is or move on I guess...
If you can use particle effects as actual emplacements, cant you just double the number of guns on any given ship? Then have the particle system assigned to the turret have zero damage when it shoots and create a particle effect that is invisible beyond the ship's hull. That way the turret wil actually be like an autocannon beam with most of it's length invisible. This will force it to constantly point in the correct direction. Then use the standard hardcoded gun emplacements to do the actual damage, so it will give the illusion of tracking turrets, even though it is in fact 2 seperate weapons systems, just one has zero damage output and a lot of invisible attack path.
that sounds too smart to do
I am sorry I am late to the party, but I will try to offer my assistance if possible. I am not good at coding, but I have a few ideas, plus I am always willing to learn.
Yeah this was an idea I think first proposed by ManShooter a few months back, since the weapon flair or muzzle effect is directional along with the path and travel of projectiles to the target. Unforutanately it yielded unpleasent side effects which basically were:
- Not true animation, the turret would immeadiatly point at its intended target rather than track to it.
- If the turret wasn't firing it would not be visable.
- Lack of decent fire arc control still means you get crazy effects like shots being fired through the hull and at outrageous angles.
Someone should setup a Sins Modding Wiki so we can store/organize/search through all this great information.
I nominate rukiri!
I don't think that is a possibility, since when the ship was stationary, it moved rather slow, but when it was on the prowl, the rotating section moved a bit quicker. Personally I think finding a good roation speed is of a preference of the creator, and I have faith in you
EDIT: By the way I found some people that did good image recreation, and this here is an excellent recreation of an Omega Class Destroyer
Omega Class Destroyer
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