New animation
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Thanks, got it. Silly me, was looking for utf2xml all the way.
I managed to get a fully working baydoor animation, on a completely custom capital ship. Naturally, this needed the CMP to be exported in such a way.
With the animation in the CMP done, there is only one question left - making a sur file that adjusts accordingly - so that if the baydoor is open, fighters can fly inside, and when it is closed, they can’t.This might fit into another topic, but… oh well. Do any of you know what is needed in the sur so that the baydoor will be accepted? I assume that needs a multi-component sur, where the baydoor is sur component #2 (or index 1) just like in the CMP, but this leaves me with the dilemma of constructing the rest of the sur - there is a ship, with a big hole (hangar) on the inside - thus it is pretty much impossible to make the first sur component convex. I guess the solution would be to have sur component #1 a convex part of Root, component #2 being the bay, component #3 being another convex part of the root, #4 being another convex part of the root - or what I am speaking is simply terrible nonsense. Please correct me - oh and while you are at it, call ms3d groups ‘groups’ and sur groups ‘components’ because I tend to mix them up when reading others’ notes. Thanks loads for all your help!
I might just post a video if everything works out nicely.
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WAAAA rimshot
long time no see 
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Here’s what I managed to get to work. Not the best footage, but I think you can see the hangar door opening and closing.
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http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=C7z_HStUmSk
my next work will be the Juni Defender ;D
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hi Chips
Do any of you know what is needed in the sur so that the baydoor will be accepted?
yes it needs a multi-component sur, the rev component and sur component are linked by name.
best results i got with the sur splicer, i suggest you have a look at it.example:
ISD.sur
ISD_cons_fix.dat
250
1000000 1000000 1000000
ISD_main.sur Root <- component name
ISD_zomgbayz1.sur zomgbayz1 <- component name
…there is a ship, with a big hole (hangar) on the inside - thus it is pretty much impossible to make the first sur component convex.
the ordering is up to you. also, not all components need a sur, incl. root.
like my base, none of the visible components have a sur, ive linked them all to dummy groups.
i suggest when you export the cmp from ms3d, include one dummy group.
later you can clone the dummy component for how many dummies you need to get a working sur.
that is because all single surs should be made of simple objects (box, circle, cylinder).for revolute components, ive already mentioned that the 3d origin will be its pivot point.
so that should be their position in ms3d, and when you export the sur for the rev component put it at the same place.
the position offset can be edited later with utf_editor, the sur component will follow it.if you need multiple surs, thus multiple components for an animated part, then just put all the dummies in the animation node.
hope it helps.
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Decided to do it earlier than I planned to - was just interested to get it right. My problem is, I can’t get any collission detection, except for the “Root” part of the sur.
I have no clue what is wrong. I built the SUR of simple boxes (I didn’t even extrude them) - that made up 15 boxes. I exported them as separate surs, so that results in 15 surs. I used splicer to add them together into one file. Added 13 dummy groups to the CMP file, exported it as multi component ==> 15 groups (ship, baydoor, dummies).
Imported the ‘fix’ data generated by the splicer, and made sure that all object names check out. I even tried making all those object names lowercase, to see if it is FL’s case sensitive behaviour, but no…
If I remove the dummy groups from the CMP, HardCMP only shows those parts of the SUR that are fixed to the ‘ship’ and ‘baydoor’ parts (more precisely, ‘Root’ and ‘BAYDR-L1_lod1’. If the dummy groups are there, the whole SUR is shown, so the names must check out.)
One last thing I have in mind, is that I used the ‘update cmp’ function of the exporter, to update the dummiless version of the CMP. I did that because I had problems with the Pris node causing a CTD; but if I update the old, working model, there is no CTD and the animation works too - only collission detection fails.
Edit: Not even on an animationless, newly exported CMP. Object names match, of course…
Edit 2: Alright, I think I got it. It seems to have been that File name and Object Names were identical (except for the .3db extension) - so I had them replaced. This was partially the cause for the lack of collission detection - the other cause was splicer’s nature to produce surs that don’t like vanilla solars. I attempted to make the nose of the ship the root, knowing that in case of such a big ship that is the only likely cadidate for solar collission. Unluckily, however, it seems that NPCs will fire at the center of the ship’s Root. This results in completely stubborn hostile NPCs, and their tendency to fill the nose of the ship with projectiles, which just looks crazy. I know that multiple-component surs have been made in the past, I found some excellent tutorials by BJ and CV in the archive. Problem is, they rely a lot on images that do not exist anymore. I suppose that exporting a multi-component SUR straight through the 1.1 exporter isn’t that hard; my question, however, is, what makes the sur link up with the components in the CMP? I presume that’s the ms3d group’s name; does it have to fit the Object Names in the cmp?
(looks like I’ve steered this topic way off animation in the direction of sur files, I’m sorry about that)
Edit 3: Nope. Damn thing only recognizes the root, splicer or not, when it comes to hitting stations…
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Hmm those warnings happen sometimes to me as well, on occassion, but they did exist even earlier than I started fiddling with animation, and even then, the server worked just fine (and the game as well).
Check for faulty “Fix” and “Pris” (or “Rev”) entries. They can make the game crash - the ‘Fix’ node once crashed me on launching, it was a typo in there.
Another mistake that caused CTDs was: Faulty filenames in the cmpnd node, did not pair up with the 3dbs.
I’d place my bet on the Fix node, because you naturally exported the thing as multi-component.
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Through trial and error, I’ve determined that the problem is definatitly not in the fix node, but in the rev node (I deleted only the rev node and the crash went away, although if I tried to eject cargo the game crashed as the animation node had nothing to refer to). The parent and the child are both named correctly. Of course, I don’t have much choice; I’m not sure if it’s an error in v4 of UTFEdit, but I can’t rename anything in the rev node; I can edit the names in the fix node fine, just not the rev. Damn you BJ, sending me a product that doesn’t work
So, if it isn’t nicknames, what else in the rev node can cause a crash?And as a side note, what exactly does the pris node do?
MK
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@mknote:
did you copy+paste the header+frames data in utf editor?
if so, try using the export+import buttons instead.
also, mismatching parent references in rev node / animation node lead to a ctd on game exit.
its been a while tho, hope my memory is correct… -
**Well, from my work over the past week, the Pris node is for your baydoors. The Fix is for fixed hardpoints, the Pris is usually used for the baydoors and the Rev is for your Revolute hardpoints.
The layout of the Fix node is different than the other two, the Rev and Pris follow the same format.
There is other bugs in that version, I do not use it to do any editing with because it have a string problem.**
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Look at the Liberty Dreadnaught, that is where it is used for baydoors. Rev and Pris are the exact same format so it would stand to reason both can be used.
