.obj -> .sur converter

Okay, for the Discovery mod I’ve used this tool to rehitbox 205 custom ships (and counting). So far, no problems, although hitbox testing is still ongoing. Some thoughts:

Someone mentioned shield bubbles. Those are seperate SURs assigned through the shiparch and the corresponding shield entry in select_equip. Would be outside of the scope of this, although I see no reason why this tool should not be able to create a hitbox of a very simple egg shape. Point being it’s a seperate model entirely, and not part of the ship itself.

Being able to assign named components so destructable models and hitboxes moving along with animations can exist, would definately be a plus. That’d make bases with animated bay doors possible.

I’ve fed the tool clusters of convex shapes (basically, when supplied a model, I manually break it up into pieces, use Milkshapes convex tool to wrap a convex untextured shape around them, and delete the original shape). Noticed if I don’t check the box to use convex hull instead of splicing, the SUR tends to get a lot larger. Not sure why.

@ Gibbon

Glad you got it worked out and decided to come back! Snazzy lil rock base!!

Someone mentioned shield bubbles. Those are seperate SURs assigned through the shiparch and the corresponding shield entry in select_equip. Would be outside of the scope of this, although I see no reason why this tool should not be able to create a hitbox of a very simple egg shape. Point being it’s a seperate model entirely, and not part of the ship itself.

So no need shield bubble cause they’re paired in the shiparch.ini with the selected shield equipement ?

the shields have their own hitbox
remove the .sur and the game takes the model’s hitbox as reference for the shield too
if you want a shield bubble just do nothing and keep the good lines on the shiparch ^^

OK, so i just make the ship sur with the tool, and don’t take care about the bubble, the shiparch.ini will make the job with the shield own hitbox

Thanks for the information

So, i made the surfor the station which i have uploaded the CMP earlier, the sur was made using the Ben_Kai Tuto.

Hit detection on station is Very good and operational
Collision detection work, but when i hurt the station, FL began to LAG hardly, and if i go forward slowly, i can pass through the station.

So, i think i really have a problem, with the CMP or the SUR. Don’t know which of them

If anyone can take the CMP previously uploaded and make/test the sur using schmack tool and ben kai tuto and see if you can se where the problem can be, it will be very cool.

Thanks

Gibbon i think you should write the tutorial in the tutorial section no ?
and at the end you have to add :
"

• open flmodeltools, open the cmp, without any modification save it"

if not, the cmp doesn’t have a radius (i think Sushi has already said this) and so your cmp is only visible when you look right to him

The tutorial i posted isn’t mine. I made no mention of FLModelTool anywhere either. Sushi suggested that i might have used it somewhere while i was converting the rock base. I might have used it but don’t remember doing so, as i just had a look at the original OBJ file i used for conversion and it went straight to harpointing after i made the cmp. Not really sure what caused it tbh.

and ? it’s not your tutorial but you can post it for every one and give the credits no ?

for the flmodeltools, trust me it’s necessary, i’m on the TOW’s bases and if you don’t save the cmp at the end, it doesn’t have a radius so you cannot see him if you’re not just in front of him

Gibbon, I believe Sushi said the opposite: that you might have forgotten to do it and that that would explain your base disappearing. FLModelTool recalculates the radius and bounding box of the models, which are used by FL for many things including visibility calculations. Basically, if the bounding box is off-screen, it won’t even bother trying to calculate whether the actual model is off-screen and will just assume it is. If your bounding box is zero, as it often is, then you’d need to see the center of the mesh for it to show up.

Well put it this way, on the multipart version of the base, the one in the video, i definitely did not use FLModelTool and it works fine. So i’m not so sure it has to be used at all. I don’t doubt if there’s a problem then maybe run it through that and it will fix it, but i wouldn’t say it’s a requirement as since then i’ve made a few more without issues.

I was going to post the tut in the Tutorials section but I guess only staff can post there….?

Ben_Kai wrote:
I was going to post the tut in the Tutorials section but I guess only staff can post there….?

Everyone should be able to post there… As far as I’m aware =D

I think only the Senior Member and admins can…

Gibbon wrote:
Well put it this way, on the multipart version of the base, the one in the video, i definitely did not use FLModelTool and it works fine. So i’m not so sure it has to be used at all. I don’t doubt if there’s a problem then maybe run it through that and it will fix it, but i wouldn’t say it’s a requirement as since then i’ve made a few more without issues.

you export with the 0.3 plugin ?
if yes, it’s normal, he puts a radius on the cmp
i prefer use the 0.2.1 because he doesn’t have the scale bug

edit : just to say :

if you start from a cmp, the sur you get is far more complex than the one you can do “by hand” in milkshape or 3dsmax
honnestly what i recommend is to build the shapes in a 3d program and then export as an obj and use the Schmackbozlen tool

as an example :

for the kaliida base
my sur : 73.5 ko and 1452 vertices
the one done by the Schmackbolzen tool from the cmp: 633.3 ko and 16435 vertices
the one done by the Schmackbolzen tool from the sur : 69.8 ko and 1488 vertices

nevertheless the hit/collision detection is better with the tool than by hand

Yes i am using the 0.3 exporter which might explain the lack of issues. For some reason, multi group models don’t export well for me using the 0.2 exporter.

The method you describe to make your sur is certainly one way to make them. I keep emphasizing the fact that not everyone knows their way around a 3D program so this is the reason Ben_Kai’s tutorial works for me and probably many others.

With regard to simplified surs, that’s the whole point of direct x mesh reduction surely? Saves making one from scratch when all you have to do is reduce the poly count in the model using this tool. I also find Lithunwrap does a very good job at reducing the poly and vertice count as well.

Gibbon wrote:
With regard to simplified surs, that’s the whole point of direct x mesh reduction surely? Saves making one from scratch when all you have to do is reduce the poly count in the model using this tool. I also find Lithunwrap does a very good job at reducing the poly and vertice count as well.

from my opinion direct x mesh reduction makes the models too bad if i can say
i have the choice to build a correct sur and to use the Schmackbolzen tool which has the advantage to not burdening the cmp
So i do like that but i understand perfectly that you don’t want or can’t use 3dsmax or other

a question

i have to add the proper hardpoint in the tool so they are covered by the hitbox
and if after i want to add 1 or 2 hardpoints to the cmp i have to rebuild a sur, right ?

so the question is : why we should not add all hardpoints at the list for each cmp even if not in the cmp?

to prevent rebuilding a new sur each time we want to add something …
i imagine the sur will be “bigger” and ? it’s a problem for freelancer or not ?

Not only this, there are different hardpoint names, e.g. HpTurret_B1_01, HpTurret_R1_01 etc.

Schmackbolzen: any progress for the next release with multiple groups please?