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 May. 26, 2013
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Re: What is the best way without 3DSmax

Subject: Re: What is the best way without 3DSmax
by { Mini_Me} on 2012/2/10 6:43:46

A few relevant thread links at the bottom of post


Hum, I suppose quite a few people have wondered about the wandering station dilemma. In short, the way bases are done in FL, they must be set in one stationary spot, so the game knows where you will be able to dock and place NPC traffic. With that said, there are still options available to make it appear like it's moving, via mesh animations. You would go about this by making your Root node the fixed point in space, then setting up entirely transparent faces to act as your movement chain.
So lets say it might look like:

  • Root node as a single face

  • aniFace_rot1 - a face which would rotate in whatever direction you prefer, on whatever axis you need. Personally, I would make it the length you want the second part to slide along and use it's dimensions for the distance section of the next pris animation

  • aniFace_pris1 - this face will use a Pris node to translate / slide along one axis. It would be the Child node of aniFace_rot1.

  • base_model here, as a Child to aniFace_pris1, with other rotating parts of the main model as Children of base_model and so on


Here are some problems you will run into:

  • NPCs shoot at the center of the model - for us that is a part / face without a sur and effectively invisible in space

  • Only the slowest movement will allow player docking, and I mean seriously slooooow, because player ships briefly stop, then slow down when locked into the docking sequence

  • Your rotating station looks rather sweet in the video, but it would be a very short amount of time before every ship captain banded together to place bombs on your station's engines. Practicality must reign here, nobody will attempt take their own life in their hands to land on a death trap ^.^

  • If we ignore the point above, you must use a Jump type docking sphere in the ini code

  • You must be certain, as with any multi part model, that your HPs are attached to the proper mesh part.

  • Using multiple animation parts means that with a complex model -if you don't use Max to export the CMP- you may run into the Milkshit CMP exporter's 18 part limit. That means you'll need to get funky with Sushi's multi vmesh splicing method.



If you construct your Rot and Pris pieces / sections with some forethought, you can give the appearance of random movement. Varying the keyframe distance / angle values in the animation script will be your method.

As a side-note, you could in theory make the the whole Root / Rot / Pris contraption, with no SUR file at all, and use it like a pre-fab root for mounting other base parts on. Look through the ini's for most Freeport types to get an idea how pre-fabs are glued together. Take a look in both their CMPs, and how their HPs are used and referred to in the ini's. I'm working from memory here, but I think you could actually mount existing base models on this sort of invisible rotating and sliding doohickey.


PS: Constant animations are accomplished via AttachedFX, useable on both Bases and Ships.

These links are discussions had before this latest and greatest MaxCMP exporter. They deal with Milkshape, UTF editor, and a Hex editor.

I know Sushi's thread deals with >20k polygon models, but the method is relevant when trying to go all old-scool with this model if you need to do anything in Milkshape and must export from there.