^ditto
All you do is make an EXTREAMLY low poly object which has pivots pointed in the directions required and rename said object to "hp_blah".
In 3DS Max, i like to use tetrahedrons.
You see i cant seem to achieve hierarchy and this is really the main problem. Should've said that instead...
Hmm, I haven't experimented with blender enough to know its inner workings, so can't help ya there.
Do you know anything that can do hierarchy and is free?
Keep using blender, it CAN do hierarchy from what I understand. (I have imported a .3ds of the stock xsis that retained the heirarchy)
The HPs can be as high poly as you want, as any hidden object does not enter into the total poly count.
Blender can do hierarchy. To do so, you need to create a "parent-child" relationship. To make an object a child of another, select the "child" object, then also select the object you want to be the "parent." Then hit CTRL+P and click "Make Parent." Note that both objects have to be selected, and the second one selected will become the parent.
I did that and when i exported they dissapeared and all i have is a mobile lump. the good news is i managed to get it properly in game and working as a scout, minus the hard points.
Pics or a .blend file, please.
What exporter are you using to get them in game?
I export them from blender into a 3ds file using the built in thing. I then open 3d exploration and save as an xsi file. I have a feeling that overmind's exporter will solve my problems if I can get it to work. And the problem is not in the .blend file but in the 3ds or xsi file. I put the hierarchy there and by the time its in bz2 its gone.
Blender, is indeed a bit obscure to begin with. Truespace, groups objects together through a drag and drop operation in it's version of an H. tree. TS, uses a tool called a scene editor which displays object parts in manner similar to the way Windows organizes folders and subfolders; very simple to use C12. Try using TS to group objects together save them as a 3ds model file and then import them into Blender. PS: Once objects are created in TS they'll appear in the scene editor where they can be draged unto other objects to form the basic hi-r-key thingy.
I was also playing with blender and I see to get a list of model parts you can select the outliner tool in Blender; this must be it's version of an H. tree? Good luck. BNG.
I've got the hierarchy to work properly, as well as the exporter. Now all i have to do is properly orient my hardpoints. How can you tell which way the eyepoint and weapons are pointing, if using a simple pyramid?
If the ship is oriented correctly, and the HPs' pivots are set to the center of each mesh, it should work.
You should be able to select an HP in Blender and click on it's properties info box to see the XYZ values. Also could fire the weapon in te ship and if the direction of fire is in the right direction then you'll confirm the pivot is set correctly.
So which way is forward? X, Y, or Z?
Forward is when the direction is towards the negative end of the y axis in 3DS Max and apparently in other model makers too..
I ASSUME it is the same in blender.
When I have the ship upright in bz2 it goes sideways instead of forward and then when i rotate it the seeming right way it tilts forward instead of turning correctly
Ok i've got that right but now, no matter where i rotate the eyepoint to, i'm always either looking at the ground or the sky and i'm getting frustrated.
rotating the physical model is USELESS. You MUST rotate only the pivot.
It looks like BNG is on the right track.
How do you mean?
O-o, just tried to do everything in blender and:
1. can't figure out how the hell you guys got the uv mapping working correctly
2. can't figure out how you guys got textures assigned.
3. can't find any way to edit pivots directly.
*easy when you learn... Yeah, ill take a crapload of nonfunctioning lists any time.
The thing is when i rotated the physical object the view did change.
If you are wanting to see the axis of and object, you have to have the axis visible. By default they are not visible. Under the Object section (F7), there is a section that I outlined in the picture with red where you can make the axis visible as well as the objects name if you want. Once turned on you'll see the axis like in the picture. If you go into edit mode and rotate all the vertices, the axis will stay in place but everything else will change. Alt-R clears rotations. Hope that helps.
(http://www.pvuploads.com/Clients/LordWrathX/axis.jpg)
Know how to rotate pivots?
So if you problem is that things are not showing up pointing the right way I guess there are a couple of things you can do. If it is just hardpoints, you can just rotate the mesh you used as the hardpoint to the way you need. For example, I just made a simple test ship to try a couple of things out. I added an eyepoint but when I got in the game, the eyepoint was facing backwards and upsidedown. Basically it was like you tilted your head waay back until you were looking behind you upsidedown. So since the eyepoint isn't visible in the game, I just rotated the mesh I used (a cube) around until it was facing the proper way. I went back in the game and it was facing properly.
For the ship itself, in Blender the ship was facing forward when I first made it, when I went into the game, the ship was flying forward but it was facing nose down at 90 degrees. So in order to fix this what I did was selected the body of the ship, went into edit mode and selected all the vertices. Since the ship was facing nose down in the game, I rotated the ship body with all the vertices selected nose up 90 degrees. So if I was looking at the left side of the ship, I would've rotated it 90 degrees clockwise. Then go out of edit mode and rotate the ship back to the original way. You'll probably have to re-center the ship to the pivot point as well. There are a couple of ways of doing this but to get it to exactly where you want it to be, best bet is to put the 3d cursor (white and red circle) where you want the center point of the object to be and go into the Editing buttons(F9) and press "Center Cursor". You'll also probably have to move your hardpoints back to where you want them.
It's kind of a pain in the ass way to do it but it works for me so far. There probably is an easier way to just move the axis or pivot point but so far I haven't found one. I've only recently started dealing with the axis in Blender since trying to get the exporter OM made to work. If I find anything else, I'll let you know. Hope this helps somewhat anyways.
I have that exact problem except it won't go away.
Actually now that I think of it....duh... I forgot that you were using another program to get it into the game. Whatever program you are using, looks like 3d exploration, you probably need to do something similar to that in there. I've never used that program so not sure what it's like.
I'm using OM's exporter.
Hmm well why that wouldn't work then I don't know because I just did it before I typed that big post.
I found it! The pivot editor. Haven't fixed my problem yet but its progress.
(http://fw3p8w.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pP4tw2R__klrth22TxH9iCt0ydtHgHzETtkBUS58Ocfv6CNjgqfI4Eex53hUMa0za3HRi5ln_qy2mMMj3hzqnrytST6CzRWNV/Pivot.jpg)
That isn't exactly a pivot editor: IE. you CANNOT rotate JUST the pivot, all it does is show you where the pivot it. (IOW: shows the object center).
Yea what Warfreak said. It doesn't let you change just the pivot, it changes where the pivot point is of the object or multiple objects.
Clavin you should really just post the blend file so we could have a look.
http://cid-9b463da68c89eea0.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Car.blend
It sounds like the pivot points need to be reset to 0 0 0; anything other then these values will indeed screw things up with eyepoints and hardpoints. Select the object and right-click on the object properties dialogue. This should display the X Y Z values for the object. Typically, I see values like -90, -180, etc. This occurs when you the modeller rotate stuff in the workspace.
May or may not be relevent, but in TS there's a tool that does several things like move the axis to the center of the object, normalizes the rotation to 0 0 0, and toggles the axis to display or not display. Blender must also have these basic tools, so try to locate them and use them often to keep tabs on rotation values; this used to be a source of headaches for me before I understood what pivot points even did. I used to get really frustrated when my ships were prepared for BZII only to appear wrongly oriented in game.
What version of Blender are you using? I found that the eyepoint was working fine as well as the guns. The part that was not pointing the right way was the body itself. When trying it in the editor, the ship was facing nose down like mine did in my example in the previous thread. The eyepoint was pointing straight and the guns were shooting straight. I rotated the vertices of the body like I explained in the previous post and then everything was working correctly.
Here is the blend after I changed it. See if it works for you. You'll have to change the texture names because I had to use different ones.
http://www.pvuploads.com/Clients/LordWrathX/Car%20fixed.blend (http://www.pvuploads.com/Clients/LordWrathX/Car%20fixed.blend)
Thanks alot. It works fine. Idk what I did wrong but I'm gonna keep this and simply change the geometry and odfs for my hover ships. But one thing. How do you import another blend file into the first blend file?
No problem, glad it works now. You can "Append" objects from one blend file to another by going up to file and pressing Append or by pressing Shift-F1. You then browse to the blend file you want something from, go to the object folder and pick what you want. I believe you can only append one thing at a time.
Ok so that works. How do you get the hardpoints to stay still when assigning a parent?
I'm not sure what you mean by getting them to stay still.
When I assign a parent to a hardpoint it changes the rotation, location, and scale of the hardpoint. IDK how to remove this effect.
Btw: Could you do the same thing with this ship as you did with he other? I need to see what you do. This one appears all tilted and rotated in game but in blender all the rotations and stuff are correct. I think it might have to do with the objects center being rotated wrong. http://cid-9b463da68c89eea0.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Bowman%20Fixed.blend
Looking at your model in Blender I see the x y rotation values at 90 and -90; these need to be reset to 0 0 prior to exporting. As far as I know BZII will display them as you have them but the orientation in game will probably not look right as you've already noted.
Here is the bowman fixed....
http://www.pvuploads.com/Clients/LordWrathX/Bowman%20Fixed2.blend (http://www.pvuploads.com/Clients/LordWrathX/Bowman%20Fixed2.blend)
It looks like you used the hardpoints from the last model. I ended up just making a new eyepoint and com. This one was pretty out of whack.
Has anyone ever told you that when you make changes to the models that you have already tried in the game that you have to delete the MSH file in the binData folder or else it will still keep using the same model over and over? I just thought of that now because you were saying that no matter what you did, nothing seemed to change. That could be why if you haven't been doing that. I just thought of it now because I'm so used to doing it that I don't even think of it anymore lol.
If you're using 1.3 it does check to see if the XSI is newer than the MSH, and builds a new MSH if that's true.
This does NOT hold true for all of the XSI's used in a complex model, for example if you make a new strafe animation but don't change any of the other anims you will still need to manually delete the MSH file to get the engine to build a new one.
-Av-
It does sound like the old MSH file is being used even though C12 is changing stuff on the model. I remember getting confused on my own models when I'd make changes to a model, but forget to delete the old MSH file. A good rule of thumb when updating a model is to delete the old file and let BZII make a new one. Another option would be to archive the old MSH files outside of the BZII install folder although I can't imagine why anyone would want to save a screwed up MSH anyways?