[Model] Mechanical arm

[pontiac]

While at work (just tell nobody ) i made a small mechanical arm to assist cargo/supply ships and in hangars.
There are tractor and repulsor beams available, but i think this is the cheaper (and sometimes more flexible) way

Some Screens
- fully expanded
- in closed/waiting/travelling position
- helping me finally get the catfish-textures done (big pic ~500kb) .. though the arm wasn't meant for the catfish... we will see


Models are available here (~160 polys):
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users ... /mech_arm/

Pontiac

EDIT: added poly-count

[hellcatv]

looks pretty sweet

[pontiac]

looks pretty sweet

Thanks ... i was wondering, if the Vegastrike engine draws the backfaces of a transparent polygon (as seen in the first two screenshots ...taken in wings, haven't had a chance to see it in Vegastrike yet).
Or doesn't it fraw them as in the last big screenshot?
This seems to be a common behaviour in most 3d- applications that supports transparent textures

The last time i thought about this was when makeing the solar station (antenna + steelarms) . And i think it did some strange thing to transparent textures (show polygons clearly behind the transparent texture in front of it -> strange escher-feeling)


Pontiac

[Bjornredtail]

Perhaps that could be used also to allow capital ships to dock to smaller stations. Sortof like a jetway.

[pontiac]

Perhaps that could be used also to allow capital ships to dock to smaller stations. Sortof like a jetway.

That wouldn't work (not with the current model/style that is) since there is no passage you can walk trough
There are only the grids/beams/whatever (is there a good term for this?) and some powerlines.... the rest is 'empty' (as in nearly vacuum) space.

Pontiac

[hellcatv]

VS sometimes draws backfaces... by default it depends on the blend mode.... if you have additive (lights) clear polygons then it does
if you have glass (alpha) polygons then it does not..because the normals would be wrong--just draw one polygon for each side

[pontiac]

VS sometimes draws backfaces... by default it depends on the blend mode.... if you have additive (lights) clear polygons then it does
if you have glass (alpha) polygons then it does not..because the normals would be wrong--just draw one polygon for each side

Thanks, that's good to know.
It's no problem to make the 'inverted' faces, but just out of curiosity since you said "by default": Is there a way to force this behaviour?

Pontiac