Entourage (LTC Luxury Personal Conveyance)

Active development of content (Art, story, etc.). Content slated for inclusion will be listed in the parent forum.

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Deus Siddis
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Post by Deus Siddis »

If you hit "h" then blender will "hide" everything you have selected (in this case, the pesky shield and collision mesh). When you want them back, alt-h will unhide them. This might be a faster and simpler way of just getting objects out of your way than using layers which are there for when you need more control and options in breaking down a scene.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

The only problem with hiding stuff is that the hidden state is preserved when you save the file, and you may forget that there was hidden stuff.
Happened to me once that I laboriously re-did parts of a mesh that had beeen "mysteriously lost", only to find them hidden, later.
Always remember to un-hide stuff when you're finished working.
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Post by pyramid »

@Deus @chuck
Thanks for the tips.

@Fendorin,
The Entourage and Vigilance have their engine thrusters corrected.
In the latest UnitConverter (v0.29) you can read the thruster radius from the helper object size.
Also the blender files were updated with the texture displaying correctly in the viewport and engine helpers included.
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Post by Fendorin »

do i need to install python for use the unitconverter??

and just a simple question (is hard for me to understand well the wiki)

how to for test ingame the ship i converted?
The current method is still working (the one describe in the wiki)
do i need create empty space area?
or like i bought the ship?

for convert and put in game i need :
unitconverter linked with mesher linked with NVcompress+VS editor 0.5.1 ???
pyramid
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Post by pyramid »

Fendorin wrote:do i need to install python for use the unitconverter??
Yes.It's tested with python 2.5, not yet python 2.6 but it might work.
for convert and put in game i need :
unitconverter linked with mesher linked with NVcompress+VS editor 0.5.1 ???
do i need create empty space area? or like i bought the ship?
You need mesher and nvcompress (nv texture tools). no vs editor is required. UC will write and update units.csv alone and create the directory for your new unit.
You just need to follow the steps outlined further below.
You must first configure the paths under Config including the application in the path:
* path\data
* path\vegastrike.exe
* path\mesher.exe
* Press "Save Settings"
(no need to set the working dir, this is just for info)
how to for test ingame the ship i converted?
The current method is still working (the one describe in the wiki)
Assuming you have exported:
* ship mesh to Ship.obj
* shield to Ship-Shield.obj
* helpers to Ship-Mounts.obj
1) In UC you add all three obj files to workspace. Then select the main Ship model in the drop down.
2) Under "Textures" you add the ones you have provided.
3) Press "Save and Convert"
4) Press "Convert Textures"
5) Press "Copy Data"
6) Under "Unit" press "Save"
7) Under "View" press "View"

This will call vegastrike and the modelview.mission with your new unit enabled.
Any problems, please report to Unit Converter thread.
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Post by Fendorin »

well

it's seems to be perfect!!!! great job

i like this kind of explanation

thank a lot

EDIT: how to for set the mass,velocity,maneuvrable, cargo space, price, where i can bought/find the ship,dual or quad shield ...etc all this kind of stuff
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I think you can just copy those from a similar ship, then tweak them.
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Post by loki1950 »

I think you can just copy those from a similar ship, then tweak them
That's the way that Halleck recommended then it's up to testing in-game and tweaking for usability and balance.

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Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote:The only problem with hiding stuff is that the hidden state is preserved when you save the file, and you may forget that there was hidden stuff.
The same goes for layers though, only while there is only 1 "layer" of hidden objects, there appears to be 20 ordinary layers, so you have more stones to turn over.

What would turn this situation on its head is if blender's interface made the buttons representing layers that were not selected but that contained objects display in a different color, with a border, 'X' or what have you. Then you would know immediately where you hid the loot.
Happened to me once that I laboriously re-did parts of a mesh that had beeen "mysteriously lost", only to find them hidden, later. Always remember to un-hide stuff when you're finished working.
As a modeler, I never use hide and rarely use layers. But when you already have a scene saved and just want to export everything to VS, you don't need to worry about how much of a mess you make or how to find everything again, and my assumption was that is all pyramid wants to do with blender, atm.

Also, when I turn in master files, I keep all objects on the default layer, but next to each other with the default view encompassing all of these objects. I think this is good practice because it allows complete strangers who might have very minimal knowledge of blender to see everything that is in the file when they open it up, immediately.

The downside is they usually have to be moved back to the origin before export, but apparently they already have to be re-oriented anyway and both of these issues are very obvious as soon as you see them in game, where as invisible objects can be a greater mystery for those who didn't create the scene.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

You MOVE objects, to keep them in the same layer?
I think at some point we're going to have to come up with a set of standards for layer use and whatnot, just
like there are good coding standards. I think the best use of layers will be for LOD's.
Well, layers 1 and 2 are usually reserved as working layers; and layers 11 and 12 below could be reserved for renders, with lights and all that.
Layer 3 could be the uber-mesh, the subsurfed mesh used for bakings.
Layer 4 could be the top LOD, layers 5 and 6 the lesser LOD's.
Layers 13, 14, 15 and 16 below could be also LOD's, but for glass parts.
Something along the lines.
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Post by pyramid »

Fendorin wrote:i like this kind of explanation
Thanks Fendorin. I will be putting up tutorials and "Unit Converter for dummies" chapter into the documentation.
Fendorin wrote:how to for set the mass,velocity,maneuvrable, cargo space, price, where i can bought/find the ship,dual or quad shield ...etc all this kind of stuff
Some of the viariables can be set in units.csv. I will prioritize them for inclusion into UC. Others, like where you can buy the ship is tweaked somewhere else, so for now you'll have to tweak that manually.
chuck_starchaser wrote:I think at some point we're going to have to come up with a set of standards for layer use and whatnot, just
like there are good coding standards.
Excellent idea. We'll also need separate layers for shields and helpers.

I was also wondering if it would not be possible to make the marker object be imported with a dashed (or at least colored) material. When I work against the glow texture only, it's sometimes hard to see the object against a black background.

Also Fendorin has mentioned creating a ruler to be able set the size of vessels correctly already in the blender file.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

pyramid wrote:
chuck_starchaser wrote:I think at some point we're going to have to come up with a set of standards for layer use and whatnot, just like there are good coding standards.
Excellent idea. We'll also need separate layers for shields and helpers.
Good point; and I forgot the shield mesh. Could be layer 12, in the above scheme, with 11 reserved for lights and cameras.
I was also wondering if it would not be possible to make the marker object be imported with a dashed (or at least colored) material. When I work against the glow texture only, it's sometimes hard to see the object against a black background.
I miss the glow texture bit; but ... Hmm... Maybe we could make the markers a glowish material, or even make the sides different colors, to make it easier to tell the orientation.
Also Fendorin has mentioned creating a ruler to be able set the size of vessels correctly already in the blender file.
I once toyed with the idea of making a ruler ship that you can fly next to something, then go to external view and read the length. Would that be useful?
As far as new ships are concerned, the way to set the size correctly is to use the grid correctly: if we make one grid line mean 1 meter, then we'll never need to worry about scalings.
The Gladius I posted in the PU forum is 13 meters long; so the mesh is 13 units long.
For large ships we can use 10 meters to the grid-line.
But to use NO grid and NO scaling during design is a real pity; I find it quite useful to be able to tell how big a feature is by counting grid lines, then imagining myself standing next to it. Gives you a feeling of where you need greebles, and how big they should be.
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Post by pyramid »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Maybe we could make the markers a glowish material, or even make the sides different colors, to make it easier to tell the orientation.
Glowish would be very nice indeed. And maybe even glowish with different colors :D
chuck_starchaser wrote:I once toyed with the idea of making a ruler ship that you can fly next to something, then go to external view and read the length. Would that be useful?
That would be for testing ingame, right? Maybe when the modelers do the right thing from scratch using grids as you described, the ruler is not required at all.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I'll do the colorful thing tonight.

Exactly; the ruler might be useful, but best thing is to use the grid.
I might do the ruler tonight, too, tho.
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Post by Fendorin »

2 question:

How to for know the unit size in blender? with the bounding box on the grid?

How to for activate 2 layer in a same time?
if i have my model on the layer 1 and i want put the marker on the layer 2
when i moove on the layer 2 the layer 1 disapear? but i need it for a right placement?
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Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote:As far as new ships are concerned, the way to set the size correctly is to use the grid correctly: if we make one grid line mean 1 meter, then we'll never need to worry about scalings.
The Gladius I posted in the PU forum is 13 meters long; so the mesh is 13 units long.
Yeah this is what I meant before and honestly it is the only rational way to do this. Having some needlessly complicated conversion scheme where 1 grid unit equals 6.719204983509 meters or 1 kilometer is just insane.

At least all the ships we produce from now on should follow the one-unit-one-meter rule when being built and saved to the master content repository.
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Post by Deus Siddis »

Fendorin wrote:How to for know the unit size in blender? with the bounding box on the grid?
Each grid square represents 1 unit in blender, unless you zoom your view in close or far away, in which case it could be .1 or .01 unit or 10 or 100 units, etc.

One clear way of knowing how big something is, is to hit "Tab" to got to edit mode, click one of the vertices and nit "N", the dialogue that comes up tells you where that point is relative to the origin (center of everything) on all three axes in units. So if a vertex at the front of your ship reads 'Y: 100.000' and a vertex at the back of your ship reads 'Y: -20.000' then your ship is 120 units (meters) long.
How to for activate 2 layer in a same time?
You hold down 'Shift' while clicking each layer button that you want to see the contents of. You could have all of the layers active at one time this way if you wanted to.
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