39 réponses à ce sujet

[Wall3T]

so! im back again with my ever lovely improving Airship ive made from last time.... and im abit stuck at trying to animate it....

Now... im trying to make the propellers "twirl" and i alreaday have them doing that in Gmax (using nwmax of course) but i seem to be missing the "activate" "deactivate" part, what should i do to get my proppellers to work?

im also curious to know if i can do multiple animations at once, per example i also want the airship to fly around in a repeating circle to give it the appearance that its well... actualy busy flying over a city.... is that possible to do with a placeable?

pics of my airship are below...

[Wall3T]

Airship Docked at the Royal AeroDrome Docks: Older Model

]

Older-er model but with idea of proppelers in mind:

Modifié par oOKyeOo, 04 mars 2011 - 06:42 .

[Eradrain]

Will you make this available on the vault (If it isn't already)? It's incredible, and I've been looking for an awesome airship forever!

[Bannor Bloodfist]

oOKyeOo wrote...

so! im back again with my ever lovely improving Airship ive made from last time.... and im abit stuck at trying to animate it....

Now... im trying to make the propellers "twirl" and i alreaday have them doing that in Gmax (using nwmax of course) but i seem to be missing the "activate" "deactivate" part, what should i do to get my proppellers to work?

Likely it is due to the animation node names.  The game requires specific names for those sequences, and ALL of your propellers would have to be directly attached to those and animated at the same time.  This CAN be accomplished if you make your airship into a tile as there are specific node names to use for the animation sequences.  However, tiles mean you have to edit a .set file, and ship the content to everyone that wants to see the airships a new tileset.  This could be accomplished via "addon" type set modifications, to allow you to add the airship tiles to different tilesets, but you would also have to take into account where it will be docked, what sort of ground is under it etc.

I don't do placeables though, and have never actually researched the names necessary, so you will have to find some other placeable that allows activation/deactivation, and follow the naming conventions used there for the different nodes etc.

im also curious to know if i can do multiple animations at once, per example i also want the airship to fly around in a repeating circle to give it the appearance that its well... actualy busy flying over a city.... is that possible to do with a placeable?.

Nope,  You can NOT accomplish what you want here at all.  NWN uses a single "Z" handled by the walkmesh (wok) of the tiles.  So, even if you did set up your very large airship to move, it would be constrained by the overriding wok values of the tiles below it.  Your airship would be popping up/down or be blocked by whatever the terrain was below it.  This is why there are not really any flying objects in the game.  The few that DO exist are limited to very small spaces (10x10 meters or less).

[OldTimeRadio]

oOKyeOo wrote...
Now... im trying to make the propellers "twirl" and i alreaday have them doing that in Gmax (using nwmax of course) but i seem to be missing the "activate" "deactivate" part, what should i do to get my proppellers to work?

I did something similar a while back.  You can check it out below and download the actual demo here:


So using the same method for an activating placeable, here are the animation names (and some sample frame ranges) you must to add on the model base so NWN knows it's got them::
off 0-2
off2on 10-40
on 50-52
on2off 60-90

Normally, Off is your default state and you aren't doing anything but you could put animation in there if you wanted.  However, when the placeable is activated via NWScript it's going to "tween" the object positions/rotations (whereever they happen to be during the Off animation) into the off2on animation and that could look a little strange and non flying ship-like.

What I might consider, if I were you, is breaking this up into several special-purpose placeables.  For instance, if you want one lazily cruising over the city just make it do that, give it a default animation name (instead of those I list above) and a framerange that covers the entire circuit and when you create that placeable it will continue to make that circuit over the city forever. Something like this would be a quick way to accomplish that sort of thing. However, if you do a large orbit the airship may actually be invisible to the players underneath it because they are so far away from the model base (which it is orbiting around) that the engine doesn't bother to show it. That's a real concern so you might want to do some testing to see how far you can get away with.

Then for the docking make a separate airship placeable which you can create then activate (like I do in the land-n-takeoff demo) shortly after creation.  Create it via NWScript (Off), activate it a second later so it flies down from the sky and lands/docks (Off2On), is staticly docked (On), then pulling away from the dock and flying up into the air where it will be destroyed shortly afterward (On2Off).  You can see exactly how that works in the demo I link to and load up the model in NWMax and look at the aurora base to see how I do things.

If you break your placeables down into more specific tasks the job is going to go waaay faster.

Here's a sample script to add to a lever's OnUse event (and change the tag below from MYAIRSHIP to whatever) to activate the placeable and get it to do it's stuff:

void main()
{

object oPC = GetLastUsedBy();
if (!GetIsPC(oPC)) return;
object oTarget;
oTarget = GetObjectByTag("MYAIRSHIP");
float fSpeed=1.0;
float fDurationSeconds=1.0;
AssignCommand(oTarget, ActionPlayAnimation(ANIMATION_PLACEABLE_ACTIVATE, fSpeed, fDurationSeconds));

}

im also curious to know if i can do multiple animations at once, per example i also want the airship to fly around in a repeating circle to give it the appearance that its well... actualy busy flying over a city.... is that possible to do with a placeable?

Like I said, breaking your task down into special purpose placeables is probably going to be potentially less heartbreaking.  Sometimes I plan and plan out an object or animation and do it only to realize that NWN doesn't actually do things the way I thought and I have to redo the work.  BTW, I was just thinking about it and between the tutorial video I link to and the land-n-takeoff demo video and example module/hak, I think everything you need is all in there.

And one last tip which I think is useful.  I like to create a dummy node and attach it to the aurora base and then attach my airship model to the dummy node.  Also means I can reuse the dummy node and model base and just slap another model on for the same effect.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 04 mars 2011 - 09:05 .

[OldTimeRadio]

Yep, I just did a test and if you get more than 50 meters away (or so) from the placeable's aurora base, you won't be able to see the orbiting object. The real max radius distance of an orbit is somewhere between 35-45meters, I didn't set up the test very well. Tested on a 16x16 tile map, with an orbit radius of about 75 meters.

[Wall3T]

@ Eradrain thanks for the kudos, its much appreciated but im afarid i wont be releasing it anytime soon... not until i start making more than one (i eventualy plan on making an Theatre/ Cargo Airship, A smaller more "streamlined" Airship for pesronaly cargo, and maybe a Warship Model) but so far this is strictly limited to just my P.W and its Realm :The World of Midland...

@ Bannor Bloodfist: my thanks for the advice, ill see what i can do then... it is certainly not any deterrent for me to achieve my goal, in fact, im going to make this work and prove that airships are just simply being missed out...

@ OldTimeRadio: wow! those videos are very cool! and was even the intended effect i sought after. I was even begining to consider the idea of having two of the same objects that way I could:

do one that was docked (not so much for landing, but already docked but with the propellers twirling)

and another floating in circles, but shall see how my first attempt goes for just making the first object move...

Thanks for the help everyone! that clears up any questions i have, and ill post back once i get something working...

[Wall3T]

double post my bad...

Modifié par oOKyeOo, 05 mars 2011 - 04:07 .

[OldTimeRadio]

Edit: Responding to your pwk problem post.  If you figured out what was going on, ignore this.

What's the full, exact name of your model base and what is the full exact name of the dummy node that is attached to it, and which has the AuroraPlaceable modifier added to it?

For instance one of my model base's names is potr_chil_e1 and the dummy node for the pwk is called potr_chil_e1_pwk, which has an Aurora Placeable modifier on it.

Attached to potr_chil_e1_pwk is my actual pwk mesh, named PWK and which consits of a 100 x 100 cm plane which has been converted to Editable Mesh and which also has a .AuroraPlaceable modifier on it.

Is that how you're set up?  I'm new to using NWMax (used the BioWare export scripts for a long damned time) but that's how my pwk's are set up right now and it seems to be working for the batch I'm cranking out now.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 05 mars 2011 - 04:20 .

[Wall3T]

hmm i believe that i mightve missed a step as the tutorial goes exactly by what you worded precisely, ill try it again and see if any changes are made. i think one of the issues was the improper naming of the textures themselves because whenever i export it i get this message:

"runtime error: feature not available: "make dir"

another issue i might have is that im using multiple textures at once so im not sure if the system is capable of handling that... but the pwk files origionated straight from a cep nwn2 warship source, so far im using 3 textures at once so if thats an issue then it can always be easily re-arranged...

if all else fails ill just revert to the standrd textures from before, as its becoming more a headache than its worth lol

Modifié par oOKyeOo, 05 mars 2011 - 05:14 .

[OldTimeRadio]

oOKyeOo wrote...
hmm i believe that i mightve missed a step as the tutorial goes exactly by what you worded precisely, ill try it again and see if any changes are made. i think one of the issues was the improper naming of the textures themselves because whenever i export it i get this message:

"runtime error: feature not available: "make dir"

Are you using GMax?  GMax is/was essentially 3DS Max 4 with a lot of functions stripped out.  When I have tried to run scripts made for 3DS Max on GMax, sometimes they call a function that's not available in GMax and I believe that's exactly the (type of) message you get.  Obligatory link to my NWMax tools setup video, in case you need it.  I recommend moving up to NWMax Plus (you can find more info in these forums) but the instructions work the same, IIRC.

another issue i might have is that im using multiple textures at once so im not sure if the system is capable of handling that... but the pwk files origionated straight from a cep nwn2 warship source, so far im using 3 textures at once so if thats an issue then it can always be easily re-arranged...

What does multiple textures mean in this context?  Does it mean you have multipe meshes as part of your ship and that, while meshes may have different textures than one another, each mesh only contains a single material applied, composed of a Diffuse texture?  Because that's what you should have.  If you mean that one or more of your meshes contain not one but multiple Diffuse textures applied to the mesh, that you have a "multi-material" applied to the mesh, then that's not going to work- although there is a way out by breaking up a mesh by submaterials.  So which of those two situations are we talking about?

You might want to find the number of verts in that PWK from CEP.  Assuming you're using GMax, just click on the hammer (Utilities) tab on the right side of the screen, click Polygon Counter under the Utilities rollout and then select the PWK.  If that thing has a lot of polys, delete it and make your own from scratch.  This may not be your problem at all but it never hurts to look for things in your scene that you didn't make as the cause of your problem.

if all else fails ill just revert to the standrd textures from before, as its becoming more a headache than its worth lol

I think your response to my first question is going to clarify this.  If you really are using multimaterials, I know at least VelsTools (which my video tutorial shows how to install and update, BTW) will have an option to break a single multimaterial mesh down into a number of meshes with a single material(i.e. just one texture apiece).  But NWN cannot deal with meshes which are multimaterial- visible objects have to have 1 mesh to 1 texture.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 05 mars 2011 - 04:41 .

[Wall3T]

in regards to your comment OldTimeRadio:

1.) yes i am usig gmax after i mentioned that i am using it, what else could i be using? im using that with nwnmax and theVel Tools....

this is actualy the first time iver ever had trouble with the model since im trying to physicaly change an already made appearance (my model is a copy of the nwn2 warship from the cep list source)

i doubt that would have anything to do with why its giving me such a headache but its not a deterrent... ill get it fixed just not right away...

2.) muliple textures means.... multiple textures lol im using multiple meshes but since you described that as not being an issue it wont be a matter of why i cant export my model correctly....

3.) and yes again thank you for the clarification, i dont know all the nwn game text "lingo" just yet just the 3d modeling applications i am fully aware of... this is my very first model so i plan to learn as much as i can so i dont have to keep asking such complicated questions anymore >.<

[Wall3T]

now in regards to my origonal topic, since im here ill post my latest update. with much pulling of my hair ive finaly managed to get my airship to fly! so now all i gotta do is try and figure out how to get my gmax model converted into a nwn .mdl again....

my bset option is to stick with the nwn2 mesh (aka textures on the ship) that came with the model and not do any changes.... when i have the time ill try to get photoshop and then ill play around with them then...

[Wall3T]

Update: okay i got it to export but now it seems the default animation wont work. i exported it using the aurorabase (as prescribed by the video tutorial given here on this topic) but it has no changes in-toolset or in-game....

im not sure what i did wrong but the airship model is broken up into three objects (see picture above) two masts and a base (the hull itself is the third). i linked the aurorbase to the path and works fine in gmax but doesnt in the toolset... it was the only way i knew how to get all three objects to move at once...

[OldTimeRadio]

oOKyeOo wrote...
Update: okay i got it to export but now it seems the default animation wont work. i exported it using the aurorabase (as prescribed by the video tutorial given here on this topic) but it has no changes in-toolset or in-game....

Make sure the default animation on the aurora base has the proper frame range for the animations?  Also, except for the Weld To CM sanity check you're running with all/default sanity checks on?

im not sure what i did wrong but the airship model is broken up into three objects (see picture above) two masts and a base (the hull itself is the third). i linked the aurorbase to the path and works fine in gmax but doesnt in the toolset... it was the only way i knew how to get all three objects to move at once...

The aurora base should not be linked to anything.  It should reside at 0,0,0 and all things should link to it.

[Wall3T]

i unchecked all sanity checks actualy, and i spoke too soon as i got it to work in the toolset, it does a nice big twirl around a generic city so im really excited about it

and yeah i kinda figured that was the problem, i created a dummy that was linked to the three objects and that worked fine affterwards... im thinking that might be also why i couldnt export the meshes properly as well...

[OldTimeRadio]

Good, I look forward to seeing more in-progress shots. NWN needs more flying/hovering stuff, bigtime.

[Wall3T]

i agree-
ill see what i can do then, im already looking forward to my next airship, the theatre/ cargo ship wich will based on this model:

daily-steampunk.com/steampunk-blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/ffxi_airship1280.jpg

or this one:

community.webshots.com/photo/fullsize/1010878466010485902BMkHaiZqLB

if i ever get at least three models ill make plans to release them on the NwNvault, i liked the one you did in your video you should do one yourself!

[Wall3T]

okay as promised here area fwe photos of the first of three airship objects, this was used by the same script and area as the take off and land script butits intended as a "show and tell" only:

Landing:


Landed:


i had another image of it taking off but i cant find it for the life of me

i also have two others and will soon get screenshots of them in-game in my p.w (one that moves in a straight line, and another that is stationary)

[Wall3T]

okay im back!

i have new concern this time, and it has to do with object fading (not sure the technical term so bare with me here lol)

it seems that some of my airship models fade out when your really close to them, is this a 2da issue? the image above is the closest i can get before that particular object "fades out"...

[Calvinthesneak]

Sounds like the tilefade is kicking in.

I belive you can turn it off, but I'm not the expert on it. MDA or Six or someone else with tileset experience should be able to help you out.

[the_isolator]

At a guess, it's a tilefade problem. Just open up the object in max (or whatever 3d program you're using) and under the Aurora Trimesh modifier check the 'Fading Tile Properties' - make sure to tick the box marked 'Not a cap' for each individual object.

Fingers crossed and that should sort it out.

Modifié par the_isolator, 08 mars 2011 - 08:49 .

[Michael DarkAngel]

If your airships are indeed placeables as you started out making I would have to say tilefade is not your issue.  I am not an expert on placeables, so best advice I can offer is to look elsewhere for a solution.

Worst case scenario, it is a hard-coded issue so that placeables do not block camera view.


  MDA

Modifié par Michael DarkAngel, 08 mars 2011 - 11:56 .

[OldTimeRadio]

oOKyeOo wrote...
okay im back!

i have new concern this time, and it has to do with object fading (not sure the technical term so bare with me here lol)

it seems that some of my airship models fade out when your really close to them, is this a 2da issue? the image above is the closest i can get before that particular object "fades out"...

Assuming these are set up as placeables, I'm a little puzzled as to why geometry would be disappearing.  I don't recall having that problem.  In fact, in most of my demo videos where I'm rotating around a placeable it's because I've created it without a PWK and I'm standing "inside" it for the recording.

2DA is a good culprit but also whether all of your meshes have an Aurora Trimesh modifier on them is something to consider.  If an editable mesh does not have an Aurora Trimesh modifier, it will be displayed anyway by the  using default settings of some sort  which include shadows, for instance.  This can cause unexpected behavior and in the case of complex geometry, crashes, probably the volumetric shadow system swallowing its tongue.

One way of pointing the finger at what might be the problem could be detaching the model from the node which is attached to the Aurora Base and substituting a similarly-sized editable mesh box, for instance, with an Aurora Trimesh modifer of course, and see if you still get the same behavior.

[Michael DarkAngel]

The thought just occurred to me that this may be a static vs. non-static placeable issue.  Not sure, but that might be something else you want to check into.


  MDA