Basic Modding Questions

posted on April 29th, 2010, 10:27 pm

In gmax, what do I use to define the hardpoints?  And at what orientation do I point the front of the ship to when modeling for Armada 2?  -Y or +Y?

posted on May 1st, 2010, 2:47 am

Well, I dunno about gmax, though the Z axis should be front to back... Z+ being fwd.

posted on May 1st, 2010, 2:31 pm

What are used for hardpoints in 3DS Max then?  gmax isn't too different form 3DS Max with the exception of export options.

posted on May 1st, 2010, 9:51 pm

Hmm, well I'v never used gmax, but If its similar to 3DS max then I think there are some hardpointing tutorials on FF(if you haven't read them yet )

posted on May 1st, 2010, 11:27 pm

well in 3d max u use the help pointer tool on  in the tab menu and the ship faces backwards (strange i know)

[TChapman500]

posted on May 2nd, 2010, 4:03 pm

Last edited by TChapman500 on May 2nd, 2010, 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Define "FF".

Thanks for the tips.  I'll try them out.

EDIT:  The point tool is easy.  Thanks.  Now which way should I point the ship (Y or -Y) (conversion tools auto-flip axis).

posted on May 2nd, 2010, 4:27 pm

ff = filefront
also the ship sud face backwards

posted on May 2nd, 2010, 10:02 pm

I don't know which way is backwards.

posted on May 2nd, 2010, 10:20 pm

on the axis the ship points the otherway

posted on May 2nd, 2010, 10:40 pm

So the front of the vessel will have a negative position value, right?  Okay.

posted on May 4th, 2010, 12:12 am

I have a few questions?  Okay, a lot of questions.

1 - Is a hardpoint called "root" required?

2 - Do the hull, engine, shield generators, life support, crew, and sensor hardpoints need to be rotated to face in the same direction as the polygon that it's near?

3 - Does the crew hardpoint need to be on the surface of the ship?

4 - Will I need to retexture the model in milkshape before doing the final export?

5 - Where do I put the GUI textures?

6 - Where do I put the ship thumbnails that turn red when a system is disabled?

7 - Where do I put the race insignia?

posted on May 4th, 2010, 1:14 am

1] Scene Root point is to specify where the SOD's center is in armada. The Root point is to help guide it so that if a weapon was not to hit a specific hp, it would hit the root point. And the root is to be placed inside the sod so they don't go shooting into space but counting it as a hit.

2] the system hardpoints are used to specify system specific damage nodes. nothing more, so no, not needed.

3] look at 2.

4] You will need to install the textures and position it properly before export, or else the textures won't be used.

5] GUI is in their own targas. they should not be in the ship's textures, but they share the same dir

6] that is a wireframe, you can do a simple pic or you can break it off system specific. But the 2nd way is a pain.

7] It should be ingame, unless the race is not included. But if you mean on the ship's hull. It would depend on the race.

[TChapman500]

posted on May 4th, 2010, 1:31 am

Last edited by TChapman500 on May 4th, 2010, 1:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for the help on questions 1-6.

7 - I'm talking about for a whole new race.  Where would I put the insignia texture?

A few more questions.

1 - What do I do to model an assimilated ship?

2 - For the hardpoints where the weapons are fired, would I have to rotate the hard points so it won't look like it's going through the ship instead of away from it?

3 - Are there some weapons that fire in the exact heading of the hard-point?

posted on May 6th, 2010, 8:26 pm

I'm wanting to add a new variable named shieldStrength.  How would I do that?

The variable works like this:

maxShields = maxHealth * shieldStrength

I've tried just about everything and nothing is working.  What would I need to do to get this to work?

posted on May 6th, 2010, 10:58 pm

I dont think you can just add new pieces of code