It would have to be in basic form, as in no moving parts other than mountable guns.

I've been wanting to do mechs with moving "arms" and heads. I just need Colin to explain how Weapon CMP exports are supposed to work with the new CMP Export Plugin for MS3D and I'll whip some out...

Other than those parts, I don't think we can make the rest of the ship animated in any way, until somebody gets around to decoding the animation format used by FL models. It is possible to have something with a static animation in FL... and technically, there are several active ones, such as the Bay Door animations on ships, that could *theoretically* be used to "transform" a ship, if we only knew how to build such animation instructions. But it's not likely we'll ever figure that out.

Argh, since you do a lot of differnt things, could a gun graphic be changed to look like a hand or other object for apearance. If it could, mounts then set at the right point on the model and as the gun "turns" to point at the target, it might give a little simbalence to movement. Hmmm?

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm going to do. See... you have two joints to play with... they're both "trapped" in one-dimensional constraints, but that's not a big deal, if it's a robotic arm- you can just make it look like a stiff robotic arm, y'know?

Ok so no-one hase tried to any thing like this yet?

O-K, so why not try it then?

I'll but some links up to pics that I got that peeps can take look at some of the design concepts I had in mind, (no they arn't cruddy either, I'm quite proud of the actualy.)

ok I got these up



and



and



and



and this little ol' HG mech that I found

These are all nice, but what you should keep in mind is that "mechs" will have to have "legs" that are either obviously "locked" into a static pose, or have jets in place of legs, or legs with rockets on the soles of the "feet". You're definately not going to see fully-animated mecha in this game engine, unless somebody really unlocks the animation formats and also gives mod designers the ability to tie animation states to either user input or variable states... in short, don't hold your breath. What I will get around to building at some point soonish will be pretty kewl, but don't expect it to be a Gundam that has a big plasma sword, k?

Nah no worries, (I'm not exactly a gundam fan, but the ideads a cool, just no plasma swords PLEEZ)

I'm more a Heavy gear fan (or if any one has watched "voices of a distant star" I think you'll find the design I REALY like... I'll try to find it as well)

Ok I gotta link that might help

http://www.advfilms.com/favorites/voice ... iler.shtml

I'm more of a Fang of the Sun Dougram fan than anything else, when it comes to mecha. They were the people that the Battletech people stole from (literally- they lost a lawsuit about it and had to commission totally different artwork after their first books came out), and they're such classic designs that anybody can see why they became classics.

O-K I've decided it, I'm going to build a the model (in Gmax of course) in parts

so that if some one can get moving parts solved,when we can get busy

WOW I see what you mean Argh those are classics, they rock!

Whoa there, guy.

If you haven't built any content for FL yet, you should probably read up first. We're talking about a custom "ship" CMP and at least two custom Weapons here. I haven't gotten around to this because it's going to take a bit of doing to get it right- and making a model if you don't understand how everything needs to work is just going to waste your time- trust me on this...

Er well I have worked with the likes of 3dSmax, Lightwave, and done a few mods on my own, but never put them up, or some one had done it already. besides I do have a programming back ground, so the backwards engineering was not that hard to catch onto...

Its just the More complex things (such as the physics engine, and this "moving parts" issue, I must admit is giving me a head ache) are a bit problematic..

but I think with a bit of time and patience I'm sure we could come up with some thing, besides it could unlock a whole new way of modding...