Great info...keep it coming!

looking good, although i would have been more succinct - i like to keep it simple, but that's me. soon as this is done i'll append it to the compilation, keep up the good works Beege

Bejay!

The SUR construction guide is what I was waiting for with baited breath, and....

Constructive criticism coming right up...!!

You lost me the moment I saw a different ship model yet again!

Please go back to the TIE fighter, I am following you word by word and I even made my own very basic and much dumber-looking TIE fighter model from scratch to use with this tut. Why? Because it so severely concave that when it finally works I will understand how to make more complex ones still - so please go back and go through the step by step process of making a working SUR for that model and that model only - please! Huh?

Yeh, I KNOW I'm dumb, this is why I was unsuccessful with the other two tutorials, and I was hoping this will be the one to get me unstuck.

Come on pal, be a sport, get me back on track please!

And - fix your spelling mistakes, it should be DESTRUCTIBLE not destructable. Otherwise FL won't like it in the ini files.

Thanks bud, looking forward.

Roleplay: - the art of self-deceipt!

I've done a rewrite on the SUR section, I hope it helps otherwise it means writing a novel where I show you how to do it vertice by vertice.

And just for you StarTrader I've fixed my spelling mistakes, for a 41 year old Scot who failed his English exams over 25 years ago I don't do to bad with just notepad, besides I DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH, I speak Scots and have to translate my posts to allow you lot to understand them.

**shuffles off with a new headache**

Heheh...

An' I had nae idea ye're a Scawt! Weeeell, OK. Och an' a knew t'wasn'a dilliberet, it had to be purpusful, aye! Nay?

By the way, isn't "Destructible" a Scots wurd?

Thanks pal, I appreciate your help in this subject, I spent a lot of time without guaranteed successes.

An aside - I've been trying to buy MilkShape but it hasn't accepted my payment as yet. Do you know if the import/export plugins will run on version 1.81 or 1.82? I was forced to use them on 1.76 but I don't know if I can use that version when I buy the package? The later version before 1.81 just crashed when I put the plugins in the folder.

I haven't found any other modelling package that can import or export cmp's, is there one?

Roleplay: - the art of self-deceipt!

Milkshapes the only app that has plug-ins, but as a long term milkshape user I wouldn't want it any other way.

The CMP Importer is your problem, 1.7.6 was the last one that it worked with, 1.7.7 to 1.7.9 need it added to the buggyplugins.txt file to stop it crashing milkshape, but from 1.7.10 onwards it crashes milkshape on exiting the app. I keep two versions of milkshape on my HDD, 1.7.6 purely for the CMP Importer and the latest version for everything else (at time of writing thats 1.8.1b).

And it looks like somebody has been reading the "OOR WULLIE" & "THE BROONS" books or was it the "Sunday Post".

**shuffles off with a new headache**

I need to use the next page button /me slaps self

*EDIIIIIIIT*

Edited out Sig

Edited by - Finalday on 10/18/2007 5:54:04 PM

I 've uploaded an importer a few days ago. It works with Milkshape versions 1.70 up to 1.81b. that is capable of importer all the different vms.

just let me know and I'll send you a copy.

p1p3r:

You have a CMP importer working with 1.8x?

Oh yes, please!

If you would post a link to where it is it would be great, or if you would send me a copy I can put it up on my server and put a link to it.

Many thanks.

Bejaymac:

Too many Rabbie Burns nights with the Caledonian Soceity, Strippin' the Willow and Gay Gordons-ing! Heheheh. And a jolly good time did we Wee Tim'rus Beesties all have, too!

OK - a wee summary for ma wee braen ...

I gather so far that as long as the ROOT group sur is completely convex (always bulging outwards, no "dents", then the other components of the sur can be concave groups?

... and then putting them through SUR-Splicer to combine them should make a working composite SUR file?

This could be why my Enterprise sur works even though it is not all bright white in HardCMP, I may have got it right accidentally and it doesn't need to be all bright white?

Then...

As long as all the ROOT group components vertices are all welded together where they join, and each of the other groups' vertices are welded together where they join, they don't need to be welded to the ROOT group where those join/meet it?

I mean like in the TIE fighter, the guns and body shell have to be covered by one convex group, and when that group is made of two or more basic shapes then they have to be welded together as one? Then the left wing and left strut can be concave but must be welded where the strut meets the wing, and the same for the other wing, but the struts DON'T need to be welded to the ROOT where they join it, as they are OK to be separate groups?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree (all the wrong trees?) yet again?

Duhhh... <woof!> <woof!>

Roleplay: - the art of self-deceipt!

Take a good look at what I've written in the SUR part of the tutorial, at no time do I mention the use of the SUR-Splicer, imho the Splicer is a complete waste of time and HDD space (sorry Dev), if people had bothered to experiment they would have discovered that you don't need any extra apps, milkshape and the plug-ins can do it all (except wireframes).

Forget everything you've learned from other tutorials about SURs, as they are (to be blunt) talking utter BOLLOCKS. Arghs simple SURs tut was a method I abandoned within a month of the SUR Exporters release, the SUR Splicer (AFAIK) only gives weapon detection on components, which means only the Root will take collisions. The primitive SURs I get from the exporter have weapon & collision detection on the components, and the complex SURs I make look just like any of DA's, but thanks to a small flaw in the exporter they don't work properly where destructibles are concerned.

Send me your files for your Enterprise and I'll send you the altered files, you can then study the files to see what I've done and then export the game files. I'm working on the Astral Prime ships atm, I got permission from them last week , so I'll try to fit you in asap.

@ Everybody else, this is a one time offer to StarTrader, so please don't mail me your models as they'll just get deleted

**shuffles off with a new headache**

Bejay, i find if i use Dev's splicer i can get some really nice tight fitting surs out of it, dont get me wrong your method works (i havent done this but looking at it its working simply ) but i find using Dev's splicer really fast..... like, sur is done in about 20 minutes :/ lol

Also, check your mail in a bit (not a ship lmfao)

Edited out sig

Edited by - Finalday on 10/18/2007 5:54:32 PM

@ Cheese, I realised something after my first and only time using the splicer, and confirmed it after I'd had a look at some of the SURs people had made using the splicer, none of them have collision detection beyond the ROOT, I've had weapon and collision detection in my SURs for over a year now, so as far as I'm concerned the splicer is a major step backwards.

Just to give you an idea on time frames, the APS pegasus took me two and a half hours to rip the model apart and regroup and rename it (and close some seams), it then took me 10 minutes to work out which vertices and polygons would be staying in the SUR model, a further 20 minutes to create the SUR model and all of 10 seconds to export it. A total time of just over 3 hours and I now have a multiple component CMP & SUR, a little extra work with utf edit to add glowmaps, a quick bit of coding in one of my ship testing mods and it's in game for testing(try doing that without collision detection).

The SUR Exporter has a bad reputation thanks to the f*ckin' arseholes that complained about it not working, well listen up people, the Exporter does as it's programmed to, it makes working SURs, the only reason your SURs don't work is because your to stupid/lazy to figure out how use it properly. It does have a couple of minor flaws, only one of these will interfere with the primitive SURs that my tut shows you how to make, the others are in the complex SURs, an area most of you idiots will never use.

**shuffles off with a new headache**

All i can say is....... Touché

lol, and im no idiot >.< i have never once complained about the sur exporters capabilities because ive never SUR'ed my ships until recently (prolly because ive never released anything.... lol)

**shuffles off with a new headache**