Oolite Bulletins

Is there a size limit in Oolite for non-player ships? I have made two classes of war/police ships that have docks, and are substantially larger than most other ships but Behemoths, and the Thargoid Carriers. One of them may even be bigger than the Behemoths, I'm not sure. The fact of the matter is that I can't get either one to spawn in the game, and this is AFTER Thargoid went to the pain of helping me straighten out the shipdata.plist, and Java Script. The Java Script Console absolutely refuses to spawn either class ship, even though it gives back an indication of "true" as to whether the ships exist. Anyone have any ideas about this? Staer9?

what script are you using to spawn them?

Size doesn't matter. I was regularly spawning Annihilators while working on Xeptatl's Sword and they are 6Km diameter discs.

Yeah, before I started putting together the Dreadnaught.oxp, I had the smaller one (Andricothere) spawining in the game, and was able to get all the ball turrets set correctly. I was working on getting the dock to line up correctly when I started the Dreadnaught project, the Andricothere being the ship that gave me the idea to begin with. I have never seen the larger one, the Andricodred, in the game. Just in Blender.

I have tried two different scripts in Console, one on the Mission Screen, and the other while in another craft outside a station. The second was where I got the Andricothere to spawn before, and I simply typed in
It worked perfectly before I changed it from a trader to a Police Dreadnaught. It won't spawn with that Role. I got it to spawn in the Mission Screen with
but it was so tiny I could barely see it. When I finally got the oxp so it wasn't generating error reports in Latest.log, I couldn't get either one to spawn. I hate to give up the Dreadnaught.oxp, as I think it would have been kind of cool. I was even thinking of introducing a player-ship role, using a smaller ship that could dock with the Dreadnaughts. I thought some kind of GalCop/Navy/Police what ever. Not looking good so far, though. I'll keep stirring it around. Who knows, I might actually stumble over the correct combination. Don't worry, I'm studying other oxps of similar type, and also the oxpHowToWiki.

Smivs wrote:

Size doesn't matter. I was regularly spawning Annihilators while working on Xeptatl's Sword and they are 6Km diameter discs.

The model size of the Type Two Dreadnaught (Andricodred) is 27251.921 x 804.023 x 1824.309. It was meant to be a major long range base, the way aircraft carriers are in the real world.

Cmdr Vault wrote:

Hi guys!

You can see it in the picture below. I have imported the original Oolite Coriolis station to show my problem.


If the model gets larger, I can see it only partly. Blender does never show whole station. If I spin or move the object, large parts of it disappear (here the lower left part of the station). Is there any option I need to activate, to see the wole model?

Hi guys,

i have found a solution for the problem with large objects:

1. Clicke 'View' and then 'Properties' to open the properties-menubar


2. In the menu choose the entry 'View' and change the value 'View > Clip - End' to '10000.000'


Bye,
Cmdr Vault

I'm having some troubles with Bender I hope some of you might help me to solve.

It happens when I'm using 'smart UV project' on big faces like those you can see in the main hull of the ship below, in which that long side has only two polygons.


lira by MiMoriarty, on Flickr

The UV i've got it's vertically deformed. The bigger the polygon, the bigger the deformation.

Any idea?

MiMoriarty wrote:

I'm having some troubles with Bender I hope some of you might help me to solve.

It happens when I'm using 'smart UV project' on big faces like those you can see in the main hull of the ship below, in which that long side has only two polygons.
The UV i've got it's vertically deformed. The bigger the polygon, the bigger the deformation.
Any idea?

It would be easier to see what you mean if you showed it in Edit Mode. I'm not seeing two polygons, but one long, straight one, at least on the side, which is to where I believe you are referring? Have you tried breaking down the vertices in the polygon to the least needed for the purpose? Just a few days ago I was shown that one of my ships was off quite a bit, so since then I've been using straight edges to check for uniformity, and length.

It would be easier to see what you mean if you showed it in Edit Mode.

lira_sub_poly by MiMoriarty, on Flickr

Lira_sub_IV by MiMoriarty, on Flickr

You can see checked in red the polygon in the model and in the UV map. I have tried to repeat the operation in Wings 3D and I've got the same result.
All the mesh looks compressed.

Select said polygon, veiw it from the side, hit U and choose project from veiw, then move it to the right place on your UV map. (cool ship by the way)

Select said polygon, veiw it from the side, hit U and choose project from veiw, then move it to the right place on your UV map. (cool ship by the way)

I followed your advice and got a successful polygon projection. Now the problem is, I shall figure out how to make the texture from the beginning Many thanks Staer9.

very neat

Does anyone know how to make rounded surfaces on a Blender model? Staer9? I know the game smooths a certain amount of the model out, but it would be cool to know how to make the edges of a ship rounded while working on it in Blender. I've experimented with a couple ideas, but no dice. It isn't an absolute necessity, I realise, but it would be a cool thing to know.

mandoman wrote:

Does anyone know how to make rounded surfaces on a Blender model? Staer9? I know the game smooths a certain amount of the model out, but it would be cool to know how to make the edges of a ship rounded while working on it in Blender. I've experimented with a couple ideas, but no dice. It isn't an absolute necessity, I realise, but it would be a cool thing to know.

There are a couple of techniques that I know,
1) Smooth edge groups (time consuming, but doesn't increase model complexity):
select the faces to either side of the edge you want smoothed and press 'w' and click 'shade smooth'
I think that Oolite supports smooth groups...
2) modifiers (the spaner icon in the properties section, not time consuming, but vastly increases model complexity):
in Object mode click 'add modifier' choose bevel (only do this if you havn't textured it already because it will ruin you uv map) play with the width settings until you are happy then click 'apply'
3) subsurf (another modifier, this one will vastly increase polygon count and if not used carefully can easily make the model un-usable):
click 'add modifier' and choose 'subdivision surface', which from now on will be known as subsurf, DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE DEFAULT SETTINGS, if you are happy with the result click apply.
4) smooth (another modifier, this one is safe to use though because it doesn't add any polygons):
click 'add modifier' and choose 'smooth', play around with the settings until you are happy with the result, then click apply.

try out all these methods until you find whatever one suits you best, try them in this order:
4 - 2 - 3 - 1 (due to easyness of each method)