Oolite Bulletins

Zieman wrote:

Dock position kinda fixed itself, once I centered the dock model. Then it was just fine-tuning the placement.
The lesson to learn here: always make sure that any model you do is centered in the modelling program before you export the model to .obj (& convert to .dat). This means that the origo is near the model center (not necessarily center of the model's bounding box - more like center of mass), and preferably the model's center line is positioned on x-axis 0 (= zy plane). Moving the subent to correct position is done by the ship's subentity -entry (position key) in shipdata.plist.

I am a bit puzzled. I really thought I was doing what you just described. I obviously didn't get this particular ship balanced right, so now I'm wondering how many I others I have miscalculated. Makes me very nervous, as I have released several ships, and I wonder if they are messed up. Man, I don't know what to do about them, except to check them, and adjust them, and then MAYBE re-release them. Not sure of even that, though.

Zieman wrote:

Once I get the ship model ready (centered/balanced & exported), I note the coordinates of where I want to place subents in Wings 3D (for some subents, you have to take the subent's dimensions in account). Then I figure out if the subents need rotating. Basically, any model's z-axis + is front. If you want to have a turret face a bit left, you need to yaw it left (= rotate counter-clockwise around the y-axis), which is achieved by giving the correct orientation-quaternion.

Ahhh, the 'yaw' factor. I never knew exactly how that fit in, though I had a feeling it had something to do with the angle the ball turret has to be to face out from any given position on the ship. You have no idea how much you just cleared up for me. I have been trying to get someone to say exactly what you said for quite a while. I think understanding how to position the ball turret so it is always facing out in the direction you intend is the hardest, and least understood concept of the whole process. I'm certainly going to do some re-figuring. Thanks again.