Oolite Bulletins

Thanks for your help. Hopefully I'll have some flyable ships soon.

I exported a ship into OOlite and the game didnt crash! . In order to test the model I used a copy and paste plist, and I ve done something wrong. What's the yellow orb and how do I get rid of it? Also how do I work out the coordinates I need for the engine plumes?

It looks like a flasher. In openstep it will look like this:
But in XML Just delete it.

Amaranth wrote:

I exported a ship into OOlite and the game didnt crash! . In order to test the model I used a copy and paste plist, and I ve done something wrong. What's the yellow orb and how do I get rid of it? Also how do I work out the coordinates I need for the engine plumes?

Don't know what the yellow orb is. I don't know how others find the coordinates for the exhaust plumes, but I go back to Blender, bring the ship.blend in, and use the cursor to center on the exhaust ports. You adjust how wide, and tall the exhaust plumes by adjusting the next to last two numbers in the line, after the X, Y, and Z numbers.

Make sure you have the ship in the user/ortho/Edit Mode screen, then look up at the top right corner. There should be a + sign there. Click on that, and open "View" in the dropdown menu. The 3D Cursor chart should be listed there. Those are the numbers I use for figuring out the exhaust points.

The orb looks a bit like a non-flashing flasher. Did you adapt another shipdata.plist, perhaps with flasher subents?

I did. I have removed the flasher string fro the plist, which is why I'm a bit puzzled. Is it only in shipdata plist or can it be lurking somewhere else too?

Just shipdata as far as I know. Odd.

Got one that has me thrown. I found I could import the .obj file of a ship into the Blender job of an object I'm creating to fit into that particular ship, like a dock. It works really great, and I can make an object to fit perfectly with the ship model sitting there inertly. As far as I can tell, the imported ship object is just a big grey lump. I can't select it, or Edit it while it is in the subentity's Blender Model Edit. The catch is, I can't get rid of the ship when I finish fitting the dock, or what ever, to it. Is there a way to export that inert imported object file?

mandoman wrote:

Got one that has me thrown. I found I could import the .obj file of a ship into the Blender job of an object I'm creating to fit into that particular ship, like a dock. It works really great, and I can make an object to fit perfectly with the ship model sitting there inertly. As far as I can tell, the imported ship object is just a big grey lump. I can't select it, or Edit it while it is in the subentity's Blender Model Edit. The catch is, I can't get rid of the ship when I finish fitting the dock, or what ever, to it. Is there a way to export that inert imported object file?

I'll field this one. Instead of importing an object file into a Blender project, it would be better (and smarter) to open the Blender file for which you are designing an object (dock, ball turret, etc,). After opening said ship Blender object, go up to the "Add" at the top menu, choose "Mesh", and then what ever object you wish to use to fit to your ship. After you have manipulated the "Added" object, so it fits your ship to your satisfaction, press the letter "A" until all objects are selected in that nice gleaming gold (wish I could make a ship that color). Once there, deselect all the vertex points on the "added" object, holding down the "Shift" key and clicking on each vertex point, so that only the ship is gleaming gold. Then, go to the bottom menu, click on "Mesh", pan up to "Delete", and select "Vetices". The ship should disappear, and the only thing you have left is the unselected object you made FOR the ship. Then, make sure to go to the upper menu, click on "File", and pan down to "Save As", and name the new Blender project whatever you want, just make sure it isn't still the ship name that you just deleted. So, you end up with a Blender file called "i.e. ship-dock.blend", and you should STILL have the original ship.blend file as well. Clear as mud, eh?

I'm thinking about using Blender to make a station. Before I start, is it possible to make docking bays in Blender? I want to make a dock thats bigger than the standard dock....

JazHaz wrote:

I'm thinking about using Blender to make a station. Before I start, is it possible to make docking bays in Blender? I want to make a dock thats bigger than the standard dock....

Heck yes. Didn't you read the above directions?

Most of the work isn't in making the docking bay, but in making the docking bay sit right in your station, in the game. That is all done through the subentities script in shipdata.plist. Maybe it's easier with a station, I don't really know, but I am STILL trying to get my docking bay to fit correctly into my Andricothere. If you have the station already built, just open that file up in Blender, use the "Add" function at the top left of the screen, and choose a square. From there you can stretch, and mold that square around to fit the station, while the station just sits there looking bored.

Sorry but I am not getting this. When I right click in the areas indicated I get a double arrow but nothing about split or join area so I am unable to configure blender as suggested

JohanD wrote:

Sorry but I am not getting this. When I right click in the areas indicated I get a double arrow but nothing about split or join area so I am unable to configure blender as suggested

Yeah, that threw me at first, too. Don't worry about it. The bottom section SHOULD join, at least mine did, but on the other edges I just grabbed and dragged the edges as close to the sides of the Blender window as they would go. Shouldn't hurt anything. As long as you get the correct perspective set up, you are doing well.

I hope Staer9 didn't mind me speaking up. If you have any suggestions, Staer9, my ears are wide open.

I am able to get the <--> indicator at all the positions indicated in red arrows except for the red arrow at position 1
There I get the indicator but no subcommand for joining or splitting?? Ok! By some or orther quirk I managed to set up the recommended interface as required by the tutorial... and from there I imported an object file and then started going through the motions of uv and texturing and splitting the screen etc.

I must say that would like to use blender..but it is so daunting that I am tempted to revert to Wings3d, photoshop and gimp. Is there anybody that has a single tutorial for blender that will take you through designing an oolite ship (Asp or Cobra) from scratch uv mapping texturing and creating an oxp and actualy getting to use it in Oolite. Nothing to fancy will do?

JohanD wrote:

I am able to get the <--> indicator at all the positions indicated in red arrows except for the red arrow at position 1
There I get the indicator but no subcommand for joining or splitting??

It sounds like you actually got more than I did. It still doesn't matter. What matters is that you are in Ortho screen, and in edit mode, and also that you have the scale set up correctly, as per Staer's instructions. The time the "Split Screen" will come into play is when you go to Texture paint your ship. I think Staer9 explains that pretty well, too.