Oolite Bulletins

i wasn't sure if this should go here, or in the OXP bit... if it's in the wrong place, just move it

i've just d/l wings and i'm playing about with it, trying to make an alternative station. but i'm a little stuck - how does one get a docking slit in the end of a cylinder? cos atm the best i can do is get a sort of 'docking hole'.

here's the first effort:



the flange-type bits are supposed to be like, solar panels or hydroponic farms or something... as you can see, the docking bit at the front is currently a... hole.

also, is there some way to find out the dimensions of the model?

Can't help you on the docking slit problem, but man am I looking forward to this model. The idea of flying between those fins being pursued by vipers brought a smile to my face...

lex_talionis wrote:

also, is there some way to find out the dimensions of the model?

When you convert it to a dat you can open the file in a text editor and it has the dimensions in the header. I don't know how to find out in wings though.

lex_talionis wrote:

how does one get a docking slit in the end of a cylinder? cos atm the best i can do is get a sort of 'docking hole'..

also, is there some way to find out the dimensions of the model?

for a more complex solution you could look to the Gritty Coriolis, but for an orthodox way, docking "hole" is exactly right. cutting out the 192x64 rectangle, selecting it, and marking the material as (blue) hole is all that's needed. the actual slit is added later as a subentity in the shipdata. because of this you'll be grateful to yourself if you fix the walls of the model at a nice round number, so adding the slit would read something easy like 0 0 500 1 0 0 0 (where the wall is at +500.0 on z-axis) then you'd be able to use Giles' preset slit with the lights that come with it.

and remember have this hole area unselected later when you set out to make the skinning map.

don't know any clever method to get the quick dimensions other than the old manual way, selecting only two extreme points of each axis and seeing the difference.

also, if you want to make an environment for ships to fly through narrow places, remember that you'll need to keep the shapes 'uncombined', i.e the smaller core would be your model, and the T-panels would be separate subentities to be attached in shipdata.

Couldn't you just "Extract region" the hole group of faces to a new object and extrude backwards from there? Then, you could model the docking port in place, and avoid the quaternion issue completely.

EDIT:
A quick link on what I mean:
http://p212.ezboard.com/fnendowingsmira ... =147.topic

Murgh wrote:

for a more complex solution you could look to the Gritty Coriolis, but for an orthodox way, docking "hole" is exactly right. cutting out the 192x64 rectangle, selecting it, and marking the material as (blue) hole is all that's needed. the actual slit is added later as a subentity in the shipdata. because of this you'll be grateful to yourself if you fix the walls of the model at a nice round number, so adding the slit would read something easy like 0 0 500 1 0 0 0 (where the wall is at +500.0 on z-axis) then you'd be able to use Giles' preset slit with the lights that come with it.

and remember have this hole area unselected later when you set out to make the skinning map.

don't know any clever method to get the quick dimensions other than the old manual way, selecting only two extreme points of each axis and seeing the difference.

also, if you want to make an environment for ships to fly through narrow places, remember that you'll need to keep the shapes 'uncombined', i.e the smaller core would be your model, and the T-panels would be separate subentities to be attached in shipdata.

*whimpers*

/me thinks i'll have to re-read this when i have some more time on my hands... and read it with respect to the wings walk-through on the oolite homepage... just warning you guys in the know that you might be getting a lot of stupid questions...

lex_talionis wrote:

just warning you guys in the know that you might be getting a lot of stupid questions...

Welcome aboard Lex, I know how you feel!

Murgh wrote:

for a more complex solution you could look to the Gritty Coriolis, but for an orthodox way, docking "hole" is exactly right. cutting out the 192x64 rectangle, selecting it, and marking the material as (blue) hole is all that's needed. the actual slit is added later as a subentity in the shipdata. because of this you'll be grateful to yourself if you fix the walls of the model at a nice round number, so adding the slit would read something easy like 0 0 500 1 0 0 0 (where the wall is at +500.0 on z-axis) then you'd be able to use Giles' preset slit with the lights that come with it.

and remember have this hole area unselected later when you set out to make the skinning map.

don't know any clever method to get the quick dimensions other than the old manual way, selecting only two extreme points of each axis and seeing the difference.

also, if you want to make an environment for ships to fly through narrow places, remember that you'll need to keep the shapes 'uncombined', i.e the smaller core would be your model, and the T-panels would be separate subentities to be attached in shipdata.

So...how do I know if my docking bay cutout is 192x64? Here, is there a Wings or OBJ model of the docking bay?

Hi Lex, dont know if this is of any help to youbut the easest way i have found of building stations is to create your model, with an inverted docking hole of whatever dimensions you want, such as this:-



then save the image as you would do with making a model etc. Then if you select ONLY the faces of the docking port, and delete the rest, leaving you with something like this:-



and then make a model of this, call it what ever you want to. This lets you use whatever shape fro docking you want, all you have to do is alter your shipdata to correspond to the docking port i.e,
also entering your dock subentity to place your new docking port. I have found this much easier when wanting different docking shapes, and saves on the guessing etc

Flying_Circus wrote:

Couldn't you just "Extract region" the hole group of faces to a new object and extrude backwards from there? Then, you could model the docking port in place, and avoid the quaternion issue completely.

Yes. I guess Xaotik did something like this with the Gritty Coriolis, and then skinned the inside for his own built-in custom slit. I wouldn't think it's the beginner's way to go though.

Selezen wrote:

So...how do I know if my docking bay cutout is 192x64? Here, is there a Wings or OBJ model of the docking bay?

there is the dock.dat but it's really just a generic 192x64x250 box. you could make it yourself easily..
the point is that it's not so hard to mark out a 2D rectangular surface that is 192x64 and put Giles' game native dock behind it..

I've never tried Milinks' method above but I'm sure it would work fine if you want to make a custom docking shape. I guess I don't see the point in remaking the standard docking slit..

okay, murgh. now for the *really* stupid bit... i have a circular end to my station. how do i mark out the required 2D rectangle on it?

man, do i feel like an idiot...

We all learn these tricks with time... It isn't really a circle, is it? It's a polygon of some sort. Select two verts, inward from the left edge of your circular face, say, and join them by pressing 'C' - this produces a new egdge of the type that would be called a "chord" in geometry (if it really were a circle). Now do the same on the other side. Hit [space] to clear any selections and then switch to edges mode and select both your new edges. Right click and select cut, and go for "3" as your option. Two new verts appear equally spaced in your new edges. Hit 'C' and join them. There you go, one rectangle... Select your new rectaangle and resize it to the dimensions you want.

thanks