Android_ Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 (edited) So there's a nice ticket and a nice article on 'propping' - i.e. having independently acting units placed on ships, buildings, elephants etc. The ticket rightfully has a high priority as this seems to be one of the major innovations of this game (especially when compared to the Age series), but the ticket has not been modified for about a year and everything else I could find is an old post by Mythos and a nice old screenie.Well, considering the importance of this feature, could anybody fill us in on the state-of-the-art? Thank you! Edited August 20, 2011 by Android GRRR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mythos_Ruler Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 A few things have changed since July 2009. It is now very easy to add prop points to collada meshes for our game. Unfortunately the game does not interpret them correctly and places them incorrectly in relation to their home mesh. The prop points get pitched 90 degrees and moved to the opposite side of where they are placed in Max/Blender. I'm not a programmer, so I don't know what the problem is here. I do know that when the collada files are re-imported into Max/Blender that the prop points are in the right spots, so the problem is with the game engine. We've been able to "hack" around this in earlier releases by adjusting the position and pitch of the prop point prior to exporting to compensate for the engine's odd behavior. I refuse to hack around it anymore though, since the more we hack the harder it will be later when the engine bug is fixed and we have to go back and edit all of the meshes. So for now you may see some weird things happening with the garrison flags and things like that.So, point number 1 is that we now have prop point support for non-boned Collada meshes. The problem though is that it's bugged. The bigger issue is something that has not been addressed since then and that's propping separate entities (units, etc.) onto other entities dynamically in-game. I am not sure what this will take. I suspect a lot of template and javascript Kung Fu.In the screenshot you linked to, I had simply propped those unit actors onto the ship like one would prop rides onto a horse. The ship and unit props all acted as one entity, instead of independently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pureon Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 I refuse to hack around it anymore though, since the more we hack the harder it will be later when the engine bug is fixed and we have to go back and edit all of the meshes. So for now you may see some weird things happening with the garrison flags and things like that.I'm with you on that one. Adding garrison flags to buildings for Alpha 5 was incredibly frustrating. In the future we will be able to attach units onto other units while still allowing both to attack independently. The unit on top would rotate to face the enemy it's attacking - think archer in tower, or catapult on fortress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Android_ Posted August 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 thanks guys. well if i understand that correctly then there hasn't actually been worked on the feature yet right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k776 Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 @Mythos @Pureon And you added a ticket for that bug if one doesn't exist yet? Whats the ticket #? Maybe we can get someone looking into this for Alpha 8. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
historic_bruno Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 Mythos: You're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore? Also there's a ticket: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/886 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pureon Posted August 20, 2011 Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 Mythos: You're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore? Nah! We're just grumpy old gits Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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