Break meshes

posted on July 6th, 2011, 12:54 am

after looking at some Star Trek Legacy stuff I came across this

http://forums.filefront.com/members/188 ... -model.png

which shows legacies joint tree. now looking at the description box it mentions weaponbreaknode

after investigating this further (by looking at a legacy odf) i discovered other codes that were similar
// These will break off.
engineBreakNodes = "L_Engine" "R_Engine"
so L_engine can have mesh nodes attached to it and so can R_engine meaning that if the left engine blows up then multiple mesh parts could go away with it (now the diagram mentions damage meshes can also be linked here which I'm assuming is the meshes that show the jagged edging and burnt panels.

now I know it is not very piratical for this to be used on fleet of ships I think it could still be pretty cool on things like stations.

posted on July 6th, 2011, 1:42 am

Aye, it would be cool if some model breaking apart stuff could be done for the stations - since stations almost always are repaired by themselves over long periods of times (and are stations, not ships in a repair yard), a set of 'damaged meshes' seems useful, even if it would require a different system for ships (for realism or what not). 

posted on July 6th, 2011, 3:00 am

Too bad FO has problems with bunches of meshgroups on a model...

posted on July 6th, 2011, 1:46 pm

That is a 'temporary' issue and will get fixed down the line . Idea requests after all do not usually work within the 'soon' time frame

posted on July 9th, 2011, 3:05 am

Long time for me being here, anyway I would actually like to see a SWEAW damage system. Basically you have your brand new model, and then as damage is occurred it is replaced by a damage model with chunks missing and all that.
So you would only need two mesh groups or perhaps the FO team an improve upon this and have several groups with a couple of mesh groups worth of damage. An example is one mesh group has a chuck out of the saucer, a second one has this and only a half missing nacelle and so on.

posted on July 9th, 2011, 7:03 am

yes, i'd really like to have such a system in fo for a very very long time now. on the other hand i am not sure if we require it in a game like armada. ships can repair themselves over some time. should they self-repair from (model) wreckage status back to completely repaired (model) hull? would be silly and on the other hand leaving the models damaged until - for example - entering a ship yard for repairs could be confusing as visual representation for players, too...
the only race where the former could be *really* useful would be the borg where such hull repair rates are believable.
but this whole system is connected to a lot of programming and model work

posted on July 9th, 2011, 2:42 pm

Hm, in that case, any real reason why we don't go back to using Armada II's system? It kind of made sense in that light, since gas vapors and damage textures are 'easily fixed' compared to a warp nacelle making it back on 

posted on July 9th, 2011, 3:12 pm

yep: they look ugly

posted on July 9th, 2011, 3:15 pm

Which ones look ugly; beak model or damage textures?

[Anonymous]

posted on July 9th, 2011, 3:16 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on July 9th, 2011, 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What if, when the ship was actually damaged, you would see glowing electricity and atmosphere venting from the marks.  then, when the ship was repaired, they would just turn black.  like the old marks in a2 glowed orange, just make it so they no longer glow and are just nasty black scars.

Which ones look ugly; beak model or damage textures?

Q:

Hm, in that case, any real reason why we don't go back *snip*

A:

yep: they look ugly

And honestly, a2 does not handle emitter sprites well.

posted on July 10th, 2011, 1:30 am

I can understand it would be a awful lot of work to get something like that working, I just think it would be a nice touch, seeing ships flying around damaged to match the damage to the subsystems and only having it repaired via a repair yard (exception being the Borg) would be able to repair the damage, at least some of it. After all it's a war and once a ship is space and combat worthy it would be sent back out right?

I just thought I would throw a idea out to you guys, as it didn't see it suggested in this thread.