is it possible to have wheels on an animated model?
like, if i make a vehicle that has animations built via the animation builder in the model converter, will i still be able to attach wheels to it?
before i go threw the trouble of making it....
Yep, that works fine. You can have animated models with four wheels and two turrets if you like :) The only thing we can't do yet is have wheels on turrets, or turrets on turrets. So as long as you're attaching submodels like wheels to the "main" bit of a model it's fine, and if that main model is animated, it makes no difference.
(The bike/rider model on the library is a good example. Well, the bike wheel mode is broken, but other than that... it uses walk/run, stand and start/stop anims, plus wheels).
The only thing to mention (obviously) is that you probably don't want to animate any of the wheel attach point vertices.
f
(The bike/rider model on the library is a good example. Well, the bike wheel mode is broken, but other than that... it uses walk/run, stand and start/stop anims, plus wheels).
The only thing to mention (obviously) is that you probably don't want to animate any of the wheel attach point vertices.
f
I really can't visualise what you're trying to do :)
Wheels get attached to vertices, so yeh, if the vertex moves, so will the wheel. You can only attach a wheel to one vertex (which the game identifies with a specific vertex number) so you won't be able to choose a different one for each frame... I don't think you will, anyway. It'd be interesting to find out though.
f
Wheels get attached to vertices, so yeh, if the vertex moves, so will the wheel. You can only attach a wheel to one vertex (which the game identifies with a specific vertex number) so you won't be able to choose a different one for each frame... I don't think you will, anyway. It'd be interesting to find out though.
f
well...to get around the inability to just have the uv coordinates change to make colors change, i basicly made 12 models containing a colum of the 12 different colored cars. in each of the 12 models, a different one of the twelve is at the top with the rest underground.
end result is a 12k poly model thats 560kb
but it does change colors.
i want to make a color changing car to had out as a special gift to the first 25 players to join ciroz when it opens. it wont be made by any buildings so once those 25 are handed out, no morewill be available on the world.
end result is a 12k poly model thats 560kb
but it does change colors.
i want to make a color changing car to had out as a special gift to the first 25 players to join ciroz when it opens. it wont be made by any buildings so once those 25 are handed out, no morewill be available on the world.
ahh, right. What a workaround :)
If you want (or have) to use that approach: why not have a standard "axle" part of the model you can attach standard wheels to (so the axles and wheels are the same for each colour variant). Then you can just animate the body of each coloured version to achieve the effect you want. The axles could even be a simple triangle that ends up hidden inside the main body... as long as the attach vertex is in the right place it should work ok.
So the idea is to have the car change colour as it moves along? Having the unused colours underground could be odd if cars launch off hills etc, and you'd probably see the movement as the car swapped colours. Another approach would be to do it by scaling the unused variants instead: so the "in use" colour is full size, and the unused ones are scaled down to fit inside it, rather than under it etc. You'd only need to scale them down enough so you don't get z-fighting between the topmost model and the ones undeneath it (that flickery effect you get when faces are close to each other). And the distance each colour would have to move to switch between "on" and "off" would be much shorter, so in theory the transition would be more seamless.
I've used that sort of approach before to make changing traffic lights etc. It's not ideal (reeally we need animated textures) but it does work.
f
If you want (or have) to use that approach: why not have a standard "axle" part of the model you can attach standard wheels to (so the axles and wheels are the same for each colour variant). Then you can just animate the body of each coloured version to achieve the effect you want. The axles could even be a simple triangle that ends up hidden inside the main body... as long as the attach vertex is in the right place it should work ok.
So the idea is to have the car change colour as it moves along? Having the unused colours underground could be odd if cars launch off hills etc, and you'd probably see the movement as the car swapped colours. Another approach would be to do it by scaling the unused variants instead: so the "in use" colour is full size, and the unused ones are scaled down to fit inside it, rather than under it etc. You'd only need to scale them down enough so you don't get z-fighting between the topmost model and the ones undeneath it (that flickery effect you get when faces are close to each other). And the distance each colour would have to move to switch between "on" and "off" would be much shorter, so in theory the transition would be more seamless.
I've used that sort of approach before to make changing traffic lights etc. It's not ideal (reeally we need animated textures) but it does work.
f
Last edited by Fooli on Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.