XWA Upgrade

something interesting i noticed with DTM's Z95-X and T60 opts. I've added them as selectable craft throughout the campaign for extra flavour. when i leave the hanger with them, the sfoils remain closed, you have to open them manually. they also remain closed after leaving hyperspace, which i actually really like. i wonder how that works?

Thanks DS. I've got the skipray working, but I can't say I fully understand how the Look/Up/Right numbers function. Pivot point as you've pointed out seems relatively straightforward.

WarHawkster wrote:something interesting i noticed with DTM's Z95-X and T60 opts. I've added them as selectable craft throughout the campaign for extra flavour. when i leave the hanger with them, the sfoils remain closed, you have to open them manually. they also remain closed after leaving hyperspace, which i actually really like. i wonder how that works?

One thing I wonder is will S-Foils on shuttle and other shuttle-like aircraft (Like the Assault Gunboat) will remain open as they should in their case ?

DTM wrote:Any idea on how to change the altitude of your ship in the hangar? The Sfoil are closed, but the position of the ship is the same with opened Sfoil...

DTM have you tried adding a docktosmall hardpoint under the craft, not sure it might work???????

Edit: DTM, Jeremy has an updated solution for the player's craft. See recent Hangars Hook thread.

For non-player craft ... try using the patches for HangarMap.txt and HangarObjects.txt

; Format is : model index, position X, position Y, position Z, heading XY, heading Z
; Numbers can be in decimal or hexadecimal (0x) notation.
; When position Z is set to 0x7FFFFFFF, this means that the object stands at the ground.

;ModelIndex_314_HangarMonitor
314, 200, -3900, -751, 16600, 0x7FFFFFFF the last part for Z (vertical) forces ship to the ground, or usually does.
Example... assume HangarMonitor or shuttle (different index) = U-Wing.opt or whatever craft slot index you plan to replace.

Also, you can regenerate your SPEC.RCI file which refreshes the game engine to see custom craft slots being used.
Run XWA from the command line with the "generate" option: XWingAlliance.exe generate

Exit, then launch the game again. Go to the Tech Library from the Concourse screen to complete the refresh of all available craft for the game engine. You do not need to cycle through the crafts. You just need to enter the tech library briefly. Then return to Concourse screen.

Edit: Removed post, so not to confuse everyone. DS has this done and in better form. Thanks mate.

Confirmed--Player and A.I. craft of same type, do have the S-Foils/wings closed while sitting in hangar.
Confirmed-- A.I. Flightgroups will have wings fold up appropriately as they head into their hangar bays.
Confirmed-- Player's craft will start out in mission flight with wings closed. Press "V" to open S-Foils (wings) to attack position.
Confirmed-- Answering Rookie One's below post, the player's current S-Foil setting stays the same when hypering into new region.

In game Video Footage -
AGB with working S-Foils using the above edits: http://dai.ly/k7kqNi1bgjOLQflSrEF

A.I. AGB S-Foils test, approaching a hangar bay: http://dai.ly/k5zStuj1GHwzQalSt0c



.

Pivote points could be improved for the main wings (they clips through the engine/warheads pods with your current settings), but it's not bad.

Only thing i'm wondering about now : with this, does the s-foils folds while jumping to hyperspace, or do they stay at their current setting

Bman wrote:Hi DS, not sure if this will help, but here's what I've come up with and works so far and could be improved upon (pivots etc.)...

Already fixed the Assault Gunboat mate, thanks though Adding landing gear to the craft I'm not sure about?? For now lets just say or think that all craft are fitted with Repulsorlift Engines so they float above the ground

DTM wrote:Angle:
32 = 45°
64 = 90°
96 ≈ 130°

1 ≈ 1,4°

128 = 180° ? No!!! 128 = Infinity rotation with speed=1...if I change the speed, than cahnge the values for infinity rotation...

DTM 126 seems to work with no continuous rotation, though the engine glow doesn't like the rotation

look so good....really looking forward to this

Hello all,

Jeremyafr and Darksaber and Bman, and all involved thanks..... I was wondering, I see all of you are putting you thoughts out regarding how to make ships with S-Foils to work.. many thanks, but to the lamen, I was wondering is there a AGB S-Foil.txt? or is there more involved with this fighter?

Sincerely Rogue518

As you suspected there is more involved, the pivot points need to be changed within the opt itself

Personally I'm working to update the DSUCP and XWAUCP

Thanks Darksaber for the quick response... you, Jeremyafr and Bman, DTM are doing a fantastic job !!!

Sincerely, Rogue518

Darksaber wrote:As you suspected there is more involved, the pivot points need to be changed within the opt itself

Personally I'm working to update the DSUCP and XWAUCP

I'm guessing that other crafts that have s-foils such as the Escort Shuttle are also coming with the S-Foils patch.....

Permit me to have the following reaction :

Thanks Rogue518, but I haven't done much, just experimenting to show what's possible. DS is the expert. He's one of the best at this kind of stuff. We can look forward to seeing some really cool things in the future when he's done.

I think any Starfighter model that has wings or similar structures can have S-Foil information added to them, if it makes logical sense.
Even retractable Landing Gears, Gun Turrets, or wings retracting into/from a ships' hull.
Can't wait to see how the StarViper turns out. Complex with multiple folding options.

Some other craft and non-flyable craft ideas-----
A-Wing (bottom Wings fold flat under hull... I don't know. And does it have landing gear like the X-wings ?)
Assault Transport (wing structures fold away when parked. Landing gears ? )
Assault Shuttle (when it is done)
Cargo Ferry and Heavy Lifter ? ( if they can fit in larger custom hangars or ground landings)
Falcon and related Correllian Transports with retractable landing gears added ?
Escort Shuttle (wings and landing gears)
Imperial Landing Craft (wings and landing gears)
MurrianTransport (landing gear) ?
Scout Craft (Bottom wings fold, Landing Gears ? )
SystemPatrol Craft (Retractable Landing Gears) ?

DS makes a good point, some craft in S.W. universe have RepulsarLift technology so they float above a surface, like the Rebel Transport.

Got me to thinking too. On some smaller non-flyable craft (like freighter transports or Heavy Lifter/Cargo Ferries, CUV) you could also add S-Foil meshes so that as they approach a hangar bay, or maybe perform a docking instruction, perhaps there are small retractable perimeter landing lights on edges of the hull meshes that pop out. But that topic might cross with the Pilot Animation-mesh thread.

Bman ..... Don't sell yourself short.... It's ideas that you are making, think, who would have thought we would have DTM's Super Backdrop, Jeremyafr's Hook Hangar's for every starship if you want?, (with Jeremyafr.. with his acomplishments where go we begin? ) Editing S-Foils which is still a WIP... Of course, Darksaber's accomplishments. Just like your post above, the idea's! that you are thinking... something constructive.... oh and by the way..... before you edit your post.....I did copy your XWAOptEditor schematic...hell it made me look, think outside the box!!! And you are right about Darksaber's thinking about some space craft without landing gear.. I forgot about the Rebel Transport on Hoth in ESB.. no landing gear. (Sorry Darksaber, I usually don't talk about someone in the 3rd person)

Sincerely, Rogue518

Bman wrote:DS makes a good point, some craft in S.W. universe have RepulsarLift technology so they float above a surface, like the Rebel Transport.

If you are referring to the GR-75 medium transport, the ILM film model has landing gear. The Naboo N-1 starfighter from Star Wars Episode I uses some sort of hover tech when landing though.

Bman, you have some great ideas, but some are a little adventurous, personally I'm not going to be adding landing gear to the craft even the assault gunboat, I know I made that one for the Hangar with landing gear but that's just for the purposes of display in the hangar.

Imagine landing gear added to each flyable craft, the X-wing for instance, imagine your in the hangar your wings are closed as they should be and the landing gear is down, you take off, you in space you wings are still closed, and of course the landing gear is still down, only when your wings are in attack position (Wings open) will the landing gear disappear into the body of the craft.

Now imagine that on each craft that has sfoils, nice novelty having the wings open and close, but I think the landing gear would get old fast

Landing gear on the Corellian craft (Falcon and so on), That would mean adding 5 new meshes to each opt (Base and Exterior) some craft use a fare few meshes and you can only had 50 meshes per opt, then if you add the landing gear to the Falcon and so on people would want then as screen accurate as possible, Have you seen the landing gear on the falcon? lol

Each one is something like this I don't know how many faces that would be to make something like this at least a basic representation but you would have to time that by 5, then you have texture them, you only have 99 textures to mess about with and some craft are nearly maxed out as it is.

So in the end it might be a hell of a lot of work for nothing.

So for now I'm just editing craft with Sfoil Wings and the pilot head rotation.

And just imagine that all craft are fitted with Repulsar Lift Engines

You mentioned the StarViper though, I was looking through my Opt Collection and Found Tony Knightcrawler's old StarViper, it needed a little bit of work, but I'll be including it in the next release of the DSUCP instead of Hernan Barreiro's Old StarViper. Tony's StarViper does have a cockpit, it's a little bit basic (no offence Tony) but it'll do the job

You also mentioned multiple folding options, I take it you mean like a folding "Z", I doubt that's possible either

I hope you understand this
You can only have one pivot, imagine a wing made up of to parts, if it was possible the second pivot would have stay connected too and rotate from the end of first part of wing, since each part is a separate mesh this isn't possible, the first part would rotate while the second part would remain horizontal because it's impossible to have the second pivot connected to the end of first part. The only way to do this is to have the second part of the wing with the pivot point in the same place as the first part of the wing. so they both rotate in the same direction. The Starviper's wings are made up of 2 meshes but the pivot point is in the same place otherwise the second part of the wings would be floating in space and rotate on there own pivot axis like so:-

I'm testing S-Foil of the V-19, Jedi Interceptor and Nebulon Ranger craft now. They work preatty good! I started from DSUCP opt files, that have been optimized with triangular faces.
I had to modify the mashes coordinates of the V-19 to put it in lower position in the hangar. Even the cockpit coordinates have been changed.
I will send the files to DS, so that they can be inserted in the next DSUCP.

Hi DS, yeah I was thinking about that today at work. The gears would be down when you had wings closed and would look odd in flight. Seems to only be a limitation with the player's craft. A.I. craft appear normal inflight, and even when they jump to other regions. What is funny, when I added those three landing struts to the AGB last night, the 1st person view of the cock-pit actually rotated out of position, even with the correct mesh indexes.

Thanks for explanation on StarViper. Completely understand now. So basically any mesh can only pivot on one of the three vector axis(es).

Rogue518, thx, too bad there isn't a trigger condition that could make hangar doors / forcefield of a station or starship open/close (S-Foils) when FG's return to base. Was another idea. I think with Pilot Mesh rotations (other thread) I have some out of box ideas for that too.

Speaking of StarViper, I'll post a new video of the starfigthers with starships TFTC test from the Combat Chamber this weekend.

This looks great! can't wait to try it out! I'm wondering what all craft could/should have s-foils or other features that could e imitated this way? Wookiepedia has a short list of s-foil fighters. What about transports or additional ones? Should craft like r-41 or t-wing or Razor have them eventually?

Awesome work!

One thing that still bothers me is ships with S-Foils jumping with the S-Foils open. If there were a way to make them close before jumping and even edit the missions so that they don't open the S-Foils until enemies appear, that would add to the immersion factor of the game.

Just a thought here, and something I have been considering trying to make myself, but why not create separate landing gear models or TIE fighter deck supports that can be manually placed "on" animated parked ships via the hangar hook?

Honestly that seems like the simplest least buggy way to add aesthetic to parked ships without having to worry about modifying existing ships to have specific gear types and any potential bugs accompanying the changes once you're out of the hangar, or negatively affecting the upper limits or further constraining the upper limits of the game engine on maximum meshes/textures of the opt in question.

DTM's Alderaan hangar's modified Razor fighter gave me this inspiration, though my idea wouldn't necessarily require an entire dummy ship just a little fiddling with the xyz coordinates.

Think I may look into this, should be a simple enough project even for myself. No promises though.

The Razor in the Alderaan hangar has not been modified. The landing gear is a separated opt placed at the same coordinates of the starfighter. I have used an hangar hook to replace an existing object with the landing gear opt. The same trick can be used for every parked craft...

DTM wrote:The Razor in the Alderaan hangar has not been modified. The landing gear is a separated opt placed at the same coordinates of the starfighter. I have used an hangar hook to replace an existing object with the landing gear opt. The same trick can be used for every parked craft...

Ah, perfect then. Pardon my assumption there then on the modification to the existing meshes, I believe I was operating on the opt name and made the inference to myself.

I couldn't imagine I would have been alone in considering the hangar hook as a viable option to utilize in this manner anyways, though I don't believe I've seen it mentioned in this thread previously either.

On the topic of making standalone gear per my last post, and coinciding with your last, I made an observation with various screen grabs from both the movies and various games and artwork, the X-wing landing gear while really simple has rounded gear covers on the bottom engines, and I wanted some feedback before I started trying to model up some landing gear.

My question is:

A. Would anybody be bothered if I was unable to get a good look (without modifying the X-Wing model itself) with the flaps and used a simplified gear design?
B. If the above occurred and I simplified down to just a generic set of gear aligned for the proper placement for the X-wing would that be an acceptable compromise in quality for having physical gear available to use?
C. If neither option are acceptable depending on what I come up with, would the XWAU object to me (attempting) to modify the existing X-Wing base model to have the proper gear flap covers + gear to be used as a full hangar prop provided I give proper credit and donate it to the project?

Without looking at other ships for the moment, as some may not require modification if no official artwork depicts anything specific in regards to what their landing gear and gear flap mechanisms look like, I imagine there would be more flexibility in regards to creating or mass utilizing a generic gear type and/or placement option.