HUD Question

[jmarso]

Referencing the screenshot at the bottom, is there a way to customize the center reticle, and maybe also the relative position you see the weapons fire come from in the cockpit view? Without using a complete custom cockpit, I'm assuming the weapons indicators are placed in some way that is dependent on the OPT itself. I've noticed that the weapons indicators seem to roughly correspond to where you see the weapons fire coming from outside, such as in the case of the standard Rebel and Imperial fighters. However, in the case of imported OBJ files converted to OPTs, you sometimes have to make an axis correction and that seems to have an effect on this. (Learned that through experimentation- but you can't NOT fix the axes in the model or you end up with a spacecraft that sits upside down in the hangar and so on.)

In the screenshot, you can see the weapons indicators at roughly 10 and 2 O'clock over the reticle, and this is also where the laser beams appear outside the cockpit when firing. Technically speaking, they should be at 4 and 8 O'clock. Is there a way to change this?

[keiranhalcyon7]

I suspect the cockpit hardpoint is missing (or placed incorrectly) in the opt.

[Darksaber]

Nope that's not right Keiran, if he adds a cockpit hardpoint to his base opt, the view in the default cockpit will be move either above or below what your seeing in the image above, do not add cockpit hardpoints.

it's more than likely his Base Opt (the one with the hardpoints) is not centred correctly on the Hull of the craft, Once centred correctly the weapons indicators should then move to 4 and 8 O'clock

[keiranhalcyon7]

Interesting. So the origin of the cockpit opt is always aligned to the origin of the base opt?

[Driftwood]

It should be. I've noticed that when making cockpits early on, if I did not align the cockpit model 1:1 to the position of its position relative to the base model you will have graphical alignment issues when the game puts things together. I have since solved this by doing all my base opting, then cockpit opting using the base opt itself, and then the exterior opt based on the combined cockpit/base model meshes. After that it's a matter of deleting hidden faces from the cockpit opt that aren't visible to save filespace/memory useage.

The cockpit that jmarso is using is the default flight simulator one so it's not necessarily aligned for the position of the correct POV relative to his ship model. If you imported the two 3d models into either opt editor or blender for instance, you would see their true position. That true position is reflected in how XWA pieces the models together ingame since the cockpit (like the exterior opt) pulls its hardpoint data from the base opt file and thus the lasers and warheads deploy from an area relative to the base opt regardless of the mesh positions of the cockpit or exterior models. This also applies to the gunner opt also.

[Bman]

Interesting, thanks for sharing that. That makes sense now, changing the laser hardpoints of the Gunner.opt files doesn't really have any effect. So the gunner hardpoints put on the base .opt determines the POV of the gunner.opt files? I thought it might be relative to the center X,Y,Z coordinates of the whole base model itself? Why does the Mil. Falcon model need 5 gunner hardpoints? I would think just 2.

[jmarso]

I'm learning stuff!

After taking a look at the OPT file I see what you're talking about.

The position of the base opt is right where it imported from its obj file origins. Is there a way to lower the base opt so it is centered correctly?

Also, what exactly is the significance of the gunner hardpoints? I've noticed them on other opts but don't grok their purpose.

While we're on the topic, what is the difference for exterior opts? In the past I've just copied the base opt and renamed it, and it seems to work fine.

[jmarso]

On further investigation, it looks like the scaling may be the culprit. In the screenshot below, the smaller model on the bottom is the way it imports into XWA OPT Editor. When I scale it up so it fits the game, it raises the position of the weapons and hardpoints above the reference point of the original. So is there a different way to scale it so it expands outward from the center as opposed to 'up', or is the trick to scale up the model as an obj file and then re-import it?

[jmarso]

Here it is compared with the X-wing. Basically the very bottom of the starfighter model hits the midline of the X-wing. The starfighter needs to be lowered so its wing line matches that of the X-wing if its S-foils were closed, or thereabouts. How is this done? I did a rescale and z-axis adjustment in blender, but it re-imported with the same problem, so obviously changing it in blender didn't translate to any change when it gets converted to an opt by XWA OPT editor.

[jmarso]

Does nobody with OPT experience know how (and which tool to use) to translate the starfighter down the Z axis so it superimposes directly over the position of the X-wing, or is it just not possible to do? It seems highly unlikely that there is no way to do it, but I'm finding OPTech very frustrating to figure out- it doesn't seem to show any coordinate system at all.

Moving the model's coordinates in Rhino as an .obj and re-importing it into XWA OPT Editor does not fix the issue.

[Driftwood]

I'm at work so I can't help right now, but maybe link us your files so we can check them out. I could write up something later maybe but I'm also trying to fix some hard system crashes that are likely pointing to failing mobo and or CPU or defective new GPU so I'm semi offline till I get things resolved.

The good news is the fix should be easy enough to do when you can be walked through in more detail.

Rhino may also be part of your problem. Download blender and any of my suggestions will be more likely to work since that's what I use, so i can't imagine what the issue with rhino you may be experiencing.

[keiranhalcyon7]

In XWAOptEditor, you can select each mesh and use the move tool (it's in the lower-left). I don't know if there's a way to multi-select or group meshes to allow them to be moved en-mass, or if there's a way to re-origin the entire opt in a single step.

[Darksaber]

No you can select every mesh (not just each mesh) then click move in the bottom left hand corner, another window will appear, in the Meter/Move Z enter -0.25 = -25cm, you don't want to move it too far, trouble is in XWAOptEditor there is no way to tell if it has moved, so you have to save and test, if it's still not centred repeat again

[keiranhalcyon7]

No you can select every mesh (not just each mesh) then click move in the bottom left hand corner, another window will appear, in the Meter/Move Z enter -0.25 = -25cm, you don't want to move it too far, trouble is in XWAOptEditor there is no way to tell if it has moved, so you have to save and test, if it's still not centred repeat again

Ah, shift- or control-clicking in the mesh list lets multiple meshes be selected.

jmarso is in luck on that front - his target point is the bottom of the ventral wingtips. So, select all meshes except those wings, and adjust until those components are in the right place, keeping track of each adjustment. Then, adjust just those wing meshes by the sum of the adjustments applied to everything else.

[jmarso]

Thanks for the replies, guys. That did the trick.

The funny thing was a point that Darksaber hit on above: if you move all the meshes at once (which is something I'd tried before), you can't tell it had moved. I didn't think to import another opt on top of it to reference it at the time, so I assumed nothing was happening and I was using the tool incorrectly.

So I'm able to shift the opt now, which is good news and puts me a long way towards finalizing this sucker. It looks like the model even has the means to make a custom cockpit, which I may start playing with after looking at some stock ones for reference.

On thing I'm still unclear on is the need for / utility of 'gunner' hardpoints. At first I thought they had to do with turrets like on the top of the Otana or Falcon, but I see that starfighters have them as well. The X-wing appears to have one on the nose and 4 more situated near each laser cannon. What do they do for you?

[Driftwood]

You don't need gunner hardpoints at all unless it has a turret function; unless there's some odd function to them that's been added I'm not aware of that uses it on non turreted craft for some point of reference to some other use???