so after a little break im gonna continue my work on the model today or tomorrow and to make things clear once and for all: i offered to make a new model i never said anything about texuring it i might have a look at it when im done with the model but please dont push me into this beacause this would more likely get me to not to do it
Moving parts should be animated using skeletal animation. if there's separate movable turret/cannon then it should be exported as separate model.
Animating for source is horrible because you have to add animations to the already godawful compile tools. Empires uses separate models for its turrets but yeah, stuff like the propellers would probably have to be animated properly. I don't know how though, I assume you would make an animation of it moving across the full range of motion and the game will simply pick the correct frame with some clever code, but I don't know how you export individual animations. Basically you're probably better off finding an animator to do it, or mootant can code in support for separate fan models and rotate them codeside or something if he's feeling generous.
There is a process in max/maya that allows you to make a bump map for a much less detailed model using a much more detailed model...doing the calculations for you. I don't know what it is called or how you do it, I just know it's there
hmm i use 3ds max i could download the study version of maya but i think its too complicated to convert the model for just this bumpmap i mean i know how it basically works (alpha channel on textures and how its used then (studying computervisualistics and reading this pdf about it)) my only prob is just as simple as that: how do i get the tex on the model //i have to say i like POM more and more. ive only seen this realy bad implemented one on Metro 2033 (which wasnt even anti aliased) but now ive seen it on two worlds 2 and...MAN THOSE DETAILS!!! so yeah IF i make a texture i will use POM (actually i took the final decision when seeing POM in action on the BE jeep and it looks quite neat in source)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDaCDM6l_4 this helped me if you can get around the annoying voice and vagueness of what he says (zoom in)
Max does that, it's called projection. Fiddly to set up, but you don't actually need to texture, you can autounwrap the UVs and then just render it, and it bakes normals for you. Although that would probably be best left to the texturer because they will need to redo (and properly unwrap it) it if they want to add a diffuse texture.
STATUS REPORT!!! so thats the progress for today: removed details on the wings and united them (green) united and tweaked the tail (red) and i removed the materials because they caused me some issues sometimes ;P im still not sure about the tail if it wont influence the physics negatively and by the way: if someone is interested in texturing it i'd like to know because i need to do some tweaking and i could possibly remove some details in case of POM
can't the thing about the physics be customized? like all the mass concentrated to a point in the middle and coupled to the model?
I think it just uses the 0 0 0 world coordinate of whatever you built it in as the centre of mass. Certainly the centre of mass can be moved around, many models have it off centre.
and im still not done yet the whole thing is still hollow so i think i might readd some details later
