jdevlin

Hi- I'm getting a similar "XML File Invalid error" to the one I received before. I've submitted the crashdump; I believe that therers something wrong with my setup. I'll keep trying, though and hopefully figure out how I'm going to use your creation. -Joe

Thanks adzling! I think that thats the way that I'm headed at the moment... but who's gonna be the good guy? I was definitely thinking about working on some new weaponry for these guys. I'd like to see at least one autocannon thrown into the mix, because i'm a sucker for autocannons, but a 90mm or some such for the medium is ideal. The 120mm seems a little too large for it. -Joe [ September 20, 2006, 08:30 AM: Message edited by: jdevlin ]

Hi- Just thought I'd post an update of where I stand with this project and see if I can't pose some questions. I'm having no problem getting a chassis into the game now, with texture. I've also imported thye Valkyrie and have played a few games with it. 1> As i understand it, the "Contacts" tag defines where "the rubber hits the road" so to speak - where the contact points for the treads are, for example. Is this correct? Is the hull included so that you don't have to do collision detection between a model and the ground? 2> Has anyone succesfully imported a turret? I made a turret ( the simplest turret possible - a blank cube ) and the way they import makes me think that the normals are getting flipped - the texture appears to be on the _inside_ of the cube. Also, my attempts to include collision models for my turret failed - I was hoping that the flipped normals were a strange result of not including collision models. More on this later, I suppose, when I've had a chance to mess around with it some more. 3> I have a few questions about collision models. do the collision models for the game include the tracks? it seems to me that they must - if shadows are generated by the inclusion of these models, then you wouldnt have shadows for the tracks otherwise. The collision models don't need to actually correspond to the shape of the base model file, do they? Finally, if I created a model, cut it up into sections for collision models, and then adjusted the offset of the base model, that would screw up the way the collisions looked but not the way they worked, right? 4> Treads? How do you animate them? If its really simple, the illusion is very well done. It appears to me that the game animates each track seperately. Or is it really just a move animation and an idle animation, where the move animation shifts the tread texture around the tread for x frames? 5> Finally, I have a couple of community requests. If anyone is itchy to try out texturing and feels like giving me a hand with texturing these things, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm not a very good texturer. Also, I'm looking for someone to help me playtest this. If anyone feels like giving a very rough cut of this mod a try, then send me an email and I'll send you the files. Thanks for reading! -Joe

yeah i figured out what the problem was - the "XML Invalid" error was being returned because my inventory.xml file was invalid for some reason. Thanks for your help! -Joe

Heres another group photo with a couple of variants. Included is the newer turret design.

Basically what you have to do is to take the surface of your model and unwrap it to a flat image ( sometimes called UVW unwrapping ). Then you take the image, fill in all the faces with your graphics, and the game engine maps this image to the coordinates specified during the unwrap phase ( or something ). Hope that helps! -Joe

Hi- Try a copy of XSI Foundation - its demo is uncrippled and free for a month. If you can ghost your system at the end of the month, you can use it indefinitely too. There will still be a learning curve, of course.. How about a snapshot of your design? I'm really curious! -Joe

While I'm here - does anyone have any advice on animating treads? -Joe

Ha! I guess the superheavy does have a little bit of that "imperial armor" flavor doesn't it. The first iteration looked like a Baneblade. Anyway, no problem - and thanks very much for the feedback, Soddball! I'm trying to keep this idea somewhat realistic, as realistic as you can get with an 18 foot tall AFV. I'll post some results of the redesign tonight! -Joe

This is a panther ausf G - I think the shot trap had been corrected by then. Still, this is the area in question, right? and here it is on my models: I believe that the problem can be addressed by filling in the superstructure on the superheavy ( the idea is admittedly incomplete ) and by redesigning the turret.

Hi- Thats a result of the turret design, correct? If you have the time, could you take one of my renderings and draw an arrow to the problem area? I'll take a look and see what I can do. -Joe

Thanks Hub! -Joe

whoops - spoke too soon. found one. Thanks! -Joe

Hi- I was wondering if I could get an example of this code - thanks! -Joe

Thanks Toby! Heres another shot, standing next to an apollo. I broke the texturing but added a cobra missile launcher. Unfortunately, my adjustments to the Contact tags keep the tanks from crossing bridges. -Joe

ideally, your enemies will be screaming "run away!" as you fling 120mm rounds every 2 seconds in this hightech monstrosity. You'll find it far more effective than launching cows! heres an ingame shot. finally overcame the issues i was having and got the thing into Drop Team. Note that this is without the directional collision models. I can't figure out why theres no shadow, but I'm sure that will come with time.

Heres some more snapshots of some of my models together - trying to get the size right. Included is the still unnamed superheavy, the medium/light tank tentatively called the Valkyrie, and an homage to the Hetzer.

I spent a few hours tonight trying to validate my physicalobjectgroup against the schema - after ironing out a few errors, i noticed a few things: As far as I can tell, CollisionModel is still not a valid tag, either in the schema that I can find in the data directory or in the schema available on the web. after removing the collisionmodels from my physicalobjectgroup, the xml validated against the schema. running the game still caused a crash, when the "Caching Objects" step reaches 30%. The same error - "XML file is not valid" appears. I'm tired tonight - I'll try again tomorrow. Thanks! -Joe [ September 14, 2006, 09:13 PM: Message edited by: jdevlin ]

In the event that it is the model I am using, I will try again tonight after work using a simpler model, such as poesel71's cube idea.

Okay well, I'm not having any luck. I created collision models and set them up in the xml file, but the game continues to crash when I load a map. Investigation of the DropTeam.log file shows that the engine is complaining about the XML file being invalid: . . . PHYSICALOBJECTFACTORY: Loading ../data/120mmAP.physicalobjectgroup PHYSICALOBJECTFACTORY: Loading ../data/120mmHEAT.physicalobjectgroup PHYSICALOBJECTFACTORY: Loading ../data/120mmHE.physicalobjectgroup CRITICAL: The XML file is not valid As far as I can tell this is the result of adding my own model. Any advice? -Joe

sorry bout the double post

Hello folks- Just curious- Has anyone who has been working on vehicles gotten to any of the following stages: 1> actually importing an object into the game? I tried cheating by giving animation blocks a single stage of animation or by leaving the animation as the default ( i copied the thor's physicalobjectgroup) - but the game crashes when i try to load a map. I figure it must not like my models. A simple mod that shows how to import a cube into the game would go a long way here. 2> Has anyone gotten to the stage where they animate the treads? 3> Once you have centered and textured your model, do you then build the collision models after that? IE, do the collision models need to correspond exactly with the object model? Kind of a silly question, but I'm having trouble keeping my models oriented correctly, and I'm trying to define a work flow. Thanks for your patience- -Joe

Heh, well I don't necessarily need approval to work on it. I had a thought though - something like this wouldn't be combat droppable, unless you had a superheavy dropship. That would mean limiting the deployment to deployment zones. Is there any way to do that? -Joe

Yah Nick - I agreed so I scaled it around a little bit. -Joe

The reason I suggested this was because I anticipated these being very limited in number and I didn't wanna see them get popped by some 6km shot i guess it depends in part on whether it mounts a point defense system or not. I imagined one of these storming an objective. 120mm shells are bouncing off of it - atgm carriers can't get close enough to target it, the tank's already fuzzy signature is surprising because of its massive size, maybe the missiles are getting shot down by a point defense system. But its opponents know what to do - they stand off and start a large scale ion bombardment on one of its surfaces, melting away its major advantage while the behemoth flails away with its 120mm. I would argue that maybe a 76mm from behind at point blank might puncture something, but I think that 20mm should bounce off of it until ions have done their work. anyways, its all kind of moot until i figure out how to texture, and then figure out how to get the model into a mod. ( yes, I am studying the tank destroyer thread! ) [ September 10, 2006, 09:08 AM: Message edited by: jdevlin ]