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Setting eye and cam nodes properly. Need help

by Mike Rowley · in Artist Corner · 01/21/2008 (6:00 pm) · 6 replies

I made a vehicle, added joints for the first (eye) and third person (cam) views. The cam node doesn't export, and the eye node has me looking out the side of the vehicle.
When I first started this, I was exporting using the regular dts exporter. It had me looking upside down. I have since downloaded the dts plus exporter from the wikki and it works, but I'm looking sideways.
Does anyone have any ideas how I can fix these 2 problems? This is new territory for me.
Thanks for your help.
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Torque Owner Rex
BrokeAss Games
#1
01/26/2008 (11:27 am)
Try using the "Zero Joints" Tool in dropDown Menu. This command will put all the current Scene Joints[tgeNodes] to World Coordinates, without destroying existing animation stored within the Scene. If the vehicle object geometry is properly aligned in the workSpace, the default world coordinates of the nodes work fine for the eye/cam/hubN/mountN mounting.

Torque Owner Mike Rowley
Mike Rowley
#2
01/26/2008 (12:01 pm)
Thanks Rex.
I was able to fix the eye, but still can't get the cam node to export. I'll keep trying.

Torque Owner Rex
BrokeAss Games
#3
01/26/2008 (12:15 pm)
Put "cam" in the Always Export list in a .CFG file...that may help.

Torque Owner Mike Rowley
Mike Rowley
#4
01/26/2008 (12:48 pm)
Thanks. I'll give that a try.

Edit:

Ok, I made a cfg file called boat.cfg as my dts is called boat.dts.

Here's the cfg file:

Config file:
AlwaysExport:
Eye
Cam
Mount*
UnlinkLight*
NeverExport:
Locator*
Dum*

And here is the (partial) dump file showing the cam node is exporting:

Second pass:  put shape structure together...

Adding detail named "detail0" of size 0 to subtree "__mainTree".
Adding detail named "Collision-1" of size -1 to subtree "__mainTree".
Adding node "__mainTree" with parent "__mainTree" to subtree rooted on node "__mainTree".
Adding node "__meshes" with parent "__mainTree" to subtree rooted on node "__mainTree".
Adding node "eye" with parent "__meshes" to subtree rooted on node "__mainTree".
Adding node "cam" with parent "__meshes" to subtree rooted on node "__mainTree".

Here are a few images:
Within Milkshape


First person view showing the eye node


third person view showing the cam node isn't where it is set to be.

Am I missing a step somewhere? As I've said before, I've never attempted this type of moddeling before.

Torque Owner Rex
BrokeAss Games
#5
01/26/2008 (4:46 pm)
The shape 'appears' in ms3d to be correct; no mount nodes, though??

It appears from the image from the boat_cam that it might be in the scripting for the 3rd Person is off, or the boat is not rendering for some reason? Watercraft aren't a stock tge item, so I don't know what you've done to the codebase for your mounting and cam resources...?? The view from boat_cam looks way higher than in the model and there is no rendering of the boat underneath??

Torque Owner Mike Rowley
Mike Rowley
#6
01/26/2008 (4:50 pm)
I made the boat a hover vehicle, so mabe I dont have it setup properly there. I'll have to check that. Thanks. I would never have thought to check the script. :blush:

Edit to add:

That worked. Thankyou for your patience and help. I hadn't thought about it being in the script. :blush: I had the max distance set to 20.
Thanks again. :-)