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Originally Posted by edmoor
you lost me on the ~cs_coll_ process. do i box in around the wing....fuse....with a cube.....and save them as seperate names names for each? or copy the fuse.....then the wing....and wheels....etc.....this makes no sense to me. i can see why its done....just dont understand it. does wings for dummies explain the process in detail for me? and i assume this is all done in wings program. only other program i have is blender....which i do not know how to use......yet. looks like its beer o'clock already......ed.
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Collision meshes confuse me also
My understanding is you MUST have collision meshes if the model is over 8k polys, or it won't export a .kex file. And yet my current Devastator model is at just under 20k polys with NO mesh and it exports fine. Maybe twice since I started modeling 2 years ago, has the exporter told me "you're over 8k polys, add collision meshes!"
At any rate, if I have polys left over I'll put a mesh on. I've got several on swaps with meshes, and several without. All of 'em pushing the total 20k limit.
The "rule" according to the KE tutorial is that any part with a ~CS_ name needs a mesh. Personally I have never done this, when I put a mesh on I "simplify" it wherever possible. For instance I don't do a mesh for "~CS_LMW" and another for "~CS_LMA" and still another for "~CS_LMF". I just make one mesh that encloses the entire left wing and leave it at that. Maybe that works, maybe it defeats the entire purpose - I don't know. But like I said, only a few times has the exporter forced me to add meshes at all.
As far as how the mesh is made, you DON'T want to "copy" each component. Do that and you'll double your poly count instantly
You want the SIMPLEST shape possible that will completely enclose the component and "roughly" conform to its shape. For your model a simple box primitive will work nicely for the wing, just drag the verts at the tip to closely match the sweep, chord and thickness of the wing.
Do the same for the fuse, you can use a box if you like, or a 6-sided cylinder (eats more polys though.) Add enough segments so that you can get it to roughly correspond to the profile of the fuse, and drag verts around to match the shape.
The collison mesh does NOT have to be detailed, in fact I think the limit is 1.5k polys total for all mesh parts. (Someone correct if I'm wrong!) What you want to remember is that the meshes describe the areas that can collide with objects. To understand this, add a "~CS_COLL" object to your wings and fuse, but NOT to the wheels. Import the model, load it in RF and watch what happens. The model will sink into the ground since there are no meshes on the wheels. In this case RF doesn't know that the wheels can "collide" with the ground since they have no mesh. As a result, the model sinks until something WITH a mesh attached hits the ground.
So, if you make your wing mesh extend 3 feet past the wingtip, you can have a collision with say a windsock, if the wingtip gets inside of 3 feet from it. Though to the pilot flying the plane, it would look like he totally missed the windsock.
Moral is, the mesh should closely approximate the shape and dimensions of the plane. But it does NOT need to fit "like a glove," all that does is waste polys.
DH