Mountpoint and <*>point dummy objects descriptions...

#1 Muzzlepoint: The projectile's initial position when weapon is fired
Ejectpoint: Shell casings initial position when weapon is fired
Mountpoint: Corresponds to mount0 on player model, for holding weapon

Besides that there are animations that can be stored with the dts that play during specific weapon sequences. For instance, you could create a sequence object that encompasses an animation of the weapon being reloaded. The datablock for the weapon is where you would set that.

#2 Hi Mark,

Thanks for the quick response. What about the left hand and some other point I've seen (Retractionpoint, Mount0 and Mount1 character only?).

Thanks...

John.

#3 More questions:

First off I've read every freakin' post on weapons and no info on the non-weapon hand :( (second mount point), so is this not in Torque (I know Tribes supports this)?

Second, if there is a non-weapon hand mount point (or if I can add one), animating the mount point could give a primitive reload effect (no finger movement :( though), but still cool.

Or is there an easier way to do this? Honestly I can live without the reload, but having my guy carrying a big gun with one hand while the other is just hanging out looking bored looks very silly. :)

Any opinions or helpful advice would be appreciated, thanks...

John.

#4 If you guys want I (or Joe if he has time) could probably create a quickie listing of all those "extra" nodes that get used in characters, weapons, and vehicles. It wouldnt be anything more than a name and a description of what it does though. Let me know if this is of interst to you and I will try to collect it all together this weekend.

Logan

#5 Heck I'd be interested in seeing it. If only to add it to my notes.

#6 That would be great, thanks!

John.

#7 The documentation is finished and just going through a review from a couple of sources other than myself for validation (ie. want to make sure that everything is 100% correct), shouldn't be much longer until the file is available.

Logan

#8 Logan,

Sounds great, can't wait to see it.

Btw: Thanks for helping out, I really appreciate it.

John.

#9 Small update once again, there are just a couple of tweaks that I need to do (should be done later today) and then the document will be good as money for release.

FYI: The document covers all current nodes that can be used in characters/static objects, weapons, and vehicles under default "vanilla" Torque. The document is also 3D application independant (ie. its not specificaly catored for one document or the other).

Logan

#10 The document is now available for you to download and view at your liesure. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, thanks.

Logan

#11 Thanks. This helps clear up some confusion. Can I suggest that you make available the 3DSM objects that generated the hierarchies some in the document. The images aren't always sharp enough to gleam what is being shown and to have those objects at hand can really help.
Thanks for the resource.

#12 Logan,

Looks great! Do you have a list of the character mount points (like your vehicle list, like mount0=..., mount1=...)?

Thanks...

John.


Edit:

ohh... the weapons script really dictates this with:

mountpoint = "0"

right? technically I can mount 3 weapons? or is this way off?

#13 I can sit down today and put a few objects together that reflect the Heirarchies. I'll post them tommorrow.

One question though. These descriptions of the nodes are all default with a stock TGE? I seem to recall a few more. I might not be thinking right.
Also @LFoster If I have some info to add to this would you mind if I updated your PDF and resubmitted it. I think the info on proper pivot orientation would also be usefull. That to me seemed to be half the battle when using these Nodes in my models, trying to figure out the correct pivot placement.

Matt

#14 @Wendell - The character entry is the Orc from RW, but the default TGE guy would do as well (the most important thing here is the skeleton and the nodes, the character geometry itself is irrelivent essentially). As for static shapes, these are very simple and there are a few examples of them in CVS and in the DTS Exporter documentation, here I used one from Realm Wars. The weapon is just the Realm Wars Crossbow, you can get that from CVS if you like (note: the DSO adjusts the position of the bow so things might not look as you would expect in the file). The vehicle is the Warsparrow from the Bravetree packs (also see in the collision geometry screenshot examples), vehicles are just static shapes with a few extra vehicle specific nodes on them, nothing special.

@Bob - You are pretty much bang on there. You can assign anything to your mount markers if you want, you are not confined to what goes where.

@Matthew - The list is up to date with the current head, if there is something missing then its something that both Joe Maruschak and myself missed. There are plenty of depricated nodes that were not included (such as "mass") but many of these have been replaced by new nodes (such as "hub") and as such shouldn't be used anymore if at all possible.

As for the orientation of the model, I am assuming that people would know that they are oriented via the World Coordinates in your 3D program and that most items point down your positive Y axis. Since this is standard for every node it would be somewhat of a waste to add to every entry, though you do have a point about adding it to a general notes section that could be at the beginning instead.


Logan

#15 Ya your right I forget the new code. It is a handy doc. I wish I had it when I started.

Matt

#16 Logan,

Cool, thanks for the help. Excellent resource, much appreciated.

Thanks!

John.

#17 Goodness!!!! This doc rocks!!! lol. I was really unclear about the relationships between the collision nodes and collision geometry until I read this post. I have to say this is a good doc to incorporate into the core Torque documentation as its a very thorough, informative and, well for someone like me, idiot proof doc. :)

Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

#18 I've been searching for a while for an explanation about how mount nodes control the orientation of the object that is mounted. As far as I've been able to tell from the little documentation I've seen, as well as exploring with Torque Show Tool Pro, all of the nodes seem to be single points, and therefore I can't see how you can control how the object is oriented to the point, and rotated (or not) around the point.

Does anyone know of a tutorial/resource that goes into some depth/detail on how this type of connection works?

The main reason I ask is that we are putting together .dts buildings that players can "decorate" during game play. For example, we want to be able to mark a certain section of an exterior wall where the player can mount a banner showing their kingdom association, but we want to be able to have the artist control where the banner can be placed on the exterior wall. My first guess would be that we can simply use a mount point for this 2d-ish example, but it gets a bit more complicated:

We also want to be able to have, for example, a 2-d portion of the interior of a building that is a set size, and let the player place something like a table in this pre-defined area. The player would be able to place the table (which would be smaller than the total area the artist allows) in any orientation or position within this "furniture area", so a single mount point wouldn't make sense here.

Can you somehow make a "mount plane", or even a "mount polygon" as part of a .dts?

EDIT: I did find this post which implies that a node isn't actually just a single point, but a point with orientation information, but I'm still curious if anyone has any ideas about how to place a different object within a certain bounded area of another .dts.

#19 Could you not deploy it in much the same fashion as would would deploy defense or or turrets in Tribes?


As far as the nodes go, to the best of my knowledge you have to orientate your nodes to the direction you wish them to face(point). Such as mount0 in your hand which holds the weapon needs to have it's y axis pointed in the same direction the player is facing. if it was turn 180 degrees then when you mounted a weapon it would be turned 180 degree's as well. You ALSO have to have the weapon's mountPoint turned in the exact same direction as the player faces(y == forward) or you'll get even worse results. Say both your mount point and your crossbow were 180 degrees out, then when you mount your crossbow it will face the correct direction because the mount would turn the weapon 180 degrees and then the weapon would turn itself 180 degrees more(full circle).

You can move the mounted image off of the mount by using the "offset = " in the datablock. You could have a perfectly built and mounted crossbow appear 20 feet in front of a player if you wished by using the offset. Basically your artists just need to get all facing directions correct and then get the mountpoints as close to where they need to be as he can and then any descrepancies in the in-game mounting can be adjusted with the offset to make them line up perfectly.

#20 Hi,
I was wondering if anyone could explain to me how to play an animation at a particular position. for instance to place a player hanging from a ledge and waiting for the press of a key to move him left, right or to climb up. do you need to set where the animation should take it's root transform from, say hand mount points, reason being that a contact point on the ledge would have to be found either by raycast, maxstepheight or a trigger, and you would want to place the player's hands at that point so that he effectively hangs from the ledge.