Help with orientation of equipment objects when attached to an animation (such as use signalling disk)

[William Stapleford]

(Cross posted)

 

After several attempts I have finally made some progress on getting a simple hadheld flare into the game.  It is very odd the way the importer function works because sometimes it will work fine and import all the textures and do the conversions other times it decides to do nothing or forget to convert the textures to the cryptic name for the .dds files.  I wish i could figure out why but so far no headway on this problem.

 

I managed to get my flare into the game as a test object.  I replaced the mesh for the signal disk used by the police with one that I created using a new 3d .mesh file.  Added some quick effects and figured out an approximate scale for the object since upon importing it was larger then any of the tallest objects including buildings.  When I finally scaled it down to a approximate size (still tweaking) I then ran a test on it in game.  The object showed up however the police officer looked as if it was sticking out his arm and not in his hand.  It also was orientated in the wrong direction pointing downward.  Making notes of that I closed the game went back out into the Em5 builder and changed the direction of the prefab to orientate it in the total opposite direction.  I saved this prefab as the same name using the SAVE command and restarted the game.  The object did not change orientation and still remained the same.  

 

I decided to try and create a new object in 3dmax and change the scale and rotation inside the program.  Since the original signalling disk is displayed as laying down on the side in the EM5 builder when it first appears I attempted to match that as well and created my flare on the side laying on the X axis.

Created a new prefab called flare_angled as my project and attempted to place it back into the game.  It seems that it DID change the orientation however it did not change the attachment point and still looks very funny and not realistic when viewed up close.  

 

I also saw in the prefab properties that you can change the offset of an objects animation but this did not change anything either when changed and saved.

 

Other then a trial and error method of changing the orientation and imported models until it is positioned correctly using 3dsmax is there a simpler way of doing this.

 

I have found no way of opening the .mesh files including using blender and some information I found online that using a script to open .mesh files.  It seems that no matter what even a simple object as the penlight can not be easily changed anymore.  Unless someone has managed to get this to work.  

 

I would assume that there has to be an easier way of setting an objects rotation and placement in an animation then what I'm attempting.  Has anyone managed to try and work on that?  

 

I'm looking for any helpful tips or hints that can help once again.

 

Thanks and have a great day

 

William516

Bill

Delaware, USA