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Register a new accountQuoteOriginally posted by Centaurian
Actually, "THE WALL" wasn't released until 1983
Ahem. The Wall was released in 1979.
I should know; I'm obsessed with Pink Floyd like John Hinkley was to Jodie Foster.
Okay, maybe not that much. I haven't tried to assasinate a US President over them... yet.
MK
Well, it's taken me two years to pluck up the courage to post my story, but at last, I have done so.
I've got up to chapter 18 done (though I'm going to revise all of my chapters before posting), so I'll be updating like a machine gun. Let me know what you think.
MK
Folks, leaving something alone is not the right thing to do. If you have a scratch, do you leave it alone or itch it? You itch it, of course. If we cut off TLR, it will die. If TLR dies, some people will get... angry. When people get angry, people get vengeful. And vengeful people could do some real harm if they hacked SWAT and destroyed everything; downloads, forums, news pages, all of it. So really, it's in SWAT's best interest to help TLR, in order to prevent anything... unfortunate.
MK
I'll post a PM I shared with MC:
QuotePlease reconsider help from SWAT. You can't deny that you've made a few enemies in Crazy and OP, but trying to fix these relationships may be the best way to help TLR. I want to see this site continue and I'm just trying to help. Crazy's database and OP's server could be of immense use, so please try to reach out to them.
MK
His reply:
QuoteDisplay MoreI do appreciate where you are coming from,
however swat started by flaming my site first day, so I banned him
and crazy I have been trying to get along with him for 4 months now I dont think it will work.
but if opputunity should arise I will talk.
I understand that TLR is going downhill, and if SWAT doesn't want to deal with them, well, perhaps that's to be expected. But I want it to be known that I'm not giving up on them. I absolutely hate change. Hopefully, I or someone else can help Mental see reason. I think he truly wants the best for TLR, but I think he's in over his head and doesn't want to admit it.
At any rate, I'll be spending more time at SWAT for the time being, if only because there's more content at the moment and SWAT is more stable. I still hope to turn TLR around. You say it's a corpse? Well, time to start necromancy.
MK
What if...
What if ownership were to pass on to someone else. Someone more open to change and cordial relationship with the rest of the FL community? I'm not suggesting that we ask Mental to step down; what if there were a... coup détat of sorts?
I can't give up on TLR. For me, it just holds too much sentimental value. So what if it's a corpse? I'll take care of it anyway. No, we need to fight (literally, if need be) to regain TLR! That's my view, anyway.
MK
Does this mean that you (personally) wouldn't interact with TLR even if its administration changed?
MK
*edit*
For that matter, where exactly is this campaign? I haven't found it on TLR forums. Could you post a link, OP?
I followed what Startrader's tutorial said, and indeed the problem of disappearing components was solved. Unfortunatly, I was right back to square one on getting 100% hit detection.
I have two SUR files that I would consider working. Unfortunatly, neither are 100% working. One will have all parts that have been destroyed have their SURs disappear, but will have areas of no hit detection. The other will have hit detection everywhere on the ship, but a component's SUR section will remain even if that part has been destroyed. The only difference between the two is that I exported the first one in parts, while the second one was exported as a single group. I'll try hex editing them and get back to everyone, but I hope that there are some thoughts posted before then.
MK
All right, that's helped. I get full hit detection everywhere on the ship. Two problems, though:
1. My shield bubble seems to remain even if my shield isn't attached 
This is... annoying, because the shield bubble is so freaking huge that, when I try to exit the docking bay, I bump into it. The shield bubble doesn't seem to exist on wrecks though, meaning it's probably an INI deal, rather than a problem with the SUR.
2. This, however, is definitely a SUR problem. I know, OP, that you don't like multiple components (for admittedly valid reasons). I, however, do, yet the SUR doesn't seem to destroy itself when the part goes. Granted, I've been exporting the SUR as a single group, but when I export it as multiple groups, I don't get hit detection everywhere. 
So, I'm looking for ways to get around/solve these two problems. Any help would be appreciated.
MK
Hmmm.
Is it possible that this 'Mental' who insulted you/everyone was in fact AzzA masqurading as Mental? The bans have all been recended, even Torch's, who Mental has asked to stay away. The only one not unbanned in AzzA. And, dispite what I said over on TLR earlier, I'm through putting up with him. To paraphrase a game show host:
QuoteHe is the most annoying link. Goodbye!
And wasn't it you, OP, who said that it wasn't Mental's fault in your rather angry Bye post that is present earlier in this thread? I'm not trying to be an asshole (that comes naturally ;)), I'm just trying to understand the apparent pi.
MK
I included the Root in the 7.
MainHull_lod1 (Root)
LeftForeWing_lod1
RightForeWing_lod1
LeftRearWing_lod1
RightRearWing_lod1
LeftEngine01_lod1
RightEngine01_lod1
Those are my seven.
MK
I edited my post above before I saw yours, OP, so it has some (bad-ish) news.
Basically, I created a SUR model around the Milkshape model. Nothing really spectacular, and I'm sure you can do the steps. Now, since I like multiple components, all of my ships have those. I opened mine in UTF, and here's a sample of the nodes:
-VMeshLibrary
-Cmpd
-MainHull_lod1.3db
-LeftForeWing_lod1.3db
-RightForeWing_lod1.3db
And so on.
Wavey's quotation of Startracker led me to my discovery. I regrouped my SUR into 7 groups (there are 7 components in my ship, though above I only put 3 to demonstrate) and renamed them to how they are named in the CMP, minus the .3db part. I.E.:
MainHull_lod1
LeftForeWing_lod1
And so on. I then did the multistep resize with FLModelTool (first scale all to 1, scenery, don't make part of root, followed by automatic, ship/station, and I still didn't make it part of the root even though it says too; works fine either way, I imagine) and ploped it in.
Well, I'm off to put in my final ship into my mod. Not that I have a lot, and only these last two required some actual modeling on my part, but meh.
MK
It...
It...
It...
...works.
[SIZE=4]IT WORKS!!![/SIZE]
WOOHOO!
Now, there are a few areas that lack hit detection, but I have a few theories on how to fix that. Testing will commence presently.
It bloody works, though.
MK
*edit*
No dice, I can't get the extrimeties to work. There also seems to be a problem is destroying the SUR if a part is destroyed. Still, this is a giant leap foward.
If I may...
Keeping the textures as TGAs is silly. They take up more space than DDS and the quality is not noticably better. Changing the textures to DDS for five characters saved about a megabyte of space.
For those who don't know, to use DDS, you change MIP# to MIPS. You need only one. I use a 256x256 DDS usually. They also need to be vertically flipped from their TGA counterparts. Don't ask me, I don't know why.
MK
No dice, I'm not getting any collision detection. This would mean that I'm doing something wrong... but what?
MK
I'm not sure how many of you (if any besides OP) have followed my delving into ship stuff, but I'm reworking several of PantherX's ships for my mod and for the community as a whole. So far, I've completed only most of the Hellhound, specifically, I have destructable components and a custom wireframe. The only remaining obstacle is the creation of a custom SUR. Now, I have both SUR exporters, but I've been told 1.2 is s***, so I don't use it. I have my simple SUR model created, though I don't know if it's assembled correctly. Bejaymac was working on a large tutorial when TLR originally went down last year that dealt with custom SURs. I suppose that it's too much to ask if somebody nabbed it before the forums went down or if we have someone with eidetic memory who saw it, but if so, please share. Otherwise, I was hoping that some people here might know a thing or two on the topic. BJ is, at the moment, unreachable, though I continue to try to sway him back to Freelancer. (My, some of these smilies are violent) So, anybody able to shed some light on this?
MK
What I meant was that there hasn't been any more flaming in the past 24 hours. Maybe it's the calm before the storm... probably is, but hope for the best no?
What, precisely, is w0dk4's vendetta about? I wouldn't think it was you pointing out his error in his FLHook cloak, as any developer should be happy to have an error fixed. So what's the deal?
MK
Good news, everyone!
The s***storm has died down. Let me post what MC said:
QuoteI was only joking both with this thread and the poll, it was more for the sake of catdog, plus I thought it would be informative to find out some opinions , and who would be the first to attack and who would actually be concerned
thanks I got what I needed.
MC
As well as:
QuoteOkay I have let ppl get somethings off their chest in public, as I stated in another thread all the flaming threads are now closed. If you have something to say to someone them or pm them. The community does not need to see you BS anymore, my intention was to allow everyone to get as much as possible off their chest and get it out in the open. I think most ppl said what they felt, so lets move on. Saturday sometime all of the threads will be deleted. And we will move on, I hope everyone will go back to actually helping the community instead of arguiing about things that have no consequence.
MC
As an aside, I was the one who suggested that, if MC were to step down, OP would make a good admin (others I thought would be good were bejaymac, Lancer Solurus, and myself). I still support MC, though.
w0dk4 told me that OP had made multiple users and was arguing his point with them. Frankly, I don't give a tinker damn weather it's true or not. Such a thing would be genius, bypassing everyone's dislike of OP. Regardless, I think OP had the best intentions for TLR, and I am truely sorry he was driven off.
MK
Hmmm, looks familiar... 
Anyway, I'll go ahead and post part two of this, which is cloning ALEs.
What you'll need:
CRCCalc (which can be found in this pack)
A hex editor (see above, I highly recommend XVI32)
Open up your ALE in XVI32. Go to where it says ku_tachyon_Idontcarewhatfollows.app, and type what is there into CRCCalc. What we will use is the hex value (starts with 0x) of the text portion (upper left, in other words). Let's say it says this:
0xAaBbCcDd
Go into the editor and search for this value backwards, i.e.:
Dd Cc Bb Aa
If you get more than one result (unlikely), use the entry that's just after ku_tachyon_Idontcarewhatfollows (note that the .app part is not present). Now, go down to ku_tachyon_Idontcarewhatfollows.app and rename it, say, hi_tachyon_Idontcarewhatfollows.app (keep the same length, it makes it simplier). Don't use upper-case letters, they screw up CRCCalc and there's no reason to use them. Take the output (upper left again) and replace the entry you found in the ALE with the new number (again, backwards). Rinse and repeat for all .app entries (you could do it for the .emt entries, but there's no point).
Well, that's taken care of. The final step is to get our new CRC for the ALE. Go up to the part with no suffex, and rename it (same length again). Put that into CRCCalc. The CRC it gives you (upper right) is unsigned, and we need it signed. Take the upper left value and put it into a row of zeros in the hex editor. If you're using XVI32, go to Tools/Data Inspector and get it up. What you need is the longint value; if that isn't there, go to Tools/Options/Data Inspector and click the checkbox next to longint. The number that shows up in the data inspector is the correct, signed CRC value for that particular part of the ALE. Put that into your .ini, repeat for all of the parts that need CRC values, and you're done.
What does this do? It means that your new effect as well as the original effect will be able to be shown at the same time. As always, post questions if you have them.
MK
QuoteOriginally posted by SWAT_OP-R8R
the most professional answer:
yes
because they are stupid and show an incredible incompetence
Not everyone over there is like that... but too many are.
QuoteOriginally posted by SWAT_OP-R8R
I offered my help to mental and to TLR but i got flamed and attacked for doing so.
I really think everyone who makes troubles and prevents development should be banned there so the community can heal again. That has nothing to do with different oppinions anymore. It is pure hate what these ppl spread over there.
The rejection of your offer of help by TLR was stupid, and I can't say that I understand why they did it. TLR needs all the help it can get. Perhaps it's ego; I still assert that your rather, ah, blunt way of stating things may be a bit... much, but it is sometimes called for. With people like Chips and w0dk4, you need to tread lightly, make sure you make a consistant and logical arguement that can't be torn down. And most of all, don't insult them. Some of the things that you say are true, but pointing them out does no good. Anyway, that's my thought on the matter. Is TLR dying? I wouldn't go that far. I'd say it's sick, and we need a cure, fast.
MK
