All fired up (vehicles)

So I took a break from work and decided to log in to SL for a little R&R. I soon found Tcoz Bach and friends playing a FPS game in Nexus Prime that was great fun. Then I got recruited to try out Wednesday Grimm's new team-tank game in the canyons of Gibson that was a blast (team orange with Valfaroth and bUTTONpUSHER kicked my butt at the end).

While lots of fun, both games would benefit from better vehicle support (not to mention the monorail project which James Miller never lets me forget). So I'm all fired up for getting better vehicles working in SL. Now back to work!

We're all for it too, if only physics worked a bit cleaner. If you hop into the scripting forums and look at problems with llSetForce, llSetBuoyancy, llRot*Look*, etc, you'll see some of our hinderances in the projects.

Another problem I have is every since 0.9ish, physics objects moving inside other objects no worky very well, for some reason it seems like friction became an order of about a million times higher. My catapult which used to launch sheep, pigs, ducks, and sharks all across DarkWood can't even spin anymore

sit+fly! sit + fly! SIT + FLY!

Please!!

It worked great pre blending and the notes said there was a fix implemented this version but its still awful.

up/down results in the legs extending as does an abrupt stop including a turn as well as other motions. It makes it so you cant really have a little personal (attached) vehicle unless it has a HUGE belly to hide this flaw.

Please, in your renewed commitment to vehicles, fix this flaw.

You should probably note that sit + fly does work, if you're sitting on an object that is flying.

However, what does NOT work, is animations while attachments or the avatar is providing the flying.

Methinks that any time an actual llStartAnimation is called from a script, that animation should "lock" and not transform until the script stops it.

borders! borders! BORDERS! J/K Mis

but seriously. i actually have very little complaint about the way vehicles are workable already.

the only real problem i have involves borders. if i go across a border the vehicle collides with the avatar and because of this collision, it is very unpredictable. depending on the actual model, it may shoot up in the air, shoot down, completely stop, who knows. if borders worked as if they weren't there my vehicles would have been for sale a long time ago.

please fix border handling guys. thats all from me.

My biggest problem is sinking back in to my vehicle on crossing a sim boundry, I am using the moveto method so force baised systems might avoid this but they arn't strong enough to lift my vehicles. Oh well, time to hollow out my toriods to lighten the load. lol

all i have to say is cool!!!! cant wait and any chance of getting rid of the 31 prim physics rule...so i can make my cars work?

Yeah Ramon made me a sweet 1937 Jaguar SS100 and it looks great, has great detail but we can't make it driveable...

Right now we can either have low detail driveable cars or highdetail non driveable cars

Drop the 31 prim rule please!!!!!


JV

I dunno if it's just a matter of being able to drop it because people want it dropped. Seems to me like it would be a bit more involved with limitations the current physics engine!

JPG textures are your FRIENDS! ^.~

uggh no, while textures can help with detail, nothing matches intricately placed prims to give it that real 3D look.... whats the point of building in 3D when you have to use 2D textures to replicate what your making.

I prefer actually building everything and use textures as little as possible to make stuff.

JV

i agree. why make a 3d model and use 2d textures...

yes i use a lot more prims doing it my way,but i think the end result looks a lot better..
now i am not saying to not use textures...i do but i can not get the level of detail as i do when i use prims....

if you want to see examples, stop by the gas station at RT 66 in Blue or see me or jon inworld

As far as border crossing I post a while back about haveing a global postitioning setup. where the global coords can be called on. I thinks that border crossing is messed up by each sim having its own seperate coords that don't mix/cooralate well with joining sims.

lol charlie it is happens because your avatar and everything traveling is getting 'passed' from one computer to another. Coordinate system or not, the whole cease to exist on this computer, enter into existance onto another computer is a huge deal. Besides, I remember a day in the not so distant past when crossing a boundary made vehicles go phantom jut long enough through the floor heh. Lindens are doing a damned fine job if you ask me.

yeah charlie its not the coordinates that are the problem, its the collision thats caused when you go over a border. i guess it has something to do with synchronizing the whole thing. i can't even imagine how hard it must be to make it a smooth transition from one sim to the next. but if its at all possible to make borders less noticable (ie not cause this collision) i would be very grateful

i am not sure if it is so much a collision as it is an instantaneous change in velocity. i.e. the moving_end event triggers when you leave a sim, and moving_start triggers when you enter the new one(this is a semi accurate way to check if you crossed to a new sim, btw). but yeah, basically the same thing

ahhh i did not know that. interesting

i noticed collision sprites going off and so i checked for a collision event and it was happening so i just assumed that was what was causing it. hmm now this is even more confusing

hmm, in that case, maybe the collision is causing the full stop, which makes sense, cool

Believe me, I understand only too well. I used to be all about creating things completely out of primatives; in some cases I still am, but I limit myself unless it's a very large project and the sim can afford the burden of those few extra prims.

However, when issues like poor server performance come up, I try to go with textures. I don't want people to end up moving around sluggishly because I had to make an object with 65+ prims. With the proper texture, you can achieve fantastic results and not have to worry about as many taxes.

Anyway, just my opinion. ^.~ Carry on!