Aces' SdKfz 251/2 mortar carrier WIP

[Aces]

Hi Folks,

A quick update, I have several problems at the moment, in no particular order as they say in the X-Factor .

1. The wheels/hull/tracks problem I outlined in an earlier post, wheels and hull perfectly aligned in MAX, also perfectly fine in the Mission Editor but not in game.

2. The vehicle still doesn't fire and no smoke from the mortar, I've checked the s_gun "fragment" and it is there in the right place both in the config file and in 3d space.

3. The mortar itself. A mortar's traverse and elevation mechanism is significantly different from a gun. If you look at the normal non-vehicle-mounted mortar (in-game) then the mortar tube doesn't actually move at all but it does fire and "simulate" elevation and rotation without actually moving any parts. That's fine with me for the 251/2 as I don't actually want the mortar tube to elevate and roatate given the very confined space in the hull but duplicating this doesn't work. I might re-model the mortar and try and get a proper elevation and rotation mechanism but it is more work and probably still wouldn't look good.

4. The vehicle is moving when stationary or rather it judders very slightly and slowly and "creeps" round rotation-wise. I've checked and the db_hull object isn't linked to anything that rotates. All I can think of is that it is behaving a bit like an SPG and trying to align itself to targets outside of its firing arc (not that it fires on anything within its fire arc ).

Basically I've  spent literally hundreds of hours to-date on the whole project and many hours trying to address the above issues. I was pretty close to "throwing in the towel" yesterday evening after another fruitless evening. Here's a brief summary of the work completed.

1. Model been finished for a couple of weeks.
2. Skin as above.
3. Mission Editor inclussions finished and test mission kindly supplied by frinik.
4. New mortar sounds finished but as yet un-tested.
5. Crew animations more or less finished but will need a bit of work.

I'll give it till the end of the coming weekend to see if I can resolve any or all of these problems after which time I'll zip it all up and upload it somewhere for anyone interested in finishing it off. Any suggestions for any of my problems much appreciated.

Kind regards

Aces 

[Donken]

I could take a look for you, hop on skype when you got time I think i have a few ideas about your problems!

[Aces]

Thanks mate, I'll see if I can get on Skype this evening.

Cheers

Leigh

[bidounegger]

ACES,
I don't think to be the only one to dream about your Sdkfz 251/2 mortar !...
THANKS for all you make for our pleasure !
Have a nice day !

[Aces]

Good day my friend,

Thanks for the encouragement. I had a long and very fruitful chat with Donken on Skype yesterday evening and it has given me new hope that we'll get the 251/2 into the game.

I'll keep you posted here.

Cheers and thanks.

Aces

[bidounegger]

hello !
what a good new for begining this sunny week- end ! 8)

[Aces]

Hopefully, yes, I think that the new plan is to make it playable as well.

Enjoy the sunny weekend mate.

Cheers

Aces

[Kyth]

Hi,

Just to share something I discovered during my brief tinkering with the revised Panzer III and cockpit.

The projectiles or bullets originate from the 's_gun' dummy or its equivalent. (The dummy located at the muzzle). It's important for the z-axis of the dummy - the blue-colored axis - to be pointing out, in the direction you want your shells to go.

 

[Aces]

Thanks mate,

That's a good tip, I think that this is how I've got it but I need to check. I noticed something yesterday evening when I was working on the multiskin/multimodel mod. One of the vehicles was mssing from my platoon of four vehicles. It turned out that, in the common.units file I had mis-typed one entry in the crew section and by accident used a capital letter and not a lower case letter and that caused the whole vehicle not to be displayed as the crew entries (one starting with a captial and the other lower case) didn't match up. One "lives as one learns" . It could have taken ages to find but I was lucky to spot it fairly quickly.

Cheers

Aces

[frinik]

Yeah thecode can be unforgiving! Happened to me once too with a sound entry. I had changed a sound file and forgot to make the changes in the common res weapon entries and as a result my tank was mute .....

[Aces]

Yes, it does some odd things, you'd have thought that if it couldn't find the crew it would still have displayed the vehicle without them but oh no!

Actually the multimodel/multiskin idea has opened up some interesting new possibilities, not only can each vehicle in a "platoon" look different in terms of stowage, markings and skin it offer the possibility of each crew and, in terms of the 251/1 "passengers" the panzergrenadier squad, being different. So I now have a platoon containing three 251/1s each different in appearance and the crew in each are slightly differently dressed/equipped and the passengers in each are diffently positioned eg. the riflemen, NCO and machine gunner are not sitting in the same places in each vehicle. So the net result is that each vehicle/crew/passengers load looks different from one another.

Cheers

Aces

[Kyth]

Good evening!

I wonder how's the going with the Sk 251/2? Well, I hope.

[Aces]

Hi mate,

I spoke to Donken recently, I think he is going to have a bit more time to iron out the wrinkles in the mod when he has completed his other projects. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers

Aces

[frinik]

Looks good Aces don't let go!

[Aces]

Thanks mate,

We'll get there and we also hope to release it as a playable vehicle.

Cheers

Aces