FLAIL TANK MODELS ... ???

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 3:49 pm

Pip,

Tim1966 had a good idea of adding in Flail Tanks to compliment my MineFields ... There are 3 types we can think of ;

SHERMAN CRAB TANK
MATILDA - Scorpion
CHURCHILL

You posted the 3DS and X of the Churchill to add the gear (many thanks!), but to add the gear to the Sherman and Matilda without having to build an entire new model we (Tim actually) needs a 3DS of the Sherman and the Matilda.

If you have a moment and it's approved ... Can you please post the 3DS for the Sherman and Matilda ?? Thanks!

I don't know he can animate this properly ....
I hate to see the flail rotating all the time and I'm wondering if using a custom trigger so when the Tank uses the "action_minefield" it could "spin" the flail as it moves into the tile.

I dunno ... it's all way over my head in this department.

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:03 pm

Here is a zip with both the Sherman and Matilda models in MAX and 3DS formats. Hope they help!

Cheers

Pip

http://www.slitherine.com/files/bbc_ba/ ... Armour.zip

tim1966 · Post by **tim1966** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:04 pm

The animation would work so they flail when the tank moves. the main problem is that the flails will take a fair amount of polygons - if alpha channels worked on units it would be a lot less but they don't.

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:21 pm

tim1966 wrote:The animation would work so they flail when the tank moves. the main problem is that the flails will take a fair amount of polygons - if alpha channels worked on units it would be a lot less but they don't.

Could the model file name be tagged with the # symbol to use alphas??

EDIT .... I meant the DDS not the model

..... sherman#.dds

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:23 pm

pipfromslitherine wrote:Here is a zip with both the Sherman and Matilda models in MAX and 3DS formats. Hope they help!

Thanks a million!

tim1966 · Post by **tim1966** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:25 pm

Wow - thanks Pip - great help mate.

PS Flail tanks were Merrs idea - he's the ideas man!

Merr · Post by **Merr** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:52 pm

tim1966 wrote: PS Flail tanks were Merrs idea - he's the ideas man!

.... I'm full of other variants too ... for the sherman ... FlamesOfWar .... http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx ... t=Products

Thanks for your work Tim !!! As usual, don't let me distract you from your project

BTW ... regarding alphas ... I editted the above post to read ...

tim1966 wrote:The animation would work so they flail when the tank moves. the main problem is that the flails will take a fair amount of polygons - if alpha channels worked on units it would be a lot less but they don't.

Could the DDS file name be tagged with the # symbol to use alphas??

..... sherman#.dds

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:41 pm

Hmmm - I'm not sure. You can give it a try - but the rendering for units uses a special code path, so I can't guarantee that it will work. But as we've not attempted to use translucent units, it's possible it might

Your only issue might be polygon ordering, but I guess we'll just have to see.

Cheers

Pip

Amaz_Ed · Post by **Amaz_Ed** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:50 pm

I don't think it would have to use many poly's. Because the viewing angle is fixed a series of single polygon planes hanging downwards from the 'spindle' (?) could be painted to look something like chains and then rotated very quickly when turned on. As you are always looking at the model from around a 45 degree angle the flats faces of the planes would (almost) always be visible.

Maybe.....