Horde3D

Hello Forum

So I'm trying a bit of a racing game, and want to use the dummy objects in 3ds max to mark a starting grid, and was wondering if they get through the collada converter ok. I assume finding it would work similar to the particle system attached to the knights sword in the knight demo.

I gave it a go but wasn't sure what nodetype it would be or even if it was possible.

This is what I tried

//adding track node
H3DNode _track = h3dAddNodes(H3DRootNode, trackRes);
h3dSetNodeTransform(_track, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.01, 0.01, 0.01);

//finding grid position dummy object
h3dFindNodes(_track, "gridPos1", H3DNodeTypes::Mesh);//??????????????????
H3DNode gP = h3dGetNodeFindResult(0);
H3DNode _bike = h3dAddNodes(gP, bikeRes);
h3dSetNodeTransform(_bike, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1);

Although in looking at that, is the bike node is now a child of the grid spot and cannot move around without it.

If someone could help me out with this or has a better way of doing it, that'd be really helpful

Cheers
Fortune

Hi.
We use dummy nodes as well in order to place instances of other models at certain spots.
So we only had to re-export our "hook" model if we wanted to change a position.
In the knight example the particle system is attached to a joint node, not to a mesh node.
If I remember correctly we had to use at least some dummy mesh geometry, e.g. a cube.
Also during runtime you have to make sure that the dummy mesh node is not visible.
You could assign a special nodraw shader (which is bad if you have a lot of these meshes, as it stresses the culling process).
It's better to replace that dummy node by the actual nodes you want to render.
Hope this helps

I'd suggest putting a dummy mesh, e.g. a cube under your racetrack on the appropriate position.
Just like AlexL suggested.

You can now get the position to set your car to by using:

cheers for the help guys. that should do the trick

hi again,

I've had a look and forgive my noobniss can't exactly see how this works.

Mainly unfamiliar with the use of nodeTrans's in Rolands answer.
I assume it would go something like this.



although without knowing what those nodeTrans's are I'm really only guessing.

Cheers
Fortune

Hi again.
Sorry for my short reply before.
Let me try again



I assume your bike is an individual resource like this:


and _track something like:

This "_track"-scene includes a mesh "gridPos1", which should be defined somewhere in your racetrack.scene.xml (exported from 3ds max)

I hope this helps.