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sailing ship behavior

yeah, still i got some great memories and maybe one day when i'm no longer a city dweller(or atleast live by the sea!) i'll see if i can find her again <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

And one last picture from me on the subject of dead sails, i know Kazeite has basicaly found the fix to the problem, but this pic when compared with the xbox shot of the same ship confirms something was a bit messed up:

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/PCcutter.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

compare that screen for the cutter in our pc version with the xbox cutter - the difference in the mainsail is very obvious, and all it needs is to have that sail called <i>sails</i> as opposed to <i>sailf</i> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/keith.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":keith" border="0" alt="keith.gif" />

I feel i need to make a list of all ships that could do with this modifcation, and we can vote on which sails need the change(i'm think most of the non square-riggers probably do!).
 
If this can be fixed that'd be great. Do we just need to change ships_init.c or also rename some GM files?
 
I believe the sails have no model at all. You should just need to go into the .ini and change the sail designation. The game generates and skins the sails on the fly based on locators attached to the ships.

Cap'n Drow
 
Ah. Of course. I thought perhaps the yardarm files would need changing. It's in the INI files that they need changing then, right?
 
<!--quoteo(post=169543:date=Nov 1 2006, 02:32 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Nov 1 2006, 02:32 PM) [snapback]169543[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
If this can be fixed that'd be great. Do we just need to change ships_init.c or also rename some GM files?
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Neither. You actually have to edit the locators for the rey.gm files that control each specific sail.
This is much more work.

A word of warning.
Changing some for and aft sails from sailf to sails will produce the result that at times the sail bows out against the actual direction of the wind.

This is just like the square sailed ships that we see with sails full of wind yet trying to sail upwind, a really silly sight.
 
Mini-tutorial, for those willing to change it anyway <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

Open GM_Viewer and TOOL. Using GM_Viewer, locate mast and rey offending sail is attached to.

Now, open the same rey using TOOL, and go to View/Locators and Expand "Locators" in the new window.

Search for "sailf" in "Locator Group" column and change it to "saild" or "sails".
(Actually, maybe someone could replace one sail with saild equivalent, and second with sails equivalent, so maybe we'll be able to see the difference between the two <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ).

Press "Apply Changes", close the window, press "Save Gm" button, and voila!
 
thanks very much for that tutorial Kazeite - that was exactly what i needed, easy when you know how! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" />

So here are the mixed results of the test, first up is the Cutter where i changed all 4 sail locator ref to 'sails':

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/CutterOkSails.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

look all fine <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> Now the next shot is also with all 4 sail locator ref to 'sails' but with an oddity:

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/CutterOddSails.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

As we can see Petros words of warning in effect - it looks weird.

Now same thing but with all sail locator refrences as 'saild':

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/CutterOkSaild.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

Looks fine - is there any difference to the ok shot of 'sails'? i cant tell?

Next going for the odd shot with 'saild' set:

<img src="http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p199/BlackBart06/CutterOddSaild.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

Yep just odd looking <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

Ok i think we could have a compromise for many of the non square riggers, i checked back on the xbox version again, and what it actualy does is to limit the range of movement of any swinging jib arms. So instead of the main sail being able to swing freely either side of the centre line of the ship, on the leeward side of the billowing sail(the side opposite from the billowed out effect) it limits the movement of arc that that sail can swing. On the cutter and sloop it only goes about 10 degrees past centreline of the ship. So it doesnt look that bad actualy, certainly livable with.

Still what would be great would be to have different locator settings(sails/saild/sailf) work on each sail depending on the wind direction directly! Probably not an option sadly i guess?
 
A quick note on the Sails settings for the non-square riggers(why do i always forget what to call them?). In game the standard sloop has the ristricted boom movement on the starboard side and it looks fine. So at some point, especialy now we have access to MAYA 4.5(thanks Cap'n_Drow!) - i hope we can copy the sloops sail+boom settings for all equivalent boom rigged ships?(lol no i dont think i've got the name!) so that list should include:

1.Tartanes(although we need to play around as these have a very different sail set up)
2.Cutter1
3.Luggers
4.Sloops
5.Schooners
6.Xebecs(might have to tinker more with these, as with the Tartanes)

thats all i can think of for now - there might be more ships that fall into this category. These should all have their main sails(+rear most sails) set to 'sails' in the locator settings. Still not sure what 'saild' does?
 
Well, from my view of it, we'll need to tinker with the sail settings on all ships here and there. Especially if we want to actually try to do the ships with an eye towards setting them up proper like. For example, some of the 'ship' types we have are actually supposed to be named that because of thier rig. Examples of that would be Schooner Rigged and Sloop's. Those are specific designations of a rig type, and not the ship itself. There are other examples, I'm just not up to thinking right now. **grimaces**

Been banging my head against a wall with the Maya plugin. Damned thing don't do what it's supposed to, and Akella include absolutely nothing for documentation.

Anyhow, you might want to do a dogpile or google search on sail rigging, bone up a bit on just what is what. Then we can put our eyes towards building up a model library for a full selection of ship types, including custom stuff with unusual rigs.

Just my few coppers worth there.

Cap'n Drow
 
Yeh definately a long-term goal would be to get accurate with the ships in all aspects - i saw your other thread with the links and i've bookmarked it for reference.

The list i did above was really just focused on the ships we have in the game currently - ones that we are familiar with and the issue of 'dead sails', which i find makes sailing them unsatisfying.
The square-riggers for the most part dont suffer from this as they all seem to use 'sails' type sail locator info for most of their square-rigged sails.

The perfect way i'd like to see sails work, would be to have it possible to change the sail locator info on the fly, depending on the weather conditions. So if you were sailing with the wind you would get 'sails' in the locator slots, but if you changed to be against the wind then it would switch to 'sailf' locators. It would require an automatic raise/lower of sails IF it could work - but that would be part of the new code needed.

Still i'm working on the assumption this is probably impossible to achieve on the fly. So the next best method of at least getting some more realisitic looking sails for most of the non square-riggers is to try to emulate what the standard sloop does - limit the boom swing on the starboard side. This way you avoid the really odd 'negative sail' effect as seen in a couple of the pictures i posted. Its not perfect, but imho if you like sailing the smaller ships it makes it much more satisfying than just having flat sails all the time, in all weather?

hmmm.....actualy you are the man who could help in this? Ok let me get all the details - i'll use the standard sloop and get all its sail and boom locator info and test abit with some of the other small ships. I was hoping to get this in for build13, but i suspect i will not get all the info i need in time for that.
 
Glad you liked the links, there'll be lots more to come in the future.

Now about the sails.

I don't think it could be done easily on the fly. That would take having the game swap out the model parts whenever it needed to, and I don't see that being very easy to do. But then I'm still learning the code as I go along and don't even claim to be anywhere near a virtuoso in it. **grins**

At the least it would take coding that allowed for swapping out masts and booms with new locators, or else a way to have the locators created in-code, rather than as part of the model itself.

Pretty complex sounding to me, but maybe someone can brainstorm something up.

Cap'n Drow
 
Oh and something on the sails/boom issues. I noticed that while the standard sloop is one of the rare examples of in-line sail boats(i'm making the terms up - i'll get the right one eventualy) that actualy has sails that billow with the wind, its boom action is actualy reversed to what it should be. So when the wind is blowing from the east say, its boom will swing into the wind, rather than away from it as it should.

I only noticed it because i was in my cutter escorting the 'Albion'(a sloop) to greenford, and while i was admireing the sloops wonderfull full sails compared to my cardboard sails - when the wind changed i saw that the sloops boom action would do the complete opposite of the Cutters.

Its all messed up <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/modding.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":modding" border="0" alt="modding.gif" /> All we ask for is proper working sails - is it too much?! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

So i've made a note of that, and when i get to messing with locators again i'll try to see how this can be changed. the numbers in some of those locator values are quite scary - 4,000,345,2728(stuff like that). i guess most are the x,y,z co-ords for where the actual booms/masts etc fit together on the model?

Still there has to be some info somewhere that determines how far the booms move on either side and in what direction relative to the wind. So it should be fixable.
 
<!--quoteo(post=171326:date=Nov 13 2006, 06:49 PM:name=Black Bart)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 13 2006, 06:49 PM) [snapback]171326[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Oh and something on the sails/boom issues. I noticed that while the standard sloop is one of the rare examples of in-line sail boats(i'm making the terms up - i'll get the right one eventualy) that actualy has sails that billow with the wind, its boom action is actualy reversed to what it should be. So when the wind is blowing from the east say, its boom will swing into the wind, rather than away from it as it should.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

You can get better movement by setting the XX value for rey_a2 and rey_b2 on Sloop_Mast2 to "-1" instead of one.

The odd billowing out of the sail against the wind will however be even more noticeable which for me is unacceptable

For the Ketch, I decided to set those sails as flat and for me they are fine.
<img src="http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/7888greeb/960125.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
 
i love that ship! i did notice though that the sails are going through the rigging (ratlines?) if you look closely.
 
<!--quoteo(post=171384:date=Nov 14 2006, 03:11 AM:name=morgan terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(morgan terror @ Nov 14 2006, 03:11 AM) [snapback]171384[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
i love that ship! i did notice though that the sails are going through the rigging (ratlines?) if you look closely.
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<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" /> And with sails or saild you get sails billowing through ratlines, spars and even masts.
That looks really bad!
 
he he i guess thats where we differ on this - i can suspend my disbelief over sails+ropes clipping(its just a game simulation), but flat sails when its windy just looks like my ship is running on a diesel engine(then i can't suspend my disbelief) <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

That is a great looking ship by the way <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />

Oh and whats the difference between 'sails' and 'saild'? they are both 'with the wind' sail types i think, but they look the same to me??
 
<!--quoteo(post=171434:date=Nov 14 2006, 01:37 PM:name=Black Bart)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 14 2006, 01:37 PM) [snapback]171434[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
he he i guess thats where we differ on this - i can suspend my disbelief over sails+ropes clipping(its just a game simulation), but flat sails when its windy just looks like my ship is running on a diesel engine(then i can't suspend my disbelief) <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Matter passing through solid matter kills it for me.
I just imagine the sailf as very stiff tight weave material that do billow but only slightly, and transferring more wind energy to the spars they are attached to. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Oh and whats the difference between 'sails' and 'saild'? ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No one knows. As you say, they look the same.
 
it is pretty funny killing people on steps, as they often fall through them, or simply float in the air! this game engine has realism, but logistics... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huhh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":eek:k" border="0" alt="huhh.gif" />
 
I thought that maybe one of them is the "emblem" sail, but, alas, no - it seems that game simply makes second sail an emblem sails, regardless of the sail type <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />
 
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