Powerless PWKs

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<making motions...>

 

So, there I was. Orcs everywhere! And this big mother of an idol... Earth mother, actually...

Thing is, I wanted to do two things with the PWK. I wanted to block movement, including under the outstretched arms, and I wanted to block LoS behind the body.

 

So first I made a standard volumetric PWK (#1):

 

Does what it's supposed to do:

 

But then, with my oodles of experience, *knowing* we can make PWKs just about any shape, I tried the following shapes:

PWK #2

 

PWK #3

 

PWK #4

 

Every one of those shapes behaved like the first. The central column was used to block both LoS and movement, but any addendum to the shape appears to be throw away. 

What gets me is that the engine is using *some* of the mesh, and dumping what doesn't fit (concave angles, perhaps?).

 

<...with his hands>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Does your wok plate have a bottom side? From the looks of your transparent model, it has an opposite side. I can see back edges. If that is the case, the wok is building a flat section there instead of the higher polys

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<has lots of practice...>

 

Just the opposite, actually. I was *trying* to build a flat pwk (under the arms) so that you could see/shoot through, but not move. The behavior in game, however, shows that the central raised pwk is acting as expected (blocking both movement and LoS) but nothing under over or around the arms blocks anything.

 

The pwk doesn't have a bottom face. The only reason I can see to ignore the bits around the arms is if it's culling interior (concave) angles, perhaps as a shortcut for the pathfinding algo...

 

Edit: I see the faces you're talking about in pwk #4. Yeah, the wings had bottoms in that one. But removing them did not change the behavior :-P

 

<...being contrary>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

This is an exceptionally feeble attempt to help, as I don't even have GMax installed on this machine to test it out.  But...Assuming you have made both the cylinder and the other stuff the same PWK mesh, where they are subobjects of one mesh...

 

Maybe 1) copy the material applied to the cylinder and apply it to the triangles on the additional PWK geometry or 2) Remove and re-apply the modifier?

 

Love the design, BTW.  Picking up a strong 1st Ed. Player's Handbook cover vibe.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

That is one ugly - in a good way - idol. Jabba would be in love..."da eitha"

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<staring...>

 

The mesh (1-4) is a single element, all welded or extruded.

 

As for material... what material? It's a PWK. I don't put materials on PWKs unless I'm trying to fool the engine with a "Tile" placeable or something. Have I been doing something wrong all these years? They work... mostly...

 

And thank you both :-)

I wanted something powerful and primitive, so I told Cestus to make something big and beautiful... then got the Orcs to throw him a feast :-)

 

I just *knew* he couldn't handle that bugjuice.... He's not used to the shrooms, you see... =)

 

<...blankly>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldMansBeard]

               

I don't know if it would help in this case, but it is possible to use a .wok with a placeable, with an aabb mesh like in a tile, instead of giving it a .pwk

Try giving your mesh a walkmesh modifier and saving it as p_idol_orc02.wok instead of p_idol_orc02.pwk.

Can't promise it will work, though,

 

OMB

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

placeables can't use a wok but they can have an aabb mesh.

 

in my experience the placeable with tile type and an aabb mesh changes z-height but not material.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<stirring...>

 

Actually, I used a wok for my Gynoculus Bottle...

 

Needed to make the placeable type "Tile" for the multiple layered alphas to work, and had both a wok and a pwk generated, iirc. Though I don't remember if I generated both at the same time.

 

I do know it worked - one mesh with four elements as walls around the interior of the bottle so I could cage a creature (Eyeball, Gynoculous, Mephit...) inside the bottle... The glass mesh was transparent with reflection and inside that was a transparent water mesh (with Arturo procedural txi) and inside that was the creature.

 

Before implementing the "Tile" type and wok, the creature would blink out at certain angles of view.

 

Edit: Heh... not contradicting H, really. I didn't do anything with the Z height or material on the wok.

 

<...the wok>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Perhaps I should have put that differently. I don't believe the WOK file does anything because the materials are not applied. I tested this with render aabb, but maybe that is not a good test. The only thing I found with a tile classification placeable was that its aabb mesh is used for z-height.

Did you find different, Rolo?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<waffling...>

 

I'd have to revisit the Bottle (which I mean to do anyway, wanting to finish Fidget the Gynoculus creature) but I seem to remember that the PWK didn't work with the tile classification. I *needed* the wok, but I could be mis-remembering it. I don't remember fooling with the aabb mesh at all. I certainly  didn't set it's material to anything in particular, as I don't think the mesh was obscuring...

 

I'll report back when I've gotten back to it, or if I do more with the Idols...

 

<...a bit>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<rubs in a little more...>

 

All that stuff I just posted...?

Yeah. That stuff.

Bunk. :-P

 

Henesua got me motivated enough to dust off the old hak (the old module was corrupt... finding that happening a lot with my older mods :-(

So I tried it with the wok (which turns out to be an empty wok) and without. In both cases the pwk is respected, though it's interesting that the creature inside, when hostile, can side-step past the pwk during combat.

 

 

The empty wok is generated (apparently) because the placeable classification is "Tile" (needed for the transparency/reflection/txi issues)

 

 

<...snake oil>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Michael DarkAngel]

               

Regardless of the version of NWMax or NWMax Plus you are using, if you do not paint the faces of the pwk, as you would do for a wok, they will default to non-walkable (material type 7).  You can verify this by opening the pwk in a text editor and looking at the last digit of the 'faces' lines.

 

With earlier versions of NWMax Plus and all versions of NWMax your only material type option is non-walkable.  With the latest release of NWMax Plus you now have the option to paint obscuring (material type 2) faces as well as non-walkable.

 

My suggestion, use PWK #2.  Paint the faces of the central core obscuring, and the faces underneath the arms non-walkable.

 

In tests that I did not that long ago a box that I painted non-walkable did not block LoS, and a flat plane that I painted obscuring also did nothing to block LoS.  With that said, all you need for non-walkable is a flat plane, and to block LoS a shape is the way to go.

 

HTH

 

 MDA