I REALLY need help here...

06-28-2004, 09:08 PM	#1
Raleign	I'm trying to make the glow on the attached model's sword always face the camera (or in MDL terms, Billboarded). It just won't always face the camera. I convert it to a MDX, and it just faces the way it starts facing. Can anyone determine the problem?

06-29-2004, 12:31 PM

Oinkerwinkle

First, the glow bones should be children of the hand, not the one before them. They won't rotate and follow the sword if they're billboarded back near the tip and are actaully up near the point.
What would happen:

Code:

  # 
   #
    #
 |   #|
 |    #
 |    |#
        #

#=sword
|=glow

The glow will always face the camera, but it's position will not move.

Nextly, your geoset needs fixing.
The matrices should point to the glow bones and only the glow bones.

Code:

	Groups 4 4 {
		Matrices { 33 },
		Matrices { 34 },
		Matrices { 35 },
		Matrices { 36 },
	}

The VertexGroups need to point to the right matrix. I chose the four vertices with the lowest Z and assigned 0. Next four lowest got 1, etc.

Code:

	VertexGroup { //stuff
		0,
		0,
		0,
		0,
		3,
		3,
		3,
		3,
		2,
		2,
		2,
		2,
		1,
		1,
		1,
		1,
	}

06-29-2004, 01:28 PM	#3
Raleign	Thanks Oinkerwinkle! It works!