Functional Aircraft Carrier Projects

[mankyle 410]

I have completely redone the Hyuga and I have improved a little  the looks and reduced a lot the number of polys.

 

I have opened new areas in the ship and I want to add a mess room (for putting there the cargo proxies), the CIC (the gunner proxies will go there) and maybe a meeting room with a giant screen for briefings and such.

 

I will post new screenies this weekend

[mankyle 410]

Still a looooong way to go but she is coming along quite well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the lifts can move up and down but I still have to add a couple things to get choppers in the hangar

[chops 111]

Will be a fine addition to the Arma seas, mate!

[mankyle 410]

A little update

I got working the Custom Load/Vehicle scripts.

In order to stop the vanilla Load vehicle action I have disabled the action via init eventhandler. Now the custom scripts activate the capability of loading/unloading vehicles and then, after loading/unloading the vehicle, they block it again 

 

Unfortunately, due to the size of the hangar only three choppers can be loaded inside and the one in the middle gets damaged in the main rotor. Something like Arma 2's folding chopper blades (as IRL) would allow loading more vehicles inside of the hangar.

 

I have also started modelling the davits in the starbord and port boat bays. Right now it can load two gunboats (port and starbord) and one RHIB/CRRC/SDV in the smaller port bay. The will be able to be loaded via Attachto. I will provide more screenshots this weekend

 

I will gladly provide more info if anyone want's to tackle a similar project. (Carriers, LPDs etc...)

 

 

 

[Joric123 1]

On 8/2/2021 at 8:54 PM, mankyle said:

A little update

I got working the Custom Load/Vehicle scripts.

In order to stop the vanilla Load vehicle action I have disabled the action via init eventhandler. Now the custom scripts activate the capability of loading/unloading vehicles and then, after loading/unloading the vehicle, they block it again 

 

Unfortunately, due to the size of the hangar only three choppers can be loaded inside and the one in the middle gets damaged in the main rotor. Something like Arma 2's folding chopper blades (as IRL) would allow loading more vehicles inside of the hangar.

 

I have also started modelling the davits in the starbord and port boat bays. Right now it can load two gunboats (port and starbord) and one RHIB/CRRC/SDV in the smaller port bay. The will be able to be loaded via Attachto. I will provide more screenshots this weekend

 

I will gladly provide more info if anyone want's to tackle a similar project. (Carriers, LPDs etc...)

 

 

 

any suggestions on guides / walkthroughs on how to begin putting a carrier model in to arma 3 ?

[NightIntruder 710]

22 minutes ago, Joric123 said:

any suggestions on guides / walkthroughs on how to begin putting a carrier model in to arma 3 ?

If by "carrier" you mean a floatable, drivable ship working in MP environment, there's one great suggestion worthy consideration: drop the idea right away if you don't want to waste your time and get frustrated.
In other cases, there's one person you might want to talk with which is @TeTeT.

[mankyle 410]

It depends on what your objective is...

 

Do you want a moving vehicle?

Or is an static vehicle enough for you?

 

Remember that walking on moving vehicles is not possible in Arma 3 except by scripting.

There also the 60 meters GEO Lod and Rad lod limits.

 

For ships over that length you have to use the onInit eventhandler to array different "pieces".

 

For a moving vehicle an option would be to create a couple invisible GEO/Road lod objects and attachto the main vehicle via onInit eventhandler.

 

For an static object like the old arma 2 LHD or the Freedom and liberty ships there is a vanilla Arma 3 function that create the different pieces of the ships in the appropiate places.

 

TeTeT (USS Nimitz mod creator) has a lot of experience.

 

Me I can provide some help if you tell me what you want to do

 

 

[DSabre 2332]

I agree with what mankyle and nightintruder said.

 

There is a shortcut worth considering though:

Use a static aircraft carrier object (in this case can be a single object/p3d as you wont need any collision data). Then add invisible floor panels in editor and save as composition.

See what Shennko did here on the first page of this thread:

 

On 3/16/2021 at 6:11 PM, Shennko said:

Hey people! 
Well, my friend and I finished doing the static carrier. It uses some brick stuff from IFA, the carrier from Naval Legends, Weapons from Secret Weapons and an arresting cable from MAAS.
Don't go anywhere but the main deck, or you'll get stuck. You can take off and land without problems. When using the arresting cable, you might find that the plane is slow. You just need to get out from the plane and get inside again, and that will be it.
You can turn the engines from the Carrier on, and smoke will come out, but it doesn't move. I tried doing some stuff with attaching objects and detaching them (so they don't move when the carrier does, and they can move when the carrier doesn't to prevent any plane from falling), but it isn't that easy and, well didn't want to complicate it even further.

Mods:
CBA - https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=450814997
IFA - https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=660460283
CUP Core - https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=583496184
Naval Legends - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2012371414&searchtext=Naval+
Secret Weapons - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=756352410&searchtext=secret+weapons
MAAS - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1130385734
 

It's a VR SP mission, cuz I don't really know how to make it a composition and upload it as such hehe.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tp1P7ddX6aENH1TzD9eiFTvexFxTtMvO/view?usp=sharing

Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2426722326

 

[DSabre 2332]

Inspired by Shennkos work with compositions I added some tiles to my naval mod. Works pretty well. Glad it does. Would not attempt anything like this otherwise. So thanks again for that Shennko!

 

What is strange is that it does not seem possible to neutralise all geo information from the actual ship model by deactivating simulation or using attachto (which should really disable all collisions).
 

Using Thomas Beerens Essex Class Carrier as a testbed

Actually set up as a drivable ship and not as landable / walkable carrier.

 

Immobilise it with attachto or disable simulation. Add some deck tiles. Replace with invisible platforms when finished.

(these tiles here are intended for the Enterprise and therefore not wide enough. Going to add matching tiles sometime)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Airwolf 50]

Very cool, will be great to have a usable carrier to transport all those navy planes.

[TeTe T 17]

While still quite buggy, this mod might help in the end:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2774907999

 

 

[TeTeT 1523]

4 minutes ago, TeTe T said:

While still quite buggy, this mod might help in the end:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2774907999

 

 

Seems I managed to create a second account, sorry.

 

TeTeT

[Joric123 1]

On 1/11/2022 at 6:10 PM, NightIntruder said:

If by "carrier" you mean a floatable, drivable ship working in MP environment, there's one great suggestion worthy consideration: drop the idea right away if you don't want to waste your time and get frustrated.
In other cases, there's one person you might want to talk with which is @TeTeT.

I have been working on a static british carrier for a while now the model and textures although basic work fine, my main issue at the moment is making the carrier interact woth other objects 

[NightIntruder 710]

On 9/12/2022 at 1:05 PM, Joric123 said:

main issue at the moment is making the carrier interact woth other objects 

Can you elaborate on that issue more? What happens during that interaction?
There are certain limits size-wise when it comes to Geo, Roadway, Physx LODs. How complex Geometry LODs are when it comes to polycount?

[Joric123 1]

On 9/17/2022 at 7:16 PM, NightIntruder said:

Can you elaborate on that issue more? What happens during that interaction?
There are certain limits size-wise when it comes to Geo, Roadway, Physx LODs. How complex Geometry LODs are when it comes to polycount?

I mean most objects either fall right through or glitch away from it

[NightIntruder 710]

On 9/24/2022 at 9:10 PM, Joric123 said:

I mean most objects either fall right through or glitch away from it

Objects falling through the carrier's parts means geometry collision doesn't work on those parts. Either they are in fact working but are not in the right place or they are actually not working due to not being closed/convexed objects, or due to the limits or mesh complexity I mentioned earlier. These are some hints I can share with you regarding a proven method to create a working multipart object:
1. I followed the path of creation set up by BI with their static aircraft carrier when I made static Ark Royal recently -> several carrier parts are positioned by memory points and spawned by a function. It may be helpful for you to look into All-In-One config available on this forum somewhere, or simply into the config of the object in-game. Make sure You're gonna include EventHandlers existing in the BI carrier's config in your own config as well. They handle every change you make to the object in 3DEN - spawning, rotations, deletion etc.
2. I created every carrier part in the center of axis in OB2 to be sure that Geo LOD and Roadway LOD won't exceed the limit of app. 40-50m in each direction. Obviously, the model has to be sliced into such sized parts.

3. I make every Geometry LOD as a triangulated, closed and convexed. After making such LOD convex, I check it against closed vertices again.
4. I created those carrier parts as a combined - each part has other LODs included - Memory, Roadway, FireGeo, etc.
5. I always move Roadway polygons a few centimeters above corresponding polys of Geometry LOD (usually, my Roadway LODs are just copy&pasted&raised copies of horizontal polygons of Geometry LOD). Those polygons have to be triangulated (and I sharp edg'ed them, don't know whether it's obligatory, just my habit).
6. In the central part (in my case it was the second one in the row of 4 parts) I included the full (undivided) resolution LOD. This is the main part of my carrier which contains all animations like radars etc., and all memory points related to deck flood lights and flight line lights. It also has full (undivided) PhysX Geo LOD, as I don't know about any limits size-wise regarding that particular LOD. I just made the PhysX very simple (only 171 faces).

7. Make sure that Geometry and PhysX Geometry LOD in each part don't exceed the limit of 1000 convexed polys - COMBINED. This comes from my own experience, which might not necessarily be in line with official documentation. I just made one simple PhysX in my main part (the second one) and Geometry LODs in each part (which is just the whole geometry sliced into those 4 parts).
8. You may divide the deck flood lights into parts of the carrier if you wish to have more of them but be aware that this game can show only 12 dynamic lights at once in a rendered scene (unless my knowledge is outdated, haven't followed the game's every update).
9. If you want to do fine adjusting of the Geometry LODs you can temporarily move the first Resolution LOD to a newly created LOD 1.5 (or LOD 2) and copy&paste the model of Geometry LOD into the now-empty resolution LOD 1 (or just create LOD 0, if it's not already taken, and copy&paste Geo LOD model into it without touching resolution LOD seating at LOD 1). The idea here is to pretend Geo model as the first resolution model so you can see it in-game from up-close. Do the same with every part of your carrier. This way you can check how those Geo parts fit together and in which direction you need to move memory points which are anchors of those carrier parts for their spawning function.
10. The memory points for the spawning function were created in an empty p3d. It serves as a spawner for the whole composition of parts of the carrier.

However, when it comes to your problem, points 2, 3, 5 and 7 may apply, while point 9 can help you to narrow down the cause of your problem. But from your description of the problem, it seems to me you just created the addon in an "old way" with its parts offset'd from the center of axis in OB2, which obviously exceeds the size limits of Geo/Roadway LODs from the start which usually causes player glitching through geometry, and objects/vehicles/player falling through it. I would suggest switching to the "new" path of BI way of making multipart ships.

Here is a thread about multipart carrier and the issue you may face when trying non-standard creation procedure:
https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/223258-making-multipart-static-ships/

Here is the spawning function you can look at to understand the way the function works:
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/BIS_fnc_destroyer01Init
 

Edited September 26, 2022 by NightIntruder
clarification of thoughts

[Joric123 1]

On 9/25/2022 at 3:19 PM, NightIntruder said:

Objects falling through the carrier's parts means geometry collision doesn't work on those parts. Either they are in fact working but are not in the right place or they are actually not working due to not being closed/convexed objects, or due to the limits or mesh complexity I mentioned earlier. These are some hints I can share with you regarding a proven method to create a working multipart object:
1. I followed the path of creation set up by BI with their static aircraft carrier when I made static Ark Royal recently -> several carrier parts are positioned by memory points and spawned by a function. It may be helpful for you to look into All-In-One config available on this forum somewhere, or simply into the config of the object in-game. Make sure You're gonna include EventHandlers existing in the BI carrier's config in your own config as well. They handle every change you make to the object in 3DEN - spawning, rotations, deletion etc.
2. I created every carrier part in the center of axis in OB2 to be sure that Geo LOD and Roadway LOD won't exceed the limit of app. 40-50m in each direction. Obviously, the model has to be sliced into such sized parts.

3. I make every Geometry LOD as a triangulated, closed and convexed. After making such LOD convex, I check it against closed vertices again.
4. I created those carrier parts as a combined - each part has other LODs included - Memory, Roadway, FireGeo, etc.
5. I always move Roadway polygons a few centimeters above corresponding polys of Geometry LOD (usually, my Roadway LODs are just copy&pasted&raised copies of horizontal polygons of Geometry LOD). Those polygons have to be triangulated (and I sharp edg'ed them, don't know whether it's obligatory, just my habit).
6. In the central part (in my case it was the second one in the row of 4 parts) I included the full (undivided) resolution LOD. This is the main part of my carrier which contains all animations like radars etc., and all memory points related to deck flood lights and flight line lights. It also has full (undivided) PhysX Geo LOD, as I don't know about any limits size-wise regarding that particular LOD. I just made the PhysX very simple (only 171 faces).

7. Make sure that Geometry and PhysX Geometry LOD in each part don't exceed the limit of 1000 convexed polys - COMBINED. This comes from my own experience, which might not necessarily be in line with official documentation. I just made one simple PhysX in my main part (the second one) and Geometry LODs in each part (which is just the whole geometry sliced into those 4 parts).
8. You may divide the deck flood lights into parts of the carrier if you wish to have more of them but be aware that this game can show only 12 dynamic lights at once in a rendered scene (unless my knowledge is outdated, haven't followed the game's every update).
9. If you want to do fine adjusting of the Geometry LODs you can temporarily move the first Resolution LOD to a newly created LOD 1.5 (or LOD 2) and copy&paste the model of Geometry LOD into the now-empty resolution LOD 1 (or just create LOD 0, if it's not already taken, and copy&paste Geo LOD model into it without touching resolution LOD seating at LOD 1). The idea here is to pretend Geo model as the first resolution model so you can see it in-game from up-close. Do the same with every part of your carrier. This way you can check how those Geo parts fit together and in which direction you need to move memory points which are anchors of those carrier parts for their spawning function.
10. The memory points for the spawning function were created in an empty p3d. It serves as a spawner for the whole composition of parts of the carrier.

However, when it comes to your problem, points 2, 3, 5 and 7 may apply, while point 9 can help you to narrow down the cause of your problem. But from your description of the problem, it seems to me you just created the addon in an "old way" with its parts offset'd from the center of axis in OB2, which obviously exceeds the size limits of Geo/Roadway LODs from the start which usually causes player glitching through geometry, and objects/vehicles/player falling through it. I would suggest switching to the "new" path of BI way of making multipart ships.

Here is a thread about multipart carrier and the issue you may face when trying non-standard creation procedure:
https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/223258-making-multipart-static-ships/

Here is the spawning function you can look at to understand the way the function works:
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/BIS_fnc_destroyer01Init
 

Cheers for the info this has helped.