Setting pivot point

[dmarkwick 261]

I just sort of assumed that the center of the view grid would be the model's natural pivot point, but a recent

shows me that I might be wrong. The pivot point for that object in the vid should be one end of the model, but it seems to me that the model pivots around it's center of mass.

How do I set the pivot point?

[UNN 0]

Use autocenter=0 in your config.

[dmarkwick 261]

Ah-haa UNN to my rescue again

Thanks very much, works a treat. I wonder why useful pages like that are difficult to find on the Biki?

[armored_sheep 56]

ArmA engine does autocentering. The center of object in game is than affected by all vertices and all lods the p3d has. For proxies, such as weapons we use property Autocenter to prevent this.

BUT be aware that if you place your model (for example building or car) far away off the 0.0.0 point in O2 and disable autocentering, you can brake for exapmle AI pathfinding.

[Snake Man 407]

This topic is good as any to ask; Armored_Sheed: should I always do center all (if model was not built that way already) to any models, including helicopters, aircrafts, cars or static ground objects?

[dmarkwick 261]

This topic is good as any to ask; Armored_Sheed: should I always do center all (if model was not built that way already) to any models, including helicopters, aircrafts, cars or static ground objects?

I would guess that depends on the nature of the object. If it's a fairly predictably "blocky" object like a car or a tank, I would say it's fine. For something like a helicopter though, I would pin the center to the rotor pivot (or just below) as the helo "hangs" off this point, and banking in flight would look odd otherwise.

Actually - thinking about it, maybe cars & other wheeled vehicles should be centered around it's rear axle? To make it look right when turning corners?

[UNN 0]

I only use Autocenter=0 when I need to know the exact position of the pivot point, usually while setposing stuff in scripts.

I think for anything else you should use Autocenter=1, if you can get away with it. ARMAs limit on the size of the geometry LOD, is another example of how you can screw up a large object, if it's off centre by to much.

[armored_sheep 56]

This topic is good as any to ask; Armored_Sheed: should I always do center all (if model was not built that way already) to any models, including helicopters, aircrafts, cars or static ground objects?

Binarisation (packing with BI packing tool) does the autocentering automaticaly for all objects exept the ones with autocenter=0 property in geometry.

I prefer models placed close to the center.

Dont use autocenter=0, exept for proxies or when you realy have no other choice.