Game Engine and Building Basic Model

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi,
I’ve been dabbling in blender for a while now (an hour or two every couple of months if I get bored with other things) having not really had much of an idea what to create with it. Now, however, I have decided to have a brainwave and create a boat simulator.
The boat will be based on something I use regularly as part of Surf Rescue Operations on the UKs east coast. This is a small (4.2m) inflatable craft called an Arancia. It is used within 500m of shore so well within breaking waves etc.
As you can see in the screen shot below I have created the basic boat design. Sorry if the following questions seem really obvious, I have used the manual and tutorials as best I can but there are a few things im still unsure of:

  1. I have previously used prodesktop (as I’m an engineer) and you can create different parts of a design then bring them together in one window, is this possible in blender? I.e. create the outboard engine and attach it to the boat. Would it be able to rotate within any mountings if i designed them when the boat was turned left and right (animation) and if so could anyone describe or give me a link to do this?
  2. I have had a go at using the inbuilt game engine and I’ve tried using the keyboard controls to make the boat move forwards and backwards which works but I cant get it to turn around the z-axis (as in a normal turn) The main problem is I’m confused as to the use in the different options of force, torque dloc etc can this be explained easily?
  3. Finally is there anyway to animate a flat plane to “wobble” or oscillate in a motion similar to the sea? I’ll deal with breaking waves later.

This project is only for me as a bit of amusement and “can i do it?” test. The appearance doesnt have to be perfect (as you can see for the dodgy looking boat) so anything which works would be beneficial. Thanks
Alistair

2

Picture might help :stuck_out_tongue:

Attachments

blenderboat.jpg1024×640 104 KB

3

hi blista1989

  1. you can use append from main menu to bring
    objects to mainscene, i would think though that
    layers might work better for you though.

2.Not sure, but maybe its easy to find which field
to alter if you set object axiz of the boat visible.
And display the boat as wireframe. Its third from Drot. X, Y, Z

3.You could do waves starting with grid primitive
and then apply wave modifier to it.

4

Thanks alot of the information j.
On searching I found the following as a result for Wave Modifier which is exactly what I wanted.
http://www.cogfilms.com/tutorials.html
The only possible thing that is missing is making breaking waves similar to a beach enviroment (so the crest comes over the base of the wave and spills down the front.)
Anyway of doing this?
And I’m still looking for detailed information on using the game engine if there is any.
Thanks
Alistair

5

hi again
just few things to mention. Convex hull polytope
for bounds in the game engine is good for simulating
the boat colliding with waves.
cog´s ocean sure is nice but lets say you go for
such look, you would have to bake the result, that
is convert renders to a texture map possibly using a
script and even so result would likely be too heavy
to use in the game engine, it would not play real smooth.
To get some motion for waves, you want to perhaps
use the ipo actuator and have a looping mesh deformation
where shape of mesh in frame 1 equals the shape of mesh in
frame 300 for example, not sure though.