SProps - Tiled Triangles, Cylinders, Fittings, More - Garry's Mod

[quote]as long as they follow the licensing terms[/quote] Which means they can't upload it to the workshop; along with keeping it out of official gmod, this is the only reason I "licensed" (I didn't even do it correctly) it in the first place. Honestly, I would have put it on the workshop if it wasn't such a piece of shit. Having to re-download entire addons every time its updated is stupid.

Is GPLv3 licensed content not permitted in the workshop? I guess I am curious to learn why someone couldn't upload it to the workshop. I was hoping to myself create some content that would be available on the workshop and released under GPL and Creative Commons.

[url]http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement[/url]

[QUOTE=unrezt;39105708][url]http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement[/url][/QUOTE] I read that, and didn't see what was considered incompatible. No worries, I'll look into it more myself. Edit to add: First time I have ever heard of someone using GPL to *prevent* distribution of their work!! LOL

Really liking what you're doing here, with this pack. Listening to (the decent ones lol) community and absorbing requests like they are your chakra fuel! :) Very impressed and please, keep up this awesome work. We've needed more proper building prop's for a long time now. Thank-you!

Hey, I know of a few props that are missing in SProps atm. I really need some solid triangles, think the block props but chopped from edge to edge to form a ramp of sorts. If you would do this I would be ever so grateful!

There are a few, haven't added the rest yet. They are at the bottom of the Blocks list.

Are you planning to add a machine elements category? This would include the following gears, cams, and maybe a ratchet wheel even? [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/qcCBY.png[/IMG] We don't need different thicknesses like phx offers, but different sizes and obviously ratios would be nice. I realise it is an extreme modelling challenge, but maybe that's a good reason to do it!? Less useful, but maybe nice: [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Nockenwelle_ani.gif[/img] [img]http://www.technologystudent.com/images7/crnky1.gif[/img]

Yes one thing I used to do was build small machinery with all moving parts I would like to see these kind of gears too I would also like to see engine cowls for planes that would fit with Sprop cylinders [img]http://image.yaymicro.com/rz_512x512/0/7be/cowl-and-propeller-of-a-vintage-biplane-7be463.jpg[/img] the cowl is the red piece of metal behind the propellor Also for scale you should not have to make too many sizes maybe if you could scale it around an ACF radial engine from the ACF addon and then just scale it to the closest cylinder size ALSO maybe some semi tubes to flat props like shown here [img]http://puu.sh/1PkEE[/img]

I'd like to put in a request or two, if you don't mind. In the 'transportation' section I was genuinely displeased that there aren't any bloody train wheels :v: Could you please add a narrow gauge and standard gauge :(? Also, I have this issue with PHX, but I noticed that in PHX, the props will go, e.g. 3x4, 3x5, 3x6, 3x7, 3x8, then jump to 3x16. As much as an annoyance as I'm probably being, could you make a 3x9, 3x10, 3x11, and 3x12?

Is there a downside to having very large model packs other than download size, such as game performance/load time? If there is, I would recommend not adding things like "muffler tips" or engine cowlings. They are far too specific to have much use. Better that the props in the pack are generic and applicable to as many different contraptions as possible. Furthermore, I personally dislike the prevalence of scripted or fully modelled contraptions replacing once built from scratch/elementary parts. It takes away the challenge of building if, for example, instead of building an engine, you use an ACF one, or instead of building a hele-rotor, again, you just spawn one. But this second point is just my opinion.

Those who want the challenge of building an engine haven't had that ability taken away. This kind of thing just makes things easier for those less able at building. You sound like one of those PHX/wire purists.

[QUOTE=Tolyzor;39316381]Is there a downside to having very large model packs other than download size, such as game performance/load time? Probably, but that isn't my fault, nor is it under my control. I am not going to ignore a If there is, I would recommend not adding things like "muffler tips" or engine cowlings. They are far too specific to have much use. Better that the props in the pack are generic and applicable to as many different contraptions as possible. Furthermore, I personally dislike the prevalence of scripted or fully modelled contraptions replacing once built from scratch/elementary parts. It takes away the challenge of building if, for example, instead of building an engine, you use an ACF one, or instead of building a hele-rotor, again, you just spawn one. But this second point is just my opinion. [/QUOTE] Probably, but that isn't my fault, or my problem, and it really isn't under my control anyway. Hopefully somewhere down the line there will come an offline .gma packer that does not require the workshop, alleviating any load time decreases there might be (I haven't noticed any though). The 'generic' portion of my pack is pretty much complete, I can't really think of anything it needs right now, other than the rest of the prisms, cones and half/quarter cylinders that I haven't uploaded yet. Also, the exhaust tips aren't really that specific. Most cars have exhaust systems, and it so happens most builders build cars. Planes have propellers, helicopters have rotors, cars have wheels. All of these shapes are difficult to achieve with construction props. A while back, you asked for gears. Would you rather I said you should just build gears out of props? Those gears are almost complete, by the way. While I do agree somewhat with your second point, I am not going to ignore an entire group of people based on my own opinions.

The reason we need props with any kind of special geometry is also down to performance; you can't make gears out of props without lagging a server to hell (plus floppy welds....). An exhaust tip probably could be made of a few parented props, which wouldn't cause lag. Anyhow, you are right though about vehicles being common, and yeah, like I said, its still a good idea if lots of people want them and they don't hit performance significantly. Awesome news about the gears, how are you making sure they perform well? You could do it by a lot of trial and error in game, but you could also en-corporate some real world knowledge, or at least copy it to a certain extent (yes I realise you are constrained by polycount). There are gear tooth profiles available on the internet (from machine elements design type books) which would be applicable to gmod. [IMG]http://www.summitgearworks.com/images/sgw_profile.gif[/IMG] Beware though, the best ones in phx seemed to be the simplest profiles! There are other gmod specific issues, like how many teeth you can get away with (lots of teeth means lots of collisions, but also less backlash and less friction, due to better transmition angles) Also, look at past attempts. There was a [URL="http://www.garrysmod.org/downloads/?a=view&id=111136"]Gears pack[/URL] which did small diameter gears far better than phx; they are better suited to contraptions than the PHX sizes! The phx gears include some with far too many polys and too small clearance, that are effectively useless (the dark ones with round teeth). They others all vary in performance, I had a look at gear performance here a few years ago, as you'll see, all gears have different torque efficiencies, and also speed that they can handle: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/YLE1sOG.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/csSU9zD.png[/IMG] In short; 1. I think these tests show that low tooth count = high max speed, but high tooth count = high efficiency. 2. I think the most important tooth geometry issues are keeping the poly count acceptable, whilst having a tooth shape that rolls well whilst in contact, and has an acceptable amount of clearance. 3. Finally, with overall gear diameter, I think, in Gmod, high diameter means less load on the axis for a given torque, but thats it, so its not that important, you can therefore make them small like in gears pack.

The gear pack uses a triangular shape for the collision of each tooth. That seems to work well so I went with that. They are also quite simple visually, as extra detail starts adding ridiculous amounts of polygons with higher numbers of teeth. I have gone from 12 to 96 toothed gears in +6 increments. Their pitch diameter is also equal to the amount of teeth, but I might be able to get away with scaling them down, we'll see.

Awesome, the really impressive bits will be worm gears, and planetary gears, if you manage them!

[QUOTE=Tolyzor;39319657]Awesome, the really impressive bits will be worm gears, and planetary gears, if you manage them![/QUOTE] Planetary was doable (albeit very costly on physics elements), but worm is most likely not. I'll try though. I was able to scale them down by 50% and they work just as good. I'll include both sizes. [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10388108/modelpack/gears.png[/img] [img]http://gyazo.com/7a4c913072d13004e6e4c2e77a95d225.png[/img]

FYI, the profile on the outside of the planetary gear isn't important, so you could maybe save a few polys by making it less round. If I understand correctly, the small 12 toothed gear is 6 gmod length units in diameter? That's awesome! can you go another 50% smaller again? Then we'd be around the size of real car gears. Edit: I was also just having a think about ratios... It is more important to have a larger selection of tooth numbers at the low end, because the small gears work best at high speeds, and are generally more useful because of their size. With your current selection, you can manage a 90:96 ratio (ie very small), but only with the largest gears.... Interestingly, almost all of the PHX gmod gearboxes I have seen fail, because the ratio gaps between each "gear" are far too large. They normally manage one crawler gear, one cruising gear, and then 3 overdrive which are so high that the car goes slower than in cruise, because the engine gets bogged down. Therefore, to achieve the useful gear ratios using small gears, I would suggest including the following tooth numbers: 10, 14 and 16. I included 10, because I think you would just get away with it, although it wont be super smooth, it has speed and size advantages.

Unfortunately I might have to ditch the planetary gears entirely. At over 50 rpm in the configuration I posted above, it causes enough lag to crash singleplayer. I'll try playing them some more but there isn't much I can do differently. So which is it? Replacing with 10, 12, 16, 20, 28, 38, 54, 70, 86, or adding 10, 14, and 16 to the existing gears? (I'm fine with either, and frankly don't understand much about gear ratios)

My final suggestion is adding 10, 14 and 16. sorry for ninja-ing you!

I am getting the following error when I try to svn checkout: REPORT of '/svn/!svn/vcc/default': Could not read chunk size: connection was closed by server ([url]http://shadowscions-construction-props.googlecode.com[/url]) It gets to 8 kb downloaded and stops. I've tried with tortoise and easysvn.

Just tested it, works fine for me. . . Are you using this link? [url]http://shadowscions-construction-props.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/[/url] Going to be adding the gears today. Trying to make those cams but the fucking physics hulls refuse to export the way I made them in max.

snip

Still works fine for me, have you tried checkout out to a different folder name? Anyone else having problems?

Yes I have. I feel like I must be a noob since no one else has reported it, but I have many svn addons and have never had an issue like this before!

Finally done and added to the svn. [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10388108/modelpack/gears2.png[/img]

I'd love you forever if you make these wheels. Offroad / Enduro / Dirtbike [img]http://www.supermotodirect.eu/images/2012-08/triumphtiger_rear_3q.jpg[/img] Supermotard [img]http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/541/nuovefotodelmezzo004b8npm4.jpg[/img] Superbike / Regular motorcycle [img]http://2wheeltuesday.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bmw-s1000rr.jpg[/img]

I'd like too, the off-road ones would be way too high poly though.

Isn't it possible to material it to look like knobs?

Really good normal mapping could do that, but since you'd never be looking at the wheel straight-on, it would probably end up looking pretty cheesy. Also I have a few questions about the gears and cams. 1. Is there any standardized way of aligning the teeth for optimal meshing? I'm getting by just fine guessing, but if there's a better way I'd love to know. 2. Did you decide not to include the ring gears? 3. For the 1st cam prop, is there a way you could shift the mass center to the large part of the cam so that it can be used more like it would be irl?