Tiger turret uses collision static mesh, which does not rotate with turret

[Matt Hands]

Problem

Tiger is only vehicle that tries to use a collision static mesh with the turret animation mesh. It does not work because a collision mesh attached to an anim mesh cannot be attached to a bone & so does not rotate with the turret.

Result is completely screwed up hit detection for the turret (see screenshots !).

RO static mesh files contain turret collision meshes for all tanks, but they were dropped, except for the tiger. This is why !

Secondary problem is that col mesh includes cannon barrel, which means a shell hitting the barrel may cause the whole vehicle to explode.

Solution

Simple solution is to edit tiger anim file and remove col mesh from both exterior and interior turret meshes. As the tiger uses the original RO anim file, it will be necessary to make a new DH_Tiger_anm file.

But .... I am working on a new turret (or any VehicleWeapon) collision mesh system, with a dummy actor attached to the turret's yaw bone, which contains the collision detection stuff & passes any hit detection on to the real VehicleWeapon actor. I have made a very simple col mesh for the tiger turret & the new system seems to work, so I will leave this issue open and update the tiger with the new col mesh when I've tidied up & tested.

[Colin Basnett]

Good catch, this explains a lot!

[Colin Basnett]

@Matt_UK, what is the status of this one?

[Matt Hands]

Fixed the problem in commit 24df244.

Just a modified DH_TigerTurret_anm.ukx anim file, with the collision static mesh removed, so tiger's turret hit detection is now the same as all other tanks (basic collision box).

The new collision mesh actor system I outlined above will have to wait until the next release. It works, but I was trying out attaching a coded static mesh actor instead of the alternative skeletal mesh I originally attached. That way is much cleaner & did work, but I was wrestling with adding some automatic calcs to get the necessary positional offset. I took a break from it and at some point will have to go back and re-absorb it again.

Interesting side note: in the new anim file I also removed the reducing LOD meshes. DH vehicles generally have a LOD setting override so these are never used - and they would usually look awful if they were used. So the editor default 4 LODs seems pointless and just uses memory & file space. Removing them reduced the size of this file by 40%. This is a demo of how all out animation meshes should probably be altered to remove LODs.

[Colin Basnett]

Please mark these as resolved when you are done with them.

[Matt Hands]

Implemented new collision static mesh actor, using simplified & improved system, in commit f3153cf.

See attached pictures (tiger turret col mesh actor & tiger turret collision static mesh). The in game screenshot is using a dev mode debug tool - obviously it's normally hidden in game !).