entity height?

Hi! I've got an animated 3ds model from DarkMatter that is loaded by TerraEd which does LoadAnimMesh. Then, it does CopyEntity and ScaleEntity to place each of a couple dozen such models (monsters) on the terrain.

I would like to know the height, in Blitz units, of each of these beasts, but I can't find a way to calculate that.

I tried using a method based on CountSurfaces() but when I call either CountSurfaces(Entity) or CountSurfaces(Mesh) I get back zero. This seems funky.

I also tried MeshHeight(Mesh) to which I could apply the scale factor for each beast, if it worked. However, the return value is -20000000 (negative twenty million).

What is going so wrong with CountSurfaces() and MeshHeight()?

Can anyone provide a reliable method to calculate the height of an entity copied from a 3ds mesh loaded by LoadAnimMesh? These entities animate and work just fine, but I want to know their sizes so that I can set a reasonable bounding box for each one.

Thanks for any help you can provide. This is weird!

Are you sure you are applying the command to the correct child entity within the animmesh? I think the base part is not that actual mesh itself - you need to use GetChild to find the mesh - then try the MeshHeight command on that child object.

So, try this -

mesh = LOADANIMMESH("file.b3d")
debuglog countchildren(mesh)
child1 = getchild(mesh,1)
debuglog countsurfaces(child1)

See if that (or some variation on that) returns any sensible values.

Also you could try loading the mesh as a normal mesh and not an animmesh and see it the commands work then (also try this with your problem about linepick) - then you will narrow it down to the animated mesh causing the problem (and I still suspect you are not finding the correct child object) and you can work from there.

I don't think using LoadAnimMesh agrees too well with mesh commands. Just my experience, but I'd suggest loading it as a normal mesh if possible.

Sure enough... MeshWidth() etc. give ridiculous results following LoadAnimMesh but seem to give the right answers following LoadMesh. Beware!

did you try finding the child object as I suggested?

Vorderman:

I tried your suggestion. I listed the MeshWidth, Height and Depth of the first child of the LoadAnimMesh as well as the MeshWidth etc. of the LoadMesh.

I got answers approximately as follows:
MeshWidth of first child: 4.05
MeshHeight of first child: 3.79
MeshDepth of first child: 4.10

MeshWidth of LoadMesh: 2.1
MeshHeight of LoadMesh: 3.65
MeshDepth of LoadMesh: 2.2

As you see, I now get *possible* values instead of the previous silly results (negative twenty million). However, the two sets of values do not agree, raising a new question - which set, if either, is correct?

Yikes!

The values returned from LoadMesh are correct, or nearly so. The values returned from checking the first child of LoadAnimMesh are not correct.

Very odd indeed :(

You know these sort of problems could be eliminated with a more thorough explanation in the Blitz manual regarding blitz3d required protocol for importing meshes and such.
I had a hard time findng the children of my level mesh - they simply were not there....until I loaded it in as an animmesh!! Which is bollocks that should be explained properly from somebody who knows about Blitz's inner workings...save us all a headache with what seems like obvious and straight forward stuff.

Have you done a renderworld?

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=26385#274511

Blitz seems to report non zero sizes on surfaces with no size.

I reported this almost 1 year ago and the bug report was ignored.