I am currently developing an addon in Spacecraft 3, that I hope to convert to .dll later. Part of my spacecraft is a series of booms arranged in a somewhat star-like pattern, with a total of twelve (seperation angle between booms of 30 degrees.
I can easily scale the booms that align with the X and Y axes, but due to their angle the other booms squish outwards in a manner that is most certainly not intended.
I'll try to use this substandard diagram to illustrate. Here there are 8 booms (represented by four groups) instead of 12 (represented by 6 groups).
Purple is the start (unextended) position.
Light blue is the end (extended) position.
Yellow is the intended result of a boom being extended at a 45 degree angle.
Green is the ugly end position of a 45 degree angle boom scaled up at the same ratio as the straight booms. Because it is at an angle, scaling by X and Y pull it in directions other than along its length.
I can't use translation and multiple segments (this would result in something like 30 segments per boom, each having to be expressed as a seperate group- they're pretty long booms) and would effectively double my poly count. Vertex animation would be a good bet, but I don't have the slightest clue as to how I would get it to work.
Surely there is some solution to a similar problem, out of all the Sc3 addons that have been created? It'd be quite annoying if something so relatively simple couldn't be supported by anything other than a jury-rigged solution, or vertex animation...
I can easily scale the booms that align with the X and Y axes, but due to their angle the other booms squish outwards in a manner that is most certainly not intended.
I'll try to use this substandard diagram to illustrate. Here there are 8 booms (represented by four groups) instead of 12 (represented by 6 groups).
Purple is the start (unextended) position.
Light blue is the end (extended) position.
Yellow is the intended result of a boom being extended at a 45 degree angle.
Green is the ugly end position of a 45 degree angle boom scaled up at the same ratio as the straight booms. Because it is at an angle, scaling by X and Y pull it in directions other than along its length.
I can't use translation and multiple segments (this would result in something like 30 segments per boom, each having to be expressed as a seperate group- they're pretty long booms) and would effectively double my poly count. Vertex animation would be a good bet, but I don't have the slightest clue as to how I would get it to work.
Surely there is some solution to a similar problem, out of all the Sc3 addons that have been created? It'd be quite annoying if something so relatively simple couldn't be supported by anything other than a jury-rigged solution, or vertex animation...
