[Custom mesh creation] Realistic dimensions or "CK-grid sizes"?

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Good evening everybody!

 

I am currently working on creating some custom meshes based on real things.

 

Now the big question is this: Should I keep the "real life" dimensions for the sake of realism or should I make the meshes to the next closest "CK unit" grid size, so that they are easy to place in the CK?

 

An example:

 

Lets say I want to make a 3d model of a 20ft shipping container.

A standard 20 ft shipping container is about 96 ft wide, about 240 ft long and 102 in high.

 

A typical CK interior piece is 144 ft by 144 ft, or 256 units.

 

If I just kept the general shape I would make it 144 ft wide, 288 ft long and 144 ft high.

That would make it very easy to place lots of containers next to each other or stacked on top of each other without any gaps by using the "snap to grid" function in the CK and setting it to 256 units.

It would also make snapping in settlement build mode easier.

 

Or I could make all the dimensions the same as they are in real life, but change them to the closest 9/16 inch value.

( 9/16 inch is 1 CK unit, the smallest "snap to grid" value)

That would keep the dimensions as realistic as possible, but it would make placing the objects next to each other without any gaps very tedious.

(Setting "snap to grid" to 1, zooming right in and carefully adjusting the position)

And trying to use assets like that together with "normal" CK assets would be very tricky. (Not really important for something like a shipping container)

 

Yes, I know there are already shipping container assets in the game, but I want to make some realistic ones for a mod that I am working on.

(No, I am not planning on replacing any vanilla assets, I am talking about completley new assets)

 

 

I know there is no "right answer" for this, it all depends on personal preference and on what is more important: Realism or "developer-useability".

[pepperman35]

I would make the model proportions agree with the real life object; however, I would use CK units to ensure better compatibility with the game. I would be prepared to adjust it a little either in the 3d package or in the CK. If you set the model's pivot point to center, you'll have a point of reference for alignment. Might take a little bit of math but you could line things up exactly. Do you plan to add snap points to your models?

[South8028]

Because of this, I had a problem with the beam. An activator with a beam of light (a cone at high turns) with a length of 4096. What I did not do with it, but in the workshop the pivot point stubbornly finds itself in the middle of the entire structure along with the beam. The parent mesh (and it is small) turns out to be, respectively, 2048 from the player. The devil only knows why ck considers not the physical pivot point of all objects to be the center, but it is not clear where the conditional center of the structure is taken from.In general, I did not find a way to place giant structures in the workshop in ck. Edited October 4, 2021 by South8028

[ChuckYufarley]

I can't recall if it matters or not, because I don't do much in the CK when it comes to placing objects, but does adding an origin snap point to the nif change the pivot in the CK?

[South8028]

I can't recall if it matters or not, because I don't do much in the CK when it comes to placing objects, but does adding an origin snap point to the nif change the pivot in the CK?

What is origin snap point? Do you mean the bs connect point of the workshop, or something else? Although, probably, you can, if you use scaling. Just make a small ray (it is invisible before activation anyway). Upon activation, it "turns on" (uv switches to ray texture) and scales to the desired size. Also, I donât know. Whether you have caught the theme or not ... Any changes with modifiers and controllers are baked into animation through export / import in fbx. So I made a treadmill and splines with NOISE for floor dance. Therefore, in principle, everything can be placed in a workshop, only with hassle. Edited October 5, 2021 by South8028

[ChuckYufarley]

There are several different types of BSConnectPoint(s) you can add to a nif that aren't necessarily meant for snapping one object to another. Kinggath covers some of these in one of his Sim Settlement tutorial videos,

There's one for rotation as well. A lot of door nifs use a rotation BSConnectPoint. That may be another one that affects the pivot point, although I'm not aware if that pertains to placing objects in the CK or just when building workshop objects in game.