Helpers

[Mechanical Man]

I wonder what are helpers for? They seems to act like bones.

As for other model element, I would know what is the purpose of collision squares/spheres.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

Helpers are possibly the most basic possible nodes; they do nothing except animate. You cannot attach geometry to them via matrices of a geoset either. They simply "help" the animations along.

Collision shapes are for click-selecting models; move the cursor inside a shape and it will highlight, and a click will select the model.

 

[Mechanical Man]

So the difference is between helper and bones are that a helper cannot be attached to a mesh while bones can. Thanks.

I have another question, what are splats and ubersplats events?

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

Splats are the footprints that appear during walk sequences on most models, ubersplats are craters and things that sometimes come out of projectiles; the "ground textures" for buildings are also ubersplats. All created by event objects, the object's name being the code for the correct splat/ubersplat/sound etc etc.

 

[Mechanical Man]

Then what is the difference between splats and footprints (both are event objects)?

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

I'm not entirely sure. I think ubersplats are more controllable in-game (note the new ubersplat trigger actions that came a couple patches ago), while splats are a simpler version that just do what the SLK says and no more or less. This is, of course, all idle speculation.

They're all spawned by event object anyway, so in working with models there isn't really a difference worth noting.