Adding Sails to your Ship

Building your own Ship
Setting the NC parameters in a Sailboat
Setting the NC parameters in a Motorboat
Customizing the HUD.
Making your own mesh sails.

Using the main navigation page of the HUD.
Instructions on how to control your boat.
Hints on how to sail a boat.
Setting up your sailboat.

There are are many intelligent scripted sails available from Ocean Engineering. Most of these are optional and must be bought separately. Why not include everything in one kit? Because you may not need some types of sails on some boats. Everyone wants flags and jib sails on almost every kind of sailboat, so those are included in this kit. (The jib can also be used as a staysail). The angle between the luft and the foot of the jib is different for different boats. The kit only comes with one jib angle. This can be stretched a little with the build tools, but only so far. For this reason I am selling jibs in a "fat pack" that has seven jibs with angles between 90 and 45 degrees. If the one in the kit is not right for your boat, contact Kayaker Magic and I will give you one other angle. If you need more angles than that, you should buy the fat pack with all of them.

Depending on the type of boat you are building you will want to buy Square, Gaff, Spinaker, Racing, Junk, Bermuda, Lug or Lateen sails to go with your design. Just link these sail prims into the same build as the root prim and they will start communicating and turning into the wind. You can link as many sails as you want into the build, they each come to life the next time the boat moves. All sails come with full-perm texture maps so you can customize their look. UV templates are available for the mesh sails, ask about getting a copy of these if you need them.

The flags and pennants turn to follow the apparent wind, so you can use them to help trim your sails. All types of sails will flap when facing too far away from the wind. They will inflate with a “whoomph” sound and make a wind-in-the sail noise when they are pulling. The more sails you link into your build, the louder the nose will be! The sails don't quite flap at the same time, so the noise when you tack can be impressive on a tall ship!

Types of Sails:

Square Sails:

These always face forward with limited ability to rotate. When the wind is behind them they rotate to face down wind. As you turn away from the wind these sails stop rotating at 45 degrees. You would think that this would allow you to sail almost 45 degrees into the wind. Unfortunately this only works when the boat is not moving. Once it is moving the apparent wind changes this angle until you can barely sail better than 90 degrees across the wind. The square sails come in three variations: Mains'l, Tops'l and Gallant sail. The only difference between these is the mains'l tapers down at the bottom, the tops'l is square, and the gallant sail tapers at the top. You can arrange them and scale them to make the sails get wider in the middle and narrow at the bottom and top.

Gaff Sails:

These fore-and-aft sails hang back behind a mast within +/-45 degrees. They are attached to a boom at the bottom and top (the boom on top is called a yardarm). Gaffs are controlled by a sheet (a nautical term for a rope tied to the end of the boom) that controls how far they can swing forward under wind pressure. (You can't see the sheet, it is just a number in the sailing simulation). By trimming the sheet (carefully controlling the maximum sail angle) you can generate forward thrust from a Gaff sail even when traveling almost into the wind. Not very much thrust, but enough to make headway while tacking into the wind. When pointed into the wind with a loose sheet, a gaff sail will hang straight down-wind and flap while generating no thrust. When a boat gybes across the wind, a gaff sail will snap around from one side to the other. Be careful that the boom does not hit you in the head on the way across!

Lug and Lateen Sails:

These fore-and-aft sails have a yardarm that hangs partially in front and in back of the mast. Lug sails are rectangular, Lateens are triangular. Both are old sail designs that look beautiful on many period ships. These sails are controlled by a sheet and they can rotate across the mast within +/-90 degrees (perhaps a bit too much for a period ship, you can limit this in the parameter file described later). These sails magically jump from one side of the mast to the other so they never have a “bad tack”! Both these and the mesh version of the Gaff sail understand a message you can sent to make them change sail texture maps. This was designed to make sails look like they are damaged, but has other uses.

Bermuda Sails:

This is a modern fore-and-aft sail that hangs back behind a mast within +/-90 degrees. They are attached to a boom at the bottom. Bermudas are controlled by a sheet so you can generate forward thrust from a Bermuda sail even when traveling almost directly into the wind. When pointed into the wind with a loose sheet, a bermuda sail will hang straight down-wind and flap while generating no thrust. When a boat gibes across the wind, a bermuda sail will snap around from one side to the other. Be careful that the boom does not hit you in the head on the way across!

Racing Sails:

This is a modern fore-and-aft sail that hangs back behind a mast within +/-90 degrees. It looks like a Bermuda with the top cut off, but no yardarm at the top like a Gaff. They are attached to a boom at the bottom. Racing sails are controlled by a sheet (a nautical term for a rope tied to the end of the boom) that controls how far they can swing forward under wind pressure. (You can't see the sheet, it is just a number in the sailing simulation). By trimming the sheet (carefully controlling the maximum sail angle) you can generate forward thrust from a Racer sail even when traveling almost directly into the wind. Not very much thrust, but enough to make headway while tacking into the wind. When pointed into the wind with a loose sheet, a racing sail will hang straight down-wind and flap while generating no thrust. When a boat gibes across the wind, a racing sail will snap around from one side to the other. Be careful that the boom does not hit you in the head on the way across!

Junk Sails:

This is a for-and-aft sail like a Gaff or a Bermuda. This sail is the only one I make that is just a simple curved sculpt. You have to paint a picture of a sail on it with transparency around the edges. I ship it with a texture map of a sail from a Hong Kong Junk ship, but you can make it look like any other sail. Even a Racer, Bermuda or Gaff. There is the usual problem with transparent textures not rendering in the right order, so I prefer to use custom shaped sculpts or mesh for sails. But if you want to make an unusual looking sail, this Junk sail is the easiest to use: Just paint your new sail onto a texture, flip a copy for the other side, and you are done!

Jib Sails:

Detailed documentation for jib sails.
These triangular sails hang back from forestays (wires) angling forward in front of other sails. They have no boom, but are controlled by two sheets attached to the free corner (not visible, just a number in the simulation). In this simulation the jibs are controlled by a single number, the setting of the controlling sheet. To make virtual sailing easier, these Jibs will auto-gybe. This means when a jib cannot stay inflated on one side, the setting of the two sheets reverses and the Jib flaps over to the other side automatically like a Bermuda sail on a gybe.

Symmetrical Spinnaker Sails:

These sails only work when you are sailing down wind. They inflate like large parachutes in front of the boat and help pull you along. This spinnaker has three modes: when furled it is put away and is not visible, if loose, it partially inflates from the top of the mast and generates a little pull. If set to full, the lower corners are held down with sheets (not visible, just numbers in the simulation), the sail inflates and generates maximum pull. If you turn to small angles away from the wind, the spinnaker will rotate to point down wind. It will generate less pull and will heel the boat over. If you turn too far away from the wind, the spinnaker will collapse and flutter, generating no pull.

Wind Flags:

There is also a flag and a pennant prim included. The only difference is the shape color and texture of the flag. You can change the texture to make other flags and pennants. This flag will turn down-wind from wherever you link it, and will respond to the apparent wind, like the sails. This means you can use the angle of the flags to help you trim your sails, when your sails will start to flap and you will loose thrust. Like the sails, you can link as many flags into your boat as you like, and they will all come to life when the boat is moving. The flag is shipped as two different mesh versions: A rectangular flag with a Jolly Roger design on it, and a mesh pennant or burgee with the Ocean Engineeering logo on it. Both are animated mesh to flap in the wind. Both come with a full fperm texture map to show you how to make your own flag textures.

Sail Parameter Files (Boat Builders only):

Inside each sail there is an NC named .sailparams that the sail script checks every time it is rezzed or the inventory changes. (That causes it to reload the parameter file if you edit it). This file contains information about the sounds and texture maps. You can change the texture map with the build tools, but in the .sailparams NC you can specify a list of textures to use to show damage. Each different type of sail has a way to specify lists of face numberws so you can make your own mesh sails. See http://magic.kayaker.net/Sailing/makesail.html for more detailsw. Here are the parameters you can set for a Square Sail, just as an example. The paramters for a fore-and-aft sail will be different.

sailwind=windsound;			//looped sound when pulling in the wind
sailflap=inflatesound;		//WHOOMPH sound when the sail first catches the wind
sailfutter=fluttersound;	//flapping sound the sail makes when off the wind
sailtext=MeshSailsD0		//four textures for showing
sailtext=MeshSailsD1		//damage when the boat is struck
sailtext=MeshSailsD2		//by cannonballs
sailtext=MeshSailsD3
lfurled=4,7;      //which faces must be visible when furled
lreefed=4,5,7;    //which faces for reefed
lreeff1=4,5,7;    //reefed flutter 1
lreeff2=4,6,7;    //reffed flutter 2
lfull=1,7;        //full sail
lfullf1=2,7;      //full flutter 1
lfullf2=3,7;      //full flutter 2
lnotex=0,7;       //which faces don't have damage textures

The sound lines can reference the UUID of your sounds or the names of sounds in the sail inventory. The sailtext lines tell what textures to use for different sail textures of damage. These lines can reference the UUID of your textures or the name of the textures in the sail inventory. The order of the sailtext lines will be the order the images are used, starting with least damage and increasing in damage with each image.

It is possible to make your own mesh sails. But these sails change their size, furled look and booms by storing all possible shapes as different materials or faces. The scripts for each type of sail need to know which face is which. The rest of the lines at the end of this example file tell the script which faces or “materials” in your sail are used for each state of the sail. This is only used by people who build their own mesh sails. For each state of the sail, furled, full, full but fluttering, etc a different combination of faces is used to show the sail. See http://magic.kayaker.net/Sailing/makesail.html for more details.

Changing Sail Texture Maps (Boat Builders only):

You can change the texture of the sails with the build dialog. (Although this may be over-ridden by the sailtext lines in the .sailparams NC.) Each sail comes with a full-perm texture map to use as a template for making your own sail textures. You can upload these textures to your PC, edit them and download them with your own designs. For the mesh sails I have precise UV layout maps for laying out sail designs, contact Kayaker Magic if you would like copies of these. Most of the sails have the texture map for both sides of the sail separated so you can have lettering read forward on both sides. Some of the sails have one side reversed to more effectively use the square texture map area. The newer sails will let you put several texture maps in the .sailparams note-card (see above) and switch between them at run time by sending messages. See the documentation for the individual sails for details on this.