Vehicle Lecture v. 1.5

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Amy
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Vehicle Lecture v. 1.5

Post by Amy » Wed Dec 23, 2009 7:52 pm

A nice lecture corresponding to Pielogist's i have been working on (WILL BE UPDATED!!!) Please tell me if i got anything wrong, or anything else i should add.
Vehicle Lecture:
Informative, not a tutorial.



i. What is a vehicle?
A vehicle is a very unique object in halo. The vehicle is like a separate biped (character), almost as if your character is possessing another character. This means that you can create an entire new set of physics, then add them to your character at it's will.

ii. Types of vehicles.
There are 3 different types of vehicles

Flying
Driving
Non- Moving ( turret )

With some modding you can switch the types of the vehicle, but you could also use the vehicle list below to have a basis for your vehicle.

List of basis vehicles:

Banshee- Flying vehicle with 2 weapons
Scorpion- Heavy vehicle with 2 weapons
Ghost- Light 1 man vehicle
C_gun_turret- Turret
Rocket warthog- 3 man car with a separate weapon seat
Warthog- 3 man car with a separate weapon seat
Pelican- Invincible Transportation- Flying
Spirit- Invincible Transportation- Flying

Use these as your basis for making your new vehicle.

iii. Okay, so what can i do with them?
Vehicle Modding is split up into main parts, and then sub parts. Here is a nice web to organize yourself.

Vehi - The actual Vehicle, this is the mother of all tags below.
phys- The physics of the vehicle, whether you want a flying vehicle, a fast ground speeder, just edit this tag to your liking.
mod2- The model of the vehicle. What you see of the vehicle.
actv- What is in the vehicle, this only is needed in AI mods.
weap - Is your vehicle an assault vehicle? Then use this to make a weapon for it.
trak- Camera Track, what you see as you drive the vehicle
unhi- Your heads- up- display about your vehicle

1. Vehi
This is the mother tag, it holds all the other tags you need to make your own vehicle. It also determines speed, AI steering, Vehicle ID, and Seat management.
(Sub parts- See above list)

2. Phys
The physics for your vehicle. How heavy it is, friction, density, gravity all this delicious stuff you learned in physics class. (No sub parts)

3. Mod2
Without CE we cant do much to this. If you want to go through the trouble, you can import your own model. This tag also holds all the shaders for the vehicle. You will use the shaders to modify and skin the texture on the vehicle. What you need to do, is Swap around shaders, or go to the referenced bitmap file (in the shader tag) and edit the texture. (Sub parts- Shaders and Bitmaps)

4.Actv
Probably one of the most complex tags in the vehicle. Editing this tag is easy enough, just play around with floats, or keep a stock one. The vehicle part of this tag is in the Vehi tag. In the reference swapper near the bottom you should see nulled out ACTV tags. If you put ACTV tags into the nulled out spaces, AIs will spawn in the vehicle. This is good for having AI-driven Vehicles or using the vehicle to spawn AIs. (Biped, actor, weapon)

5. Weap.
This controls the weapon system on the vehicle. Sometimes, the weapon will be a different seat, or you control it while driving. Some Vehicles come with two projectiles in their weap tag. This means that there is 2 weapons on the vehicle. Refer to Pielogist's Weapon lecture (viewtopic.php?f=40&t=11752&hilit=lecture) to learn what to edit in the Weap tag. (sub parts- Proj, effe, mod2, mod2,)

6.Trak
The camera track for the vehicle. This is very hard to edit, requires lots of graphing and guess and checking. Mostly. you will just swap around the trak in the main Vehi tag. (Sub Parts- None)

7. Unhi
This is your heads up display while you are in the vehicle. You can meta edit the colors, and size, or you can go to the referenced bitmaps and edit those. (sub parts- Bitm)


iv. Using Vehicles as AI spawners
Another way you could use a vehicle is as a AI spawner. Let's say you want a bunch of AI's running around in the middle of BloodGulch, you fill in the nulled out spaces of ACTV in your AI spawner's VEHI with random ACTVs, and then go to the physics of your AI spawner. In the Phys with bobbysoon Physics Plugin, change "center of mass y" value to 1. This will spawn the vehicle with this physic referenced upside down, so if there are AIs in it they will come out. Now if you don't want a upturned vehicle lying around, go to the mod2 of your AI spawner, and null out all the shaders in reference swapper. Now go to its collision and swap it for a small item like a health pack. Now you have a invisible AI spawner!

V. Okay, now i have my vehicle, now what?
First off, you should rename it. To rename a vehicle, go to the USTR carrot. Inside there, you should find Ui\hud\hud_icon_messages. Now rename the Vehicle base that you used (if you used the banshee, then just rename the string that says "banshee" to something else) Note that you cant put a name that is longer then the original. Also, if your basis is a warthog, you need to *Insert string modding here* to have it as a different string for the two vehicles.
Second off, you have to spawn your vehicle. There are 3 ways of doing it.

1. Item Collection spawn
Spawn the vehicle in a ITMC. (this is best used for AI mods) Known glitches: Camo-ed vehicle (no cure)

2. Scenery
In SCNR tag, reference swap a scen tag with your vehicle. This will replace that scenery spawn point with a vehicle. Known Glitches: Blue warthog Respawn Glitch (to cure, reduce vehicle respawn time to 0, so it never respawns.)

3. Vehicle
In SCNR, just replace a vehi tag with your vehi tag, this will replace that vehicle with your vehicle. Known glitches: In bloodgulch, replacing the banshee with a warthog doesn't seem to work. (Cure: use HHK to swap)

Once your vehicle is spawned, go test it.

Downloadable Reference: http://www.filefront.com/15205921/Vehicle%20Lecture.rtf
Last edited by Amy on Fri Dec 25, 2009 8:11 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Noodle » Wed Dec 23, 2009 7:59 pm

Theese is good girl. You veel have yoer zupper tonite.

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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by RXA » Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:21 pm

Nice! :D

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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Mota-Lev » Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:24 pm

Head Lice! :D
Stupid tinypic removing my images

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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Sugarlumps » Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:33 pm

Not bad,

you know its not "two weapons" but "a weapon that has primary and secondary fire"
Image
Click!

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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Pielogist » Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:06 pm

*needs to update own lecture*

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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Amy » Thu Dec 24, 2009 5:54 am

Sugarlumps wrote:Not bad,

you know its not "two weapons" but "a weapon that has primary and secondary fire"

Yeah >_> but it is like having two weapons.
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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Dittoz7 » Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:04 am

Quite informative.
I like.
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NOBLE 1 DO YOU COPY?!?!??!
NOBLE 1???!?!?
FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- we lost the spartans
I guess the Covenant win.

Amy
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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Amy » Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:09 am

Thanks guys!
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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Pielogist » Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:11 am

Amy wrote:
Sugarlumps wrote:Not bad,

you know its not "two weapons" but "a weapon that has primary and secondary fire"

Yeah >_> but it is like having two weapons.
In my topic:
Kayar wrote: this makes sense and I suppose it's more accessible to newbs, but we want them to know the correct terminology as well.

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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Amy » Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:16 am

Actually if you really want to fight, A vehicle does not have a "primary" and "secondary" fire, there are different weapons on the vehicle its self.
Example: the Tank has the turret next to the big cannon, thus making it have TWO weapons.
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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Pielogist » Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:32 am

that's just the model, and the different spawn points, and also different firing effects. o_o

we're not talking about weapons in the regular way, we're looking at it in the modder's angle.
by weapon, we mean the WEAP tag, not how many guns.
since when does the tank have 2 weapon tags?

if u go in the tank, there's 1 WEAP tag, go inside, and there's 2 PROJ tags there....
How is that not primary and secondary fire?

I'm not looking for a fight, nor am i flaming. just pointing out the facts as i see it.

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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Zodiark » Thu Dec 24, 2009 12:55 pm

Woohoo more tuts for Tutorial Bible! Keep these tuts coming!

Amy
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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Amy » Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:50 pm

Update v 1.5

V2 will support making completely new string codes.
V. Okay, now i have my vehicle, now what?
First off, you should rename it. To rename a vehicle, go to the USTR carrot. Inside there, you should find Ui\hud\hud_icon_messages. Now rename the Vehicle base that you used (if you used the banshee, then just rename the string that says "banshee" to something else) Note that you cant put a name that is longer then the original. Also, if your basis is a warthog, you need to *Insert string modding here* to have it as a different string for the two vehicles.
Second off, you have to spawn your vehicle. There are 3 ways of doing it.

1. Item Collection spawn
Spawn the vehicle in a ITMC. (this is best used for AI mods) Known glitches: Camo-ed vehicle (no cure)

2. Scenery
In SCNR tag, reference swap a scen tag with your vehicle. This will replace that scenery spawn point with a vehicle. Known Glitches: Blue warthog Respawn Glitch (to cure, reduce vehicle respawn time to 0, so it never respawns.)

3. Vehicle
In SCNR, just replace a vehi tag with your vehi tag, this will replace that vehicle with your vehicle. Known glitches: In bloodgulch, replacing the banshee with a warthog doesn't seem to work. (No cure)

Once your vehicle is spawned, go test it.
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Re: Vehicle Lecture v. 1.0

Post by Zodiark » Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:08 pm

Amy wrote:3. Vehicle
In SCNR, just replace a vehi tag with your vehi tag, this will replace that vehicle with your vehicle. Known glitches: In bloodgulch, replacing the banshee with a warthog doesn't seem to work. (No cure)
.
Actually if you use gametypes to spawn more warthogs it will work

Also say if you wanted to spawn more banshees by just swapping the SCNR and MATG of a vehicle butit doesn't appear. But not everybody knows how to use gametypes, but you want extra banshees to spawn eh? So I found out if you import a halo 2 banshee from the incyclopedia CE and replace it with a warthog then you will have more banshees without using a gametype!

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