hey guys, I am trying to make my first custom vehicle from scratch and I have compiled the model and it works as scenery, but I have no real idea of where to go from there, as all of the custom vehicle tutorials I have found use use existing vehicles and just replace the model. if anyone knows of a good tutorial that explains how to make a custom vehicle from the ground up could you hook me up? or failing that does anyone know how to make new collision models?

I've been wanting a tut for making a BRAND new vehicle for a while lol and to make a collision make a folder with the models folder for your vehicle and name it physics copy the JMS file in models and paste it there, rename it @@yourvehicle@@_collision and then in tool do the same thing to make your model but instead of using the model command use collision-geometry :). Hope this helps!

thanks man that did help, but now that all the geometry errors are corrected, it says that there must be at least one region. i have nooo idea what that means so im stuck again.

is it linked to a frame?

it is linked to a node called frame hull

Search found several tutorials
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?search=vehicle+tutorial

These 2 should fit your needs

Custom Flying Vehicle Tutorial
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=3832

How to make your own Vehicle Tutorial
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=4183

ok sooo... i have figured out the collision geometry, but now im on to animation and physics.

animation question: does the animation graph have any animations that need to be filled? right now i only have animations for the turrets and since it is a fixed-wing aircraft that Im making, there arent any other moving parts

physics question: do the balls only add... physical-ness to the frames and markers that they contain or if not, what is the theory behind the physics balls?


and im still stumped as to what regions are and what they are used for
Edited by Dr Jaul on Aug 8, 2010 at 02:15 PM
Edited by Dr Jaul on Aug 9, 2010 at 10:30 PM

If you want something to move in Halo, you gotta animate it in max (or gmax). I'd check out The Ghost's custom turret tutorial for animating your turrets.

As for physics, your tool command is, simply, 'physics, and I believe it also looks for a .JMS file of the same name as your model in a physics folder in your model folder in your data folder. The Custom Flying Vehicle tutorial Dennis posted explains physics creation quite well in my opinion, though I've never actually used it before.

i did all the turret animations and made a physics file but sapient still says out of objects cannot create my vehicle.

Out of objects? Sounds like you didn't link up everything correctly. Make sure that whenever you animate something, that 'something' needs to be it's own separate object within your model, and as such, it MUST have it's own unique frame:

frame
frame turret l
turret l
frame turret r
turret r
vehicle model

As an example. Above, 'frame controls everything below it. Moving it moves everything else. Frame turret l controls only the left turret. When you animate that turret, you need to animate the frame of the object you wish to apply animations to.

If I'm wrong and your problem isn't with tool (even though you mentioned Sapien above...just wanted ot make sure I covered the bases), and it is indeed with Sapien, then what your error means is that you have way too many objects in your scenario. Delete some to free up room, and then your vehicle should be created nicely.

sooo... do the frames for the turrets need to be linked to the frame for the body of the ship?

Yes. I said that. Every sub-frame must be linked to the vehicle's master frame, or frame for the body of the ship.

hmm.... i could use a good modeler in my space battle map. need to make some custom interiors for model files i'm ripping out of some games. Just as an added question, can i have multiple turrets on a ship, but the ones that can't aim at the target not fire when i click shoot? i mean "can't aim" as in, they turrets don't rotate to the degree they need to, but have any turrets that *can* shoot at the target, still shoot?

Interesting question. I think you would specify firing parameters on the actor_variant tag or something. I don't know. See if you can't find some tutorials that cover firing parameters. Sounds like you just need to tell it to not fire when its rotation is outside of the specified amount (specified amount being the range you give it, which is likely the range of the turret's motion).

use Kornmann00 and capy the node list checksum from the animation tag to the model tag.