I'm messing about with warthogs. The reason I'm doing this is to understand how the process from model to working warthog goes so that one day maybe I can make a custom wheeled vehicle from scratch.

All the tutorials I can find anywhere on the net use ghost type vehicles in their 'how to make a vehicle from scratch' tutorials.

I'm basically going to rip a warthog, change it's shape a bit here and there and later I plan to reskin the warthog completely but before I do all that I need to know what to do and whether I'm up to the job.

Model & Textures
I've imported the warthog gbxmodel and re-assigned all the textures and everything looks fine. I used ghost's model importer v2.

Regions and Permutations
How do I get them all into the model. Do I need to import them all? I have imported the hull base and the tires base. How will that affect the overall Hog? Does that mean that the tires won't 'blur' because I didn't import that permutation? and when I do import all the permutations the model gets all messed up :( Please help here.

Frames
There are a lot of frames in a warthog, but after importing the standard warthog I notice that there is no base frame like there would be for say a scenery model. Do I need to create a new base frame and attach all of the other items to that before I export the new gbxmodel? I thought that only things attached to 'frame' were exported by the exporter? Or do I just attach everything to frame hull - obviously retaining the existing object heirarchy?


Here's how I understand the process so far...

Import a gbxmodel and reassign the materials.
Ensure that all the nodes are in the correct place taking into account any changes I've made to the model.
Ensure that all the objects in the scene are attached to the correct frames etc.
Save the model and export the .jms to the models folder. Compile that to get the gbxmodel.

Set up each of the vehicle animations as described by David Casseteri's vehicle anims tutorial ( http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1532 ) and export each one as the correctly named .jmo

is .jmo correct? What is the difference between jmo and jma?

I will probably add more to this later as long as nobody has replied already.

Please help, thanks.
Edited by Black Crypt on Apr 29, 2013 at 12:36 PM

If that's just a warthog then I would recommend keeping original animations. For regions and permutations: if you want the blur, then you will need to export another model with blurred wheel texture. For warthog the base frame is called "frame hull" I think.

JMO is for overlay animations and JMA is base animations. Overlay animations can bend with each other for ecample, wheels can turn to sides and rotate at the same time.

You should also export LODs for the model but it's not really important for now.

I am using Ghost's GBX Model Importer V2. I also have the Animation Importer V1.02.

Like I said in my OP, I'm doing this to learn the basics pretty much from the beginning - I only used the gbxmodel importer to save a bit of time and learn all the nodes and frame layout.

I'm assuming at this point that I don't need to add a 'frame' for the whole thing because the exporter treats 'frame hull' as the main frame for the scene?

I'm about to start animating and exporting the different animations, any advice at this point would be really helpful.

Thanks again,

Crypt.

[EDIT]

Um, so if .JMO is an overlay anim and .JMA is a base anim would mean that I should export the 'stand idle' scene as a .JMA and all the others as .JMO?
Edited by Black Crypt on Apr 29, 2013 at 12:38 PM
Edited by Black Crypt on Apr 29, 2013 at 12:39 PM

Edited by altis94 on Apr 29, 2013 at 12:43 PM

After Kingfish999 spent hours showing me through teamviewer how to put a vehicle together - mainly animations and a little tag editing I'm sad to say it all ended in tears :(

04.30.13 01:08:09  sapien pc 01.00.00.0609 ----------------------------------------------
04.30.13 01:08:09  reference function: _write_to_error_file
04.30.13 01:08:09  reference address: 401b13
04.30.13 01:08:09  Couldn't read map file './sapienbeta.map'
04.30.13 01:08:09  CreateDevice succeeded with refresh rate = 0
04.30.13 01:08:09  Sound card doesn't meet minimum hardware requirements.  Disabling hardware option.
04.30.13 01:08:09  Increasing sound decompression buffer size to 1048576 bytes
04.30.13 01:08:10  WARNING: 1 clusters in structure_bsp levels\test\tubes\tubes have no background sound or sound environment.
04.30.13 01:08:10  local player 0, weapon (0x0), deleted unexpectedly
04.30.13 01:08:27  EAX: 0x00000001
04.30.13 01:08:27  EBX: 0x00000001
04.30.13 01:08:27  ECX: 0x00000000
04.30.13 01:08:27  EDX: 0x00000000
04.30.13 01:08:27  EDI: 0x0017BF08
04.30.13 01:08:27  ESI: 0x00000000
04.30.13 01:08:27  EBP: 0x0017BDE0
04.30.13 01:08:27  ESP: 0x0017BDD4
04.30.13 01:08:27  EIP: 0x779AA636, C2 08 00 8D ?????
04.30.13 01:08:27  EXCEPTION halt in \halopc\haloce\source\tag_files\tag_groups.c,#3157: #-1 is not a valid animation_graph_unit_seat_block index in [#0,#0)

Someone please help me progress?

Must say though that the one to one tuition that Kingfish999 graciously provided helped me learn more in a few hours than I have in months. Thank you Kingfish999!
Edited by Black Crypt on Apr 29, 2013 at 08:13 PM

Open animations tag and add some stuff like "stand" here:

If that doesn't help then copy some more stuff from original warthog animations tag.

Thanks for the advice but I would like to understand why this is necessary.

Note : My new warthog doesn't have a gunner seat or gun mounted
Edited by Black Crypt on Apr 30, 2013 at 03:32 PM

All vehicles need unit for some reason.

Well...I got my vehicle in game but now I have some questions for all you smart fellas.

I want to add a horn and I'd like to attach it to the crouch button. I think it has something to do with functions, but all that A out and D in just confuses the hell out of me.

Can someone explain in simple terms how to do this? I have the sounds set up and I have a marker in the model to attach it to.

I also have a problem where the headlights stay on when I get out of the vehicle :/ all your help is very much appreciated.

For the horn:




And for the headlights make sure you have same functions as warthog has them. Try scrolling down to UNIT and make sure A in (if thats your headlight function) is driver seat power.

Having some trouble with my vehicle. Sapien crashes when I 'look' at my vehicle.

05.18.13 20:14:52  sapien pc 01.00.00.0609 ----------------------------------------------
05.18.13 20:14:52  reference function: _write_to_error_file
05.18.13 20:14:52  reference address: 401b13
05.18.13 20:14:52  Couldn't read map file './sapienbeta.map'
05.18.13 20:14:52  CreateDevice succeeded with refresh rate = 0
05.18.13 20:14:52  Sound card doesn't meet minimum hardware requirements.  Disabling hardware option.
05.18.13 20:14:53  Increasing sound decompression buffer size to 1048576 bytes
05.18.13 20:14:54  local player 0, weapon (0x0), deleted unexpectedly
05.18.13 20:15:05  EAX: 0x00000001
05.18.13 20:15:05  EBX: 0x00000001
05.18.13 20:15:05  ECX: 0x00000000
05.18.13 20:15:05  EDX: 0x00000000
05.18.13 20:15:05  EDI: 0x0017E080
05.18.13 20:15:05  ESI: 0x00000000
05.18.13 20:15:05  EBP: 0x0017DF58
05.18.13 20:15:05  ESP: 0x0017DF4C
05.18.13 20:15:05  EIP: 0x77BCA636, C2 08 00 8D ?????
05.18.13 20:15:05  EXCEPTION halt in \halopc\haloce\source\tag_files\tag_groups.c,#3157: #4 is not a valid damage_materials_block index in [#0,#4)

Edit : I have fixed this problem : I forgot to remove #markers from the collision model.
Edited by Black Crypt on May 18, 2013 at 04:25 PM