Jeeps rear wheels...

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:45 am

i have been studying the jeep a lot, and i noticed that it handles as if it is only 2 wheel steering, not 4 as it looks visualy, and i am wondering if there is any way to make it so the rear wheels dont visualy "steer" so it looks more normal.

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:57 am

I figure it'll be in the jmad, but my research into it hasn't gotten me anywhere. Hope you have better luck.
[edit] On second thought, it may be as simple as removing the bones from the model. If you remove the wrong one the wheels won't turn (I think...I'm mostly guessing here) but if you remove the bone where it steers, it might work.

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 11:07 am

and what would i need to do that? cos im realy only a texture modder....

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 12:00 pm

Um... I've only messed with it a little, but I'll explain what I know:
Open the map in insolence (maybe other progs too... dunno), find the warthog in the mode tag. Switch to dev mode, one of the tags there should be bones. You'll find bones for every moving part of the vehicle. I haven't quite figured out how everything works (read: don't have a freakin' clue), but I've figured the last 3 unknowns under each bone are coordinates.
Hm.... I'm looking at the hog right now and I'm not sure which bones it would be. Either the engines (there's lf, lb, rf, and rb ones; one for each wheel) or the tires themselves. I would think nulling out the tires would keep them from turning, though, not just from steering. I guess just experiment with it. I'll try experimenting a bit, too, if I get some time, and let you know.
[edit] I found some time. I went into the jmad tag, opened the hog, and went to unknown 4. It only has one thing in it: steering. There were two numbers there that were identical. I decided they must be the angle the wheels were turning, so I tried changing the second to NaN. Well, I was right about the angle thing, but unfortunately, the first is for the left side of the hog (front and back) and the second is for the right side, so all I succeeded in doing was making it so the wheels on the right didn't turn, but the left ones still did.

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 12:43 pm

oh, ok, would there be a way of removing the joint or whatever to forceably lock it straight?

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:13 pm

I'm working on it. Had some entertaining results so far. Think I've almost figured it out, though. Back in a few...

n64nerd · Post by **n64nerd** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:15 pm

the jmads are set; unless you want to make new ones, you're stuck with disabling one side or another. Currently, I don't think there's a way to make new ones.

superaison · Post by **superaison** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:24 pm

this makes me thing, add wheels to a ghost:D

n64nerd · Post by **n64nerd** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:33 pm

Is that even possible? the wheels are contained in the warthog's model, and the ghost doesn't even have a steering jmad, despite the fact that the jmad only changes the animation, not the effect.

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:41 pm

Forget the jmads. The trick is to make the wheels not be recognized by the jmads.
Well, I've reached the end of where my knowledge can take me. I've managed to lock the wheels, but they're in the wrong place. So I'll tell you what I got and hopefully someone smarter can figure out the rest.
I went to the bone tag, like I said, and essentially removed the bone for each of the rear engines (it seems this is where the steering takes place). Bone 7 is the left rear engine. I changed it's parent (number 2--the left rear suspension) to -1 (basically it has no parent now) and it's child (number 11--the left rear tire) to -1 as well. Then I changed number 2's child from 7 (engine), to 11 (the tire), then went back to 11 and changed its parent to 2. Then I did the same things for the right side: bones 4, 9, and 13. The problem is in the coordinates for the bones. The last 3 unknowns are the coords (at least I'm pretty sure they are) but not in relation to the entire hog. They behave as if the parent bone is at (0,0,0) so, by giving it a parent closer to the center of the hog, it moves the wheels there too. I tried adding the "distance to parent" of the tire to the engine's (this would give it the proper distance) but that didn't have any effect.
So what's left to be done is adding the values of the coordinates of the tire to the coords of the engine, which should put it in the right place. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be able to be altered, which means hex editing is required and that's just out of my league. I hope you or somebody can figure out how to do it. Good luck.
On a side note, figuring this out has had the serendipitous result of presenting a possible solution to the problem I've been working on for the better part of a month, so thank you for that.

n64nerd · Post by **n64nerd** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:47 pm

somebody should definitely make an updated jmad tag. Unfortunately, I know less about programming than I do about jmads, so we'd better leave this to the pros.

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:08 pm

snaku wrote:Forget the jmads. The trick is to make the wheels not be recognized by the jmads.
Well, I've reached the end of where my knowledge can take me. I've managed to lock the wheels, but they're in the wrong place. So I'll tell you what I got and hopefully someone smarter can figure out the rest.
I went to the bone tag, like I said, and essentially removed the bone for each of the rear engines (it seems this is where the steering takes place). Bone 7 is the left rear engine. I changed it's parent (number 2--the left rear suspension) to -1 (basically it has no parent now) and it's child (number 11--the left rear tire) to -1 as well. Then I changed number 2's child from 7 (engine), to 11 (the tire), then went back to 11 and changed its parent to 2. Then I did the same things for the right side: bones 4, 9, and 13. The problem is in the coordinates for the bones. The last 3 unknowns are the coords (at least I'm pretty sure they are) but not in relation to the entire hog. They behave as if the parent bone is at (0,0,0) so, by giving it a parent closer to the center of the hog, it moves the wheels there too. I tried adding the "distance to parent" of the tire to the engine's (this would give it the proper distance) but that didn't have any effect.
So what's left to be done is adding the values of the coordinates of the tire to the coords of the engine, which should put it in the right place. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be able to be altered, which means hex editing is required and that's just out of my league. I hope you or somebody can figure out how to do it. Good luck.
On a side note, figuring this out has had the serendipitous result of presenting a possible solution to the problem I've been working on for the better part of a month, so thank you for that.

so the problem thats now presented is the rear wheels are now in the wrong place?
cos youve successfully stopped them from doing the steering animation.
now im thinking, is there a way to link the wheels to the position on the suspension (where they usualy are) while still keeping them disconnected from the steering animation system?

---EDIT---
also, is there a way to completly remove the suspension & wheels, for a flying jeep kinda thing?

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:52 pm

One of the things I tried doing was just disconnecting the tires' bones. That resulted in invisible tires (actually, they probably weren't there at all: like you could've shot/melee'd without hitting anything, but the hog still drove like they were). However, disconnecting the engines didn't make anything go away. I presume this is because the tires are a seperate model (when you extract a vehicle you get several models that form the whole). If the suspension isn't in the same model as the body of the hog, removing the bones would make them go away (assuming I'm right about what happened to the tires). Another thing I tried, with amusing results, was to null out the rear tires' markers. Marker is just below bones in the mode tag. This resulted in the tires having no physics and probably no collision. They went into the ground up to the part where the suspension started (since it still had it's phmo). They still spun (in fact, nothing I've done has removed the spinning--which is a good thing) but they didn't have any traction. It was a very squirrely ride: impossible to control.
As far as moving the tires to the correct position after linking them directly to the suspension, as I said, it would require the ability to edit their coords, which Insolence doesn't seem to be able to do for some reason. If anybody knows how to hex edit and wants to give it a try, pm me and I'll tell you everything I know. I'm just barely starting to try to learn hex myself, but I'm not making much headway.
Also, if anybody is interested in changing how far the wheels turn, it's in the jmad, unknown 4. There are two identical values: both 6-point-something. The first is how far ALL the wheels will turn to the left, and the second is how far they will all turn to the right. (I didn't test enough before I made my earlier post, so my conclusion was wrong).

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 9:51 pm

ok, now just to make sure i'm looking at the correct thing here, what version of Insolence are you using? and this is all in shared map right? cos some small parts of the jeep (headlight glow) and other small things are auctualy in the level's map file.

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:34 pm

I downloaded Insolence from their site maybe a month ago, so it'd probably be the most recent version. I'm actually experimenting in Coagulation, not shared. Hm... Perhaps that's what I'm doing wrong. I'll have to check to see if the coords can be fixed in shared.

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 11:22 pm

OH NOOOOOO, i was hunting for insolence, and i found this page on halomods.... http://www.halomods.com/site2/geeklog-1 ... 9183224523

the bad thing is the link to insolence's site 404's

---EDIT---
i found Insolence v1.rar on Teamhlo's site.... now to experement,
Snaku, if you discover anything else, can you let me know plz.

---EDIT---
and again, another problem... insolence wont load any maps, "the index boundry was outside the array" or something.

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:00 am

I get the index error when I try to open shared.map. Guess that's a no-go. So you can't get it to open any maps at all?

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:36 am

well, i can get into one or two, but not headlong, and coag, cos thats where 99% of my modding happens.

---EDIT---
if you can send your ver with plugins to me that would be great.

---Edit---
i also found another app at team hlo's site, Insolence Map Studio Beta or something... have you ever used it?

Snaku · Post by **Snaku** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:44 am

I've messed with IMS a little, but haven't gotten anywhere with it. Earlier I tried messing with the hog's bones in every map editing ap I've got (including IMS). It seems Insolence is the only one that can do it, though.
Where/how do you want me to send it? I was gonna' pm you, but it doesn't seem to allow for attachments there.
I'd just like to report that I've done a lot more experimenting. Still no results. Well, no results that'd be worth putting in a game, anyway.

dazzajay · Post by **dazzajay** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 3:54 am

i will pm my email addy to you,
any totally random results that would be good for "funnieness"?