Vehicle mod with most of the work already done

[hardkopy]

The Brahmin pulling the caravan was done by arcoolka (sp) as a teaser video for RTS but it never actually made it to the mod.

 

Now down to brass tacks!

The reason Bethesda did not put drivable vehicles into the fallout FO3 and New Vegas is that the Gamebryo engine does not support true driveable vehicles, so modders have to adlib and find ways to push pull static models by either adding a bone to the model that becomes the player control point (Veliv), wearing it as an armor and having a platform which moves under & with the player(J3X), using it as a weapon (Nekhanimal and Killerbees), or AndyW's method (which I don't fully understand because I suk at math), or illyism method of freezing the player to a creature skeleton. All of the above mentioned should be commended for their brilliance because even a shitty vehicle mod is a breakthrough, and extremely hard to pulloff. Collision is mostly non existent on the reference the player drives and methods of creating the illusion of collision have to be sought but I won't go into this as it would take too long to explain. Basically it uses other objects around the model and calculations for gravity and hit radius. Essentially the player is hidden by making it invisible or frozen in pose while its controls are used to move the vehicle. The vehicle has to constantly remain with the player (because they are not attached)for each frame of movement and every cell change on the map which is extremely cpu/gpu intensive due to the several calculations per second. I could go on forever endeavoring to explain in my confusing way so I'm going to stop there. Sufficit to say that if Badlands was moddable besides hex editing, thats where I would put New Vegas.

 

Nothing I do or have done is unique and is directly attributed to one some or all of these great modders.

 

The french corvega, is a brilliant concept and I can't wait for it come out and I also hope the author allows usage of his files because I can't do animation and that car is perfect for one of my projects.

 

Unfortunately this is not Grand Theft Auto (my teething ground) so what you are asking is virtually impossible due to game engine restraints. The closest that can be done is similar to the hoverchair by utilising menus on key in order to enter an interior cell (your mobile home). I do have other ideas but will have to see if they are plausible before committing. So essentially, you enter (mount) your vehicle, drive to you destination, dismount, access a menu giving you options to either open storage, perform maintenance such as (refueling re energising etc) or enter the vehicle interior.

 

I don't know how many of you remember Jasons pilotable boat from oblivion where you could take your companions into the interior and tell them to wait while you physically sailed the boat to another location, on which arriving, you could retrieve your companions from its interior cell. This is what I'm working on for a mobile home, base, whatever. Its doable, (Arlix did a similar thing for J3X vertibird in FO3 by utilising a menu system) but to actually open a door and enter?, I think is impossible, because the vehicle is the whole activation point.

 

On a happier note, I have been given a train resource to use for my Trains Planes and Automobiles project complete with animation and have begun laying down the blueprint for the whole concept of train travel within the Mojave desert.

 

I hope I haven't shattered your enthusiasm, but rather given you insight into the mechanics of creating a believable moving vehicle for this game engine.

 

OAN (on another note) When people talk about realisim in this series, it makes me laugh. Your telling me after 200 years, the survivors and thier children of the fallout can weild and repair discovered technolgy but don't know how to fix a simple fuel driven vehicle. They make concrete for dams but can't fix the roads? they can send rockets into space but can't fix airplanes

(Hah I knew this was an American spell checker!) . Anyhoo, you see what I'm getting at? This is a fantasy game, people! REALISM has no place!

 

Cheers

Chris Taylor nz

Edited December 2, 2010 by hardkopy

[Nekhanimal]

And here's a Hoverboard!

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37083

[frank lee]

Really good explanation hardkopy but the prize for digging the best ditches is a bigger shovel :tongue: so could you explain how animals can 'move' the player, as in creatures can push you (the player) around? This was kinda my reasoning behind asking about the whole ride-able thing.

Creatures have models, animations, and interaction stuff already written. I kinda thought. . .hoped it was just a case of adding some controlling type script.

Sorry to keep butting in with animals but I'm learning more from this thread than any dozen others.

 

As for the hoverchair, playing the game as a wheelchair user! F**k Me, thats hardcore!

[zeuzer]

Gamebryo engine can use cars there is car game that use this engine maby the modders can pick some tips from this game

it is IHRA Drag Racing: Sportsman Edition

[hardkopy]

LOL @ Nekhanimal. Go for it dude, that board is AWESOME!

 

@ Zeuzer

If I don't miss my guess, that is an entirely different game where the vehicle remains in the centre of the screen while the scenery moves around it, giving the illusion movement. The vehicle animations make it more convincing.

 

Jees Frank you got me scratching my head :) There is a "PushAwayActor" variable embedded into scripts which triggers within a certain radius of a linked reference. The HoverChair and other mods similar use this variable to give the illusion of colliding with a creature and or npc. you'll notice with the HoverChair that there are some NV creature and groups it does not affect. This is because I haven't added them to the PushAwayActor list yet. This will done in a future update hopefully not too far away.

 

The problem isn't the push pull thing, Frank. Unlike Oblivions horses, there is no bone (Bip02) on which to seat the player. Thats where Velivs motorcycle comes in. He took Xsilver's Fenrir motorcycle from Oblivion and made it the base on which the player is seated (Bip01). There is an extra bone in Oblivion creatures (Bip02) which is missing from fallout skeleton series specifically because Bethesda never intended there be any mounts in Fallout due to the small map area. I'm not clued up on the animation thing, if I was, I'd make my own vehicle skeleton complete with turning wheels for third view and steering wheel for ist person. So, I have to make do with the skeletons available which are barely satisfactory.

 

Your right on track with the animal thing. I don't think there is one vehicle mod that doesn't use a creature skeleton of one type or another (even the hover board uses a cockroach) because (in my experience) without a skeleton, the model is invisible. The creature animations are also used to direct the vehicle and apply collision. The original hoverchair used 3 eyebots, for collision detection (the sentry bot was just for show).

 

To date, blowflys, cockroach, centaurs, all robots, and other creatures have been used in one form or another for their skeleton and animations,

 

You seem very keen to learn the process, so I'll direct you here...

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2126&start=0&hilit=vehicles where you will glean information from the pioneers themselves. Wow! its been a long time since I went there. Talk about nostalgia, I still have Veliv's and (I think) FR_dZastreux original files.

 

Thanks for the shovel Frank, I'll be sure to keep it clean and well sharpened.

Edited December 5, 2010 by hardkopy