[WIP] The Real Roadtrain

[BenMillard]

 

I think we're confusing each other.  When I was talking about trying to use the artict trailer, I didn't mean hooking them up together, I meant I tried what you're suggesting.  Hook up the Artict1/2/3 trailer to the truck, then hook the baggage trailers behind it.  That is what I tried with the dummies setup and aligned, and they do not hitch up at all, so I'm assuming the game isn't coded to allow it, unlike the baggage cars.  I just ponder why you can hook the artict trailers to the rear of the train (if setup correctly).

Oh, I thought you said earlier that when you added the misc_a part to the rear of the Artic models they could be connected with the BagBox ones. Oops.

 

(EDIT) Interesting stuff, Mercie. Could you tell us what dummy objects it has and what it's heirarchy is like?

Edited December 24, 2005 by Cerbera

[DeathSquad]

 

Just a compared picture between the regular artict trailer that was somewhat of the same design as the road train trailer. I did ponder what the "extra" box piece was for, but after looking tonight and as Mercie showed us, its a cover for the back area. There's a collision sphere in the rear of the road train trailer, which is what you're bumping into to. I'm assuming after checking the vehicle.ide that this isn't like the other unused vehicles such as the Police Tank and that giant plane. So I doubt they would hook up. What I'd be interesting in, is seeing if there is any code about this trailer, something blocked out like the hot coffee stuff.

 

I think it would be worth wild to experiment with these trailers, see if it was possible to hook them up as they were built to be, I'm thinking though that maybe Rockstar ran into the same problem as I did with the weight of the trailers screwing up balance and how they roll, and just scrapped the idea. Maybe use the trailer with the extra in place (as seen in the rear of Mercie's picture) as the tow behind trailers in the road train.

 

 

For you Cerbera and anyone else woundering. The first heirarchy is an untouched trailer, 2nd is the Road Train Trailer found in the game, and then bagboxa and bagboxb from my rar archieve. Anyways, Merry Christmas to all.

[Mercie]

So what about using rdtraint as the first car followed by a modified bagbox to have trailers? Like a train made from the baggage handler...

 

Mmmm, that makes no sense. Whatever...

 

 

edit... So I was messing around with things... and because you all are cool I thought I would show you this before putting a download link here

 

 

Is one Coach enough? Ima fix the little model flaw in the trailer real quick.

 

I was also playing around with the towtruck... I'll post screes real soon.

 

 

Small pickup with a huge vehicle behind it? I think not...

 

 

 

Edit 2

 

 

Transit train?

 

 

edit 3

 

Who does not want to travel in class?

 

Edited December 25, 2005 by Mercie

[BenMillard]

Erm, what did you actually do to connect all those vehicles together? A picture may say a thousand words, but sometimes you have to write some as well!

[Mercie]

I modified the coach to work as the baggage model and then made it fit as the bagboxa model. SO I used all the dummies for the respective vehicles to get the desired result... A tug and trailers.

[DeathSquad]

Yeah I was going to ask if you were using the bagbox slots for those (was guessing yes, and I was right). So there's more fun than just road trains to be had, I've actually seen some buses setup like that up in Ottawa Canada, was two buses connected to each other, except they had a rubber boot like a subway car to connect them. Interesting stuff. I espcially like the big-rig wrecker, I actually had planned on converting one of the lineruns into a wrecker with the big boom on the back, or even just using the tow truck model mounted to the back like you have it.

 

There's also some other trailers we might have available to this use. I haven't looked or experimented with the little Water Utility Trailer for the Utility Truck, and lets not forget about the staircase at the airport, that might even be usable for a 3rd trailer in the road train setup. Could use bagboxa as the semi-trailer, bagboxb as the connecting trailer, than the staircase for the rear trailer, if I'm not mistaken the staircase isn't coded to hook up to other trailers. Also for pulling vehicles, don't forget there is also the baggage truck, I did replace it with the linerun at some point, but it kept crashing when I tried to get in it to drive it (cause I forgot to change the animation flags in one of the files).

 

But I will say "sweet" to those pictures Mercie. Off to more holiday fun...I think at some point tonight I'm going to check out the mission scripting for the game, see if anything trailer related is in the SCM, but I'm guessing its probably more of a EXE thing.

 

- Crazy Train.

Edited December 26, 2005 by DeathSquad

[DeathSquad]

Before someone says it, I'll just state that double posting is bad, but is alright (at least in my opinion) when more than 1.5 days have pasted, else if you keep editing your last entry, no one will know you've got new stuff. Big image, sorry dial up users if this makes your computer slow...but I'm in the same boat.

 

 

So here's a somewhat finished product, this is the Original Road Train Trailer, the "extra" hood is now part of the structure. Bagboxa Trailer is the larger trailer mostly seen above, Bagboxb is shorter than the semi-trailer (original road train trailer length). All trailers have 5 billboards which will randomly appear, like one of the other trailers, I made my own logos of course, including a props one for GTAF, GTAG, and the help from Cerbera and Mercie. The others are my two favorite web comics, mine and the trucking school I trained at.

 

- Massive Train Trick

 

The fuzzy larger picture in the above imagine is an -8- Trailer Road Train, I had to take it from a fraps video cause as Cerbera pointed out, after the 4th car it gets really hard to keep the trailers (before the game sucks them away). The trick to getting really long road trains is the SA Camera Hack program, which allows you to move your camera view about and edit/save it (for those who haven't used it before). Pull the camera way back and save its position. Then you press whatever key enables the free look mode, which will freeze the camera in place and not move with you or your vehicle. Get out of the truck, walk back and spawn the trailer, and connect it (by pushing it around). Of course this takes a little time and effort, getting the trailers aligned, hooked up and not freaking the camera back. If you need to adjust the camera distance, jump back into the truck and remove the free look mode, readjust and resave, click free look mode back on.

 

I'd almost say this was good enough for release, my models might need some lighting work, I think they're kind of dark looking in game. The Tug-Stairs at the airport do not work too well with the baggage carts, it seems the model is forced to connect at a lower height than the dummy, putting pressure on the front of the trailer. I think if I adjust the dummy to be lower on this tug-stair trailer, it'll work. You cannot connect anything to the rear of this trailer, tried and failed. But this trailer slot if worked out could be used as a cabose (sp?) type trailer.

[BenMillard]

This project is making great progress - nice work DS.

 

Is it possible to add a second rear axle to all the trailers?

 

Could you make the front axle of the semi-trailer invisible? It looks very weird seeing it sat on the fifth wheel of a semi tractor like a semi trailer should but having a front axle as if it were a regular truck trailer, imho.

 

The random billboards on the trains is excellent, I forgot you could do stuff like that in GTA!

 

You could replace the mobile stairs with another trailer and only put it in the rearmost position. Caboose trailers seem to be ones with a central set of axles? I think the truck-trailer style we have for BagBoxB looks and works best for the road trains.

 

Did you actually get very far with all those trailers? I can drive around the whole of GTASA if I stick to the interstates and wide roads with four trailers...but I think a fifth would be impossible to get far with?

[Mercie]

This project is making great progress - nice work DS.

 

Is it possible to add a second rear axle to all the trailers?

 

Could you make the front axle of the semi-trailer invisible? It looks very weird seeing it sat on the fifth wheel of a semi tractor like a semi trailer should but having a front axle as if it were a regular truck trailer, imho.

 

The random billboards on the trains is excellent, I forgot you could do stuff like that in GTA!

 

You could replace the mobile stairs with another trailer and only put it in the rearmost position. Caboose trailers seem to be ones with a central set of axles? I think the truck-trailer style we have for BagBoxB looks and works best for the road trains.

Once I get my hands on the actual files, I can add a 3rd axle to each trailer as well as make unique collision files to allow for better shapes here.

 

Question... Does bagboxb work like bagboxa? Can we make bagboxb a petrolium roadtrain setup?

[DeathSquad]

- The logo is a replica of the school's training trailers. Always fun to be driving 10 miles an hour down a crowded avenue for the first time in a semi with that STUDENT DRIVER TRAINING plastered on the sides and back, 50 cars behind you all giving you the one finger salute.

 

Double Axle Trailer (Triple Axle, Front Tires are invis) with my very first scratch built tires, simple but based off the common aluminum rims used on Internationals. Landing Gear does not function as in the Artict trailers (probably never catch but they do raise and lower). In this its always up, but there for the more realistic effect, rather than a mysterious floating front end.

 

@Cerbera: The 8 Car Road Train went from Martin Bridge to the north end of Gant Bridge, in which the cars flew apart from going over a hill at 80 something. I made an animated gif of several shots of the accident, I've been making Fraps videos but as said before, dial up user. Click for Gif

 

@Mercie: Bagboxa and Bagboxb work the same, and are the only two trailers in the game so far that I found can be connected to each other. Personally this is what I want to release, basically a set of trailers for use in road trains. I'd love a petrolium tanker for this. The only problem at the moment is you can only have one middle car (bagboxb), but switching around could be made easy (install all dffs and txd into the IMG, then just play the rename game). I'm also going to look into seeing if the other trailers can be coded the same as the bagboxes.

 

@Cerbera again: You'd have to find an example of a cabbose trailer, I was just using the term cabbose. There are two possible trailers to use in this position, Utility-Trailer and Staircase-Trailer. The only difference with these trailers is they connect at a lower point then the other trailers (no matter where the dummy height is at).

 

 

This is a quick flatbed trailer I made (out of the road train trailer) with a freakish 3rd axle, and freakish hitch in the front. The previous experiment in which the hitch was the same height as the road train trailer hitches caused the trailer to dog down in the front, struggling to keep the connection. But still, these trailers connect and can be used.

 

There's roughly 6 vehicles and 7 trailers which can be used in combo form, here's a confusing text graph...

 

Linerun       - 5th Wheel Connnection [Class I Hitch]Road Train    - 5th Wheel Connnection [Class I Hitch]Tanker        - 5th Wheel Connnection [Class I Hitch]Baggage       - Pintle / Ball Hitch [Class II Hitch]Tug           - Pintle / Ball Hitch [Class II Hitch]Utility Truck - Pintle / Ball Hitch [Class II Hitch]Bagboxa       - Uses 5th Wheel          * Dual Hitching AbilityBagboxb       - Uses Pintle/Ball Hitch  * Dual Hitching AbilityArtict1       - Uses 5th Wheel          * Single Hitching AbilityArtict2       - Uses 5th Wheel          * Single Hitching AbilityArtict3       - Uses 5th Wheel          * Single Hitching AbilityUtiltrl       - Uses Pintle/Ball Hitch  * Single Hitching AbilityStaircs       - Uses Pintle/Ball Hitch  * Single Hitching Ability[Class I Hitch]+-+[bagboxa]+-+[bagboxb]+-+[bagboxb]+-+[utiltrl or Staircs][Class II Hitch]+-+[bagboxb]+-+[bagboxb]+-+[bagboxb]+-+[utiltrl or Staircs]

 

 

One of my next tasks is going to be searching out the code that deals with the hitching, it'd be well worth it if all trailers had dual hitching ability. but I'm thinking this might be coding within the exe and not scm. Also I still want to use the converter dolly in this system, it could be used in several ways, suck as you could make it bagboxb and then use it to make Combo Trailers between Bagboxa and the Artict trailers. And if I get it so all trailers can connect to each other, it could replace one of the trailers, so all trailers wouldn't have to be pintle hitch trailers.

Edited December 28, 2005 by DeathSquad

[BenMillard]

Could the rear hitching issue be solved if you simply placed the dummy in midair, hovering above the actual hitch?

 

The text chart about the hitching abilities is very informative. Definitely a good subject to write a GTAmodding Wiki page about.

[DeathSquad]

Height of the dummy doesn't seem to be a factor, at least from its settings in the model. Picture below shows the rear of the bagboxb and front of the flatbed trailer I made. The red square is the location of the dummies on each trailer. Seems to only matter how they are aligned in the vertical plane. Is does matter how far apart they are though, as the Tug vehicle at the moment will not hook up with the staircase (which its suppose to) or the bagboxb trailer. The hitch and dummy on the tug vehicle is very low to the ground.

 

 

Also on a side note, you can tow vehicles on flatbed trailers, seems to work as fine as much as the game allows it. Also to note that when I attempted to hitch other trailers up, I had the dummies aligned dead center.

[Alexander_]

Hi guys, look at this:

 

I've got problem there on first pic, i dont know how to do that, I dont have any idea.

[Mercie]

Please show us your 3DSM view with a wireframe. Chances are it is just dummy placement... But we will see.

 

So, post...

 

Dollie Wireframe with all objects visible

Trailer Wire frame "" "" ""

 

 

Then we can help

[Alexander_]

Look like this:

[Mercie]

Everything pans out. Double check the heirarchy. In this case, the dummies don't seem to be used in the proper location ingame. Bleh. I hate dummies.

[DeathSquad]

The dummies do act strange in this vehicle to trailer connections, some trailers have a tendacy to connect only to the bumper, such as the utility trailers and such (or it could just be in my mind). I must ask what is the trailer setup in game, I'm assuming bagboxa is the first trailer then the dolly is bagboxb. If you e-mail or post a link up for me to download, I might be able to screw around with them.

 

For some reason the forum won't display this IMG..Click Here..

 

This is what I've been working on, flatbed trailer. Its using the basic structure of the road train trailer, more or less just sharpening up on my zmod skills, and learning zmod2. Retextured the entire thing, added new things like my license plates, new "long trailer" and a few other signs, including the bumper sticker I'd have on my rig...if the company wouldn't complain about it. There are two versions, the original size which will be the same width as all of the roadtrain trailers, then a "Wide Load" one which can hold the dozer for transport. Trailer does have a modeled ramp on the back, which I put as an extra so you can have it with or without it, either or still has the collision data so you can drive up on it.

Edited December 30, 2005 by DeathSquad

[RainingAcid]

Before someone says it, I'll just state that double posting is bad, but is alright (at least in my opinion) when more than 1.5 days have pasted, else if you keep editing your last entry, no one will know you've got new stuff. Big image, sorry dial up users if this makes your computer slow...but I'm in the same boat.

 

 

So here's a somewhat finished product, this is the Original Road Train Trailer, the "extra" hood is now part of the structure. Bagboxa Trailer is the larger trailer mostly seen above, Bagboxb is shorter than the semi-trailer (original road train trailer length). All trailers have 5 billboards which will randomly appear, like one of the other trailers, I made my own logos of course, including a props one for GTAF, GTAG, and the help from Cerbera and Mercie. The others are my two favorite web comics, mine and the trucking school I trained at.

 

- Massive Train Trick

 

The fuzzy larger picture in the above imagine is an -8- Trailer Road Train, I had to take it from a fraps video cause as Cerbera pointed out, after the 4th car it gets really hard to keep the trailers (before the game sucks them away). The trick to getting really long road trains is the SA Camera Hack program, which allows you to move your camera view about and edit/save it (for those who haven't used it before). Pull the camera way back and save its position. Then you press whatever key enables the free look mode, which will freeze the camera in place and not move with you or your vehicle. Get out of the truck, walk back and spawn the trailer, and connect it (by pushing it around). Of course this takes a little time and effort, getting the trailers aligned, hooked up and not freaking the camera back. If you need to adjust the camera distance, jump back into the truck and remove the free look mode, readjust and resave, click free look mode back on.

 

I'd almost say this was good enough for release, my models might need some lighting work, I think they're kind of dark looking in game. The Tug-Stairs at the airport do not work too well with the baggage carts, it seems the model is forced to connect at a lower height than the dummy, putting pressure on the front of the trailer. I think if I adjust the dummy to be lower on this tug-stair trailer, it'll work. You cannot connect anything to the rear of this trailer, tried and failed. But this trailer slot if worked out could be used as a cabose (sp?) type trailer.

How did you managed to get ALL those trailers hooked up like that?

[Alexander_]

 

Sth like this.

[DeathSquad]

Well as said in the instructions (that you quoted) you position your camera far far away from the truck rear, save that position in the SA Camera Hack, then you hit whatever button enables "Free Look Mode" which will lock the camera in place. I use Spaceeinstein's All In One mod which has a good spawning program to spawn all the trailers, connect the semi-trailer to the truck and park it, then start spawning the road train trailers one at a time. Its a long process. To position the trailers you can either push them with your character, or the easier way is to spawn the DOZER and use it to push the trailers around. Sometimes the trailers will hitch up, sometimes not and you have to run up to the truck and pull it forward. Its not a fun process to do, but if you're sucessful you can have one hell of a long road train.

 

The most I've gotten is 12 trailers hooked up, unfortunatly my game has a crashing problems (unrelated to the road train stuff).

[RainingAcid]

I can't use CamHack. The Speedometer doesn't even show up.

[DeathSquad]

Just curious if anyone is working on any trailers for this "Road Train Package" I'd like to make. If not, I'm going to finish up the trailers that I have and release at least V1 (doubt there'd be anymore versions). Checked into the coding part of trailers and such but really found nothing pretaining to how the trailers hitch up, mainly the spawning of trailers connected to each other (for the trucking missions and the actual train in the game).

[BenMillard]

How about making that two-level car transporter which you could load up by using the Packer? That would be more interesting (and realistic) than the super-wide low loader for carrying the super-wide Dozer around, imho.

[DeathSquad]

Well I haven't heard back from Mercie but I proposed a three trailer car carrier, first and second trailer would be double levels with just a ramp for the bottom section, then the end trailer would have the ramp leading to the top racks. Would carry roughly 4 cars, possibly 8 if build large enough (or more since the second trailer would be bagboxb, thus you could setup a long chain of them).

 

As for the flatbed trailers, there will be two versions, the regular trailer width sized then the wide load, which is realistic at least by US Standards, wide load trailer has roughly 6 inches to a foot of space on either side when on the road, which my wide load has.

[Mercie]

Well I haven't heard back from Mercie but I proposed a three trailer car carrier, first and second trailer would be double levels with just a ramp for the bottom section, then the end trailer would have the ramp leading to the top racks. Would carry roughly 4 cars, possibly 8 if build large enough (or more since the second trailer would be bagboxb, thus you could setup a long chain of them).

 

As for the flatbed trailers, there will be two versions, the regular trailer width sized then the wide load, which is realistic at least by US Standards, wide load trailer has roughly 6 inches to a foot of space on either side when on the road, which my wide load has.

I've been gone for a bit. Let me get settled and I'll take a look into your PM. And I have been working on trailers... one not for the train

[LibertyCityStories]

Is someone still working on this project?

[Adler]

Been 6 years. I don't think so buddy.