Airplanes and GTA IV 101

[Picolini]

 

 

**I know there's a thread about this already, but it's not a proper one, I'm hoping this one will be the permanent home for general airplane discussion.**

 

Lame boring intro.

Since the GTA3 there have been flyable planes in the GTA Series, yes the wingless Dodo counts! But due to R* wanting a sense of realism and scale they decided to keep planes out of the city since you'd fly across the map in a short amount of time (something like 30 seconds?) at a realistic speed.

 

While I respect their decision to do so, I feel they've left out a fun activity we all enjoy. Even before the console release, I've stated several times that if it comes out for PC I'll make sure we have planes for IV. Now that it is out for PC and I've got it, others and I are on the path to making planes in GTA IV a reality.

 

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Plane info, how it works.

For starters, GTA IV's coding is much like the previous version, which helped a lot. R* left over bits of coding from previous games, including airplane data which still works in the game.

 

Enough of the talk, let's get down to business. The single biggest factor into making a vehicle an airplane is to change the TYPE stat in the vehicle.ide file to plane instead of car. This will give the vehicle plane attributes such as being able to fly, pitch, and roll. I have yet to figure out how to apply yaw.

 

As with GTA SA you can simply add in the secondary handling line for the vehicle you are making a plane. This is the area where the line starts with a $ symbol near the end of the handling.dat file. Just simply copy an existing planes data line for ease and edit it as you like.

 

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I don't care how it works! Just give me code to fly!

First off, REMEMBER TO BACK UP YOUR FILES!

 

Now, I know a lot of people don't want to know how to make the vehicles into planes, they just want to take advantage of our findings.

 

As said before, I can NOT get yaw to work, that's the lateral left and right movement, like cars normally make driving down the road. So sadly you'll need a bit of a straight away to get up to speed to take off. Once you are in the air you can roll (regular left/right buttons) and pull up or down (lean forward/backward buttons) to turn in the desired direction.

Flaii posted a video in another where he seemed to be turning on the ground, so maybe he can shed some light on that subject.

 

Here's what I've done to get the Uranus flying.

 

Copy this over the URANUS lines in the handling.dat file.

Line 1 (first line)

 

URANUS 2000.0 15.0 75 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1 0.30 1.0 250.0 0.5 0.60 0.7 45.0 0.95 0.85 8.0 0.10 0.5 1.2 0.7 0.7 0.20 -0.05 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 45000 4000000 400000 0

 

 

Line 2, add this in after the line that starts with "#$FIGHTER"

 

$ URANUS 1.0 2.0 0.0 -0.003 0.002 0.10 0.010 -0.0001 0.005 0.0050 0.0 0.1 1.0 1.0 0.0 0.01 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

 

 

Copy this over the URANUS line in the vehicles.ide file.

 

uranus,  uranus,  plane,  URANUS,  URANUS,  VEH@LOW,	VEH@LOW_HI2_HI2,	100,	999,  0.2250,	0.2250,  0.5	1,	1.0	,1,	ext_gang+ext_strong+ext_all

 

 

The code above is slightly different than the one used in this video, but it's basically the same thing.

 

 

 

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What's next?

Well... hard to say!

The single most immediate problem is getting control of the yaw (lateral, left/right movement of the plane). I don't know how! Hopefully some one can help with that.

 

The next biggest problems won't be up for review until we are able to modify the vehicles themselves and put them in game. My guess is that we may be faced with animation problems (ailerons, rudders, doors/hatches, landing gear). Beyond that I really don't know. I would think it's rather smooth sailing (or should I say flying??) after that.

 

So, feel free to add to the discussion! This is all to better the enjoyment of GTA IV for us all, the more minds on the subject the better.

[violetblood]

awesome!

[BlOoDStReAm101]

Now all that's left is to actually create an airplane and being able to fly the thing. Great thread so far. Good tutorial.

[SaintJimmy]

Excellent work on the simple instructions Pic

[leik oh em jeez!]

Where's OnePiece? We need some HD SA Planes in IV.

Good to see this happening. Can't wait till we can add vehicles, and I get IV on PC...

[GamerShotgun]

Did someone actually try to replace the car name and model in both handling and vehicles to a plane's model?

[Picolini]

Did someone actually try to replace the car name and model in both handling and vehicles to a plane's model?

Not exactly sure what you mean by that.

There are no planes in the game that are vehicles, at least none that I know of. I have only peeked at the IMG files and it seems they aren't .dff files anymore, so using old GTA vehicles/mods definitely won't work or I'd try that. If some one finds a dodo or fighter model file in the vehicles.img file, then I'm pretty sure I could get it working with no effort.

 

And thanks guys, glad I could help!

 

@BlOoDStReAm101, pretty much. I plan on converting a BF2 plane ASAP, as it'll look GREAT in the game. Of course I can't really show that off or release it here, so I'll probably convert the Hydra or something from SA for info/example purposes.

 

Hopefully pinky will find his way into this thread. And hopefully he's got a plane mod planned when possible

 

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On the subject of planes now, I have noticed a few things.

There seems to be a height limit like in SA where the plane tops out and loses control, and starts to fall. This limit seems lower out at sea, although it could just be a perspective thing.

 

Also, the plane seems twitchy at high speeds, like in SA. The highest I got in SA before the game completely freaked out was about 1,000-1,200mph. The plane gets twitchy at what feels a little more than half that. But this of course means there's no 186mph limit on planes, which is great. Modders who want proper handling will just have to adjust the handling lines to avoid these speeds.

[leik oh em jeez!]

What about the NPC/map object planes at the airport?

[Picolini]

 

What about the NPC/map object planes at the airport?

Ah, knew I forgot to mention that.

I'm pretty sure those are just map objects. When you hit them their collision is just like a hitting a building, the planes don't react. If I remember right they do have retracted landing gear when in the sky... but I doubt they have any vehicle attributes such as dummies for wheel positions or ailerons, etc etc.

The planes can be converted to be used as vehicles though, with a little work.

 

edit: Sorry to ask this here, but I figure some one can help me. Anyone have the original xlive.dll file? It's in the Rockstar Games/GTA IV directory.

Edited December 26, 2008 by Picolini

[Dweirdo]

when sparkIV will be able to import textures we could change the textures of a car to a plane.

am i right?

and thanks can't wait to try it.

is it possible to do so using LUA?

[pinky]

 

Did someone actually try to replace the car name and model in both handling and vehicles to a plane's model?

Yep, ages ago with no luck.

 

I tried the full handling swap method that Picolini and myself have used a lot before but it fails because there is no proper aircraft model to use in the game IMG yet.

DexX has discovered aircraft parts mentioned in the code of the game though so I am hoping the hierarchy is the same as SA and I will insert a scratch made plane into the IMG and try again from there.

The Dodo and Andromada have handling but no models so can be added easily once we get model import and export with either Max or ZMod2 I think.

 

The current method used here is like the flying cars cheat from SA, same handling quirks etc.

[SLAYERMAGGOT]

That's a great start, i think it's possible to change the model from the airplane with the uranus one, but the only problem will be the entering in it

[JostVice]

Nice new clean thread picolini I don't know anything about airplanes (I'm talking about all the SA stuff) I though the movement on the ground will be over the handling... But maybe its on the vehicle.ide?

[Vasilyrud]

I hope that the plane idea works.......

And I'm sure that it will.

[Flaii]

Hi!

 

The video i posted

 

 

is mine, but I didn't use yaw anytime. If you see the car turning it's probebly the road leaning left/right or i bumped into something and the car changed direction.

 

So sorry, I don't know how to turn the car on the ground.

 

/Flaii

Edited December 26, 2008 by Flaii

[GamerShotgun]

What about the NPC/map object planes at the airport?

Ah, knew I forgot to mention that.

I'm pretty sure those are just map objects. When you hit them their collision is just like a hitting a building, the planes don't react. If I remember right they do have retracted landing gear when in the sky... but I doubt they have any vehicle attributes such as dummies for wheel positions or ailerons, etc etc.

The planes can be converted to be used as vehicles though, with a little work.

 

edit: Sorry to ask this here, but I figure some one can help me. Anyone have the original xlive.dll file? It's in the Rockstar Games/GTA IV directory.

Off: As far as I know, the xlive.dll isn't there originally.. The wrapper you use is just an injection, just like the the d3d8/d3d9.dll-s used in other gta's. So you just have to delete it.

[JostVice]

Very cool, I'll try and find the plane model and replace the comet with the plane model (When that can be done) and then you have a plane

There is no plane vehicle models in this game, only the map objects from the airport (jet and the big airplane)

 

Really, searching for airplane files is a waste of time.

[Picolini]

What about the NPC/map object planes at the airport?

Ah, knew I forgot to mention that.

I'm pretty sure those are just map objects. When you hit them their collision is just like a hitting a building, the planes don't react. If I remember right they do have retracted landing gear when in the sky... but I doubt they have any vehicle attributes such as dummies for wheel positions or ailerons, etc etc.

The planes can be converted to be used as vehicles though, with a little work.

 

edit: Sorry to ask this here, but I figure some one can help me. Anyone have the original xlive.dll file? It's in the Rockstar Games/GTA IV directory.

Off: As far as I know, the xlive.dll isn't there originally.. The wrapper you use is just an injection, just like the the d3d8/d3d9.dll-s used in other gta's. So you just have to delete it.

I figured as much when some one PMmed me saying they could only find it in their system32 folder.

I replaced it in both folders and it didn't work, but I just now removed the stuff in the IV folder and replaced the one in the system32 folder and it worked

 

@Falii, ahh ok then. Oh well, seems like we're still SOL.

 

It's gotta be like pinky said, this is only really basically the flying car cheat, effects wise. The cars don't seem to be acting fully as planes. Possibly some other attributes need to be changed...

[coin-god]

Great. This looks very promising.

[GamerShotgun]

Hi!

 

The video i posted

 

is mine, but I didn't use yaw anytime. If you see the car turning it's probebly the road leaning left/right or i bumped into something and the car changed direction.

 

So sorry, I don't know how to turn the car on the ground.

 

/Flaii

Did you try using the look left/right in car camer buttons? Just asking

[JostVice]

Hi!

 

The video i posted

 

is mine, but I didn't use yaw anytime. If you see the car turning it's probebly the road leaning left/right or i bumped into something and the car changed direction.

 

So sorry, I don't know how to turn the car on the ground.

 

/Flaii

Did you try using the look left/right in car camer buttons? Just asking

Yep, I tried them in my buffalo (uses fighter plane line) and it doesn't turn, only forward and very slowly backwards.

[spaceeinstein]

 

...R* left over bits of coding from previous games, including airplane data which still works in the game...

Do you meant it's actually leftover from the previous game? I thought it was a feature implemented into GTA4 that will be used in the future. It couldn't be leftover codes, since in SA you can't just convert cars into planes this easily.

[HippieCommunist]

seems ppl dont know enough about modding IV

 

 

spaceeinstein, where are the days where u release a conclusive mod and save the day?

 

(tip - ragdoll might be a good comeback )

 

[CraZyLiLbOy69]

What do I have to do to have infinite health?

[HippieCommunist]

a good start would be to quit smoking

 

this mod's flights are healthy dont worry ^^

[Picolini]

...R* left over bits of coding from previous games, including airplane data which still works in the game...

Do you meant it's actually leftover from the previous game? I thought it was a feature implemented into GTA4 that will be used in the future. It couldn't be leftover codes, since in SA you can't just convert cars into planes this easily.

Actually it is just as easy, if not easier to get cars to become planes in SA. Easier in the fact that they actually function 100% when you change the type to planes in the vehicles.ide file, proper yaw, pitch, roll, reverse gear and all. They just don't have landing gear abilities.

 

It is left over code, R* is lazy with their files. They've left stuff in since GTA 3, and each one it just keeps building up. Look in the handling.dat file near the end, they have the Andromada, Rustler, etc etc. All things not in the game. I think they mention a couple cars from SA that aren't in IV as well. They pretty much just modify their existing code and update it with newer things each time around.

 

@CraZyLiLbOy69, completely wrong topic buddy. Maybe use the search button or google it even.

 

Also, if a mod reads this, maybe add a [DOC] tag to the front of the thread title, didn't read the pinned thread at the top of the section, my bad.

[leik oh em jeez!]

Yeah, attributes are wrong. There is no lift! when the car tilts to the side, it continues forward when it should go off in that direction...

[Vanzant]

Yeah, attributes are wrong. There is no lift! when the car tilts to the side, it continues forward when it should go off in that direction...

That is what a Rudder is used for, GTAIV uses realistic graphics so like when your car is in air it won't turn just because you jerked the steering wheel. That's why Picolini is trying to configure how to Yaw.

[catzilla]

Tested. Need a (lua?) hack for yaw.

[pinky]

 

...R* left over bits of coding from previous games, including airplane data which still works in the game...

Do you meant it's actually leftover from the previous game? I thought it was a feature implemented into GTA4 that will be used in the future. It couldn't be leftover codes, since in SA you can't just convert cars into planes this easily.

According to DexX there are still references to vital aircraft parts like rudders and ailerons etc within the game code.

And like Picolini said, it was very easy to turn any vehicle slot into an aircraft. Or in fact turn any vehicle into any other type of vehicle that you desired. You did have to have a replacement model with the correct hierarchy parts for the vehicle type being used though. The only side effect was loss of sound and IV makes this easy to fix by changing the vehicles game name in the vehicle.ide file.

 

As soon as some form of model import/export from Max or Zmod is capable, then adding a model with the correct aircraft hierarchy parts and naming it either dodo or androm should get a working aircraft in the game. No need for scripting just yet, but that will come later to make more advanced undercarriage operation and weapons etc.