Need Help - Adding Headlights

[Ben Again]

(San Andreas) I have a CLEO script that makes a bunch of diffrent flashing patterns for emergency vehicles. It also includes a function for 'turn blinkers', which really only flashes the front left or right headlight. So, what I wanted to do is make the orange turnblinkers on vehicles count as being headlights, so that they'll flash too. I used 3DS max, and simpilly changed the material for the turnblinkers to be orange/blue, just like the left or right headlights(I only did this to the Admiral). When I looked at them in GGMM, the turnblinkers on it were compleatly white and did not change when I told it to turn on light textures. Spawning it in the game made it crash. How could I get it to keep the orange texture, and work in-game? (I don't want a shiny part, like those over the headlights, just for the texture to light up like the back of the main head lamps)

Edited October 18, 2010 by Ben Again

[JohnPro]

It's not possible to have the orange blinker on while the headlights remain off. If the orange blinker and the headlight uses the "left headlight" material then whenever the left headlight is called they will both switch on.

 

A solution could be to not add any "left headlight or right headlight" material on the headlights. Anyway the headlight dummy will be were the 2dfx will appear.

 

Now modifying the headlight materials should not have crashed the game, I believe you are not exporting it correctly or you have not exported the model along with its col. If the DFF vehicle has no col it wont work, it will crash!

 

Follow this tut for exporting instructions, it also has GTA Materials like for headlights. http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=418143

 

Good luck!

[Ben Again]

Thanks for the link to the tutorial! (I'm going to it after I post this.) I just asumed it would keep using the original .col file. Although, would this help with the texture issue? 'Cause when I looked at the vehicle in GGMM, the places I added the material to where just white. (instead of turn blinker orange) Changing the material changes which texture it's going to show there?

(Also, I kinda forgot to put that I want the turn blinkers to be headlights to work with the mod. It would also work well with the flares on trucks and busses.) Ok, work time for me.

 

EDIT: Ok, I tried to follow the tut for the collision as best I could, but I don't think the final product had the .col with it, since the game crashed when I spawned it again. So, could you (or someone) tell me exactly what I have to do in order to reuse the vehicles original colision thing, AND fix the problem of the turn blinker texture not showing up? Very thanks!

Edited October 18, 2010 by Ben Again

[JohnPro]

ok, its actually quite simple.

 

Get your vehicle.dff. Now I found it was more reliable creating a COL rather than using the DFF for the col during export.

 

So download Coleditor 2. http://www.steve-m.com/downloads/tools/colleditor2/

 

Now open youe vehicle.dff using ColEditor 2, you will see the vehicles col now right click and extract to combined collision file.

 

Your folder should now have vehicle.dff and vehicle.col. Rename vehicle.dff to vehicleORIG.dff so you can return to it if you make mistakes.

 

Import vehicleORIG.dff!

 

Make your modifications...... .... .....

 

During Export SELECT EVERYTHING, CTRL + A and open DFF IO,

 

Now click Select COL3/COLL button.

 

Open your vehicle.col

 

Click Export DFF. (if you receive hiearchy errors then you didnt link the parts togheter - I wont explain read the tut)

 

DONE! it should work in the game unless you deleted a dummy by accident.

 

 

White models mean you didnt apply a texture. Open GTA SAN ANDREAS/MODELS/GENERIC/VEHICLE.TXD and export the vehiclelights128 texture.

Now select the blinkers faces, apply the Left headlight or rightheadlight GTA material to it.

Now the leftheadlight or rightheadlight material will have a COLOR field. Simply click this button and open vehiclelights128 which you extracted from vehicles.txd

 

You may or may not be familiar with all terminology used in modding so the Tut will definately help. I am assuming you have basic modelling knowledge and have basic experience with 3ds max.

Edited October 19, 2010 by JohnPro

[Ben Again]

Sorry for asking for help again and again , but... I gots more trubble. I can't get CollEditor2 to open .dff, it only lets me open .col files. I tried extracting the .col with the 3DS Max script and then importing that to my modded model, but, again it failed the same way. Plus, I'm not qute sure where the headlight's matirial's color button is. I found a button that seemed to be for applying textures, but it didn't open any standard image files. But, a)wouldn't doing what you said also make the normal headlights be orange? b)would it still load the on lights texture when the lights are on? Also, I do have some knowladge of the diffrent files in GTA games, and changing some things, but I'm almost a complete noob when it comes to using 3DS, or any 3D modeling software for that matter.