How To: Editing a Garrisonable Building's Visual Unit Slots

[Bonte]

I. Hello my name is Bonte and this is the first tutorial that I have attempted to write. In this tutorial I will show you how you can generally make any building garrisionable and add garrisonable visual slots to that building so the soldiers show up. There are some limitations however and some things i myself have not figured out, but ill get more detailed into that in the body of This Tutorial. Now this tutorial does not tell you how to make it so a emplacement doesnt automatically garrison a unit, nor how to change what units it can garrison, or make it garrisonable. But when i get more time (within this week) I will put a section in that tells you how to

First things first. If you dont undestand the title of this thread maybe some of my videos can show you what i mean.
Note all my videos are of the highest quality. I recommend you view in Full Screen Mode
But i do run COH in the lowest settings because i like high frame rates.

This video showcases what you will be able to do with this tutorial...
http://www.xfire.com/video/fcbb/

Video of my first Test of the 17lber bunker (no sound)
http://www.xfire.com/video/b7e2/

Final versions of the bunkers. Excuse the ventrillo in the background LOL

http://www.xfire.com/video/fd67/
http://www.xfire.com/video/fd6d/

Now onto the table of contents
I. Introduction
II. The basics of Garrisonable slots
III. The coordinate system and examples
IV. Advanced settings
V. Doorways
VI. Conclusion and Helpful advice

II. One thing many people have noticed is that buildings such as the british emplacements only have 1 Visual slot in them. However, contrary to popular beleif this can be changed.

Start up corsix mod tools.
Go to the building you would like to add visual slots to(for this tutorial i will use the british 17lber bunker.)

Now when you look at the 17lber bunker you will notice that there is an entry called marker_ext expand this and than expand the child entry, Marker you will notice that there are many many childs under marker. Look at the first one, Marker000

http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/9004/tutorial1on1.jpg

Notice at the bottem the type is "combat_slot" When looking through markers the easiest way to find which ones are the combat slots is buy the type entry.

Now up at the top there is another very important entry,

Subtype, The subtype defines what kinds of units can enter that slot.
The known subtypes are:
large - unkown what exactly it can hold, it is not defined anywhere in the rgd files. It can hold large guns though but im not sure of what else. In the advanced tutorial i do define this slot though.

medium- holds "large_guns", infantry, snipers, and heavy machine guns.

destroyed panel- not sure exactly how these work, i beleive they are the walls that units can shoot out of when destroyed. Because they are set for combat only when destroyed. They can hold infantry, snipers, and hmgs

doorway

sniper Spot- This is the spot that church towers have that give sniper bonuses. I will go more in detail in the advanced section of this tutorial. This slot can only hold snipers.

infantry only-Holds only infantry and hmgs

mg42_hmg- Holds only HMGS, (no bonuses unlike the sniper spot)

mortar- holds only mortars

It is important to note that ideally you should have more slots than your building can actually hold, so that infantry can move from slot to slot.

Now lets try and add a few slots to the 17lber bunker.

First right click on Marker and hit add child. Name the child Marker065 (if your editing the 17lber bunker., NEVER OVERWRITE previous markers in the file, they are used for important things such as building points. Instead add a new marker to the end of the list)

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/5486/tutorial3ie2.jpg

Now lets copy Marker000 and paste it into Marker065.

III. Now I will explain to you the coordinate system combat slot markers use.

First lets change the subtype of Marker065 to "medium".
Than change the name to marker_02 (i know i forgot to in the picture, its more of a preference than a requirement)
Now lets set the following entries
transform_m30 0
transform_m31 -.38
transform_m32 1
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/8339/tutorial4vy5.jpg

Now Lets try an ingame test and see what Happens.

Now you will see that when the building is garrisoned, the new slot is ahead of the old one. Now i shall introduce the coord system.

All building slots work on a three dimensional coordinate system.

transform_m30-The Relative right to left of the slot (relative to the building). Right(+)/Left(-)

transform_m31-The height of the combat slot, Down(-)/Up(+) We set the height to -.38 because the 17lber emplacement is slightly below the ground. You will have to adjust this accordingly to whatever you are editing. -.38 is just what i chose because anymless and your unit will be partially underground, anymore and it will be floating.

transform_m32-The relative Forward and backward coordinate. Forward(+)/Backword(-)


The red dots are where we will be adding combat slots, The blue are where, in the end of this tutorial we will add Doorways so troops dont "Ghost" into the building
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6179/tutorialdiagramqv7.jpg

Now time to get to work. Lets add following markers the same way you did Marker065, except just copy Marker065 instead of Marker000 to save you some typing. Remember Name the Markers in incremental order.

Lets change Marker000 first so that infantry dont float. (heavy at weapons show up fine because they are crouched, but if a soldier takes this slot he will float.

Change the following in Marker000
transform_m31 -0.38

Now lets continue adding slots. The following is very long so i put it in spoiler tags

Marker066
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/8306/marker66yh5.jpg
Marker067
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/5424/marker67ec3.jpg
Marker068
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/6762/marker68ru2.jpg
Marker069
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4548/marker69ow1.jpg
Marker070
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/714/marker70ox0.jpg
Marker071
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/3465/marker71ds8.jpg
Marker072
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/5660/marker72qw0.jpg
Marker073
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/5341/marker73ng7.jpg
Marker074
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/1398/marker74hx4.jpg
Marker075
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/6717/marker75ad4.jpg
Marker076
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/6484/marker76xi9.jpg
Marker077
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/3914/marker77rk8.jpg
Marker078
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/8273/marker78my5.jpg
Marker079
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/333/marker79fu8.jpg
Marker080
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/6185/marker80pl8.jpg



Whew, that was a lot of work. But now it will all pay off with your new visual combat slots :banana: sorry about my spelling, but this is a long tutorial...when i get the time ill clean it up. :bonnet:

IV

At the moment i havnt done enough testing to figure out how to set the facing of combat slots. So if you followed this tutorial to a T, when you put your guys in it they will all face the same direction, but dont worry they will rotate 360 degrees to attack enemies. I am not sure how to set their firing angle either, but if someone figures it out i will add it to this part of the tutorial.

Now, So you want to add a combat slot that buffs a certain unit? or a slot that only a certain type of unit can enter? no problem, you can add new combat slot types, or edit existing ones.

Just head over to the tuning.rgd file

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/1852/tuningpi1.jpg

In my mod, because i didnt know what was all able to be held in the large type, I defined it myself.
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/43/holdinfofa3.jpg

This is where you define what units can enter your slot type

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/3352/holdinfo2mk9.jpg

You can also assign modifiers or actions to units in the same way the sniper spot does

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/3945/holdinfo3bh7.jpg

V.Doorways

Now you can call it quits with just the squad slots but if you want your troops to look like they are entering through the holes in the emplacement instead of just "ghosting" youll have to create doorways.

Here are the extra markers you should add to the 17lber emplacement to get doorways to work. Also if you look at my diagram, if you want you can add two more slots for infantry ontop of what i have shown (green dots) or maybe even a Captain/Leuteinent/sniper only spot (yellow).
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/5665/tutorialdiagram2xo1.jpg

Marker081
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/4821/marker81rb5.jpg
Marker082
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/3803/marker82da0.jpg
Marker083
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/8938/marker83he6.jpg
Marker084
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/7308/marker84rz9.jpg

Ill write the conclusion tomorrow.

:rant: Also sturmhaubtize, when im done with this tutorial tonight I am going to put up a HOWTO: Keep Your Mod Locale Friendly tutorial, which will cover what folders to place your mod locale in so they do not conflict with other mods....
Everyonce in a while someone says "When i play (insert mod name here) all my timers and abilities show up as nokey, The first thing i ask them is, "Do you have fortress europe installed"
And 99% of the time that is the isssue and than i have to go through and tell them where to move your locale folders so they dont interfere with the mod they are trying to play.

[Copernicus]

Great tutorial! I never had the idea to do this, great job! Keep on the great work!

[Bonte]

Its not done yet...i just decided to post it so i can modify and not have to worry about losing all my previous work. This is going to probably be one of the longest tutorials written on this forum

[shiremct]

This is quite fascinating. Something I have never even noticed before. I wonder what crazy things I may be able to cook up with this new knowledge! Thanks mate :)

[Celution]

So this means you can load untis into the kampfgruppe komanie, adn you can see them shoot out of the bunker front?:awesome:
I love it it is...

[Bonte]

Yep this means you can make any building garrisonable and add in the appropriate slots for units to fire out of.....Althouth currently it doesnt work with vehicles, the units just appear underneath the vehicle like they are getting ran over.

[Kyle243]

This looks quite good, nice work!

[Celution]

Ok, I did know how to make units/vehicles garrisonable, but not that they actually show up.. thanks!

[Lethal Dosage]

Wow, thats really interesting, i never knew what those marker slots were for, i just always thought animations like smoke, etc. Maybe now i'll be able to get the Vickers MG nest working properly as a garrisonable bunker!

[Celution]

Haha, I had that idea too LD, make it some kind of bunker foxhole. :p

[Sturmhaubitze]

Bonte, I can't seem to load up http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/5486/tutorial3ie2.jpg, it never draws the whole image and usually stops after 25% to 50% of it is drawn, or just gives a time-out error page. Though I think I can probably muddle through without it, after a few tries.

Since we're just adding markers to an entity, and I remember you mentioning your work on tank-riders, do you think it's theoretically possible to do a mortar half-track using the SdKfz 251 or US M3? Something similar to the PE mortar half-track, except uses a garrisoned team of 2 men and 1 mortar, positioned in the back, using a custom model that has the tarp removed.

[wiseone9]

this is a great tutorial, really useful for customizing the game. i've got a couple questions though:

1. is there a set height for each floor...for example, is the second floor always at 3???

2. is it possible for a combat slot to force prone?? i want to make a slot on the roof of a flat building for a sniper only, but i want him to go prone.

thanks in advance for all the help

[RGB]

Phew, that was long. You should post more tutorials, we need people like you here.

[Bonte]

Bonte, I can't seem to load up http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/...utorial3ie2.jpg, it never draws the whole image and usually stops after 25% to 50% of it is drawn, or just gives a time-out error page. Though I think I can probably muddle through without it, after a few tries.

Since we're just adding markers to an entity, and I remember you mentioning your work on tank-riders, do you think it's theoretically possible to do a mortar half-track using the SdKfz 251 or US M3? Something similar to the PE mortar half-track, except uses a garrisoned team of 2 men and 1 mortar, positioned in the back, using a custom model that has the tarp removed.

That image is working for me.....BTW, all it shows is how to add Marker065 as a child, im sure you know how to do that :)

Sorry but i was gone for a week. My computer got struck by lightning. It needed to be fixed. So am sorry for not keeping care of my tutorial.

Tank riders "are" possible, but currently there is something im missing....I cant get them to display right...I will post an update if i ever get it to work properly....They never seem to want to go in the right place and end up upsidown floating in the air or under the tank.....

There are no real "set" Values, just know that the default terrain height where the building is placed is 0, Youll have to mess around with it. I just learned this myself, so maybe you guys can help me by fine tuning my tutorial

[Bonte]

This post is done and needs to be moved to the how to section before it fades away.

[Celution]

Thanks! I can't wait to try this out!

[newBAUS]

Check out what i did with ur tutorial lol
http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?p=3194502#post3194502
look at post 292 on page 20.

[Bonte]

LOL......when i first figured this out....i had a slit trench with an invisible second story....it was pretty funny.

[Sturmhaubitze]

So faro, so good. I took the anti-tank gun nest and followed the steps, and ended up with the desired result. I forgot to remove the garrison squad action, so the troops shared the nest with a 17 pdr, which brings me to my next question.

At one point I made the axis bunker capable of holding a PaK38. I made a new subtype called 'weapon' that only accepts hold_large_gun and mortar. I set the first Marker to this subtype, with the rest as infantry only. I also set the PaK38 to have a squad_holdable extension with the hold_large_gun type. However it won't enter, and neither will HMG teams nor Mortar teams. Thoughts?

I do remember that exiting the PaK38 out of its garrison caused it to lose its crew, so I'll probably make it so that the gun can't exit once it enters, in order to avoid that bug. Or I may just make the nest capable of upgrading to a gun, which becomes permanently stuck inside.

EDIT: Found part of my problem. The ebps of the PaK38 needs to have disable_garrison turned off in its team_weapon_ext.
Though I still have a problem, and that's that mortars and machine-guns still don't want to enter the building.

DOUBLE EDIT: Fixed that too, and have some extra stuff to add that might be of use to others.



If you want to have anti-tank guns, and any other 'vehicle' capable of being garrisoned inside a building, you'll need to add some new images to prevent the pink square showing up when they're garrisoned. Create three blank images (there's one lying around that you can copy, or just make your own with a blank alpha channel), and place them into the units. Here's the names of the files.

[race]_vehicle_garrisoned_badge_base
[race]_vehicle_garrisoned_badge_select
[race]_vehicle_garrisoned_badge_shadow

Replace [race] with allied, axis, cmnw, or pnze as appropriate.


The other thing to keep in mind is that, by default, an anti-tank gun can actually be pushed outside of the pit it's in and roam around. This is a pretty bizarre bug, with lots of potential exploits, not the least of which is that the anti-tank gun is pretty much invincible while it's moving around on its own. Also if the pit is attacked, the gun disappears, and doesn't reappear until the pit is destroyed (if the pit's hold allows for survivors), and the gun will not have it's main crew visible when it returns. Ugly ugly ugly.

To prevent this, put a facing_only_enable modifier in the modifier table of the sbps's squad_holdable. This way the gun can't move when it's garrisoned, it can only turn. You can also make a custom copy of the facing_ability, set to only work when garrisoned (use required_in_state), and give that to the anti-tank gun's ebps. This way the player can reorient the gun when it's inside the pit.

[Bonte]

Sorry guys i forgot to write about the facing_only_enable modifier and the facing ability like sturm said....I actually did this in my mod and just forgot to mention it.



The other thing to keep in mind is that, by default, an anti-tank gun can actually be pushed outside of the pit it's in and roam around. This is a pretty bizarre bug, with lots of potential exploits, not the least of which is that the anti-tank gun is pretty much invincible while it's moving around on its own. Also if the pit is attacked, the gun disappears, and doesn't reappear until the pit is destroyed (if the pit's hold allows for survivors), and the gun will not have it's main crew visible when it returns. Ugly ugly ugly.

This is actually because of the fact that the gun is actually 2 entities .......The 3rd man in the crew is actually another at gun, so it requires two slots to display properly, this can be fixed by either a, making a slot underground (the at gun will prioratize above ground as set by tuning bags) or by making the at gun squads that enter it only have 2 men.....

The actually glitch happens when the 3rd at gun crewmen tries to switch slots so that he can shoot, and since there is only one slot he takes the at guns slot..... An easy fix is to make a slot slightly behind the at gun, (a second at gun slot) where the 3rd man can stand. Be aware though that this raises problems with a second at gun being able to enter the emplacement. For some reason the third man wont try to move when there is only one slot, but if there are more than 1 slot, even if the other slots arnt at gun slots, he will try and move.......

Also one of the biggest problems i have been having is with the fact that the at gun will act like all weapons dropped in buildings, and will be unrecrewable........

Also mortars have this same problem....

The only real way to fix these problems would be to have access to an OE and change mortar and at gun teams to be a single entity........you can try making the 3rd man part of the current crew, but than you will have 2 mortar tube carriers....

[Bonte]

I have great news, I have fixed all the bugs with this process for emplacements and have even found out how to do tank riders!!!!!!!!! I will update this post on Jan 12 with the changes to make everything work!

The next thing to figure out is which transform is the angle of fire and which is the facing.

[Sturmhaubitze]

Great news! Maybe I'll be able to get my Begleitgrenadiere (StuG Escort troops) to work now as they should, by having them ride the assault gun rather than walking along beside it.

[cf_nz]

Excellent news. I was very pleased to find this tutorial, I started doing the exact same thing as you with the British emplacements but kept running into problems with an invisible mortar crew. This will make life much easier for me to try again.

Edit: I can perhaps help provide a little insight into facing, I don't fully understand how it works yet. See spoiler for screenshot.

http://hosting.reliccommunity.com/uploads/93973/20090110172441-marker_facing.jpg[/img]
Some observations from other combat slot markers.

transform_m00 and transform_m12 are often the inverse of each other (I don't know what the significance of -0 is).
transform_m02 and transform_m10 are usually the same.

[Bonte]

You are getting an invisible mortar crew because you have to edit the Large hold type to be able to hold mortars, in vCOH mortars dont have a visual slot so it will just go into the invisible overflow slots.

[Sturmhaubitze]

Bonte, when Half-track tried to enable visible passengers on an SdKfz 251 half-track, he ran into a problem where the passengers would not update their positions smoothly with the vehicle. If the vehicle moved, the passengers would stay where they were for a split second before catching up by snapping to the new position, and this would continue until the half-track stopped moving. So it didn't look good at all. I'm guessing you found a fix for that problem?

If so, that opens up some new vehicle types. I could make a mortar half-track using the US M3 or the German SdKfz 251, by having a permanently garrisoned mortar team inside. Only trick would be to somehow get the garrisoned mortar and its vehicle to cooperate when ordered to barrage, so that the vehicle moves within range if ordered to fire. Not sure if that's even possible.

[Bonte]

i think blitz mod has that in it....m3 with mortar, could be wrong though...

Any ways, to make it so emplacements work with the team weapons it can only have 1 squad slot...than it will work with being able to cap them ect. Be sure to make brit team weapons not have invincible health. Also for team weapons with more than 2 crew members youll have to add an extra slot for them (in the markers) I added mine right behind the weapon...

Also have you tried editing the .mua file and the .muax file along with the .rgd markers... The .mua needs to be hand edited with notepad. Than it should work, if it doesnt than mess with the attach animater....its my birthday so ill test it tomorrow.

[Sturmhaubitze]

Blitzkrieg and Battle of the Bulge both have the M21 Mortar Carrier, but it's a mixed model using the SdKfz 250/7 and a custom model, rather than an actual half-track with a garrisoned team. The tracks don't actually move.

[Lethal Dosage]

Interesting progress, especially on the tank riders! I noticed in an NIS sequence in the Brit campaign, there were Brit infantry riding on a Cromwell, it might need some investigating, but if the Cromwell has the slots, it might just be necessary to mix an invisible Cromwell model with any other tank to get the positions there. It might even be possible to then edit the markers to fine tune each position.

cf_nz, strangely enough, that's exactly what i've discovered also, and i have a feeling that transform_m00 and transform_m12 might also have something to do with the exact angle of facing too.

For about a week a while ago i was working on a Brit Vickers MG nest which would have 4 slots (and a 4 man crew), or alternatively 4 slots which would allow the gun to be rotated around between the slots, allowing a 360 degree firing arc to be possible. Unfortuantly i never quite got how to finetune the angle, and so all the markers never faced directly out of a window, so the MG would also be facing out to one side slightly.

[cf_nz]

Bonte, thanks for the tips regarding the mortar, I haven't tried it again yet though.

- - - - - - - - -
Lethal Dosage, I've been working on the MG nest at the moment. I'm pretty happy with my progress, not quite prefect but enough.

See the screenshot in the spoiler below (I can't attach the file in this sub-forum) for the parameters I used for the facing, I still don't fully understand what I'm doing though. I don't think I've changed anything in the front facing marker.

http://hosting.reliccommunity.com/uploads/93973/20090112013157-MG_nest.jpg
The MG works pretty much as you described, it automatically cycles through all 4 slots (a little faster than I'd like) depending on the threat location, giving it 360 degree coverage.

[Lethal Dosage]

The MG switches between the slots so quickly because it has instand setup enabled (in the weapon file i think), if you were to change the garrisoned squad to say the Commando Vickers squad (as a quick fix), or make a heap of changes to the current MG squad, you won't get that issue.

[Bonte]

nice, but there is another variable that we need to look for, there is facing, and then there is how far they can rotate, for most buildings it is like 120 degrees...

[Sturmhaubitze]

That setting is in the hold_ext.

[cf_nz]

Edit: I've set that to 100, after testing I found it looked better.

I made progress on the mortar last night but ran into a couple of oddities. I'll edit this after work with details.

Edit: My mortar + pit works very well however when you garrison the mortar in the pit it starts to set up above the base of the pit (where ground level would be) then 'snaps' to it's marker slot. Is there any way to fix this?

[Bonte]

hmm i thought that would be on an individual slot...that sucks

[Modfreak]

its possible to get 4 man on all sides of the vickers nest
at same time ready for battle
and how can i set "the mg can turn 360 grade around"
my mg is looking only on front side but dont change the window if the enemy approch from a dead side

i have allready the sets the crew can turn around with 360 grades but nothing happen ingame
(sets in the holdable_ext)

[Celution]

Bonte, does this still won't work on vehicles or did you figure it out?

[Skizer]

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/1970/er1.jpg
i written a german tutorial for this, but up to now I have not translated it

Download Link:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-1244694/CoH-Tutorial-maker_ext.pdf.html

[Bonte]

thank you very much Skizer, i was actually pointed to your tutorial by the Botb team and managed to comprehend it, through google translater, and my dim knowledge of Deutsch. Prehaps if you arn't going to, i will write something up on it. I havn't actually done much testing with it though because im still trying to figure out how to get facings to work exactly how i want them to.

[Celution]

Wow, that looks so cool! Can you please translate the tutorial to english?? I want to make this for the Tiger and other vehicles too:).

[Skizer]

i try to translate it on the weekend
and next i make a tutorial for this
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/2554/relic00029lf8.jpg

MfG Skizer

[lilmat1]

WOW! That has to be some of the coolest pics I have seen for this game.
Well done to all of you.

For Sherman tank, since from what I have read, those infantry are in a combat slot. So does that mean they will fire at the enemy?

A few weeks ago Lethal Dosage pointed me to this thread.
Very interesting. Been busy with redoing my maps. So I need to ask about rally points.


So Bonte...
For one of my maps I have changed my buildings into the higgins boats.

Because of the different rotations of the buildings and places the units are built, some units will emerge from the boats from the sides. How would I be able to have them appear at the ram of each boat?

Cheers...

And well done once again. Fantastic work... :Hail:

[Bonte]

On most buildings ( i havnt tested this yet) there is a spawn location marker for infantry and vehicles in its marker tree (look at base buildings) try editing its position or if it doesn't exist copying it over. Also if your talking about garrisoned boats than try making a door marker like up in my tut.

[lilmat1]

Thanks for the reply.

There is no markers for the boats.

Wondering what I should add.
I see for every object there is info on that object in the file_timestamp.
Also how do you figure out the co-ordinites of the spawn slot?

Cheers...


Edit... Had a go at this, I seem to be able to set the spawning point. But I cannot get anyone to garrission the boats.
I see some buildings have garrission_ext, but when I tried it, it did not do anything. I have added 4 combat slots and changed the hold_ext.
Not sure what esle to do ATM.

2nd Edit... Seems to work now, will keep working on the combat and spawn parts. :awesome:

[Sturmhaubitze]

Skizer, that's very impressive! I guess it's an Opel Blitz with the animator action for turning on the supplies option, and the barrels/crates/flatbed-sides alpha'ed out in the texture? I definitely should try that out, as portee (gun mounted on towing vehicle, rather than towed) FlaK38s are a good (and historical) alternative to just having the gun built in one spot.

[burtondrummerNY]

any updates on the vehicle slots?

[Lethal Dosage]

Has anyone tried adding combat slots to base buildings? I noticed the Panzer-Jager Kommand already has them (just missing a hold_ext), but whenever i try to edit them there aren't any changes ingame, and new combat slots i add don't show up at all. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Celution]

When I first played the OF demo, i noticed all Panzer Elite buildings have a MG hatch thing on the roof, like the wehrmacht buildings, but they have no actual MG. Is it possible to add that, or is the hatch not animated?

[sirpsychoj]

I tried on the PE buildings also for the hatch, and didnt succeed(was a long time ago in my, I know F.All stage of modding), but funny enough it was simple to get them on the Allies buildings, go figure. But in saying that only 2 buildings I could use them on because I never figured out how to heighten or lower the hatch, so on some of the allied buildings it didnt look right so I removed them leaving only 2 from memory, then I think it was a matter of a little modding and ABP file to get usa soldiers in the hatch to match the RaceArmy. If anyone knows how to adjust mounted weapon positions it could be possibly overcome, and in saying that, I added another weapon to the Tank to see if I could link the units to the weapon then the tank riders wouldnt shudder as they do, then we could alfa the weapon out or maybe in scar by despawning or making invisible, not the perfect solution for tank riders but atleast they would ride in sync with the tank, thats more than what we have at present! Oh, and by the way, that weapon I mentioned extra on tank came of the axis vehicles from memory, and is mounted on the right rear, so once again it needs to be shifted as the soldier who mounts it and rides in sync with the tank unfortunately 1/2 of his body is inside of the tank, like the hatch gunner.

[burtondrummerNY]

Also, perhaps if you made a requirement on the truck that if its loaded it will drive slower (at maximum human movement perhaps) to simulate careful driving, while preventing the glitching it would work?

[MikeWhiskey]

I haven't seen anything recently about slot facing.

Perhaps you already know this, or it has been posted elsewhere.
transform_m10 set the facing point left to right like transform_m30. transform_m12 set the facing point forward and backward like transform_m32. To get a soldier/weapon facing at a 45 degree angle from the center point of the building set transform_m10 to 5(or some other number) and transform_m12 to the same number. Minus numbers swing the facing the opposite direction.

I hope I'm not repeating something everyone already know.
You can get the solder to disappear after garrisoning and never reappear by both transforms (m10 & m12) to 0. Not that that is a desirable situation.

CAn someone help me with entry and exit points? My soldiers just pop into and out of the vehicle regardless of doorway slots or spawn points.

[lilmat1]

There seems to be build and sync markers in some buildings.

Could some of this give you the ability to raise the height of a building, namely the Higgins boats?

[Halftrack]

strange. I have set the doorway right behind the vehicle, and the soldiers enter and exit the vehicle there without any problem.

[Bonte]

build markers are where soldiers go when they are building (their sandbag animation for instance, or the shovel animation)

[Halftrack]

btw: are there other kind of markers for soldiers than combat slots ? I would like to make soldiers visible inside of a truck when loaded, but the combat slot enables them, as the name indicates, to fight from the vehicle., which isnt possible by default.
Applying a "disable weapon" modifier to the "on loaded squad actions" works, but is still active when the squad is unloaded... thats most unfortunate.

[MikeWhiskey]

Here's another challenge for passengers in the halftrack.
Unless you disable the 50 cal gun/gunner, you wind up with an additional passenger manning the weapon. If you disable the weapon, no gunner shows up, but it would be nice to have one of the passengers man the weapon, or at least disappear while the gunner is present.

Regarding passengers able to fight while in/on vehicles, such as halftracks, jeeps, open trucks, or on top of tanks etc, what's wrong with that? They would not normally just sit there and wait to be slaughtered. I have my passengers get out when a battle begins and fight on foot, especially those exposed on the back of a tank. Believe me, the last place a grunt wants to be is a sitting duck on a tank. They either get shot or brushed off by the turret. It's happened to me.

If you insist on having them not fire, use the disable weapon modifier when they get on, and again when the vehicle they're riding on/in fires on the enemy (on_fire in the weapon_ext). See Bailout thread.

[Halftrack]

fighting out of a halftrack wouldnt be a problem, but out of a truck with canopy is.

what I do to have is a truck capable of carrying infantry as well as towing guns.
Towing guns works, added a "large" or "medium" combat marker behind the truck and making the gun loadable. But if a inf squad moves in, instead of the gun, it occupies the combat slot, ending up in a soldier standing behind the truck being towed. not THAT good. And, if you load the gun then, gun is loaded inside, because its slot is occupied. Which then makes the gun crew invisible ( old problem )
So I added 12 combat marker inside the truck, infantry only, which solves it. partly. Infantry occupies the slots, leaving the slot behind the truck for the gun.
BUT now infantry fires out of the -closed- truck, when engaging enemies.

The truck however has no weapon.

And disabling the weapon when loaded, disables the weapon permanently, as stated above.

[burtondrummerNY]

Halftrack: I'm having problems with the Opel Blitz.

I made 8 combat slots, 4 on each side of the truck's back. I alpha'd out the boxes, barrels, and the canopy, but they're not visible!

Can you help me?

[MikeWhiskey]

HT,

I don't use the truck with the canopy when adding combat slots. They're not needed as you cannot see the soldiers anyway. I only add them to the open truck, which I have modified the texture to get rid of the crates and barrels. Having them shoot out of the open truck looks OK.

As for the truck not having a weapon, give it one that's invisible (I copied a rifle). The invisible weapon (I call bailout.rgd) should be changed to have no damage and set the range at which you want the soldiers to bailout of the truck. Make an invisible projectile (I also call this bailout.rgd) that does not explode or deform the ground, no entity blueprint for it either. Then you can use the on_fire actions.

[sirpsychoj]

Evoget, what do you use? do you use a role/state variation to get the truck without canopy through your mod as seen in previous threads, or do you script it through scar. Im curious thats all, in the past I've just used the scarcode but I'm interested what others use or do.

[MikeWhiskey]

I use the animator_set_state method when the vehicle is created "action_apply_ext".
Set the do_action_state_name to "supplies" and the state_machine_name to "random_supplies".

[Bonte]

You could try making new slots in the tuning file and using them in your halftrack and then adding the cant fire specifically to these slots that you dont want anything to fire out of...

[burtondrummerNY]

Hey, I ran into a roadblock;

All of the loaded infantry are underneath the truck.

How can I fix this?

[Skizer]

you need to edit the marker_31
marker_31 is for the height.

sorry i answer so late, i work to hard ;) in my job

[burtondrummerNY]

No, I mean like they are facing down all in one slot underneath the truck. Marker_31 should be set up fine (I have 1 here, but haven't been able to tell if this is the right number)

[Bonte]

that would be because you need to edit the .muax file

also

[burtondrummerNY]

I did. .muax and the markers in the ebps are identical

[MikeWhiskey]

Check the facing tranforms m10, m12 & maybe m02. Set m10 to 0 and m12 to a positive number, like 5. This should get the passengers facing forward. m02 or perhaps m00 may affect the up/down facing.

[sirpsychoj]

I'm fairly sure its got something to do with the attach_passanger_animator(in the Hold_ext), I think it should be on False, well mine is and it works, and I'm sure when I was trying other things and changed to true, they went horizontal under the tank/vehicle

[MikeWhiskey]

sir,

I think you're right. I know remember I had a similar problen with a jeep.

[burtondrummerNY]

Yeah, that worked, but as you guys mentioned, they are glitchy. I am disappointed.

One thing I noticed though, is that when the attach_passenger was on, they were smooth with the truck. Perhaps if this can be modified a bit it will allow for the riders to ride smoothly?

[lilmat1]

Thought I would give everyone an update on my progress.

I have been able to edit/add markers to the higgins boats.

Quite happy with what I have achieved.

Made it possible to have 12 units/3 squads.

1x6 man unit
1xmg team
1xmortar team

When using the Higgins boat, I noticed the slots face 90 degrees to the right of the front of the boat, so changed that.
Got the spawn point to work(very happy with that).

I noticed a few things... when weapon teams load, they move to the middle(0) point of the boat, set up, then move to their spot. I fixed the mg team by having instant setup, but most of the time, the actual mg do not always get to the spot first.

And as with the mortar, as mentioned in the above posts, had to add another mortar spot to have all three members appear.

Still have to test how they react to seeing enemy while in the boat.

Only thing I need to ask is, is there some garrision or on_load action that can be made to have the weapons teams set up instantly, instaed of changing the value in weaopns_ext??

And I would need a bit of a walk through if this is possible.

cheers...

[Bonte]

im not sure at the moment, ive never had that problem, could it be the ToV new delay thingy?

[lilmat1]

I'm still using 2.301

[MikeWhiskey]

Mat,

Does your boat move and has anyone been able to get rid of the jumpy riders on vehicles yet?

[lilmat1]

Hey there evoget.

I did want to make them move with scar at the begining of the mission, though with some surprise the more I went into modding the Higgins boats, I found they do not sit on land, but under it.

I can tell you it was a pain to see them with the hull under the ground. So I had to spawn (with scar)the modded ones(for troops) over a raised square under the boat, so it would sit at the right level.
I then put some small pieces of equipment to cover the land in the boat.
So I did not have to worry about the "moving with units inside" problem.

I just hope someone finds out if maybe the markers can be used to move the vertical scale for buildings, so with the higgins boats, they will sit where they should.

[MikeWhiskey]

Is this because the Higgins boat has no bottom?
Could you create a sloping sand beach where the boat approaches in very, very, very shallow water?
I'm not quite understanding the difficulty. Could you send a picture? What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

[lilmat1]

I will try to get perrmission so I can get a pic here for you.

[DemoSS]

So, did anybody solve the problem described in post #70? I have no ideas how to do riding smoothly.. I tried to switch all triggers in hold_ext.. :crash:

[hnunez]

So faro, so good. I took the anti-tank gun nest and followed the steps, and ended up with the desired result. I forgot to remove the garrison squad action, so the troops shared the nest with a 17 pdr, which brings me to my next question.

At one point I made the axis bunker capable of holding a PaK38. I made a new subtype called 'weapon' that only accepts hold_large_gun and mortar. I set the first Marker to this subtype, with the rest as infantry only. I also set the PaK38 to have a squad_holdable extension with the hold_large_gun type. However it won't enter, and neither will HMG teams nor Mortar teams. Thoughts?

I do remember that exiting the PaK38 out of its garrison caused it to lose its crew, so I'll probably make it so that the gun can't exit once it enters, in order to avoid that bug. Or I may just make the nest capable of upgrading to a gun, which becomes permanently stuck inside.

EDIT: Found part of my problem. The ebps of the PaK38 needs to have disable_garrison turned off in its team_weapon_ext.
Though I still have a problem, and that's that mortars and machine-guns still don't want to enter the building.

DOUBLE EDIT: Fixed that too, and have some extra stuff to add that might be of use to others.



If you want to have anti-tank guns, and any other 'vehicle' capable of being garrisoned inside a building, you'll need to add some new images to prevent the pink square showing up when they're garrisoned. Create three blank images (there's one lying around that you can copy, or just make your own with a blank alpha channel), and place them into the units. Here's the names of the files.

[race]_vehicle_garrisoned_badge_base
[race]_vehicle_garrisoned_badge_select
[race]_vehicle_garrisoned_badge_shadow

Replace [race] with allied, axis, cmnw, or pnze as appropriate.


The other thing to keep in mind is that, by default, an anti-tank gun can actually be pushed outside of the pit it's in and roam around. This is a pretty bizarre bug, with lots of potential exploits, not the least of which is that the anti-tank gun is pretty much invincible while it's moving around on its own. Also if the pit is attacked, the gun disappears, and doesn't reappear until the pit is destroyed (if the pit's hold allows for survivors), and the gun will not have it's main crew visible when it returns. Ugly ugly ugly.

To prevent this, put a facing_only_enable modifier in the modifier table of the sbps's squad_holdable. This way the gun can't move when it's garrisoned, it can only turn. You can also make a custom copy of the facing_ability, set to only work when garrisoned (use required_in_state), and give that to the anti-tank gun's ebps. This way the player can reorient the gun when it's inside the pit.

can anyone help me with the parameters for the required_in_state.lua because i dont know where to find that information, in order to solve the problem with the antitank gun leaving the gun nest when i try to set the facing i made a custom copy of the facing_ability.rgd but i dont know what parameters to specify please respond with images so i can see what parameters have been set and be very detailed in the description of the steps i need to take. also my buildings cant garrison anything even though i made the markers and followed all the steps in the tutorial exactly and verified my work to make sure my results match the tutorial identically.

[sweeten2213]

For some reason I can't get this to work for my trenches :(

I added 6 new markers, set different numbers in transform_m30 (the slit trenches existing 6 were between about -2.5 and 2.5, so I set them in various unused spots in that range), left transform_m31 at the standard trench -1.017694, and set transform_m32 at 0 for simplicity (center of trench). Everything else is copied from the other combat slots, and I gave each one a new name. My trenches are set to hold 17 and i can get all of them in, but only the standard 6 are showing.

What am i missing?

[LCC]

Does anybody have that tutorial from skizer, or could someone translate it, and give it to me?

[Halftrack]

I just came back to the markers thing here, cause I have an 88 in an emplacemnt.

88 with crew of 3, works fine. As I wanted to give the Gun a crew of 5, with 2 guards,
I changed the loadout of the squad, naturally.

Now the Crew No is 5, but only the guys manning the gun show up.
So I thought, adding 2 more combat slots to the artillery pit could help.

It does . In some aspects..now all crew members show up. But unfortunately, the Gun
now appears in 1 out of 3 positions. Setting the 2 additional slots
to infantry_only does not help, cause the hold type is defined in the sbps.
Whats interesting, if I try in WB, the Gun is ALWAYS in the centre, just
ingame it is set randomly... anyone has a clue or can I forget about it ?


@whiskey: have you also added the doorway marker to the muax?
and @sweeten: the same ? I had that issue with the slit trench, too and adding the additional markers to the muax solved it.

[Darkbladecr]

hmm have you tried model mixing it by using the relic CA modifier marker_info and applying it? Or would this create the same problem?

[Halftrack]

model mixing ? CA modifier marker_info ? err.... no. whats that ?

[Darkbladecr]

In the relic tools the CA editor, has a modifier called marker_info. If you apply that to a point in 3D max you will be able to give it different attributes such as infantry_only etc...
However if you made your edits, with the .mua/.muax then its exactly the same, except this is the graphical way to do it with 3D max.

Model mixing = adding models to the .abp so what you would do is make a max document with the markers and then attahch it through the .abp

[Halftrack]

I may have heard about that model mixing... ;)

I guess its the same.. muax markers work quite good for buildings...

[bergy68]

Question could this toot also be applied to making Trenches (made in WB) or Bunkers that are occupied into Forward Barracks?

[Jagdpanther]

No bergy, it's modding stuff and needs in addition manipulations on the models itself (.muax file). This you can't make via map creating only.

[Bonte]

I just came back to the markers thing here, cause I have an 88 in an emplacemnt. 88 with crew of 3, works fine. As I wanted to give the Gun a crew of 5, with 2 guards, I changed the loadout of the squad, naturally. Now the Crew No is 5, but only the guys manning the gun show up. So I thought, adding 2 more combat slots to the artillery pit could help. It does . In some aspects..now all crew members show up. But unfortunately, the Gun now appears in 1 out of 3 positions. Setting the 2 additional slots to infantry_only does not help, cause the hold type is defined in the sbps. Whats interesting, if I try in WB, the Gun is ALWAYS in the centre, just ingame it is set randomly... anyone has a clue or can I forget about it ? @whiskey: have you also added the doorway marker to the muax? and @sweeten: the same ? I had that issue with the slit trench, too and adding the additional markers to the muax solved it.

Unfortunately, because the type is set in the squad file. This issue is an engine limitation. I myself have had many problems with this in OMGmod. I basically solved the issue for ATguns with 3 men (the last dude not maning the at gun) by making another combat slot just slightly off center. That away the third guy is usually a few steps behind the gun. But it still is buggy.

Im still looking into it though. Ill post it up if I ever find a roundabout way of fixing this.

[Volsky]

So sorry for the thread necro, this died back in 10' but I'm having an issue with adding visual slots to trenches. Since I'm pretty green to CoH stats (outside of unit-specific ones), editing buildings and combat slots and the like is pretty tricky for me. Is there any way to add 2 more visual slots to british trenches, preferably one to each end of the trench? 'sweeten2213's post basically sums up the issue, as well as I've no clue what coordinates to give to the new slots. Any help would be much obliged, and again, apologies for the thread necro.

[Bugdown]

http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/2554/relic00029lf8.jpg

anyone make a guide on how to make this thing?