GPGT Chapter 7 - Issues and Questions

#1 Tried your code for flying and hovering vehicles, both freeze the game after touching the terrian. Any ideas?

#2 Brent,

Please give me more details on how you used the code. Did the Vehicles Lesson freeze? Or, did you put the code into your own WIP game and have problems. If it is the latter, please let me know some details like:

- TGE Version 1.3 or 1.4

- Errors if any at the end of the log file.

- Did the freeze last 'forever' or did it correct itself after a long period (say 30 seconds or so)?

Please give me as much concise detail as you can about your experiment so that I can try to replicate it.

Thanks,

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

#3 I'm using version 1.4. All I did was copy your file "HoverVehicles_BoxHover.cs" into the server folder of the tutorial_base that comes with the engine. I only changed the line specifing the dts file, used my own space ship model. The ship is not the control object so it just kinda drifts around, sliding up and down hills scrapping the ground as it goes. Usually within a minute or so it freezes, not the game just the ship. And it stays that way forever.

Could my model be the ploblem? Does it need a coliision mask or any special nodes?


The wheeled vehicle code works great by the way, no problems there.

#4 Brent,

Hi.

My first suggestion is that you try the box model I provide with the kit as the model to see if this behavior is replicated.

My second suggestion is that you try your own ship, but in the GPGT lesson kit. i.e. substitute it for the box model I provide and see how it behaves as the control object.


Also, if you want to you can send the the DTS and the texture it uses here: gpgt AT hallofworlds DOT com.

I'll be glad to check it out and give you more feedback.

Thanks,

Ed M.

#5 It happens in your demo too! Get in the hover car and drive it as fast as you can toward the wall made with terrian. It will take a few tries but if you keep colliding it with the terrian it will stick. Now in your demo, you can appy an impuse and break free. If you get out of the hover vehicle while its stuck you will fall through the ground!

In case you can't duplicate the problem I'm using an IBM ThinkPad:
2.86 GHz
2GB RAM
Radeon Video card
I get about 100 fps windowed at 800x600

#6 I believe this is a known issue with very fast vehicles and maybe players as well - they get stuck in the terrain. There are some suggested fixes, such as changing a script value for "integration". You can search for "stuck terrain" or "vehicle stuck terrain" to find threads on the same topic. Here's one that looked good:
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=9200

From my simple tests with vehicles long ago (a few years ago), changing the integration value worked well enough.

#7 @Brent - Dan is right. I was able to replicate this once and it is likely related to integration values.

Try changing (raising) these values in HoverVehicles_BoxHover.cs ==>

integration            = 4;
    collisionTol           = 0.1;
    contactTol             = 0.1;

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

#8 Typo page 218: under Force/Factor table 7.4

minJumEnergy

should this be: minJumpEnergy?

Also as a side note: it would be easier to read the items on the left in that table (Force/Factor) if they were aligned to middle instead of top. Just something I noticed being an old graphic designer... :)

#9 @All Readers - I'm starting to answer ALL of my oustanding GPGT questions. It will take me a few days, so please bear with me over the weekend.

- Thanks
@mb - Yes that should be minJumpEnergy and thanks for the input.

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

#10 I am trying to use the hover vehicle model and associated scripts from the GPGT CD and for some reason I can't mount the hover vehicle properly. When I collide with the box, I stay on the ground and I can see the box over top of my avatar, and I can see my echo statements in the console showing me that I'm indeed inside the onMount() callback. When I use WASD keys to steer, the box goes off in those directions without the avatar! I don't know why that's happening. If I collide the box with an NPC, the NPC will mount it and stay mounted while I control the box, while my avatar stays put! Can anyone help me? As I understand, the
%obj.setControlObject(%vehicle); is supposed to return true or false. From my echo stmts, I see that this is returning NULL.

#11 I tried taking all the PlayerData:: functions from the CD and putting it in my game, but I found that these callbacks for onMount and onDismount and others were not getting called because my already existing Armor:: callbacks in server/scripts/player.cs were getting called first and apparently the other PlayerData:: ones were getting ignored.

#12 Okay, I got my hover vehicle to work. It turns out that the setControlObject really was returning 1, I was not typing out a variable name correctly for my echo statement. But that wasn't the real issue anyways. I had to disable my advanced Camera and go back to using the regular camera! I'm not sure why, though. I was using the advanced Camera in 3rd Person Mode with
%this.advCamera.setFollowTerrainMode(false);
%this.advCamera.setVerticalFreedomMode(false);
I just installed the advanced Camera a week ago and I'm still not knowledgeable of how to use it. Is it possible to use it and make the hover vehicle work, too?