Battlefield Modding Tutorials BFMODS

hey! I had some great help on a previous thread (browning on a willy) and somebody (Plague) gave me advice.


ObjectTemplate.active Willy
ObjectTemplate.addTemplate KettenKrad_MG42_PCO1
ObjectTemplate.setPosition 0/-0.19/1.38


It worked perfect but , I went on farther with that and I was wondering how do I find the ObjectTemplate.setposition? I want to do alot more with this concept so if some one could help me figure out how to find it that would totally freakin rock. Did he just mess around with position untill he found a good one or (most likely) he used common sense . this might be a bit much but, I'm not really sure how the setposition works so if I could get a brief tut on that, that would be great! thanks!

When you're addTemplate-ing something to a vehicle, you start from 0/0/0, from the center of the vehicle.

Pretend you're in the drivers seat of the jeep:
X = Left/Right
Y = Up/Down
Z = Forward/Back

So the position you have of 0/-0.19/1.38 would mean its .19 meters down, and 1.38 meters forward from center. In my experience with things like MGs, its trial and error, what you think would work good.

Yeah, Iced is right. Trial and Error for sure. I was just messing around with that mod and it still took me a LONG LONG time to get the position where I wanted it. =)

We all been there.
Many times even, if your not too lazy.
After a while you get pretty good at putting things where they should end up.

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Thanks you guys! I joined a great community for modding no doubt!

I would like to contribute some info to this topic.

I have found that the coordinates of individual parts of a vehicle when used in relative to the vehicle are mostly the same in GMAX (I don't know about 3DS Studio, but I would assume the same) as they are in the con files (aka in game). So if you are making a car for example. You can place all the wheel parts (and maybe other stuff that won't be the main mesh when used in game) onto the main mesh in GMAX the coordinates are mostly the same in the Game engine so you can then write down all the positions and have the numbers be usefull for con file editing.

HOWEVER! You will still need to adjust the numbers afterwords. One very important fact is that the game considers the up/down axis and what GMAX considers are different order wise. Its different in game, then in GMAX!

For example. Put in logical order, this is how it is in GMAX

X then Y then Z

But in the game con files the middle number is the up/down (not the last number as it would be in GMAX). So you need to swap them when putting them in the con files. (or just write them down swapped)

Also important, is that you will need to move the decimal to the left! GMAX has everything at a larger scale then the game. For my project I had to move the decimal to the left. It is still possible that you will need to adjust it more, but once to the left did it for me.

I'm working on another vehicle, and the wheel positions are dead on perfact! I didn't have to do that much tweaking. I still had to tweak the Up/Down axis (mostly had to send the number into the negative). But as of now, its perfect, and it only took me about 20-30 minutes to get the wheels where I wanted them.

So placing the wheels/other stuff with the main mesh in GMAX and then writing down all their coordinates before separating them out will do you some good! Just make the appropriate decimal adjustment and slight vertical axis tweaking, and you can get everything in the right place much quicker!

That's how it worked out for me!

It took me forever to make my first vehicle (I had to single handedly figure out the whole system of the vehicle objects, sine I only specialized in static objects), but the second one so far has been mostly completed (still need to add new icons and AI, but as of now, the vehicle is fully textured and drive able)in roughly 2 hours for me. So once you get the routine of making vehicles/other objects down, then any more you make won't take as long.

However unlike the last one vehicle, I did not create the meshes from scratch. I ported the vehicle from a different game. But most of the time difference was that I now know the proper con setup for a vehicle and made the second one much easier.

Now for editing existing stuff, best thing would be to load the objects into GMAX and then position them how you want to see them in game, then write down the numbers, and exit GMAX (not saving any changes, since you won't be modifying their mesh anyways). Then just translate that to the CON files with the proper adjustments, and it will make some vehicle mods, much more accurate.

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I have cameras in your head!

The only thing I have ever been able to accomplish in GMax was to makea big box........I don't have any idea how to make anything else...

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Thing you can do aswell is getting the geometry of the wheel for example and make a object inside your BC with it.