This section covers setup of vehicles for use with the Torque engine. The vehicle physics and collision shapes are pretty touchy. They work, but they need TLC and require 'fine tuning' to get them to work properly.
This entire section is a list of what is contained in the shapes, and what the functionality and naming conventions for these types of shapes.
Ground: Each wheel needs a node called "Ground0", "Ground1", etc.. for each wheel. this tells them where the wheel touches the ground.
Mass: Each vehicle needs a "Mass" node. This should be positioned atthe center of mass for the whole shape. This is used in thedriving\flying dynamics...
Eye: Each vehicle needs an "Eye" node, this is where the camera will be when piloting a vehicle in 1st-person mode.
Mount: Each vehicle needs 'Mount" nodes. These are where the players\weapons mount. Here are the names of the mount nodes and their function:
mount0 -- pilot mount1 -- navigator\gunner mount2 -- passenger mount3 -- passenger etc.. mount10 -- gun mount9 -- bomb mount point on the bomber vehicle
Turn: Each wheel needs a "Turn" sequence, ie. "Turn0", "Turn1", etc..this controls the steering.
Spring: Each wheel needs a "Spring" sequence, ie. "Spring0", "Spring1", etc.. this controls the up/down motion of the wheel ( like shocks )
Wheel: Each wheel needs a "Wheel" sequence, ie. "Wheel0", "Wheel1", etc...this controls the spinning of the wheel.
The sequences are.
Collision-1: the marker for the collision detail level. Detail levels -1 thru -8 are reserved for regular collisionobjects, but vehicles used ONE shape ( -1 ) because of how processor intensive the vehicle dynamics are.
Col-1: this is the actual collision geometry for the vehicle itself. It should be as absolutely LOW POLY as possible. Every polygon counts and will slow the whole game down if you have too many. Also, pay special attention to the way it is shaped to minimize collision with small bumps/hills/slopes etc.. Changing this shape will dramatically effect whether or not the vehicle is prone to getting stuck while driving over bumps.
LOS-9 thru LOS-15: markers for "Line Of Sight" collision ("bullet collision") LOS collisions were detail levels -9 thru -16
LOScol-9 thru LOScol15: collision geometry for "Line Of Sight" collision tests.
Smoke_node0,1,2,etc: these are 'smoke emitters' for when the vehicle is damaged.
Contrail0,1,2,etc: these are nodes to emit 'contrail' particles from, for flying vehicles.