Introduction to scenarios creation

Without your help it would have been impossible to create a two suspects chase scenario. Thanks for your help Gamergull.
And please play and review my scenario "West Coast Chase Series"

 

I've run into a problem that I can't explain.
I'm on the main menu, and I load my scenario via the main menu. (Bear in mind my scenario takes place on a custom map "Desert_Highway", which is in the repository.)
The map will load, as will the scenario interface, but my car will not load and nothing else does.


I'll get a countdown if I agree to start the scenario, but attempts to reload it by pressing "r" do nothing except freeze the timer.
I open up my level editor, and find my scenario sitting among the other files. The scenario is unloaded.

Upon manually loading the scenario, I get all my stuff...the car, the checkpoints, the props...even the "MUDK1P" license plate.

So I'll hit F11 and attempt to play the game, but find that despite the game informing me there are 20 checkpoints, none of them seem to load.
But in this case, for some reason I hit F11 and spawned in as a tire barrier...

(Edit: I found out I misplaced a file, and this resulted in me spawning as the first thing listed...in this case, a tire barrier. So that issue has been sorted out, and I'm now spawning as the Covet, but all other issues remain.)
I've spent several hours trying all sorts of things, including rewriting a good portion of my coding. (Bear in mind that I am an idiot with coding.) I even made sure EVERYTHING had a name.
Here's an image of said scenario coding; let me know if there's anything amiss with it.

(BTW, the reason that the checkpoints are counting down is because I messed up when naming everything...)

 

@Dat-Mudkip what is your prefab name?

 

If you're talking about the file name, it's "my_first_scenario.prefab".
Before you ask, it's under Documents>BeamNG.drive>levels>Desert_Highway

Thanks for pointing out the comma issue. That's been fixed.

The error log spat this out:


I'm not an expert, but it looks like it cannot locate the mission file for some reason...
It's located in Documents>BeamNG.drive>levels>Desert_Highway>scenarios, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

 

@Dat-Mudkip try to give the checkpoint names in this order I mean (starting from 1, 2, 3...) or if that doesn't work download a scenario pack and see how others did it. I think this will solve your problem

 

Not to come off as rude, but what difference would it make?

I was thinking about that just a little while ago. I may very well take a look at that.

 

It now works! I must've saved it by accident at some point...not sure when or why, but there we go!

Since I got you on the line, I got two more questions:

How do I change "skins" on a vehicle? For example, the tire barriers below...I want to change the direction the arrows are going, and I know in game you are given an option to spawn it with different skins. Could you tell me how to do that?



My second question:
As much as I like the Covet, there's not way this scenario will function properly with it. I want to use a semi-custom car for this scenario. The vehicle is a Sunburst with a high-performance radiator, slightly increased top speed, about half the fuel load, and it has a recolored paint scheme. Everything comes with the game, so there are no additional mods that need to be brought into question.
Here's an image of the car:

Once again, this is one of the default skins that was recolored in-game.

 

I keep getting an error message that "partmgmt" is unable to load the file, though it seems to be detecting the existence of said file...


I did make sure that the custom configuration file is under vehicles/sunburst, and that the name "Modified Rally" is correct...not sure what I'm doing wrong.
On the bright side, it is loading the bare-boned Sunburst, so at least I'm going the right direction.



The tire barriers seem to change correctly after I reload the scenario, so why the Sunburst is not able to do the same seems strange.

 

Alright, so it turns out I keep seriously underestimateing the amount of information Beam.NG wants before it will be cooperative.
Bottom line is that I figured it out and fixed the issue, and now the car is showing up fine.
To anyone reading this who wants to know how I fixed it, you may find this page useful.

 

Can somebody help me?
Code:
"speed":
{
"minSpeed":18,
"maxTimeout":2,
"wayPointNum":[1],
"msg":"Don't slow down!",
"purpose":"fail"
},

And after slowing down it counts like there is win not fail.
I don't know what i made wrong.

 

I fixed problem sorry for wasting your time

 

Some incredibly stupid questions:

1. How much of this is relevant to creating pure time attacks rather than scenarios? The wiki guide for that seems to skip much of this but leaves you with no way to actually position the objects you need.

2. I'm going to revive that old (and never-answered) questions about what you do when the map you're working with doesn't have the object you need - mod maps, custom-made objects, etc.

 

Quickraces use similar code, but have a different folder structure. Aside from that, it should be possible to copy the relevant files from an official quickrace and plop it into the map of your choosing, then start the quickrace in-game and adjust the prefab in the editor, same as a scenario.*

It is possible to retrieve objects from other maps to use in quickraces. You'll have to create a folder for the level (which you'll have to do to create a quickrace anyway), then place the relevant folders and files for the object in question. Usually, this'll be the .dae file, the 1-3 texture files, and a materials.cs file pointing to those textures.**

*not sure if that answers your question. It's pretty late, so my reading comprehension is shot atm.

**Many materials.cs files identify official textures via absolute paths, ie "levels/utah/art/shapes/texture.dds" instead of just "texture.dds". If your object is one of the former, you won't need to copy the textures at all.

 

Sounds like it would answer my question, but due to being a complete n00b to anything involving code (and to the fact that it's pretty late here too) I'm not sure what to do with that information this moment. Figure it out some other day I guess.

 

Oh look, I'm bringing back the dead again.

I've gotten back to Beam.NG after a long slump, and started doing scenarios again.
For the record: DesertHighway is a messy map that may look simple, but needs a serious overhaul. Hell, I might do it myself. But that's not the point.

I'm making a rally race that features the new Italian car.
Here's the area that the race will finish, which is included in the map.



I decided to *cough* "borrow" the finish boards that are used in the Utah scenario in which you pilot a rally car.
So a little bit of poking around, and I found the file, pulled it onto the map, and...



..voilà! Easy!
Now my computer is a pile of junk for Beam.NG...it doesn't exactly have much RAM, so it tends to be a little laggy. While I can often push 40-60 FPS when only one vehicle is out, it can bog down quickly...especially when you consider that DesertHighway is far from optimized. I figured that, if I wanted to improve the frames a bit, I could simply replace some of the props (mostly cones and tire barriers) with some of the mesh barricades also found in the Utah Scenario I mentioned earlier...after all, I don't think it's unreasonable to as efficient as possible.
So I did the same thing with the barricade as I did with the finish sign. (They're in the same folder, I might add.) And the result...



...is less than optimal. Any ideas?

 

Also, the AI for the Pigeons on one of my scenarios have crapped out, and this isn't the first scenario where this has happened. The thing I don't understand is that the scenario was working fine, but I decided to add one more vehicle via cloning it. I ensured it got a new name (and paint color). I'll dump the LUA code below; hopefully someone will tell me what I've messed up.

(The design is a figure-eight; that's why "ppwp3" is listed twice under "waypoints".)

Code:

local M = {}

local helper = require('scenario/scenariohelper')
local logTag = 'pigeon_panic'

local finalWaypointName = 'ppwp7'
local playerInstance = 'secretcar0'
local running = false
local playerWon = false
local aiWon = false
local noOfLaps = 2
local lapsCompleted = {}

local function reset()
  lapsCompleted['secretcar0'] = 0
  lapsCompleted['secretcar1'] = 0
  lapsCompleted['secretcar2'] = 0
  lapsCompleted['secretcar3'] = 0
  lapsCompleted['secretcar4'] = 0

  running = false
  playerWon = false
  aiWon = false
end

local function fail(reason)
  scenario_scenarios.finish({failed = reason})
  reset()
end

local function success(reason)
  scenario_scenarios.finish({msg = reason})
  reset()
end

local function onRaceStart()

  scenario_scenarios.trackVehicleMovementAfterDamage(playerInstance, {waitTimerLimit=10})

    running = true
end

local function onCountdownStarted()
  reset()

  local arg = {vehicleName = 'secretcar1',
              waypoints = {'ppwp1', 'ppwp2', 'ppwp3', 'ppwp4', 'ppwp5', 'ppwp6', 'ppwp3', 'ppwp7', 'ppwp1'},
              lapCount = noOfLaps,
              aggression = 1.1} -- aggression here acts as a multiplier to the Ai default aggression i.e. 0.7.

  helper.setAiPath(arg)

  arg.vehicleName = 'secretcar2'
  arg.aggression = 1.4

  helper.setAiPath(arg)

  arg.vehicleName = 'secretcar3'
  arg.aggression = 1.2
 
  helper.setAiPath(arg)
 
  arg.vehicleName = 'secretcar4'
  arg.aggression = 0.9

  helper.setAiPath(arg)
end

local function onRaceWaypointReached(data)
  --log('I', logTag,'onRaceWaypointReached called ')
  if data.waypointName == finalWaypointName then
    lapsCompleted[data.vehicleName] = lapsCompleted[data.vehicleName] + 1
    if lapsCompleted[data.vehicleName] == noOfLaps then
      if data.vehicleName == playerInstance and not aiWon then
        playerWon = true
      elseif not playerWon then
        aiWon = true
      end
    end
  end
end

local function onRaceResult()
  if playerWon then
    success('scenarios.utah.chapter_2.chapter_2_6_canyon.pass.msg')
  else
    fail('scenarios.utah.chapter_2.chapter_2_6_canyon.fail.msg')
  end
end

local function onVehicleStoppedMoving(vehicleID, damaged)
  if running then
    local playerVehicleID = scenetree.findObject(playerInstance):getID()
    if vehicleID == playerVehicleID and damaged and not playerWon then
      fail('scenarios.utah.chapter_2.chapter_2_6_canyon.fail.msg')
    end
  end
end

M.onRaceStart = onRaceStart
M.onCountdownStarted = onCountdownStarted
M.onRaceWaypointReached = onRaceWaypointReached
M.onRaceResult = onRaceResult
M.onVehicleStoppedMoving = onVehicleStoppedMoving
return M