Suspension Issue

R

rFactor2seminoob

Registered
Just to clarify, I am quite new to modding in rFactor 2, so please be patient.

After messing around in pTool to understand what everything does, I decided to actually modify a car's physics to see what happens! I chose the ASR Formula SAE car because the suspension isn't very complex. However, after modifying the ini file and the pm file, the car started to do weird things...

After editing the pm file to correspond with the ini file, the car's steering seem to do little to no affect(I did adjust the steering arm), but at least the car can go forward and backward. So I decided to edit part of the HDV to try to correct the steering. However by this time, the car started to do what the video is showing.

I no longer have any ideas about how to move forward with this issue, so any ideas will be appreciated. Let me know if you want to see any of the data files.

Things I changed in the HDV:
- Trackwidth
- Wheel base
- Changed a steering spinet that I got from: http://meetme.bplaced.net/rF2_onlineTools/rF2GGeninfo/rf2steering.php

Video of the issue:
 
I would go back to the start. It's easier than trying to work out what's gone wrong.

One thing that worries me is you talking about the .pm and the .ini file - the chassis.ini file should replace the .pm. When the .ini reference is in the HDV the .pm should do nothing.

Assuming you started with a working chassis.ini file, forget the pm. But then be careful about what you change, be sure to have a reason to change it and think about possible consequences. Steering arm is a good example of something where an apparently small adjustment can have a big influence.
 
If you have used the steering tool from chris's online tools site, you seem to have used it after you have edited some files manually.
That won't work, if you have edited the things improperly.
I don't know the mod, but in general it changes nothing when you edit a pm file, when a mod uses a chassis.ini file.
If there is a chassis.ini file linked in the hdv, the pm file gets ignored, even if it is also linked in the hdv.
And especially the whole steering is very sensitive and you can easily corrupt it by manually editing, if you don't know what you are doing. ;).
If the values in the chassis.ini don't match the values in the hdv file, you get the behaviour that is shown in the video.
Use chris's tools with the original/unedited files and you will get proper results.
 
Lazza said:
I would go back to the start. It's easier than trying to work out what's gone wrong.

One thing that worries me is you talking about the .pm and the .ini file - the chassis.ini file should replace the .pm. When the .ini reference is in the HDV the .pm should do nothing.

Assuming you started with a working chassis.ini file, forget the pm. But then be careful about what you change, be sure to have a reason to change it and think about possible consequences. Steering arm is a good example of something where an apparently small adjustment can have a big influence.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for the response!

Could you give me a suspension modding work flow if I were to restart? (for example first get rid of the pm and then edit chassis etc.)

Thank you!
 
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Bernd said:
If you have used the steering tool from chris's online tools site, you seem to have used it after you have edited some files manually.
That won't work, if you have edited the things improperly.
I don't know the mod, but in general it changes nothing when you edit a pm file, when a mod uses a chassis.ini file.
If there is a chassis.ini file linked in the hdv, the pm file gets ignored, even if it is also linked in the hdv.
And especially the whole steering is very sensitive and you can easily corrupt it by manually editing, if you don't know what you are doing. ;).
If the values in the chassis.ini don't match the values in the hdv file, you get the behaviour that is shown in the video.
Use chris's tools with the original/unedited files and you will get proper results.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for the response!

I have two questions:
- What are some of the tools that might be helpful to me from Chris's tool list?
- Do you have any tips for modifying steering?

Thank you, and looking forward to your response!
 
rFactor2seminoob said:
Thank you so much for the response!

I have two questions:
- What are some of the tools that might be helpful to me from Chris's tool list?
- Do you have any tips for modifying steering?

Thank you, and looking forward to your response!
Click to expand...
Which tools from chris's site can be helpful for you, depends on what you want to do.
You for example want to modify the steering as you say.
What exactly do you want to modify?

Basically you can edit all files manually.
But you really have to know what you are doing, if you do that.
As said before, especially the steering is very sensitive.
One reason is, that the steering values in the chassis.ini correspond with the steering values in the hdv.
So when you for example edit only the steering geometry values that are in the chassis.ini, but don't adapt the steering values in the hdv to these modified values, you will get problems, like the ones that are shown in your video, with a very high probability.
 
Bernd said:
Which tools from chris's site can be helpful for you, depends on what you want to do.
You for example want to modify the steering as you say.
What exactly do you want to modify?

Basically you can edit all files manually.
But you really have to know what you are doing, if you do that.
As said before, especially the steering is very sensitive.
One reason is, that the steering values in the chassis.ini correspond with the steering values in the hdv.
So when you for example edit only the steering geometry values that are in the chassis.ini, but don't adapt the steering values in the hdv to these modified values, you will get problems, like the ones that are shown in your video, with a very high probability.
Click to expand...
Can you be a bit more about which specific values in hdv that should be changed if I changed the chassis.ini (ie. SteerLockRange, SteerLockSetting) ? I want to modify pretty much the whole suspension geometry, so if that's the case, what are some of the values I should watch out for? Let me know if you want to see the hdv file
 
Bernd said:
If you have used the steering tool from chris's online tools site, you seem to have used it after you have edited some files manually.
That won't work, if you have edited the things improperly.
I don't know the mod, but in general it changes nothing when you edit a pm file, when a mod uses a chassis.ini file.
If there is a chassis.ini file linked in the hdv, the pm file gets ignored, even if it is also linked in the hdv.
And especially the whole steering is very sensitive and you can easily corrupt it by manually editing, if you don't know what you are doing. ;).
If the values in the chassis.ini don't match the values in the hdv file, you get the behaviour that is shown in the video.
Use chris's tools with the original/unedited files and you will get proper results.
Click to expand...
I don't know why but unfortunately the hdv doesn't link the chassis.ini anywhere (PhysicalModelFile=fsae_pt.pm)... And when I try to replace fsae_pt.pm with the chassis.ini (so PhysicalModelFile=fsae_pt_Chassis.ini), the car won't load (the loading bar would fill up but then the entire devMode would crash). What should I do?
 
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As @Corti has said, to link a flex chassis.ini, you have to use the entry
UltraChassis=[Name of the chassis file]
in the [SUSPENSION] section of the hdv.
It sounds a bit strange that there is a chassis.ini, but it is not in use.
I would ask myself, why the modders have not used it.
And you probably also don't have the advanced rfactor 2 steering entries used in the hdv, because it currently uses the pm as physics file.
For me it looks as if the mod that you use, is an only 'half converted' rfactor 1 mod.
So it is not easy to give you some proper hints about what you have to do, to modify things.
To play around with things, i would suggest to use the default FISIR2012 cars and download the physics spreadsheet version 0.35, that this mod uses, from this site:
https://docs.studio-397.com/developers-guide/cars/car-physics/physics-calculation-tool
With that spreadsheet, you use the flex chassis and you can change things and export the needed files, in an easier way than to edit files manually.
 
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Bernd said:
As @Corti has said, to link a flex chassis.ini, you have to use the entry
UltraChassis=[Name of the chassis file]
in the [SUSPENSION] section of the hdv.
It sounds a bit strange that there is a chassis.ini, but it is not in use.
I would ask myself, why the modders have not used it.
And you probably also don't have the advanced rfactor 2 steering entries used in the hdv, because it currently uses the pm as physics file.
For me it looks as if the mod that you use, is an only 'half converted' rfactor 1 mod.
So it is not easy to give you some proper hints about what you have to do, to modify things.
To play around with things, i would suggest to use the default FISIR2012 cars and download the physics spreadsheet version 0.35, that this mod uses, from this site:
https://docs.studio-397.com/developers-guide/cars/car-physics/physics-calculation-tool
With that spreadsheet, you use the flex chassis and you can change things and export the needed files, in an easier way than to edit files manually.
Click to expand...

Ok so I changed PhysicalModelFile=fsae_pt.pm to UltraChassis=fsae_pt_Chassis.ini and everything went well.

I also have seen the spreadsheet, I have looked it through, except I still don't exactly know how to correspond it with the hdv and other files. So if you know a thread or a good tutorial on the tool, could you please let me know?
 
There are no tutorials that lead you through the whole process, you have to gather the things together, step by step, by yourself.
To post tutorials here would be much too time consuming.
Better you ask for specific things that you want to know. ;)​
And to use the spreadsheet, you should also be a bit familiar with the usage of such spreadsheets.
I have suggested to use the FISIR2012, because you can use the files, that you can export from the spreadsheet, for that mod.
The FISIR2012 bases on that spreadsheet.
And i can only repeat myself.
To edit the files of an existing mod by hand, is more than complicated in many cases, especially if you are new in modding.
 
I'm too rookie. But I just discovered that in the "Userdata" folder of the ModDev the "chassis.ini" file of each mod we have in development is automatically generated :eek:
moddev.JPG
 
Bernd said:
There are no tutorials that lead you through the whole process, you have to gather the things together, step by step, by yourself.
To post tutorials here would be much too time consuming.
Better you ask for specific things that you want to know. ;)​
And to use the spreadsheet, you should also be a bit familiar with the usage of such spreadsheets.
I have suggested to use the FISIR2012, because you can use the files, that you can export from the spreadsheet, for that mod.
The FISIR2012 bases on that spreadsheet.
And i can only repeat myself.
To edit the files of an existing mod by hand, is more than complicated in many cases, especially if you are new in modding.
Click to expand...
That is one of the issues with the FISIR2012 car, all the data files are in a encrypted mas file which can't be opened by the rFactor 2 app (for me at least). So I can't access the data files.

I guess I'll just have to ask if I need to know something about the spreadsheet.
 
Corti said:
I'm too rookie. But I just discovered that in the "Userdata" folder of the ModDev the "chassis.ini" file of each mod we have in development is automatically generated :eek:
View attachment 26149
Click to expand...
Yes, but only if the used mod uses a flex chassis.ini already, the generated one is also a flex chassis.ini.
If you for example convert a mod from rfactor1, the generated file has a "rigid" chassis, converted from the pm (no seperate front and rear subbody).​

rFactor2seminoob said:
...I guess I'll just have to ask if I need to know something about the spreadsheet.
Click to expand...
How is that meant?
 
Generally when you first enter a car using a pm file into dev mode it will auto generate an ultrachassis file as outlined in the screenshot. This is effectively a stiff ultrachassis. From there you can adjust what you require in ptool(the easiest way I have found to do realtime adjustment) to introduce compliance into the chassis.
Where the spreadsheet comes in extremely handy, and why I would suggest using it to start with; is in getting all the steering and camber adjustment changes to arm/wishbone connection location correct.

If you are converting from rF1, you already have a HDV,pm, engine, gears files etc, input as much of that as possible into the spreadsheet. It takes time but can help you see certain things, and how changes can affect things. Aero is probably the hardest to get right, along with the changes between rF1 and 2(Follow the dev blogs on this part)
It took me the best part of 2 years to get a handle on the spreadsheet, but it has also helped me understand things a lot more.
 
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