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Often people ask how to change events in freeplay to change the game to fit their style of playing more then the original game did. This tutorial will break down the important lines and teach you what things to change and what effect they have. As always [b]BACKUP YOUR ORIGINAL FILES FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/b] Next, navigate to the folder your game is installed in and go to \Mods\Los Angeles Mod v1.6\Specs The files are in xml format which is just a text document and easily modifiable. Depending on your computer skill level, you can either open the files directly into notepad by right clicking the file and selecting "Open With" and selecting notepad or wordpad, OR you can change the filename from .xml to .txt There are 4 files you can change to affect freeplay depending on which version of the game you have. [i]fp_params_challenge.xml [/i] <-- Changes the Freeplay Challenge mode in EM4 and FR [i]fp_params_endless.xml[/i] <-- Changes the Freeplay Endless mode in EM4 and FR [i]fp_params_challenge_d.xml[/i] <-- Changes the Freeplay Challenge mode in Deluxe [i]fp_params_endless_d.xml[/i] <-- Changes the Freeplay Endless mode in Deluxe You can change all of the files or just the one of the mode you play the most. ------ [i]<MinDurationBetweenEvents value = "30.0" /> [/i] This is the minimum duration between two events. If things are happening too quickly for you, or one on top of another, you can change this to whatever you'd like. Most people find 120 or 140 to be a comfortable setting [i]<StartBudget value="150000"/> <MaxBudget value="400000"/> <Earnings value="30000"/> [/i] These are the initial amount of money you have, the max amount you can have, and how much you earn each time the game gives you your pay. Change these number to increase or decrease the amount you want. [i]<InitialEventWaitDuration value="5.0"/>[/i] How long from the time the game starts until you get your first event. Some people like to increase this time so they can get their units on patrol and set up the map the way they like first. [i]<starttime value="7:30"/>[/i] What time of day the game starts at. Change it to midnight or to noon or to any other time you wish. [i]<TrainCycle value="240.0"/> <!-- in seconds -->[/i] How often the train comes through. If you find yourself frustrated by the train, you can set it to a high number like 9999.0 to see it less often. --------------------- [b]Editing Events[/b] Some people only like fire events, some like police events, this section will break down an event and all of the factors you can change. [code] <EFPEventFall> <Enabled value = "1" /> <!-- AverageFrequency: average number of events per 10 minutes --> <AverageFrequency value = "0.4" /> <Worth value = "4.0" /> <SupervisorStart value = "ID_SUPERV_EVENT17" /> <SupervisorFinish value = "" /> </EFPEventFall>[/code] This is a typical event for freeplay [code]<EFPEventFall> </EFPEventFall>[/code] Opening and closing tags that describe the event itself. This would be a Fallen person medical aid. [code]<Enabled value = "1" />[/code] 1 is enabled, 0 is disabled. Like an on/off switch [code]<!-- AverageFrequency: average number of events per 10 minutes --> <AverageFrequency value = "0.4" />[/code] This tag is debatable, many of us have noticed that incidents with a lower number happen more often then those with a higher number. Setting it to 0.0 also has the effect of disabling the incident. --- There are many other event tags, but for the most part they are self explanatory such as how long a person waits, how far they run, and whether or not they are armed. Another thing you can change is the weather. [code] <weather name="fair" changeduration="15.0" minduration="60" maxduration="180"> <fog intensity="0.0" color="ffffff"/> <rain intensity="0.0"/> <storm intensity="0.0" speed="0.0"/> <flash frequencyfactor="0.0"/> <sound name=""/> <sound2 name=""/> <transition state="cloudy" weight="1.5"/> <transition state="misty" weight="0.7"/> </weather>[/code] You can see that for a nice day, all of the fog, rain, storm and everything is set to 0.0. It also shows that after that, it will transition to either cloudy or misty. If weather slows down your system, or you just accept the fact that in Los Angeles, we go nearly all year without any rain, you can change many of these factors. You can go down to the bad weather and set them all to 0.0. You can remove the transition state lines in fair, and then remove all of the other weather types. Or you can find your own happy medium that you prefer. ----- Remember to save the file to the same location and if you changed the file name to .txt, remember to put it back as .xml I hope that helps, Mike

Hello all, this tutorial will touch on the basics of lighting in Emergency 4, an essential part of a mod that can make the difference between a great mod and a mediocre mod. First off I'll touch on the different things you'll encounter in the editor. Coronas This is the most basic part of a light and can be placed wherever you want to see the glow. There's many options for colours, which can come stock, or designed through photo editing programs. http://i.imgur.com/Q29tT3p.png Here you can see the drop down menu letting you select the types of coronas. They're generally pretty basically named, so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what one you'd like. If you're lighting a unit that has different colour/shades of lights than you see here, you can make a corona file and name it your own, as seen with my corona4_nfk_red.tga. Files are saved : Mod:Textures\Coronas and saved as targa files, 32x32 for best results. Generally speaking again, less is more however more coronas is not the most damaging thing you can do Radiation This is a very controversial part among modders. Too much will ruin your lights, your unit and possibly the game experience. The modders I spoke with on this had divided opinions on how much to use and why. No radiation, period: While this will certainly increase the overall performance of your units, and prevent any radiation related issues, it's the most extreme and not really necessary. Basic Radiation Only: This means only placing subtle radiation on brake and headlights. This means that you have at least the basics, but doesn't give you a glowing effect or the ground effects you associate with emergency vehicles in real life. Heavy Radiation: Putting a radiation box for every flash does provide a realistic lighting effect, which looks great in youtube videos and show cases but it is hard on the old engine that runs this game. Although a unit or two on a map may work well with heavy radiation, when combined with the high poly models that are commonplace now as well as the effects happening in the game, FPS will drop and the mod will become virtually unplayable. Strategic radiation: As you can tell, this is my preference, so I am biased on this, but where the game is older, even maximized systems will struggle without optimization of every part of the game, including lighting effects. Generally speaking, vehicles will have a main light system, maybe a full sized light bar, or interior lighting systems. The trick is to find the main system functioning and place radiation around it in a way that looks close. Placing a radiation block near the light will work. For Ambulances where they have perimeter lighting, flash patterns can be emulated following a similar method, just moving the radiation to the lighthead. A standard LED Lightbar is likely to have a 1-2 pattern, where sides flash opposite to each other. This is particularly common in ambulances and police vehicles. By placing radiation on one light for each flash on each side will help produce a realistic ground effect without being too heavy on resources. While it will not emulate ground effects for perimeter lights or other area lighting, it gives enough detail for bird eye view, like in this game. This type of radiation works best on patterns such as seen on this lightbar: https://youtu.be/IxwxcNC8SQQ?t=24 For vehicles such as fire trucks or vehicles with one rotating light can achieve ground effects that are not taxing, but still can look aesthetically pleasing. Fire Trucks have a weird lighting layout many times, such as the Ladder in Hoppah's LA Mod. The trick lies in placing radiation on sides where lightbars would shine in real life, but by placing them in alternating time flashes as well as slight location differences. When activated, the ground effects will show a flashing effect. It differs from unit to unit, but can be achieve with some playing around and timing. I complied some images in an album here to show you what I'm talking about. How to make realistic lights LED Lights: As vehicles get newer, agencies have been shifting to LED for their superior performance in many areas including brightness, visibility, cost and maintenance. These are pretty easy in comparison to halogen lights, especially the way this game was designed. Start by placing the corona in the area you want, switch to polygon mode and begin drawing by clicking to place corners. You should try to create a box around the lighthead. What this does is puts a glowing area that is supposedly lit up by the light when it flashes. Back to light mode, you can set flash frequency and intensity. The former is of course how fast the light blinks and the latter is how quick it turns off. A higher intensity will mean a shorter, quicker blink. When you feel as if you're ready, you can copy and paste the light, changing the flash offset value, which will change timing. Depending on the speed at which your light flashes and the pattern you're trying to emulate, you will range anywhere between. A 1 is on when 0 is off. For reference, for a standard alternating strobe type pattern, I set speed of 4.00, two lights on either light head, 0.00 and 0.50 offset for the first light, and 1.00 and 1.5 for the other light, all with a 0.95 intensity. Play around with it, see what works for you. Rotating Lights: This is something that everyone has a totally different way of doing, and you'll probably change your method a dozen times before you find something you like. There's a bunch of methods, so I'll outline some that I've used and been told about. Single corona: This is the first one that was very popular seen in mods. It's featured in the LA mod and based off of the idea that you see a blink when the light flashes. It's the way the base game started. It's light, but it doesn't look all that great. Don't do it, you're better than that if you're taking the time to read this. 4 alternating coronas in a square pattern: So this is the first way I learned, and it's by placing them in a tight square, with a high intensity, speed and an offset of 0.25 each. This creates a spinning type effect when zoomed out a little bit. The problem is, this means 4 lights for every effect. Not only that but there is also the lack of a "blink" that you see when looking at a light in real life. 4 alternating coronas in a square pattern with flash: I've seen some mods with this lately, it's meant to address the blink you see in real life. You still get a rotating effect and the flash. This addresses one issue, but adds another when it puts in an additional light. The blink is usually timed with one of the other lights' offset 2 coronas with flash: So this is the one I personally use now, as well as many other people coming up. The method is placing two coronas, usually 0.50 offset apart. On models with clear lenses, it's easier to do this. I recommend trying it on this type first as it's easier to place them. Hoppah has a pack in his LA mod to practice on. I place the coronas on either side of the rotator beacon. In the middle then, I place a larger corona, at half way between the offsets (0.00, 0.50 = 0.25) at full intensity to create that blink. I personally also change the corona type to a different one. I may use 5_red for either side and _redlight for the flash. That works for me and my units, but you need to do what works for you and more importantly the units you're representing. Hopefully this provides a brief overview of the basics, some methods on how to get you started and explains some choices. If you have any questions, comments or your own thoughts to add, please let me know in the comments section

[b]1.[/b] Import both the person model you want to edit, as well as the object model you are adding. Make sure the person's .VMO file is in the same directory/folder as .v3o file you are importing - the .VMO file contains the skeleton, bones, and animation sets. [b]2[/b]. Position the new object where you want it on the person model. [b]3.[/b] Attach the object to the person model. (Modify --> Attach) [b]4.[/b] Paint influence of the desired bone onto the object's vertices. For instance: a new helmet will be influenced entirely by the head bone.[list] [*]4.1. Cycle through bones until you have highlighted the desired bone. (Rigging --> Skeleton --> Set next skeleton bone as current) [*]4.2. Once the desired bone is highlighted, select the tool to assign desired vertices to highlighted bone. (Rigging --> Influence --> Copy vertices weights between or within object). [*]4.3. Enable vertex editing mode (Key "1", click on model in viewport). Ensure "Auto" (bottom right corner) is enabled by pressing the spacebar. Using the influence tool, click and drag a box over the desired vertices to assign influence. [*]4.4. Once desired vertices are selected, disable "Auto" (spacebar). Click in viewport once. [*]4.5. Use the painting tool (Rigging --> Influence --> Paint weight of current bone on vertices) to paint bone weight onto any stray vertices. This is sometimes required if the first tool does not correctly assign all of the vertices to the desired bone. [b]Note[/b]: It may take several passes of the paint brush to correctly assign all vertices. You want all desired vertices to be the same solid color of the highlighted bone. [*]4.6. Enable object editing mode (Key "4"). Select normalizing tool (Rigging --> Influence --> Normalize weight on vertices). Click model. [/list] [b]5.[/b] Export .v3o file. [b]IMPORTANT NOTES:[/b] 1. You can check that vertices were assigned to correct bone by opening up .v3o file in Notepad and checking that all new vertices (#, 1024, #, 1024, etc) are listed under correct K/Anchor bone at the very bottom of the file. 2. Sometimes the automated assigning tool in step 4.2 does not assign all vertices correctly. Use tool described in 4.5 to clean up any stray vertices.

Emergency 4 - Adding Vehicles Difficulty: Moderate [background=#ffffff]Programs used: Emergency 4 (v1.3) Editor WordPad or Notepad[/font] This tuturial will teach you how to add a new vehicle to your mod step by step. You should already have a model and texture file. Besides this tutorial, it can be VERY useful to compare your files with other mods or original files. [background=#ffffff]In this tutorial, the following vehicle will be added to a mod: Image 01: Vehicle[/font] ========================== NEW FOLDERS: 1. Adding new vehicles requires the following folders in your mod if you don't have them already: Lang, Models, Prototypes, Specs and Units. Image 02: Add new folders 2. All files in your mod are sorted in subfolders. You need to create those folders too. 3. In case you want to add a police vehicle you need to make the following folders in your mod folder: .../Models/Vehicles/Police/ .../Prototypes/Vehicles/Police/ 4. Now, move all model- and texture files from your vehicle to your .../Models/Vehicles/Police/ folder. Image 03: Subfolders and the model- and texture files In case you are renaming your model- and texture files: 5. You need to make sure the texture files are linked to their model files, otherwise each model is missing their textures. 6. Open each model file (.V3O) with WordPad and look for the texture name. Change it to your new texture name and save the file. NOTE: If you're seeing a lot of weird symbols, the model is locked/packed (all Emergency 4 model files are). You can unpack the model file in the Emergency 4 editor. Start the editor. Go to Modifications -> Unpack file... It doesn't matter if your file is packed or not. Emergency 4 can read both. Image 04: Change texture name in model files ========================== CREATING AND EDITING BODY PROTOTYPE FILES: 7. When you have moved your model- and texture files to your mod you need to make prototype files. Each object of your vehicle has its own prototype file (body, doors, wheels etc...). Lets start with the body of the new vehicle. 8. Start the editor and always load your mod (Modifications -> My mod) first, otherwise the changes won't be made in your modfolder, but inside the Data folder of Emergency 4. 9. If you're not seeing the object window, go to Edit -> Scene. 10. Click on Vehicles -> Police (just like those subfolders in step 9) and click on NEW. 11. A new window will appear. The first thing you have to do is linking your model file to the prototype file. 12. Click on Browse behind Modelfile: and search the model file of the body of your new vehicle. Click OK. Your model is linked to the prototype file and can be viewed in the editor if you click on OK in the prototype window. 13. Each object in Emergency 4 has some options which need to be checked or not. For vehicles check the following options in the bottom of the prototype window: A black dot in: Physics, Children, Lights, Traits and General. A little cross in: Fire Use 'Custom' as Placement. 14. Now, you have to edit the Traits of your object. Click on Edit Traits. A new window will appear. Change the Flags first. Usually, most Emergency vehicles use Shootable, Coolable, Transportable - ASF and Recoverable - FGrR. If you want to have equipment inside the car, check some flags under Contained Equipment too (not more than 6). Voice/Sound is for the type of voice for your vehicle. Emergency 4 has 3 different voices (0, 1 and 2). Set the gender (for vehicles: Male or Female). Choose your type of vehicle under TaskForce Vehicle Type. Because our vehicle is a simple police vehicle we choose Police StW this time. Setting the Explosion Settings: Effect means which particle is used when your car explodes. Wreck Prototype is the wreck of the car after the explosion. Setting the Passenger and Transports: Those two values are only used when you place vehicles on maps in the editor. Setting the Material: Each object in Emergency 4 has a material. Normal vehicles usually have Car as Material. 15. When you're done with the Traits, click OK. 16. You need to assign commands to the vehicle. Click on Edit Commands. Required commands for most vehicles are: MoveTo, EmptyCar and GoHome. It is not very difficult to understand what those commands mean. 17. If you want to add lights to your car use the Light Editor function (Edit Lights). It is not very difficult to learn to add new lights. Comparing with other cars works most of the time. Image 05: Create a prototype file Image 06: Link prototype file to model Image 07: Check options Image 08: Edit Traits Image 09: Add commands ========================== CREATING AND EDITING WHEEL AND DOOR PROTOTYPE FILES: 18. The prototype files of the wheels and doors are basicly the same as body prototypes, except that you don't have to edit the General, Traits and Lights options. 19. Just like the body prototype file, create a new prototype file in the same folder as the body prototype file. 20. All door prototype files have to end with "_door##" and wheels with "_wheel##" (## stands for 2 numbers), so in this tutorial the first wheel prototype file name could be "new_car_door01". This is very important, because otherwise Emergency 4 won't reconize the wheels and doors. 21. When you've created a wheel or door, assign a door- or wheel model to the prototype file (step 18) and you're done. When you restart the editor, the door- and wheel prototypes can be found in Objects -> _VehicleParts_doors and _VehicleParts_wheels. Image 10: All prototype files ready ========================== ADDING DOORS AND WHEELS TO YOUR CAR: 22. Before you are going to add the doors and wheels to the body, make sure all prototype files are correct and that the models show up with the right texture. Addings wheels to your car is very easy. Go to your new car in the object window, then Edit -> Edit Children -> Edit Wheels. 23. Look for the wheel you've made in the list and press Add. If you can't find your wheel, the file name propably didn't end with "_wheel" and a number. 24. Use the Preview window to position the first wheel. Use ALT and your mouse to change the height. You might want to use Snap angles or Snap to objects to make it easier to position the wheel. 25. Use Copy Wheel to make the three others wheels which have the same height as the first wheel. Position them too. 26. Now, go to Edit Doors and add all doors to your vehicle and position them. Snap to object and Snap angles can be very useful. 27. On the right side of the Children window you can change some things. Change Axis to change the way the door opens. Change Door Action for which action the door will be opened. 28. You also want to add other objects (childs) to your vehicle like a lightbar. Use the Edit Children -> Edit Childs function then. Image 11: Adding wheels Image 12: Adding doors ========================== UNIT ID: 29. Each vehicle or person has its own ID (Identification) name. This ID is used to reconize the vehicle. The name of each vehicle is attached to their ID. Each vehicle has its own unit.xml file. All those files must be placed in a new folder. 30. So, we are going to change the Units folder. Our vehicle is a Police type vehicle so you need to create the following folders in the Units folder. .../Vehicles/Police/ 31. Create another folder in the Police folder. The name doesn't really matter. But the way how the vehicles are sorted ingame is based on the names of the folders. In this tutorial we create a folder called "001newcar". 32. Besides unit.xml, all menu pictures are also placed in that folder. The best way to change unit.xml for a new vehicle, is copying an existing file and changing it. About those menu pictures: Each car needs eight images. One large image which will appear in the lower right window when you select the vehicle. Four images are needed for the menu and three for the TransAid menu. If you are known with programs like Photoshop it's not very difficult to make new images for your vehicles. On the bottom of this tutorial you can download empty unit images. You only have to add a picture of your vehicle to those images. 33. Copy an existing unit.xml from the ".../Emergency 4/Data/Units/..." folder to your new folder and open it with WordPad or Notepad. 34. Make up a unit ID for your vehicle and enter it between the brackets in the first line. I've used: CV_LAPD. You will need that ID later! There are two large parts in this file which are basicly the same; campaign and freeplay. Most things will speak for themselves, but some things are important to know: Maximum number of 'space value' is 8. Maximum number of 'loadspace value' is 9. Don't add more than 4 unit ID's. Don't add more than 6 equipment ID's. Adding 22 to 'mission value' in the freeplay part is required to use the vehicle in freeplay. 35. When you are done, save the file. You can open .xml files with Internet Explorer to check it for mistakes. If Internet Explorer gives an error, something is wrong with the file. Image 13: Create unit folder Image 14: Files inside the unit folder Image 15: Changing unit.xml ========================== SPECS: 36. Some files in the Specs folder are required when you add a vehicle to your mod. Copy the following files from your .../Emergency 4/Data/Specs folder to the Specs folder in your mod: freeplaybase.xml freeplaybase_mp.xml portraits.xml metastrings.xml freeplaybase_d.xml (if you have EM4 Deluxe) 37. Open freeplaybase.xml with Wordpad. Every available vehicle in freeplay has their own line. 'count' means the number of vehicles in your garage which have already been bought. Copy/Paste or change one of the lines and enter the path to your new vehicle. Do this for freeplaybase_mp.xml (for multiplayer) and/or freeplaybase_d.xml (if you have EM4 Deluxe) too. 38. Open portraits.xml with WordPad. Just like in freeplaybase.xml has each vehicle has their own line. Copy/Paste or change one of the lines, enter the correct path to your new vehicle prototype. Enter the Unit ID which has been made up in step 40 and enter the exact same name behind 'text' and 'unit'. Image 16: Specs folder Image 17: Changing freeplaybase.xml Image 18: Changing portraits.xml ========================== TEXT (LANGUAGE) FILES: 39. Copy the following files from your .../Emergency 4/Data/Lang/[game language]/ to your mod: infotexts.xml portraits.xml 40. Make sure the paths to these files have been changed in metastrings.xml too. 41. Open infotexts.xml Each unit must have three lines with a text: ID_NAME_[unit ID] The name of the unit. ID_PURPOSE_[unit ID] Some information about the unit. ID_TOOLTIP_[unit ID] Text which appears when you move your cursur over the menu image of the unit. Make sure to enter the unit ID correctly and make up a name, purpose and tooltip text. 42. Open portraits.xml Just like infotexts.xml each unit has a line with text. This text will appear in the lower right window when you select your new vehicle. ID_PORTRAIT_[unit ID] 43. When you're done with the text files, your vehicle should be ready to use ingame. 44. Start Emergency 4, load your mod, start a mission or freeplay and play with your vehicle! Image 19: Text files Image 20: Changing infotexts.xml Image 21: Changing portraits.xml Download empty unit images: Emergency 4 Unit Images For questions about this tutorial: Emergency 4: Adding vehicles ========================== Tutorial made by Hoppah July 2007

[size="4"]OK. [b]Perma-Modding[/b] is the art of getting mod files, working out where they go, and making them work [i]without having to load them[/i]. [/size][size="3"]This tutorial will tell you how to do this to any mod you choose! [list=1][*]Get the mod you want, and run the mod-installer on it to put it in the mods folder.[*]Cut (Ctrl+X) and Paste (Ctrl+V) the content of the [ModName] folder into the Data folder.[*]Go to "Data/Specs" and open "metastrings.xml" with Wordpad or an XML Editor.[*]You will see each one says "mod:" and a file path.[*]Remove the filepath (just leaving the filename, such as "command.xml".[*]then insert just before the filename you left "lang:"[*]This should make the lines look somthing like this:[*][font="Lucida Console"]<file name="lang:command.xml" />[/font][*]Once every line has this general layout, save it.[*]Start the game.[*][u]If for some reason it doesnt work, message me.[/u][/list][/size]