LocalDent - Vehicle Deformation and Dynamic Collision

Description

LocalDent adds localized body dents, folding hoods, and trunk lids to cars. The purpose is to add vanilla-friendly deformation to a rock-solid car body. Damage strength is based on collision impulse and vehicle mass. Starting from version 0. 5 also includes experimental front and rear collision compression. Deformation does not affect the vehicle handling.

Impacts create localized body dents, repeated crashes accumulate deformation, and hoods and trunk lids can fold roughly in the middle. The crushing effect may bring older driving games such as Carmageddon 2 to mind, while retaining the look of GTA SA's stock vehicles.

- Body deformation based on impact position, direction, and strength. It uses collision impulse and vehicle mass rather than health loss alone.

- Separate folding behavior for hoods and horizontal trunk lids, with configurable crease settings.

- Deformation for the player's vehicle and nearby NPCs, within approximately 100 meters by default. Nearby NPC-to-NPC crashes are processed too.

- Experimental front and rear collision compression, intended to reduce the “invisible bumper” effect after heavy crushing.

- INI configuration, Moderate and Strong presets available in the archive.

F7 restores the player's current vehicle's visible geometry and collision shape, but does not restore health or detached parts.

About collision deformation: the physical shape is an approximation; it does not follow every body polygon. In 0. 5, physical compression affects the front and rear only. Roof and side collision remain unchanged. You can disable this feature in the . INI separately while keeping visible damage. This is not full soft-body physics.

Requirements and installation

Requires GTA SA 1. 0 US and an ASI Loader. Copy LocalDent.asi and LocalDent.ini into the folder containing gta_sa.exe. No separate CLEO script is needed. Running it alongside VehDeform or other deformation mods is not recommended.

The mod is intended for stock vehicles. Collision deformation remains experimental. Compatibility with replacement models, graphics mods, and multiplayer has not been confirmed.

New in 0. 6. 3

- Folding hoods and trunk lids now account for body displacement at their hinge-side edge. Relative folding is retained without applying full longitudinal body shortening twice. This follows the deformation field approximately; it is not a physical attachment of every vertex to the body.

- Crease position varies between tracked vehicles and panel types. With PanelCrease=0. 5, the default range is 38–62% of panel length. The chosen value remains stable instead of changing every frame or impact. The crease stays transverse; random tilt is not included.

- Rear lamps receive the game's standard smashed-light status based on local impact strength near each lamp. Left and right are evaluated separately; a strong central rear impact can damage both. NPC vehicles are included. This uses the stock lighting system and adds no new cracked textures or separate fragments; appearance depends on the model.

- F7 restores geometry and collision but does not repair stock lamp damage states. Use a normal vehicle repair for the lamps.

- Triangle splitting and normal-side labels now use the same individual crease as panel deformation.

- Fixed the wrong function used when updating private collision triangles.

Version history

- 0. 6 — panels follow body deformation, varied crease positions, and rear lamp damage.

- 0. 5 — experimental private front/rear collision compression and sphere refinement.

- 0. 4. 1 — separate glass included in deformation.

- 0. 4 — nearby NPC vehicle support.

- 0. 3 — hood and trunk lid folding.

- 0. 2 — impulse/mass-based impact response and improved contact handling.

- 0. 1. 2 — geometry-copying fix following crashes in early builds.