[img]http://i9.tinypic.com/54nt1nb.jpg[/img]

Ok, the main reason i posted this and revealed it to the public, is mostly because now it's the time to receive sugestions and custom requests, of course i have my own ideas, but i need some help in porting these tracks from this game with extra features than the original game, since we won't be able to get out of the car and doing the same stuff that we can do in gta3...

Here's the status of the project :

- i already have the whole Portland city in 3dsmax ready to export to plaything, BUT i first need to do tons of renaming and optimizing of materials and textures since it has more than 1000 textures (about 1200-1300 i think), and c2 is not able to handle more than 1000 pixelmaps, so i am still sorting the textures to remove duplicates and make use of the "true color" function, but it's almost done.

- it's not possible to put all three islands in a single track, i can only put 1 island in each track

- ALL noncars and most of the smashables are already done (including bounding boxes and .txt setup) and almost ready to import in the track, there is about 80 different objects to knock down, yes, that's right almost ALL objects in gta3 are either noncars or smashables ! Including most trees.

- i am currently making the parked cars in gta3 as smashables, so that when hit they explode like in gta3, and some of the services cars (cops, taxis, ambulance, bus, etc) i am also converting to drones

- i am planning to make use of the hidden packages original locations for the best powerups, but i would like some sugestions on this

- i am also planning a mission track, featuring the gang leaders of gta3, but this is later when i finish doing the other 2 islands.

- all stairs structures have a invisible slope 3d model to help cars being able to climb them

Update : As you all can see i have finally uploaded a screenshot of the track inside plaything2, unfortunately i can't do the same in-game becasue the track has more than 995 pixelmaps and almost half of the track would look grey, but to compensate that i just released a preview track of this gta3 porting !!!

[b]A preview track of a extract of Portland city in carma2 :[/b]

ttp://rapidshare.com/files/36313134/Carma2_newtrack_prev.rar.html

mirror : htp://www.megaupload.com/?d=QSFQYK7E

(remember to fix the http part to be able to download the file, or to just omit the http part)

The password of the file is "cfe_carma2" without quotes, and you will need Winrar to unpack it obviously.

Ok, i know i haven't continued to work in this project in the last months because of being really busy, but i am FAR from lacking motivation to continue this, so don't worry you all i will NOT drop this project, specially because it's not much laborious.

But meanwhile i have posted a screenshot of the entire Portland city loaded in Plaything2, so that you all see this is truth, this project is really possible and last time i temporarly stopped working on it, ALL objects were already done and ready to be inserted in the track.

Those which have played gta3 will noticed that this is only a extract of the Portland city and made a VERY QUICK port of it into Plaything2 but as you will all see, this has TONS of glitches that only appear because i didn't wanted to waste time fixing them on a preview track (it's too much work, which would have to be done again when i would port the entire city), but don't worry when i release the entire city as a track, almost all of these glitches will be gone, since i know how to fix almost all of these (i say almost because i don't know if any new glitches will appear when the full city will be ported).

Regarding the city objects, at least the ones i planned to make smashable and tippable, they aren't ported in this track (since i still have to code a tool to replace noncars and smashables using dummy objects in 3dsmax), but to compensate that, i imported a few of the most innovative objects into near the race starting point, so that you all can see a preview of some of the new objects that will be present in this gta3 port, since ALMOST ALL of gta3 objects will be smashable or tippable like these! (just read the main post for details).

Note that to smash the gas canisters you will have to use Solid granite powerup or a big truck, and also the tree is a bit too hard to knock down.

Ok, now i want lots of feedback, and i would like suggestions about these objects, in what to improve them, even tough there is a lot of glitches that aren't supposed to appear when i finish the porting of this.


WARNING : if carma2 crashes and says a error "Insufficient pixelmap slots in storage area" this means you will have to apply the super v2 patch into your version of the game, which will be good since it will increase the smaller editing limitations that your outdated version has.

Here's the link to the super v2 patch :

[url]http://koti.mbnet.fi/jariky/DLoads/C2Patch.ZIP[/url]

I don't know if this gives problems in non uk versions, but according to the .txt file it does...

Update : thanks to coffeycup, now we know that this patchs seems to work ok in the US version! That's good news!

oh yes, thanks a lot for the sugestions !

By the way i am not having that much work, since my ase2asc tool exports already ALL the 3d models completly textured, so it's mostly about outside 3dsmax that i have most of the work.

about the maps, thats a good idea, i was thinking in doing that indeed !

Here's FINALLY a screenshot of the track inside playting2 and a demo track to try the city inside the game!!!

READ THE MAIN POST HERE for more details before asking anything to me, or before commenting about the temporary glitches. :)

[quote]I'd first try to have a clean, proper track model before going to PT2. Like all the smoothing groups fixed (I bet a simple auto-smooth will do the job). Made sure there was no duplicated vertices. And have the most simple UVW mapping as possible (as it's part of the smoothing too in C2).[/quote]
Well thanks for your advices i will keep this in mind ONLY when doing the porting for REAL, remember this was just for a quick preview only, remember i didn't wanted to spend much time just to make the preview look as good as the final release will be...

Regarding smoothing groups, i don't understand much about that, so yes i will use only auto-smooth.

And about the UVW mapping, what you mean exactly, i do NOT touch the uvw mapping, it is done exactly like it was done in gta3, since you don't expect me to change the mapping in all those thoudands of 3d models...

About the duplicated vertices, i don't know if that's such a good idea, i have tried to "weld" vertices in 3dsmax, and the texture mapping messed up, and besides can you imagine me doing this in EVERY 3d model of the city? Unless you teach me some easier way to remove duplicated vertices, since i never did that before.

Altough i DID optimized the track in plaything2, and it removed a LOT of vertices (the ones created by the texturing in .asc files) it's these you were talking about ?

[quote]This small portion loaded quite fast, how much time for the whole track ? What is the curent polycount ?[/quote]
The polycount is only 49727 at the moment, remember this is just about 1/4 of the track, but you can use the screenshot i posted above of plaything2 to you get a idea of the size of the entire Portland city.

But i once tried to import that entire city you see in the screenshot (unfortunatly i wasn't able to do that this time to do as the preview track, that's why i only released a small piece) and it took about 3-4 minutes, but it should be faster in your computer, since your Hard truck apocalypse took even longer than that in my computer...

Also remember there is also all the objects, parked cars, powerups to put in the track...

[quote]BTW : you can delete the PortPrev.pix file, it will reduce the size greatly.[/quote]
Lol, i completly forgot about that... Maybe because i was afraid to post this track unpreprocessed, so preprocessed it a few times, lol :)

Please do any suggestions of changes to the smashables and the tippable tree i included in there, since i am sure they still need some tweaking.

By the way is the fire pump and the gas canisters well done ? I mean, as smashables ?

U'r Right Tosh :grin:
I'm downloading this track and try to test it (I'm not sure my old PC'll digest it :nyaha: )

It's a big big big work Cesm did there !
It looks really impressive.
:nice:

-Update :
Here it is ! I downloaded it and tried it but i got the "no pixelmap ..." error.
So I tried to find the super V2.0 Patch but didn't find it ...
:errr:
Could you give me a link to dl it pliz ? :uho:

Is everyone having these really black shadows? Because here (my pc), it overrules every texture, giving a complete black shadow...

Jeez, tohsiba actually had the courage to say what i wasn't able to say :) thanks a lot pal, because honestly i am even already USED for this to happen, rremember about my plaything2 mod, almost the same thing happened about it, unfortunately i seem to have real bad luck in other forums too about other stuff other than carmaa2, i almost think this is a jynx sometimes...

I just didnd't say that yet since i don't want people thinking i am doing this for populary or vanity, because i am doing this for myself at the first place (just like the plaything2 mod) i just want at least some feedback and apreciation.

Indeed sometimes i almost wondered if i would not release this project anymore to the public, and only sending it to my penpals that i have been talking to in msn (like toshiba for example), because sometimes i wonder if anyone besides those which i talked in msn really cares about this project or not...

What is strange is that when Errol talked about porting Vice city tracks to carma2 in cwa months ago, a LOT more people where interested... (even tough of course it wasn't in this forum).

I jsut hope now that the people that replyed here are honest with the replys, and that didn't just posted that because of what toshiba said :) (no offense of course)

Ok, tomorrow i am replying all messages, since now i have to go to sleep it's 01:00 am here :)

[quote]@ Cesm : It's possible to apply modifiers on the whole track. But instead of using the tools with the default settings as I guess you do, just take the time to adjust them. For the duplicated vertices for example : just select the whole scene, select the modifier "edit poly", then go to the "vertices" submode and select all the vertices in one selection (zoom out to see the entire scene), that might take some time but it sure is way faster that doing it vertice by vertice ; then go to weld these vertices but don't hit the weld button, clic on the smaller one right next to it, it will allow you to adjust the distance between vertices to weld, there enter a very small value like 0,0000000000001, and hit OK.

And about the UVW mapping, as I already said, this is the first thing C2 check to calculate the smoothing ; you must try to have no separation in the uvw map of a material on a mesh, else the separation will create a hard edge in the smoothing.[/quote]
Ok, about this we will have to talk in msn, so later i talk to you in there, since there is a few problems.

[quote]You should take some time to learn MAX a bit more before going on big projects like this.[/quote]
Yes, but if it wasn't you, how i am supposed to know what should i know or not to learn specificaly? This is why i really need your help, and your advices are being precious regarding that, since now it's still the right time to do these optimizations in the portland city track BEFORE it gets exported into plaything2.

[quote]BTW, if I was you I'd avoid using the PT2 'optimize' option, this stupid thing removes data blindly...[/quote]
Hum... the big problem about this is the extra vertices that the ase to asc convertion creates because of the texture mapping, and believe me THOUSANDS of vertices where removed thanks to this... have you idea of what differences this can make, if i don't do the optimizing thing ? For example the objects "bounding box line" in plaything2 is a LOT bigger because of the 0,0,0 vertices that this ase to asc convertion requires to do, i don't know if it's such a good idea letting the objects remain like this...

[quote]About the polycount, I was actually talking about the whole track. ~200000 is rather ok I guess, though I find the whole city to be quite small for that amount of textures.[/quote]
The polycount of the track is 414738, including the parked cars (smashables), and all noncars/smashables. Regarding the textures, remember i still didn't finished that sorting of the textures, even tough i wasn't able to remove that many, later i tell you how many textures it will be.

[quote]The gas canisters worked well as did the fire pump which was also a good detail though I hope you'll improve the water effect 'cause this one sure is lame.[/quote]
Hum... about the water effect, i am not too good about that kind of stuff, i have more experience about setting of the objects and debris thing, but 2d "explosions" and the water effect i will need some one to do this, if you know how to do better you can try doing it since i can't do better than this (please don't think i got offended by the comment, i know that the effect is lame :) But i couldnt' make better than that ).

[quote]Another note : if you actually want to see people try your preview, next time include a C2T and setup a correct starting grid. It could have also been a good idea to remove the material modifiers as it's really uneasy to drive in the preview track.[/quote]
Hum... indeed i tough about adding a c2t file, but it's just that in my case i found it much easier and faster just changing the name of the track in the races file than using mapstockalipse, but oh well, next time i do that, next time i include a c2t file.

Wait a minute... what you mean by "correct starting grid" ? You mean the place where the car starts? I don't see which is the problem...

About the material modifiers, so THAT'S why the car drives like that? Now i understand why the car drove like that, i didn't knew it was because of the material modifiers, since i am not used in working with material modifiers.

Now replying to coffeycup :

[quote]Looks good though I'm getting about half the textures?[/quote]
Dont' worry about that, it's normal, thats one of the glitches doe to this being a very quick converion, i would have to do HUNDREDS of material renamings for all those missing textures, and so this will be done only ONCE when i port the full complete city into plaything2.

[quote]The roads seem bumpy, maybe the smooting would help that.[/quote]
Hum... unfortunately that's the smoothing that was ported from gta3 itself, maybe it's some bug of the gta3 models importer in 3dsmax, maybe it doesn't import smoothing groups... Toshiba will have to help me on this.

[quote]My suspension was really bouncing going down the street.[/quote]
Also thanks to toshiba now i know that was caused by the material modifiers.

Now replying to Harmalarm :

[quote]Is everyone having these really black shadows? Because here (my pc), it overrules every texture, giving a complete black shadow...[/quote]
Can you post a screenshot please ? That's not normal i think, could it be a problem of the glidewrapper ? See if other tracks have that problem too if running in glide mode. If not, then try Direct 3d mode to see if this still happens.

And by the way remember it's normal to get missing textures...

Well, i mean the black area's also found in coffeycup's screenie. But i believe this is just a missing texture now...

Yay !
:grin:

I tested this track !
Excellent job !!!

It loaded faster than i thought.
:wink: that's a good point.

Like the other testers the road seemed bumpy, but now we know why.

Just a small thing : it seems that my cars were a (little) bit too big in comparison to those in GTA3 ...
It may just be an impression ...
Nobody noticed that ?

[quote=Morbid Angel]Just a small thing : it seems that my cars were a (little) bit too big in comparison to those in GTA3 ...
It may just be an impression ...
Nobody noticed that ?[/quote]
No, not just you, got the same feeling while testing it out. But the difference is not really huge.

And it is an excellent first conversion, still a lot of work left to get it working and looking correct though.
Got to try it out on my other computer when I get it working (Fried Mobo or Dead CPU). And this comp suffers from a poor Harddrive that crashes the game from time to time so I can't fully test the track just yet.
Oh and Carmageddon2 is more what GTA3 should have been like. :grin:

So, who feels like converting Vice City? ^^

C2 is made for city's. not racing maps...hence the daytona track, i don't know what to do in it then just take a nap there (lol).
Seriously though, C2 isn't made for racing as if you try to drive on a straight, it really doesn't feel like driving a car in a sim. and blablablablablablabla

Drats i still have to test it...having too much fun in GMod10

[quote]Do you have some way to reduce/combine textures via script? Or will this be a painful manual exercise?[/quote]
Of course not it will be have to be manual, but don't worry i used true color settings to that some of the textures are the same as others only with the a different color. The problem now is that i will have to change the way i was working, since now the track's objects will have to be split by materials and smoothing groups.

[quote]Just a small thing : it seems that my cars were a (little) bit too big in comparison to those in GTA3 ...
It may just be an impression ...
Nobody noticed that ?[/quote]
Really ? I don't exactly remember what i used for comparation to get the correct scale, but i used 19% as the main scale, the problem is that i already made all smashables/noncars using 19% as the scale, and i won't be doing all those bounding boxes again if i have to change the scale so, this is going to be the final scale amount, even in the two remaining citys, Shoreside Vale and Stantun island, since they also use a lot of these objects present in portland city.

[quote]No, not just you, got the same feeling while testing it out. But the difference is not really huge.[/quote]
I am glad it's not huge, because now it's too late to change the scale :)

[quote]So, who feels like converting Vice City? ^^[/quote]
ME! I think i forgot to say that i am planning to port vice city AND even San Andreas (no matter how many textures i have to delete to reach the 995 limit!! It's better that than not porting the track just because of that stupid limit)

But of course, i still have a lot of work to get in there, since now at the moment i am realizing i don't know that much about 3dsmax, and toshiba has just teached me a lot of new stuff, and so i hope i can now work more efficiantly.

[quote]If you had the slightest inkling of the work involved in doing these conversions, you wouldn't ask that, even jokingly[/quote]
Don't worry, there isn't THAT much work, specially because Shoreside vale and staunton island share MANY of the objects i already made, so i will have less work in those two cities. But, considering that i am also considering San Andreas, dont' worry about vice city too.

[quote]But it's all the paperwork and the rest (opponent path, drone paths, smashies, tippables) to make it a proper map that can take a lot of time, like you said.[/quote]
well, like i said before someone will have to do oppoent paths and drone paths since i have no experience on this, and i didn't wanted to lose much time on this... Regarding the smashables and noncars, well, regarding that i will be using a new tool that i am porting from another c2 person which has a very interesting tool :)

Anyways one of the most "intensive" paperwork was doing bouding boxes for all the near 100 objects that this city will have, and ALL that is done already, most of the objects only need some tweaking (for example the fire pump water effect).

It is indeed a tad too small compared to the cars. Theres a silo in the middle of the road!? I just could play on the top part of portland, thats correct? cause in the PT2 picture i thought it had more to preview play on :funnyteeth:

wow, what a miracle the forum is still alive :) lol

[quote]It is indeed a tad too small compared to the cars[/quote]
Hum... unfortunately there's nothing that can be done, i would have to rewrite ALL objects bounding boxes again (which gaved me a lot of work, since they are pretty accurate), and of course i won't have all that work again... anyways i don't think this is a serious problem... is it ?

[quote]Theres a silo in the middle of the road!?[/quote]
Lol, if you read the main post, you would read that i just put those objects in there for testing, or would you prefer the preview track without a single smashable or object to test ? I can't yet have the objects in their original positions... you will have to wait for the complete version :)

[quote]I just could play on the top part of portland, thats correct? cause in the PT2 picture i thought it had more to preview play on[/quote]
That's right, this is ONLY a small preview, remember that, unfortunately i couldn't get that track you see in the screenshot to run again in the game, at least without removing douzens of materials, because c2 can only load 995 textures in maximum.

Hi guys! My first post in this forum...

This project sounds like a great idea to try out, hopefully it will all work out in the end! I'm going to give it a whirl today while im developing. I'm no modelling expert but i can surely give an oppinion about how it looks so far and how it plays :)

If you need any info about how this project runs on different configurations i have 4 machines here.

3.3Ghz P4 HT + 1GB RAM + 6800GT

2.5Ghz P4 (NON HT) + 512MB RAM + 6200LE

2.9Ghz P4 Quad Core + 4GB RAM + 8800GTX

2.2Ghz P4 (NON HT) + 768MB RAM + SiS Onboard Video (Runs C2 in D3D fine though)

I'll return with some thoughts later on. Well done so far.

ALSO:

The same goes for Carma-Life 2, another super project which i haven't tried yet but an very eager to. Hopefully i will have time to try that today and return some feedback in the relevant thread.

James.

Sorry for the lack of updates to this, i shouldn't continue this project until i finish others which have higher priority, which have been taking me too much time to be able to work on this one, so it's better say here that this project continues to be suspended until i have full time to work on it again, i don't know yet when, but don't worry i still have a lot of motivation to finish this, it's just that the other projects i am doing (not related to carma2) take several GB in my hard drive, and they take a long time to finish (one of them is already almost finished), so i garantee to you that next time i say here that i will continue the project, it's when i have a lot more time for it.