Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

[cesm20]

to c2scientist : (as always!)

Very good, now i understand why you are the only one here giving the bigger replys... i bet that you are the only one here that reply in the correct way, like me. But other may have less time to be on internet, but they could write the reply offline (if they have a 56k modem internet connection) in a text file and then paste the text in a reply.

No, c2scientist, you didn't understand. When i talked about "noncars spawned out of smashables" i was refering to permanent noncars like the petpump when we smash it, that noncar that spits out after the explosion doesn't dissapear 2-4 seconds later !! And it's those i was talking i don't know if when the noncars in the track are already "indestructable" the noncars spitted out of the smashables such the petpump they can become unmovable too (after falling into the ground). But i understood what you understood, you was thinking i was talking about SHARDS like those that fall from fences and glass windows ? Those i KNOW that they are temporary ! lolol

What ? Finally someone is about to put better trees in carma2 tracks ! I don't like these "paper looking trees" in the original carma 1 and 2 tracks, they look like 2 papers intersecting each other in the middle and in these days that's horrible in games (altouh it's very fun to see these trees spinning !!), it's time to make 3d trees, not too detailed of course, but in the branches we could put lowpoly spheres to simulate the group of leaves in the branches, which is better than those trees of gta3 and they aren't too poly. Have you ever played the game "Sin" ? That's the only game that i remenber seeing 3d trees without any "flat papers" simulating leaves and they are lowpoly i think. Do you want that i show a screenshot ?

Well, i don't like much about indestructable trees, even if they are bigger... the yellow dump truck could knock them down... but if they aren't noncars it's impossible.

About that stuff about noncars too close, well, when i said to avoid that, it's only for SEVERAL noncars, but if they are a few like almost 10, i think it's ok. You can put a lot of them and try for yourself if that problem of "unmovable" noncars happens, because my testings were only done with two situations.

Yes, that's how i maded a empty actor (by using "make new object from existing model", and choosing "empty"). No... the container itself is not a object in the game, because it is a empty actor and a empty actor doesn't have a physical model, we can ONLY move and see it inside plaything2 like a object but it's only to move 45 noncars at the same time without moving each one individually. So, the container is not a noncar, but i understand your point of view, i didn't used a REAL noncar as a container to other noncars. So when we move the container all 45 sub-noncars will move at the same time as a group. But tell me do you know WHAT IS a empty actor ? You know that you can move it inside plaything2 like a normal noncar but inside the game it doesn't exist.

LOLOLOL what the hell... a noncar with fear ? Of... your car ?! Yes it's funny indeed, but i never tried that ! But you know of what is needed to make the "talled" noncar work well with the new height, don't you ? You have to re-do it's bbox isn't it ?

Tell me why your mailboxes are smashables ? You plan to make them spit letters as shrapnels ? In some tracks of carma2 there is mailboxes, i tought you would use those ones, because those are noncars... you can use the property "bend angle before snapping" in the strong mailbox...



Good, someday you can post those trap ideas here, but most of the ideas i got are most from the game Tomb Raider (you know that game is a SPECIALITY in traps, isn't it ?) but some of them aren't applyable to carma2, but others are cool. One of the original ideas that i have is a fall of a meteorite from the sky... (this is not a idea from Tomb Raider of course!!) from what i researched it IS possible, even with a earthquake effect when it falls ! (if there isn't anything in it's path) Or big boulders coming down from a high cliff (pushed by a invisible horiontal elevator trigged by a certain material on the road). You know, that big plane drone in the aiport level is also a kind of trap many times it wastes many opponents even before the countdown is done ! Do you know which track am i talking about ?

Hum... when you said "triangles were missing after preprocessing the track containing the trafficlight" it reminded me something... when i was testing the bent railings effect, sometimes when i preprocessed the track, the preprocessing SOMETIMES subdivised the two triangles of the wall of railings... but not always. Do you have a idea in how to avoid that the preprocessing don't sub-divise certain faces ? Anyway it's not very difficult to me to discover, i just have to go back to the test track and try.

Yes, of course that in the track Bleak city the main thing that is better is the joining of the three sub-parts. But i noticed many bugs that haven't been present in the tracks converted by errol : there is two noncars missing : the 00gas.txt and the 07sign.txt, now they are just static models. Why they have been de-activated and retired from the track .txt file in the end ? Anyway that is easy to fix, i put their names back in the noncar section of the track .txt file and those two noncars are activated again like in the old convertions by errol. Other bug : the green car. It still have some skinning bugs, like there was on the errol conversion but i managed to re-skin that car EXACTLY how it looks like in the original carma1 when i modified the original Maimstreet track, even the "missing wheels" when we see that green car from the bottom have been gone and fixed. And it wasn't so difficult. And i even could extract some of the static models of the track and transformed them into new noncars, look at these screenshots : (i hope you can see them because i have very dificulties to make images work on posts !!!) :

[image]http://www.freewebs.com/cesm22/DUMP0000.JPG" border="0[/image]

[image]http://www.freewebs.com/cesm22/DUMP0003.JPG" border="0[/image]

[image]http://www.freewebs.com/cesm22/DUMP0004.JPG" border="0[/image]

[image]http://www.freewebs.com/cesm22/DUMP0005.JPG" border="0[/image]

(if you have problems seeing the pictures just copy the link of each one and enter them in another internet explorer window)

See this is some little modifications and improvements of the track MaimStreet, see how it's easy to make noncars from those static models in the track ? And look not only i fixed the green car to look exactly how it looked in the original carma1 bleak city tracks but i even maded new skins with new colors for it ! I am also modifying that green car by making some 3d wheels for it, it sure it's very difficult but i am managing to do it. I also planned to insert the powerups just like in the carma1, with the same exact old positions and even a 3d model representing the old 2d barrel and with the same explosion sound... yes i know where to get the coordinates of all powerups in each original carma1 track it's not that difficult to discover ! With macros i can put all those powerups much more quicker than without the macros ! What you think?

But now comes a new problem, now a Bleakcity track is released by other person with a fusion of the three districts... I could do all those improvements in this new Bleakcity track, but i don't know if the author autorize me and if he doesn't i have to make myself the fusion also but would have to use the same textures of the original tracks... Now i don't know what to do, what do you think, should i also try to make the fusion of the three bleak city tracks on my own and then make those improvements but without the new textures or improve the Bleakcity tract that has been released with the improvements and the original powerups ? What do you recommend me ? Unless the author of that huge track (ChevyII or small block, they are both the same person ?!) autorizes me to modify it's track and make all those improvements (of course with full credit to the author) i will have to make myself the same he did but it will look worse... Anyway i will talk to him next tuesday in his post "new stuff galore", but if he doesn't reply me it's a big problem !

Oh, btw, now that i have a new website (with the same content of my old website) i can show pictures here (as the ones you see above this) and now i can show you one proof of the 955 noncars experiment i have done in my test track ! It's hard to believe i putted all these noncars, isn't it ? It took me half-hour to put all of those i think because of the cloning method of the containers which i explained and also because the macros. There it is :



Hum... about what you said ("Do you like realistic physics on a car? And are you playing with the original gravity?") with me it's a bit different... when i play carma2 i CONSTANTLY have thousands of track improving ideas and what objects could i put in the track... well i must confess that i also sometimes want to change the cars, yes, but not for "tuning", what i want is a more exact bounding box, and i would also like to put some kind of "toys" in the car to interact with the world, using the door function instead of flaping doors for nothing... i would want to use the door functions to lift a plow in the front of the car to lift noncars that could be on top of it, or make the yellow dump car rise it's freight to make the objects inside it fall backwards (this of course with a exact bbox to be able to transport objects in the freight), or even put two blades (with good bboxes) and make them close with the door function to "snap" a pedestrian between them, see we could make a better use of the door function in the cars ! Very few cars have those extra "toys" and the few ones that have, they are just decoration (like the original carma1 cars also) and they even don't have bboxes ! See ? I am a guy with so many ideas... I am wiling to start making carma2 content but i have to finish the researching and i still have a considerable list of things to research, some of them you didn't imagine what is !

Well, i DON'T have a steering wheel, i wish i could have one, but for a person that doesn't have a job, it's expensive. For telling the truth, i... i don't know if i like realistic handling cars in carma2... i like the original gravity that carma2 have... you know it's the low gravity that makes carma2 fun, can't you remenber that some people (i included) complained that in TDR2000 the fact of the gravity being more realistic and very strong is not that fun ?

Now, about your last reply in the topic "major news of my mod" : the limits are different for different objects with different operations ? Well it seems that i have now one more thing to research... (don't reply in that topic anymore it's better continue it here, but maybe you have nothing more to say about those limits)

And for last, your last reply in the topic "please anybody that lives on portugal or know....." : problem solved ! I discovered what makes that problem of the credits increasing when they try to be below zero, i would explain, this depends on two factors : the difficulty skill (easy, medium or hard) and the value of the "Trade-in APO value" in the file 'general.txt'. After a quick research i discovered that when the credits counter reaches to zero in the easy difficulty, and when credits would be negative, it adds the number of the "Trade-in APO value" in the easy difficult to the credits count, which is 25000... and then the game subtracts the prejudice of those 25000. For example : if you do recovery inside the game several times until the credits counter reach to exact zero, and you do recover again, the counter increases 25000 and reduces 1000 credits which is the cost of the recovery, so you finish with 24000 credits... But this only happens in the easy difficult skill, in medium and hard nothing happens there is no negative credits and the recovery and repairs on the car are free even with 0 credits !! There is no negative credits in carma2, like it was in carma1. So the solution is very simple : just put zero in the section of the general.txt file, like this :

25000,25000,35000 // Trade-in APO value, single player (ORIGINAL LINE)

0,25000,35000 // Trade-in APO value, single player (modified to fix the problem)

I tried that and it works ! But there is one new problem, i am not sure what the "Trade-in APO value" is, but if it is what i am thinking (the reward of credits when you pick up a bonus that can't be given up to the player for a certain reason) it will not be good. Can you test that ? Unless you already know exactly what is the "Trade-in APO value" ? If yes explain me.

Well now it's possible to make that stuff of a "shop" to reduce credits, because i tried to make a powerup to give negative credits and the credits counter decreases to the minimun of zero, so it's possible. But if that change in the line of the general.txt file is not good, we can still use that thing of negative credits in the medium and hard skill level... what you say about all this ?

That's all.

[C2 Scientist]

EDIT 1: You seem to have missed my post in January 31st, have you? (Above your post where every other line is empty) I'd like to hear some comments about too.

EDIT 2: Nice noncars in the pictures! Gas station's smashables too!

EDIT 3: What a huge collection in the "Dump1000"!

I have played Sin, but I don't remember much, so you can show a screenshot. The difficult with making trees in C2 is, that there's that 128x128 texture limit, and the texture comes a little blurry... but for branches that's not a problem, since they are small enough. And the other difficulty is to make good-looking trees but keep them low-polied... or maybe I'll make detailed and simple versions, and simple versions are behind the detailed ones?

Yes, I certainly do know what an empty actor is. I just wondered how you could collide with that!? Or what did you say, maybe I misunderstood...

I guess I don't need new bound boxes for scaled noncars: when you hit them, they become original-scaled again. (after the shaking!)

I made the mailboxes as smashables, because I thought would otherwise use too much of the 340-limit... but since that limit doesn't even exist (as you have figured out), maybe I should make them as noncars again?

The plane trap? Airpain 3 track! May I suggest something? You don't necessarily need a horizontal elevator to push the boulders: You can make the boulders as smashables, which, when destroyed, will be removed, and spawn a similar boulder noncar. That's because smashables can be activated from elsewhere with the force area. So when your car triggers a trap, the smashable boulder disappears, but immediately a noncar boulder (as a shrapnel) appears, and it starts rolling down because noncar shrapnels always move when they are spawned.

Umm I don't know about the subdividing... preprocessing just divides large areas into smaller parts, as you know.

Chevy II is Small Block, Small Block is his board name here, he told me so. Ask him, I'm quite sure he lets you to release the improvements... why not!? But personally I like the new textures more...

It seems like it's not possible to put 'polyhedron' bounding shapes into those movable objects in cars (doors, bonnets)... so the bounding shapes can't be very exact. (Except for boxes!) A plow would be interesting. As for the realistic physics: I like car movies very much, and when watching such a movie, I usually study the car movements very closely, to see if I can make similar movement for cars in C2. Well, the results have been *very* good, but I think a bit more updated physics engine could be useful too. But the current is excellent too, as I said. Better than in almost all games. (Maybe some physics engine is some games has a possibility for real physics, but it's not used)

What, that zero lets us to give negative credits awards, meaning taking credits away? Huh? Now that's odd... if it really works, you're earned some cake & cookies... I'll test, if it works, it's the most excellent! Now, what do you mean you don't know what the trade-in value is? You've just explained it yourself: When the counter reaches zero, you'll get credits. Or haven't you noticed, that the game sells your armour/power/offensive when you're going to have negative balance on your 'account'? Briefly: the game doesn't give you free 25000 credits, it sells your car's hardware and gives you those credits. (And as always: When you buy hardware the price is 2X, when you sell it away the price is 1X, half price!)

Some new stuff of my own: (<- This is a paragraph title, not that something awesome would follow)

I recently found a program called "Quick Macros", it's totally free, and there are many features too... enough for my use, even though maybe not as many as in Macro Express? I won't list the features here, if you're interested, read about it here.

I'm planning to get the town plans from the town hall, (you know, the 'blueprints' of different areas in the town, a map) if I can get those for free. The map should be very accurate, showing accurately enough the road positions and shapes, so I should be able to make pretty exact copy of my hometown into C2. (When talking about roads and building locations) Trying to remember places without such a map is slow and difficult.

I thought I had something else to write too... but I can't rememeber, so I'll stop now.

[Small Block]

Well, sure you can use it for your mods! Just so you know, my goal in putting that track together was NOT to make a C1 nostalgia item...I reskinned most C1 environments long ago(anything w/ less than 16-bit color just gives me a headache....bad)...this was a logical step. The only goal was to make the environment more C2-like and visually realistic, and huge! As you may have noticed, the textures aren't the only thing I changed, some buildings are taller than in the original tracks, more like what you'd find in a real city. As for the missing noncars in the .txt file, my bad...I took them out for some reason at some point and forgot to put them back..

BTW, are those C1 pumps really exploding like the beaver city ones? I'm interested!

For the 340 noncars limit, well, I guess it has to do w/ the total amount of memory/ CPU cycles necessary to handle the whole track...obviously the amount/size of textures, polygons and actors must have an influence in a collision-based game like C2.

Scientist, I'm glad to see other ppl are using realistic physics! It's the main reason I still play C2: the level of realism in movement/car handling the engine can achieve if you tweak it right is still unmatched by any other game, IMO. You're right, preprocessing just subdivides big polys into smaller ones. If one wants this not to happen, one just has to make polys smaller than the threshold size...easy to check.

BTW, have you noticed there's only one way to enumerate the bbox's points in order to have a properly closed one(that makes the car handle like it should)?

[C2 Scientist]

Cesm: (My second reply after your latest one)

I realized you misunderstood the negative credits thing: I was talking about giving negative award credits when a smashable is destroyed, like destroying a petrol pump would be -3000, taking credits away, instead of giving 3000 credits. You thought I was talking about having negative amount of credits on the 'bank' account, right? Yes, that is impossible: when you're about to have no money the game sells your A/P/O, and when everything is sold, and you're still going to have no money again, you get free repairs and recoveries. So, I wasn't worrying about having negative bank account after buying things in the shop, but the game to really take your credits when you buy something... and I wasn't able to make it work. (Award: -5000 credits)

Small Block and Cesm:

You, Small Block, like realistic physics, and you, Cesm, like exact bounding shapes in cars? Here's something I made today: pretty exact bounds for Tipper-truck:

[image]http://koti.mbnet.fi/jariky/Images/TipperBounds.jpg" border="0[/image]

8 in CarEd modeled simple shapes and Plaything's "Save noncar textfile" makes a nice and easy combination for making accurate bounding shapes, don't you think?

Small Block:

I have noticed sometimes, how the cars partially go through lamp post, when I slide into them sidewards... so you have some info about correcting this?

BTW, when I download addon cars, I ALWAYS re-make the physics myself, and never play with original author's physics... I simply don't trust them... I know they haven't made them realistic. Maybe I've told this already somewhere?

My favourite in realistic physics is fast barrel rolling which I've achieved many times... but enough of my blabbering about physics.

EDIT: If you wish, you can check out this replay movie clip. (3.7 MB) Uploading movie clips is damn slow...

[peril]

I'd quite like to try out your remade physics, especially if they are realistic ones. BTW, on the topic of realism, does anyone know how to increase the gravity in C2 so the cars don't just float along over jumps.

[Small Block]

Actually, my remark on the bboxes had more to do w/ the car's handling, but I guess it might help in your case.....AdR had it pretty much right in his bbox tut: you must enumerate the points clockwise(when viewing the car from the left) and one side at a time...which means you must put the points on the opposite side in the exact opposite order(-a, -b, -c, c, b, a ). If you don't do this, like for instance if you enumerate the points of both sides in the same order, what happens is the bbox is half-"twisted" diagonally and you end up w/ what feels (when driving) like an empty, solid shell wrapped around the center of mass. Since the engine has to adapt to it, it can yield some srange results sometimes...

One thing NOT to do is enumerate the points by pairs! (-a, a, -b, b ,-c, c....) Doing that will give you not a solid shape of the car, but rather a "swiss cheese" bbox, made of transversal/diagonal lines! Actually, I noticed that the game engine seems to try to figure out a real shape out of it, but it never really works and your car is full of mobile holes.

I also re-do the whole physics section for every car, as most ppl design their settings to fit the original game(which makes sense! ) and not mine.

I'm thinking of writing a tutorial on how to make C2 realistic one of these days....

[C2 Scientist]

Peril:

Download this file (0.017 MB), and extract it to Data/Cars/Tipper4. Then you have quite realistic physics for Tipper, in my opinion... you wanted realistic physics for this particular car, right? Anyway, the gravity: Open up Data/General.txt, then use the search-option with words "Default gravity", and change the number on the appearing line into 2.5 or so.

Small Block:

I knew the clockwise thing, but opposite order on the other side? Well, if I model the bounding shapes, I guess can't use the "Clone vertices" then ("Iterate" in CarEd)... so I must point & click them in the opposite order, again. But hey, what exactly have the bounding shapes to do with car's handling? Aren't the other values, like 'centre of mass' or 'angular momentum proportions' enough? Sure I know there's an effect in collisions, but driving and turning?

[Small Block]

That's a common oversight, I guess....but the way C2 works is by distributing the weight(mass) around the main bbox. If for some reason ,the box isn't closed, all the game can use for weight distribution is the center of mass variable, and then your car handles mostly like it should in terms of over/understeer, but in a sort of caricatural way(the beahavior is too cut and dried, you don't really feel the mass, and any part of the car not the center of mass feels empty and weightless). I guess it's a pretty small difference I'm talking about, but if your aim is to make cars handle like they should, this is it!

BTW, what number do you use for the "Downforce-to-weight balance speed" variable? If you never noticed what I said, it may be b/c of that....after mucho testing, I settled on 12000, but I guess 9000 is also realistic. The game's default of 50 is only good w/ the very low original gravity multiplier.

BTW-2:when I say distributing weight around the main bbox, I mean the bigger one in terms of total surface, the smaller, secondary ones you may make for the roof, bed, blowers...etc are considered less dense by the game, as they should be!

BTW-3: whether or not your bbox points coincide w/ the model's vertices isn't really important, as long as the shape you create allows correct weight distribution and matches the car's shape. Sometimes you have to put the points outside(like when you use a straight line for a slight curve) the model, since you can only have 32 points by box. If you do it right, that's not an issue. I pick up my bbox numbers from plaything, simply w. the crosshair cursor!

[C2 Scientist]

Sounds good, this is something to be tested immediately!

I once tried fiddling the downforce, but 1000 was the biggest I tried... and since I couldn't notice much difference, I got bored and ignored it every time tweaked physics... well lets try that too.

BTW, Adr's tutorials, he adviced to make boxes for the wheels, to avoid the "Wheels outside all shapes"-error... maybe he didn't know that if the Y-position of the bottom vertices of the bounding shape aren't exactly same, the game will crash, I think... hey, I had made a picture of that:



Have you noticed this too?

EDIT:

I want to point out a problem which existed in GTAIII too: high centre of mass. Sometimes when a car with high centre of mass flips over (a 4WD, Landstalker in GTAIII, for example), and then the player hits the rocking key to flip the car back to its wheels, it can almost flip to the other side! Probably you know from the physics lessons, that an object which spins in the air, spins around its centre of mass... well this kinda is what happens quickly in C2, when the car is trying to flip back to its wheels. With the original cars, this didn't happen, because the centre of mass was so low. (To prevent the cars from flipping over constantly, because the gravity was so low, and that wouldn't have been funny!) It may because the game recognizes that the wheels are about to touch the ground, and the car will do a sudden roll... you see, this doesn't happen if the X-positions of wheels are moved toward the centre of the car.

[Small Block]

yeah, for some reason, the game just refuses to manage a slanted bottom...interestingly, the game crashes even if you make a separate box for the wheels but try to have a slanted box for the main shape...that, of course is only true for the bottom...I wonder what kind of limitation could cause this.

Yeah, I noticed it, too...it's mostly a consequence of what I said above, about weight distribution: if the bbox is only an empty, weightless shell w/ the centre of mass inside, there's no real resistance to ouside rotation forces and it looks weird...same thing I said about the handling.

[C2 Scientist]

Aha, the weight distribution solves that too, good. Maybe the "Car wall friction" of the surface also has an effect on it as well, but nevermind now.

[autopilot]

for bboxes on cars i now just make a shell in cared and use plaything to do it like you say.. and it seems to be work out the best and the easiest to do. i use to do it manually and it didnt always work, and sometimes it did.. but like small block said.. strange things start to happen on certain cars.. there would be "holes" in the car.. which was quite funny in itself, i remember a ped became entrapped in the middle of a car i once did

and also c2s, i love your car psychics tutorial, i base any cars handling i make by reading through that.. 'tis very excellent!

maybe you can try driving some of my cars ive made ityou havent and you can let me know what you think of em.

I too usually dont like cars handlings of other authors but i usually dont bother to edit em, the only time I do that is if i really love the car! only thing i usually change is the cars handling.. usually the friction angles on the wheels, i hate when youre going around a corner and your car always oversteers and into a wall you go. although the friction angles you suggest do this too.. the "need for speed porshe' handling.. I dont like that, although its kinda fun trying to keep your car under control. if you want to really have fun, i find if you make the frictrion angle values on your front tires one number less than the back wheels its really cool, you can throw your handbrake on and slide around a curb witout losing control.. which is very fun IE:



Front wheels: 84.0,84.0

rear wheels: 85.0, 85.0

[Small Block]

One thing that happens is when the wheels are close to the bottom of the bbox and the angle on the wheel is b/w 90 and 45 degrees(the car lies on its side, angling towards righting itself), the game engine can be a bit brutal when switching from bbox to wheel support......

[Small Block]

Hey, Auto, do you use realistic settings, too?

What you do by setting the friction angles like that is give the car an understeering behavior.

It's not the behavior of all cars, but generally, FWD cars have a big slant that way. RWD cars also tend to have it, .esp if you step on it when entering a turn.

[C2 Scientist]

Autopilot:

Thanks for the kind words! It's been a while since I wrote it, but I guess not much has changed. I really haven't downloaded much cars lately, I'll try some your cars soon!

I used to play with "Porsche" physics, but I have new settings now:

Front wheels: 83 , 84

Rear wheels: 80 , 83

These are good when played with a steering wheel, I think. Rather realistic, but I think there may be even more realistic combo...

[autopilot]

this is my latest car in car ed (the datsun), the green is the bbox.. and this car has a different Y points on the axis at the bottom yet still works, the Y points on each wheel is at 0.07

although there are the other points atthe bottom that are on the same axis, if those werent straight you think the game would crash?

[Small Block]

Yes, but the bottom itself is horizontal. See, it's not the extremities of the bbox that matter, but only those of the surface b/w wheels positions(the main floor)

[autopilot]

oh ok.. what if you made a car with a jacked up rear end? would you have to make an unrealistic bbox (at the bottom anyways)? that sucks!

[Small Block]

I know....I've been having that problem for a while now...

[C2 Scientist]

BTW Autopilot, you can't have main body and the roof in the same shape like that. The game straightens any gaps found in the shape... so you can't model a bounding shape for a letter "U" (odd example, I know), you have to make the body in one shape, and the roof in another. If you hit a ped, it will slide a slope from the front of the car staright to the roof's top. (front top) So currently the two bottom vertices of the roof (well, 4 if you count the other side) are not used.

That's also why I had to make 4 shapes for the trunk in the truck. (Or do you call it "bed" in English?)

And Small Block, does the Y-position in wheels have any effect on anything? I remember setting it up to thousand once, and the game still worked and there was nothing odd in the behaviour!?

[Small Block]

Hey! You noticed that w/ the concave parts of the bounds, too?

The wheels -y position can actualy be outside the bounds, as long as the -x and -z aren't.

As for what they do, well, they determine the points at which the car's weight interfaces w/ the wheels/road, so, basically, it changes the balance of the car, but it won't be very noticeable unless the rest of the physics is life-like....You can also create physical impossibilities that way, but the game doesn't care much!

[autopilot]

is that right? i never really noticed that before, i dont really mind though, it still seems to be pretty accurate in crashes and stuff. unless im driving reverse and hit a ped backwards? hehe?

but i guess I'll do 2 seperate bboxes from now on.

[Small Block]

If you tweak your physics to be life-like, you should notice it...a long-hooded car doesn't handle like the monospace C2 makes it...plus, if you only make one box, the weight will be spread equally throughout it, so there'll be too much mass in the roof part, hence too much roll in curves, etc.

[cesm20]

wow.... so many posts to reply ... please guys avoid to post any more replys until friday, if not i can never reply everything ! Even tough not all posts are for me, friday i will reply everything ! until then...

[cesm20]

today i still haven't finished the replys, so i only do this post today to warn you, c2scientist, i uploaded to my new site, the new version of my mod, the Plaything2 Build 1 Lite version, the link is :

http://www.freewebs.com/cesm22/Pt2Build1_Lite.zip

PLEASE read the file "whatsnew.txt" inside the zip file, it contains important information !!

Later bandit will post that version on his site but you can download from my site, please, after you downloaded it, tell me, ok ? Just to know if you will use that build. Anyway, you can't keep using the old build4 because you don't have the macros, that's one of the reasons i released this new version.

[C2 Scientist]

The file doesn't seem to exist, at least I can't find it... something wrong?

[cesm20]

to c2scientist :

about your last reply : your internet connection must not be good, because right now i tried again the link above and the file started to download correctly !!! can you try in other computador ? If it still doesn't work, try "save file as..."

Regarding to the last time i have done that (ignored a reply of yours and saying that i would reply it later), congratulations, you didn't forget that i didn't replyed to that post of yours, indeed when i readed that you said that, i didn't remenber that i didn't replyed that post, but when i read again my reply at feb 04 now i understand why i forgot to reply it, it's because i usually reply the posts that appear AFTER my last post, that's why i forgot to reply that one of 31 january, even tough i said i would reply later, but because that's rare to happen i would forget, that's because now i won't forget again. But i am happy that you really care about i forgeting some reply of yours !! I am sure that any other people wouldn't even notice that! Well so this is going to be my biggest reply, because not only i will reply your post of 31 january but also all of these new posts (until my last reply), which surprised me to see so many replys, and yes i know that the last ones are to smallblock but for what i saw there i must do some comments and questions.

Well, about that ideia of using cubes to define opponent/drone paths, well i have some difficulties to explain this accordingly with the things you said, so don't mind of this may be confusing :

I don't recommend you using this method anymore because without the macros it's a bit tedious to make (and no, using macros from other programs does not resolve the problem, because a macro is like a program which i maded), because you don't have a macro or a quick way to copy the object center coordinates to the windows clipboard without doing a dozen of things, you have to manually copy the coordinates that are indicated in the pt2 window and that sucks VERY MUCH compared with the exactness of the object center feature. Because with me i can move a object and just by using a keyboard shortcout (which activates a macro) the macro copys the exact object center coordinates to the clipboard and ready to me to manually past on the track .txt file.

And for who doesn't use macros ? Well there is two ways, the first is the one that the macro does (for this to work of course the object in question must be selected, and only one object)

. use the force identify matrix on that object (to make the object center coordinates match the place where the object is placed, unlike noncars)

. use the option save noncar as...

. extract the coordinates of the object center of the saved noncar .txt file and copy them to the clipboard and then to the tract .txt file.

I have done a macro to do all of this in a single keyboard shortcout press and in 3-4 seconds the coordinates are in the clipboard ! Now try to do all that manually and tell me how many time it takes !!! It may be not much, but with 100 or 200 nodes it's very tedious !! But even i talking like that, i actually never tried to make any opponent/drone paths, it's a bit confusing to me !

The second way, it's also a bit tedious to use, but i can't use it in macros, and i don't like this method because there isn't a way to de-associate a data type of a object, i think :

. use the force identify matrix on that object

. associate the object with the car DATA (which activates settings in the tab DATA in the pt2 window)

. deselect and select the object to appear the tree in the tab DATA

. in the tree "car", in some parts like "mechanics data-root part" there is a property named "centre of mass" and if you double click that it appears a dialog box with three fields to put coordinates and a button saying "selected object centre" and if you press that button there are the coordinates of the object but you still have to manually select each field and past them individually in the track .txt file.

So the first way is the better but without macros you will see that for many opponent/drone path nodes it will be tedious to make many nodes ! Specially because with me i just need 5 seconds to have the coordinates for each node, even tough i have to manually past the coordinates into the track .txt file.

Hum... about leaving the cubes there... yes i know that it is a problem but you can make the object's matrix be at "0,0,0" and move the object to the desired position, and inside the game the cube will not be solid even tough it is visible so we could use that invisible texture. Please tell me if that works. Anyway those cubes are specially to be seen INSIDE plaything2 and not inside the game. About the problem of knowing which cube corresponded to which node, yes your idea is excelent (you know, renaming the cubes as : "OpponentNode0001, OpponentNode0002, and so on, or DroneNode0001") i even haven't thinked of that, thanks for the tip, because i was thinking about making a individual texture for each number to texture each cube, but that would be a total waste of time and of material slots, your idea is much better.

See, you guessed the EXACT purpose of my method of cubes : "Another benefit is that you can see the path when work with your track in PT2" that's EXACTLY the main purpose of my method, and i can't imagine doing opponent/drone paths without that, it should be very tedious when other people have to manually copy the coordinates of the pt2 coord indicator, i can't even imagine making that with dozens of nodes !!!

About that problem of the move, rotate and scale the track, tell me you are going to make the opponent/drone paths before you finish the track ? I hope not, because if you do, then you can't use my method, for me we only should do the opponent/drone paths after the track is REALLY finished.

Actually my ideia is to select a cube, and then using a macro to determinate the center coordinates. That macro can be called a "coord grabber" as you said but without macros you have a lot of work ! You see, as i said above, my goal isn't to see the cubes INSIDE the game, but ONLY inside Plaything2, so i hope that way to make the cubes invisible and nonsolid inside the game but at the same time visible and movable inside plaything2 works, i hope you can test it.

What ?! Making the path as a 3d model ?! What a weird idea, it may be good, but i am afraid it's not possible, at least with only 1 vertex to indicate each node maybe it's impossible. Hum... you said that pt2 gives a error like "no faces in the model", does pt2 crash to the windows desktop when it gives that error, or it's just a reminder ? If it crashes to the windows desktop i can put a reminder to avoid people to do that mistake which makes that crash...

Hum... what you said about "replacing a object just by renaming it" it's not a real new to me... i also discovered that, and it's very cool and useful indeed. But with me it's different, for example, if i would rename one noncar of a tree to a name of other noncar all the trees in the track became like the other noncar, but this doesn't always work, i don't know why. And your discover is similar to mine, but yours is a bit different, it's from an external .act file. I also discovered that if i change the skinning of a noncar ALL the other noncars of the same kind will change their appearence too, this is very usefull, specially when i fixed the green cars in the Maimstreet track i only did have to reskin one green car and all the others changed at the same time like magic !

Well, about that stuff of textures being packed in pixies file, i don't have that problem, since i have downloaded ALL the texture packs which Errol did (for all the 10 environment themes of the carma2 tracks), because Errol HAVE a .pix to .tif convertor but he keeped for himself so no one have such a convertor besides him.

BUT i have some news i am emailing a author of a great program named XNVIEW which is a graphics file convertor and viewer, it supports over 200 file formats, and it's author accepted to include the .pix file format !! Isn't that great ? He already said that he would need specifications for the .pix format, but i have done better, i have indicated him the Plaything2 program, which is very useful to convert .tif files to .pix files so if he can convert any .tif files that he want so he can see the resulting .pix files from that .tif files, i think that will help him very much to figure out the format of the .pix file format ! Today i am sending to him that email where i give him the link of plaything2 (he just need the original version of Stainless, my mod isn't necessary to avoid complicating things, because Plaything2 by itself it's already a very complicated program) and i explained with every details what he have to do in Plaything2 to convert .tif files to .pix files. Now let's see if after he tries to use Plaything2 he says that can make support of the .pix file format or not. I said to him that a .pix file exporter is totally useless, both Plaything2 and Carmageddon2 do that very easily and that would give him even more unnecessary work. The problem is that the only .pix files that he will study are the PIX16 files, so i think he can't make support for PIX8 files but that isn't necessary. Another format of the .pix files that he can't study is those .pix files to show the car images in the menus of Carma2. You may already noticed that those .pix files don't load into Plaything2 and seem to have a different palette but that is useless too, what is important is the default PIX16 files that Plaything2 and Carma2 uses, if he can put support for that kind of .pix file format, it's going to be very useful, finally we can convert those PIX16 files of some cars that were released on the net (there is some cars that are released without any TIFF files and only have PIX16 textures, and the poor users of carma2 that haven't a powerfull enough computer and that have to run in software mode only, cannot use those cars, in the past that was my case !!) but the main vantage is to extract those textures in the files AIRP.TWT, CARR.TWT and others. If the author manages to do my request soon we can have finally the first public .pix to any other format convertor and thanks to me ! And besides all, that program, Xnview is freeware !!!

But of course to make that be possible i have other great new ! I will include the ability to extract .pix files from PIXIES.P16 files !! I will do that in the program that i already maded to pack PIXIES.P16 and PIXIES.P08 but not right now. So, are you happy ? Of course this is going to be very usefull to those people that haven't downloaded the carma2 templates that errol maded, like you. But at the moment let's go back to talk about the templates that Errol maded :

i have downloaded them MANY TIME AGO from the site TOXIC RAGERS, in 26-07-2000 so i have all those texture packs since 3 years ago ! They are about 2-3 megabytes each one, but Errol's site is long time dead so when you c2scientist came to this cwaboard at the first time that site was dead long time ago, so those links don't work now i think. And he also did prefab packs of the noncars of the carma2 tracks so we can import them in custom tracks ! He maded many templates of carma2 elements, like templates of all the cars, pedestrians, drones, tracks, noncars... and i have everything, but the only thing i actually use is the noncar prefabs and i even maded myself prefabs of the Carma1 tracks !! And also of splatpack.

If i would have adsl connection i could send to you the texture packs, but with such a shitty connection that my school have it's difficult to even send 500kb files in emails !!! But you can be sure that those texture packs are AWAY much better than the work that the pixies extractor function of Cared does ! And if the author of Xnview manages to put support for .pix files you and everybody can extract themselves the textures from those files !!

I still haven't managed to get pictures working correctly in cwa posts i simply can't understand why they don't work if we can see them perfectly if we open their link in internet explorer. But i can continue to post the links of the pictures like i have done, it's good to you like that ? For what you and small block said you and him managed to see them ! Finally !!

Lolololol... i knew that you would do such a comment about the picture "dump1000", i myself was very surprised when i say the huge collection of noncars in the 3d view port because i was putting those noncars with the TOP-VIEWPORT maximized because with that view it's easier to line up the noncars, but i did have some problems with so many noncars, plaything2 was getting slower and slower... When i saw the whole collection in the 3d view i even laughted, and said "very cool" !!! But the game itself wasn't so slower when i run the track, it was still very playable, and that's a good signal, it's a proof that the carma2 can "process" the view of almost 1000 noncars without crashing ! But that's why i used that noncar which is extremely low poly.

What, the limit of textures is only 128x128 ?! Oh well, that's not a very serious problem, that problem of the limit of noncars was worring me much more than the texture size limit...

I see that you still haven't understood how i maded that stuff about the container... it's the noncars of the container (the ariel posts) that collides not the empty actor itself ! The empty actor itself moves all it's sub noncars when he move it in PLAYTHING2 not inside the game ! Talking like that it seems you never used empty actors... but i understand that you may be confused i am not too good to explain such complicated things...

About you said : "I guess I don't need new bound boxes for scaled noncars: when you hit them, they become original-scaled again. (after the shaking!)" i haven't tried that since long time ago, but when i try again i tell you what happened to me.

About the mailboxes, tell me you are working with the track preprocessed or not preprocessed ? Just tell me that.

Hum... yes that stuff of the boulders is indeed a better idea that one you suggested ! But i don't know, and if we managed to see the boulders when that happens ? And you can choose the direction of where the boulders will fall ? I still have a doubt about smashables : when we trigger a smashable, it's not unrealistic to see a boulder dissapear and a new one appearing suddently ?! And the new boulder that appears, it appears in the EXACT place that the other dissapeared so we don't noticed that the original dissapeared and that the new one simulates the older one moving ?!

Another question, it's possible to use a empty actor to make a smashable, and when the smashable is trigered it spawns a noncar from it's place ? I ask this because i want to know if it's possible that when our car step on a certain material a huge meteorite would fall from the sky, and for that a invisible and non solid smashable in the sky was perfect, can we use a empty actor?

Well, indeed i have to study that subdividing, because i still have a little idea of what can prevent the subdividing or not.

I am glad Small block joined us in this topic again, so now i can talk with him here.

What ?! (about : "It seems like it's not possible to put 'polyhedron' bounding shapes into those movable objects in cars (doors, bonnets)... ")

Then the doors are "boxes" ? Hum... That's strange, i think i have seem the weirdest type of doors in many cars i downloaded from the net, i wonder if they all have the "box" shape as a bbox... oh no so we can't have the polyhedron with the doors ?! Well, at least you have tried ? It may be still possible... Or at least make the game generates bboxes like it does with drones...

WHAT !!! So that's what it happens when we have negative credits !! It sells the "slots" we already have !! Very cool ! I didn't know that was possible... really how could i guess that ! I never noticed the slots decreasing or disapearing when credits try to go below zero, i only noticed credits rising instead of being negative... also because i don't always have the top hud visible so i didn't noticed the slots disapearing.

No, really, in the last time i really didn't understood what the "trade-in value" was, in the last time what i was trying to explain it's that i TOUGHT it was that value that the game gives to us when we have the slots already in the maximum and we try to pick up a new upgrade slot in the tracks, that's what i tought it was, i never imagined that the "trade-in value" was the selling of the slots that we already possess !! So of course in the last time i didn't understood, and you tough i explained that but i expressed wrong and you thinked that i knew what it was but i didn't knew. Now if you read that again you may see that i REALLY didn't understand ! But now finally i understand, and it was a BIG SURPRISE to know that the slots can be "selled" to pay our "debts" !! Very cool ! And specially that feature of when the slots are selled they are twice cheaper ! Also very cool.

After i readed that, i have gone to play the game and tried again and indeed the slots disapear, now i can confirm i never noticed that before. Also now i understand why if the value is zero ALL the slots disapear, so i think you have to forget that idea of putting 0 in that line in the general.txt file !

But that's funny no one ever wrote in any carma2 faq or spec what would happen if credits try to go below zero... i wonder why no one has ever wrote that in carma2 faqs or guides.

What ? The negative credits given by a smashable IS DIFFERENT than the normal credits spending by recovering or by powerups ? About that i don't know, i was talking just about the recovery and other powerups, not smashables. Hum i am starting to understand why is impossible to make shops in the tracks. Because we can't prevent the player to buy things when he doesn't have any money or apo to sell and because negative credits doesn't existing ?! Oh well i hope now i understood. But if the main character in the game is a bad guy (max damage) we could consider that when we don't have any more credits, that we would steal those things that we put to shop...

The link you gaved to me about "Quick Macros" didn't work, but don't worry i will try to find the link of that macro program in a search engine. Btw i didn't know that program but if it is free i doubt it is as good as a shareware/paid program, you know that ! Anyway Macro Express have two advanced things that i highly doubt "quick macros" have : the ability to capture "controls" (you know those buttons, or combo boxes inside a window) and simulates mouse clicks on those controls, or saving the string contents of a control to a variable (like the plaything2 coordinate indicator, can you save it's contents with a macro without typing manually it's contents ? Macro express can do that !) and also a feature named "window scope" for example each macro can be maded to run ONLY inside certain windows or programs and not being global and that is very useful.

But one thing Macro Express doesn't have and i would like very much to have : to be able to trigger/run a macro when a certain window appears/is created at the first time (and not all the times that the windows have focus) but Automate Pro does have that. But why you don't get macro express and do yourself your own macros ? It's shareware but it have a crack ! (serial)

Well, your home city most certainly is much bigger than mine, so maybe i can make my city also on carma2, i am also planning that it must be very cool to make our hometown in a game, i already tried to recriate my street in other games and it's a different sensation it's a VERY satisfying sensation so see a place where we live, inside a game in a 3d world ! I have done that in the games Doom2, Blood and Half life and it looked very cool ! (do you know those games ?) In Half life i mamaged to fully recreate the exterior of the house of my dad with all the courtyard (it's on the field not in a city or village), i have measured everything with a metric tape !! It was a lot of work but i think i can convert it to carma2, and the good side is that everything have the same proportion that the real world house have ! But of course i only did the external side of the house not the inside of it... I have fully used the program Worldcraft do you know it ? I like to make levels in that way, by creating blocks and then resizing them and snapping to a grid, it's even more fun than using Gmax or 3dstudio max but of course it's more limited because we can't make circular things... but i like to use blocks and reshape them ! And besides Gmax or 3ds max sees VERY complicated...

About recreating a city of course i will never measure it with a metric tape !!! But with a map it's easier to recreate the city. But you will take photographs to your town or it isn't necessary ? It's because the objects in the streets, i of course will not take photographs...

Tipper4 ? Which car is that ? Wait a minute... it's that Cameron car, which is a yellow truck ? Wooo i have that car so long time ago also... Hum, i like that truck also, even tough i don't use it.

Did you know that i have downloaded almost 600 different cars for carmageddon 2 on the net and i never use them ? Lololol... it's like someday i would start using them, i think i simply don't want to use them yet, i am planning to convert the realistic or "civilian look" ones to drones because we need more variety of drones in carma2.

But about your exact bounding shapes, later i will see if it was well done (i haven't see yet) and i will try later.

What the hell is that talk about "weight distribution in a bbox" ?! That's amazing... Carma2 does really do that ? Please explain better what you know of that, i will also ask this to small block. Does that weight distribution also apply's on noncars ? If yes you should do a tuturial also about that...

Can you explain to me with other words that you mean by "The game straightens any gaps found in the shape..." ? It's not that i am much interested in cars, but in bboxes i am interested, i always dreamed to be able to make "holes" in bboxes.

Finally it's done i finished replying all your replys...

to Small Block :

Oh yes, so if i want i can post a improved version of your track ? Of course giving credits to you.

Yes indeed the track is different in the model, even tough some parts i didn't liked, but other are much better. But there must be a way to make the map (when we press tab) cover all the track...

I would also like to put the original powerups on it, and of course put some new ones from carma2... and also try to put a more closer pedestrian distribution in relation to the original carma1 track...

I am glad that those missing noncar .txt files are only just because you forget, i tough that you maded them as static models in the track and that even in their names in the track .txt file i couldn't activate them, but fortunately i could...

About those c1 pumps exploding like the c2 pumps, you can't image how EASY was to make that... i just renamed some things and it works perfectly ! I didn't have to remove or put other models to make that work... just by renaming some things...

I think that the 340 noncars limit is only about the number of .act or .dat files in the track folder... that i believe that it have a low limit. But please, after you seeing my screenshot named "dump1000" you have the proof that it's possible to have almost 1000 noncars !! (and after preprocessing we can even have more!)

WHAT ?! About what you said : "ááone just has to make polys smaller than the threshold size...easy to check". Where is that setting of "threshold" ? I couldn't find it the preprocess track dialog box... btw do you know what that setting named "tidy up kerbs" ? Yes i know that it may be self explanatory but i am not english so i don't know exactly what that means. If possible explain also the seetings inside that ("aspect ratio limit", "kerb height limit", "material") and in which parts of the preprocessing that affects the track.

Hum... so it's necessary to select the points of a bbox in a particular way to make it good... i think when i maded bboxes for those new noncars in the Maim street track, i can't remenber right but in the top i selected the points clockwise, and in the bottom in selected the points counter clockwise, but i can't remenber if it was the contrary of that... So if we don't make it in the right way the bbox is "twisted diagonally" ?! Cool... we can do that on purpose to make interesting effects...

But what a funny talk you done in your post in feb 15... so many funny situations about the bbox... i wonder if i can do those "special effects" with noncars also... I would like very much to make holes in a bbox, but in a controlled way, of course !

I already asked to c2 scientist, but it was you who said it first : talk to me more about that thing of "áádistributing the weight(mass) around the main bbox" that only applys to cars or in noncars and other things it also applys ?

Oh my god, i think i am right when i say that making a car is away much more difficult than making a track... all that you said about cars it's so complicated comparing to track stuff...

That's all...

[Small Block]

OMG....this thread must be breaking records for length!!

Anyway, in order:

Do whatever you want w/ that track, the ore, the merrier......do you think you could add powerup/smashables BEFORE modifying it to look more like C1.....that way we could have 2 versions for ppl who like it better one way or the other?

Yes, it's possible to make the map fit the entire screen...I did it at a time, the problem is, since it's size-limited to 640x480, the resolution becomes too low, and your position spreads on 2 streets.....you can't really see who's where with any kind of precision....plus, since the purpose of the 2-mile long highway is to reach insane speeds and not creative driving, I don't think it's really important.

Yeah, I deactivated those noncars at one point, b/c the signs bbox had a problem....I fixed it and forgot to update the final version of the .txt.

I'd really like to know how you made those pumps explode. BTW, could you explain to me step-by step how to make a smashable exploding pump using the C2 pump model? I already tried C2scientist's method, but it still doesn't work and I dunno why.

I don't doubt you can put 1000 noncars in a map, I think the 340 limit I've reached may be linked to the amount of different noncar types present in the track(17 in that case). Also, don't forget the total "weight" of the track in memory and CPU cycles.....I'm sure it matters(that particular track uses 8MBs worth of textures.... ).

Hehe...there's no threshold SETTING in plaything. When I said it's easy to check, I meant if you look at a preprocessed track, you'll noticed some triangles are subdivided and others are not. just try to keep your triangles under the size of the new divisions the preprocessing created.....shouldn't be too hard.

As for the "tidy up kerbs" setting, plaything can recognize certain volumes as being curbs(sidewalks).

That setting makes it "standardize" their volume/aspect ratio throughout the map, that's all.

I have no idea whether or not the bbox works the same for noncars, but I would think so.

Distribution of weight.....you may think the only value of interest is the center of mass, but the C2 engine seems to be able to recognize a closed volume, and "spread" the weight throughout that.

If you use higher gravity settings and start paying attention to how cars handle, you'll notice that there's a clear difference b/w a car w/ a single bbox and one w/ separate boxes for separate volumes.....if you simply make a separate box for the roof, you'll notice the car feels like the center of mass has been lowered, it hasn't. It's simply C2 putting the bulk of the weight in the bigger, lower bbox, and almost none in the roof(like the real thing). Also visible in the "swiss cheese" bbox scenarion I wrote above. Some of the cars I have now have 8 bounding boxes and they really feel like the real thing.

[C2 Scientist]

Cesm:

The first method sounds like I could try Quick Macros to make that for me. (The "Save noncar"-method) The invisible texture certainly will work for the cubes, no problems there. And if you make the cubes really small, there's nothing to worry about the car colliding with them... even the worst situation should be a slight bump when the wheels roll over the cube! (The cube of course has to be sticked to the road, no floating in the air) I'm planning to make the nodes when I finish the track, but the rotate/scale thing was just because I may later combine my tracks, if I've made many of them... on the other hand, I might make so 'heavy' tracks, that the game couldn't handle two of them... well, we'll see. But I think it won't possible to combine two of my tracks.

See, the paths as 3D model has some disadvantages, but if I can't use the cube-method (if I can't make the Quick Macros to work properly), I will use this 3D model method. I will have to move it out of the track, something like -100 to Y-axis, so that it won't be visible in the game, when I play the track. How does this work? You know, when you use the "Convert ASC" or "Save noncar TXT-file" functions, it spits out vertex coords. It will similarly spit out the vertex coords of the 3D path. The only problem is, that will it spit the coords in the order like the path goes forward? It should do that, if I plot the vertices in correct order: first vertex is #1, second is #2, etc, in the modeling program, GMax. Notice: the 3D path doesn't look like 3D pipe or something, it's a huge wide polygon, where the vertices are in the edges. If the path looks like the "Stop"-sign (the 8 vertices/nodes), I will have a polygon that looks like a Stop-sign shape, covering big parts in my track. So it's not a "pipe", but a flat plane. Try it in GMax: choose "polygon" mode, click on "Create", and start plotting the points. You'll get a polygon with many edge points. This is DIFFERENT from the "line" tool, where you can make those 'pipes', with 3, 4, 5 or more sides, and define the thickness, angle, and so on.

(Note: With pipes, there would be at least 3 vertices in almost same place!)

About the slowdown in PT2: try to maximize one window in the "Configure views" menu, THEN put the other three viewports into "---", does this make the 'rendering' any faster, since the other three viewports aren't used then? I would think so, because when there are something like "left" , "front" , "Back" or something, PT2 perhaps renders the views, even though you can't see anything, because the Top is maximized, is it this way? If it is, this a good way to improve the speed...

The track isn't preprocessed yet... only in the very end I will preprocess it.

When the smashable is removed, the noncar replaces it immediately, i.e with no delay. If the models are similar, it appears in the same place. If a car, which has zero in Y-axis in the bottom of the wheels, is replaced with a car which has zero in Y-axis in the centre of the car, the new car appears as halfway sinked to the ground, because its zero-position (Y) is in the center of the model (center of the car), not in the lowest part of the model (wheel's bottom) Hard to explain, did you understand...? Anyway, the replacing noncar can either start dropping at zero speed, or fly a little upwards, your choice.

I would think you can use an empty actor. Just put & in the beginning, and make sure some force area covers it. (and is powerful enough!) And of course use noncar-shrapnels.

I haven't studied the program much yet... if you find it, you see yourself, OK? I got the program from a CD, and the address from the "About" screen of the program... maybe it has changed, the address may be old, I don't know. If you can't find the program, I'll try to help you somehow... actually it says it's freely distributable, I'll upload it on my site, then! Get it from there, if you want.

I can't take photographs, I don't have digital camera... it's a pity. I used the 'blueprints' of my house to measure the stuff. And today I managed to get the 'blueprints' of my town! In addition, it was free. And those are big... I got five big papers, one is like 8 A4s... 5 are like 40 A4s! They're are like posters, what are they, A2s, or A1s? But fortunately the people had a nice big copying machine, so I got identical papers as they have. Otherwise I'd had those maps in 40 A4-sized paper sheets... fortunately not. Hmm, how am I gonna scan those papers with my small scanner!? Woah. Anyway, easy copying now, better than trying to remember everything myself. The smaller objects and decoration I have to remember, however.

Straightening the gaps means, that there can't be concave shapes in the bounding shape. So the Bigdump's bed in the back can't be made by using only one shape.

Small Block:

BTW, you said your BBox weight dividing will fix the sudden rolling high centre of mass... unfortunately it didn't have any (or at least not much) effect on it... but I guess there's nothing to do for it. It's just annoying the everything else is realistic, but after barrel rolling this kind of 'breaks' the feeling of realism... just to let you know...

[Small Block]

hmmm, it should, mostly....it also depends on the angular momentum proportions, the weight of the car and the downforce-to-weight balance speed.....I don't have this problem anymore.

Just one thing, though: w/ some cars(mostly smaller ones), it may be necessary to trick the engine by putting angular momentum proportions that don't really match the car's dimensions, generally, bigger ones(the car is .3 units wide, you put .41 in the proortions...etc.). There are 2 reasons for that: firstly, cars aren't a solid block of material that react homogenously to forces, they flex, have most of their weight under the waistline...etc. Giving the engine angular momentum data that are slightly off can stave off that "artificial" feel in the car's movements you get when everything is dead-on.

Secondly, the engine has a purely linear interpretation of dimensions/proportions, which means more is more, less is less and to hell w/ the rest. Some cars' equations will produce strange-looking results, if that happens, you should keep tweaking until it feels right.

[C2 Scientist]

I've put slightly bigger values to that than it really is, but only 111% of the real size... so 137% is your suggestion? Also, I've increased all of those dimensions, I'll check that out too.

[cesm20]

to small block :

lolol i know, that's why i said that would be my biggest reply yet... Even NOTEPAD (the text editor that i use to write replys) gave to me a error about not enough memory... i haved to use WordPad to be able to edit that huge text !

What does mean the abbreviation OMG ? You know that i still have some little difficulties in english, specially with abbreviations...

Hum... yes i could add the powerups in the actual version but i don't know... i don't know how you have done the fusion of the three tracks (or two), so i need some questions :

- did you maked a fusion of the 2 or of the 3 bleak city districts ? There was three different of them, not only two ?

- did you removed any part of any of the three districts ? It's because if you removed there will be problems to put powerups in the original places... specially in that speedway on the side of the petpumps, which in the track Maimstreet i used as a high speedway and now in you track part of that street has a bridge on top of it and the speedway isn't complete, is that a sintom of the intersection of the three districts ?

Yeah that problem of the map fit the entire screen it's very annoying, but it's also very annoying to not find the indicator of our car in the map, well, later i will see what i can do to fix that.

Hum... that 2-mile long highway have a little problem to make we reach insane speeds... there is one part of it that there is a curve and because that i never can reach the end of the speedway without braking or have a huge crash on the wall...

Wait a minute... did you said "the signs bbox had a problem....I fixed it and forgot to update the final version of the .txt" why don't you send to me or post those .txt files of those noncars you fixed their bboxes ? It's because with just the track .txt file it's impossible to fix anything in the noncars bboxes... I really would like to smash that blue sign without that problem of the bbox.

Good, i am happy that you really want to know how i maded the petpumps explode like the ones in Beaver city. And no, THERE

ISN'T any c2 petpump model used (well just the base of the petpump that stays in the ground when the petpump explodes, that one is the same model of the Beaver city), the pumps that are spitted out when exploded are the SAME petpumps of the Bleak city, i will tell you how i maded this, you can use the Bleak city track you posted, because this example will be based on the track you released, even tough i will not save the changes yet. No, wait a minute, you don't have those track templates that errol released on toxic ragers LONG time ago, or do you ? Most certainly you don't have. So i have to send to you the files need to make the new smashable work. Please tell me your email so i can send to you the files of the smashable. Because you will need files about two smashables : the petpump itself (a copy from the bleak city pump) and the replaced model in the ground (after the explosion) which is a copy from the one in the Beaver city track.

Anyway, because you don't have those files yet, and because i have found some problems, i can't explain right now how i did that of making those pumps smashables. It's because i even started to write the method of making those pumps smashables for you, but i tried to make the pumps of your track bleak city in the same way i did to the track MaimStreet, but for my big surprise Carma2 gives the error "Insufficient model slots in storage area" !! I don't understand why, i didn't added new models, i just renamed the pet pumps. That's why i need more time to figure out what happened. The next time, if i didn't managed to make the petpumps smashable on your track, i will try again in the Maimstreet track and then i write the method, step by step here, ok ? And when i post the reply here by that time you must already have those files that i will email you so it's better like this, ok? You will have to wait, but don't forget to tell me your email !

So it seems that the limit of model slots is very weird, because even with a preprocessed track (Bleak city) just by renaming some objects the game says that error... i have to investigate this...

How do you know how much memory are used for textures ? Just by the size of the .tif files ?

Look, i finally discovered how to avoid that some polygons to be sub-divided by the preprocessing... we have to make a separate object, and the preprocessing doesn't touch at the polygons of individual objects... for example, if you preprocess a track and if a certain part of the scenery is in a separate object (a actor) you will notice that even if the polygons of that object are huge they aren't touched (sub-divided), unless that object was rotated with the mouse. If the preprocessing doesn't make Plaything2 crash when we rename a individual object with the prefix "&" in it's name, then the object is valid, but if when the object have a prefix "&" on it's name and plaything2 crashes when is preprocessing the track, just because that prefix in the name, it means the object have a problem, which is mostly caused by rotating the object. Although this only happens with certain kind of models, i don't know why, after thousands of tries, i still can't figure out. This is a research that i have in these last days, because some individual objects when they have that problem and they don't have the prefix "&" the preprocessing "amalgamates" that object to the scenery and it's not a individual object anymore. Did this also happened to you ?

I must confess that the "tidy up kerbs" is a bit complicated... How do i know which volumes will be recognized by pt2 as curbs ? Can't you explain better what means '"standardize" their volume/aspect ratio throughout the map' ? Well if you don't know to explain better than that, then just don't bother with this.

Yes, that distribution of the mass in a bbox is very interesting, i have to make experiments on noncars about that...

Simply don't talk to me about c2 cars, i don't know nothing about that, that's complicated stuff !! lolol



now to c2 scientist :

Hey, don't forget to look in bandit's site to see if my plaything2 build as been released there, because you said you can't download the one in my site.

Well, at the moment the internet connection of my school is SO SLOW that i can't even search that program named "Quick Macros", as soon as i can find it and download it i tell you something. But because i am writing this before looking at your site, then when i post this i will look if you uploaded anything new on your site, and then i will reply later.

Oh well, so use the 3d model method. If it works, tell me how you maded it work, ok ?

Hey, i have good news finally i also have now Gmax 1.1 !! This version says the number of the version, is a more recent release in relation to the other that i haved some time ago. But at the moment i still don't need Gmax.

What? So finally there is a use for that useless setting of the viewport named "---" !! I never managed to discover for what the hell that is for, but that may be a good use, to speed up the display of 1 view... But i think that the speed is the same. I have loaded the track Bleak city maded by Small block, and plaything2 gets SO SLOW when i zoom out a lot and have a top view of that track... i even disabled the other viewports and the speed is exactly the same... so i guess this doesn't have effect.

So, when the smashable is removed the replacement is instantly. Good. Hum... i don't like the idea of the force area. If i have a smashable on the sky, it's force area have to be so big to reach the place where the material triggers that smashable? Specially if the trigger is on the ground ?

In which place do we get the "blueprints" of our town ? In my country may be different, but in yours is where ? The only thing i can get in my city is very small maps of the streets layouts, but this is in the size of a A5 paper (it's a map for tourists that's the only kind of "blueprints" available here of city maps), or even smaller, where and how did you get five big papers of the "blueprints" of your town ?!

Well, c2 scientist, i appreciate that you DON'T FORGET to give your comments about the three big news i have for you :

1. Well, if you haven't read the part of this reply for small block (in the beginning), go read the part of when i talk about the objects not being or being preprocessed in a track. Did you already know that ? That we can avoid certain parts of the track being subdivided by the preprocessing just by making them as individual objects ? And that problem of the prefix "&" making Pt2 crash when it tries to preprocess the track ? Do you know the cause of that crash ?

2. This one is a big discovery and it's a excelent update for your tuturial. This is a new possibility, probably as important as that feature of the full lit textures in dark tracks : finally i figured out what is that weird setting named "// Movement index" in this part of a track .txt file :

0GRASS1D.MAT // Material name

0 // Movement index (it's this one that i discovered what is for !!)

27 // Group index

0.2 // Peds per 100 square metres

0 // Number of exclusion materials

0 // Number of exception materials

In your tuturial you said you didn't know what this is, but it's very simple. Some time ago i said that this may have connection with a part in the file "DATA\PEDS\settings.txt" and i WAS right ! The zero indicated the only movement defined in the settings.txt file, which means it's the default movement, which is like this in the settings.txt file :

//***************************

// MOVEMENT STUFF

//***************************

1 // Number of movements

// Movement #1 (this corresponds to the number 0 in the "// Movement index" in the track .txt file!! )

2 // Min time between random turns

30 // Max time between random turns

180 // Max angle of random turn

0.7 // Min walk speed multiplier

1.7 // Max walk speed multiplier"

I have created a new movement in the settings.txt file, and then i wrote "1 // Movement index" in the track .txt file and it worked !! In that new movement defined in the settings.txt i maded the pedestrians run very fast and only the pedestrian groups which i wroted "1 // Movement index" have movedvery fast ! See, finally a new discovery in c2 editing, this one may be not very useful, but we can now make certain pedestrians in the track move faster or slower than others, or change the value of the "max or min time between random turns" and other stuff as you see above. I was afraid that this wasn't implemented but it seams that stainless didn't have time to define more movements but this seems fully functional. The only rule to not forget is that the number 0 in the track .txt file corresponds to the first movement in the settings.txt file, and the number 1 in the track .txt file correspondes to the second movement in the settings.txt file and so on. So what you think of this ? Did you understood this correctly ? Can you try it for yourself and tell me the results ?!

3. Tell me if you think this is usefull. Remenber the hierarchy in Plaything2 ? You know, where the tree of the names of actors and objects are in plaything2. What do you say if i could click on one of those names and be able to change their name. No, not that exactly, but a way to copy that exact name by the ability to rename them. You know, when you do a single click in a icon on the desktop, the name becames editable and you can select the name and even copy it to clipboard, do you understand ? Now if you could do this in the names of the hierarchy in plaything2 ? Not to apply the change the names, but to be able to select the name and be able to copy it to the clipboard ! Yes, i know that this may be not be usefull but sometimes is boring to copy the name of a component of the hierarchy just by looking at the name (specially with objects with big names), and we may mistake when copying the name just by looking. Yes, it's possible ! With the hacker program that i use to make changes in plaything2, i MANAGED to activate the feature of the name of those components in the hierarchy be editable ! Which means if we do a single click on them (when they are already focus) it looks like we can change their name, and we can select the name and copy it to clipboard. This actually work and i am going to include it in the next build of plaything2. The only problem, is that you can't actually apply the change you make to the name of the hierarchy component, you have to press the key TAB to cancel the changes, so you can't rename a object in this way, but at least you can select the name and copy it to clipboard instead of just looking at it to copy it. Do you think this will be a usefull change in plaything2 ? Its worth to put in a next release ?

That's all for today.

[C2 Scientist]

Cesm:

The force area: actually you don't need huge force areas, if you use the keyword "Absolute" (See my tutorial on this) You can define any area in the world as the force area, not only the area around the smashable. (Which would mean keyword "Relative") And remember, that multiple force areas caused by one smashable, is possible. Ok?

I got the blueprints from the town hall... that should be what it's called in English (language). Actually those would have cost something, but, heh, when I told I was working on my "own project", they thought it had something to do with studies, so I got them for free. Anyway, on the next day I was informed of something more useful: the nearby city workers had taken photographs from a plane, and combined them into huge map! Now I'm collecting and combining the pieces of map into large map, to my hard disk. That is fast enough for me, even though one pieces is something like 1km x 1km sized... the detail of the map is excellent for checking how the streets are placed, and of course house placing too! Naturally this is better than black-and-white maps I just got (which are now useless)... besides, my scanner don't work, so now I don't have even to worry about the scanning, because I have these digitized maps. They'll be useful as background pics in GMax. BTW, the file size is now 150 MB, but fortunately I'm pretty much completed the map of my hometown. The pixel dimension are 7500 x 7000! If I some day start making the city, which the huge map mainly concentrated to, I can collect those too. I think this is brilliant.

Hmm, you mean detaching faces into separate models prevents PT2 from subdividing them? Interesting... I remember Small Block saying that the subdividing was meant for smooth animation (fast frame rates)... but I didn't understand how increasing polys would make the game faster!? Anyway, the "&" is used for smashables, as you know, and &[Two-digit-number] for noncars, as you also know... what exactly are you asking...? I don't know the cause of the crash... it shouldn't crash if the track has smashables!?

Hey very interesting! Is this modified moving only for peds which are spawned in this surface? Or will the other peds, who come to walk on this surface, start suddenly running too? Something like this: a ped is spawned on "Sidewalk.MAT". But a "PedCrossing.MAT" has the running attribute. Now, when the ped comes to "PedCrossing.MAT", does it start running, until it comes to "SideWalk.MAT" again? And, can you define (for example) those dancing movements for some materials? (Peds would dance on disco floor, or something?) Hey, do you know the uses of the two last "material" lines yet?

Sure you can put it, but at the moment I can't come up with any uses for it... Maybe it's useful if you write notes somewhere while you build your track?

New stuff:

Damn, I wish we could use simple models for track's stuff, like the main cars have simple models... but I don't think there's any way to achieve this. It's a pity, for example GTA3 had excellent optimizing methods. Did you know that even streets have 'simple models'? It's hard to recognize this on foot or on car, but while flying a Dodo it can be seen easily, how the textures disappear until you come close. If it's not exactly a simple model, then blurry textures at least. Ingenious, I'd say.

By the way, not only I got the photograph map, I also found very high-resolution pictures of Finnish road signs. All of those were there, and now I got nice textures of those! Yay.

Some things about PT2.

1. "Quick map track" sucks. I tried it once to an object with some texture, and it mapped the texture unbelievably badly.

2. What's the use of creating new material groups via "Materials/Create new material group", if you can't move any textures into the new group? I couldn't.

3. What does CTRL+X do? I know it has the "Cut" function in Windows, but in PT2 it said: "Are you sure you want to delete the selected objects?"... I clicked "Yes", and nothing happened, what? I couldn't find the shortcut in any of your functions.

4. Can you remove the axis aligned planes (CTRL+1 , CTRL+2 , CTRL+3) after you have used them? Restarting PT2 of course, but anything else? Because especially Y-axis plane is useful when placing noncars on a slope, you know how twisty the textures are in PT2, you can't really tell if the object currently touches the ground of not... and X- & Z-axis for placing stuff into walls... anyway, if the plane stays there, it blocks off some view and is disturbing... it also can cause minor slowdown... not very big problem, but if you know how to fix this, I'd still like to know.

5. I made a very useful discovery... I don't know if you already knew it, or even had this problem: When you try to select faces from inside a building, PT2 sometimes selects faces from behind you, which would have been a serious problem when texturing a tunnel... well, the solution is to change viewport settings, the clipping distances: Near=0.0001 , Far=4. Simple! Really makes things easier, at least for me!

I've had a 7 day holiday from school, and I've used it wisely, for C2 of course. I've done some 'optimizing'. I've managed to remove some texture files, by using the skin colouring of PT2 for white textures. I could make six textures of one TIF file, that's good. Also, I've combined small-sized textures into one 128x128 file. Especially useful for triangle-shaped signs: six can be put into one. Even eight would be possible, but that'd be too messy, so I won't. I've also cleaned up my noncar-, smashable-, and shrapnel-folders a bit, so now it's easier to manage them. Well, enough ranting for now.

Small Block:

May I ask what you're up to at the moment, track-wise...? Are you planning any more track combinations, Death Street releasing, or making a new track from stratch? When you were talking with DB about the Bleak City combo, you said you have something even bigger in mind... hm? Is that what I think it is...? Forgive me if I'm nosy, I'm curious!

[Small Block]

OMG=Oh My God

Yes, Bleak City is a fusion of all 3 C1 districts, the highway ramp covering the street is a symptom of that.....Downtown Devastation is the one model they really modified to make it stand on its own. I had to relocate the housing projects(on the left when coming from the highway) all the way to the other side of "slaughter City". I also had to remove some blocks at the bottom of the map that were overlapping some in the lower map. Aside from these and a few stretched alleys at the periphery, they're stock. BTW, I was thinking of putting powerups, but not necessarily at their original C1 location...

Yes, it's annoying, but frankly, I don't find it hard to deal w/, I mean, the highway isn't really full of hiding places, so it doesn't bother me.

I just used the stoplight bbox from C2, w/ a few mods to make it fit the bill. I never managed to fix the original C1 sign box for some reason....now it feels accurate enough to me.

I do have all the noncars templates and the tiffs from the track ones(I just un-twat a track file if I need the model). My email is in my profile

Actually, the important part is not the tiffs, but the pixes the game creates.....tiffs can be compressed, but what matters is the image size, also tiffs w/ alpha channels are bigger in KB size, but the pixes from same aren't.

I think I noticed sth like that, yeah.....but as long as we're dealing w/ the main track model and not independent objects, what I said stands: the preprocessingwill not subdivide surfaces under a certain size.

The preprocessing algorythms apparently try to recognize what volumes are curbs(low on the ground, surfaces and shape....etc. It's supposed to make sure there aren't curbs too much out of shape in the map.

BTW, I tried your trick to make new movement indexes......I created new ones and that's o.k, but the game crashed when I tried to actually use the new ones in a track........weird.



C2s:

Right now, I'm not doing much....Deathstreet will be released next time, but I still have a problem w/ a smashable. I'm also planning an extension to Bleak City.......

[cesm20]

to c2 scientist :

Well, i think i have to look better your tuturial about the smashable parts, because i still haven't understood what is the propose of the "force area", but don't bother explaining more right now, i will read your tuturials in that part.

Honestly, in my country REALLY it's not like that. In my city's town hall i never heared that it would exist any blueprints of a city, not even in the capital of my country (Lisbon). Definitly things in Finland must be very different...

Hum... you can have a object with a "&" without being a smashable, do you know that ? The game and plaything2 won't crash just because that, unless the object was rotated i think. But it seems that this haven't happen to you yet, because this seems new to you... Well, my idea wasn't exactly detaching faces of the track to a individual object, but yes that's a good idea i will see if that works ! But what i was saying, is if you want to make a object in your track, which is static (which looks like part of the track but it's not amalgamated to it) it will be not subdivided and not amalgamated, unless that weird error happens, i have maked a lot of testings and i can't find a fix for that, just the prevetion : certain models can't be rotated with the mouse because they cause this effect. This happens mostly with models maded from detached faces, and the only fix is to rotate again until plaything2 doesn't crash anymore.

Looks like i will make a new kind of testing : the fps count of a non-preprocessed track and the same track preprocessed. Then i will see which one of the version have a higher fps.

No, all the pedestrians specs refered in the track .txt file can have different movements, i don't understand your doubt, because there is only one way of spawn pedestrians : from the track .txt file ! And don't worry the pedestrians will NOT change their movement index depending on the material, they will ALWAYS keep it no matter in which material they are. Oh yes, now i am understand your point of view. No, that material is just the place where the pedestrians first appear, not the place where they use the movement. Because i saw them using the new movement in any material.

Oh oh oh !! Aren't you asking too much ?! Defining the dancing movements for some materials ?!?! Lololol I know what you mean, to make the pedestrians use a certain .skl animation depending on the material they step ? No, that unfortunately i think it's COMPLETELY impossible ! This thing i discovered, as you can see in the "settings.txt" file you can only define their walking speed and other settings, just read what is there ! There isn't any other settings associated with that. I already said that those settings aren't much usefull, if there was a setting to associate a animation .skl file it would be a miracle, i know, but it's not possible i think.

Anyway if you didn't managed to make the new movement index work, read my reply to Small Block below, there i explain with every details in how to use this new discovered feature.

But it seems i still maded ANOTHER great discovery ! Remenber what you said : "Hey, do you know the uses of the two last "material" lines yet?" Well, i don't know yet what the last of those two lines are for, but i discovered SEVERAL examples in many tracks of carma2 of the use of the first of those two last lines ! I can't believed how do you make that question and never noticed those settings in the "ped specs" in some carma2 tracks ! There is several tracks with some "ped specs" like this :

SOLDSPAWN // Material name

0 // Movement index

39 // Group index

2 // Peds per 100 square metres

1 // Number of exclusion materials

1 // Exclusion flags (1 = OK when scared)

ROAD // Exclusion material #1 name

0 // Number of exception materials

Well, being honest i also was surprised because only in wednesday i discovered this also, but this looks cool, another new discovery in c2 editing ! Now this must be tested to see if this actually works or is funtional or not. But if many carma2 original tracks have this setting many times it must work. But i think that those new descriptions are self-explanatory. The purpose of the "Number of exclusion materials" must indicate a material where the pedestrians of this group will never step, unless when scared (notice the new line where says "// Exclusion flags (1 = OK when scared)" but i never saw if this actually happened or not in the game, that's why this must be tested. Hum... that "exclusion flags" is very interesting, i wonder if there is more unused flags and if they work !!! But after a few testings i see that the game doesn't crash when i put a very high number in the place of flags, so it will be difficult to know if there is more flags. Well until my next reply i will investigate this even more and i will tell you what i discovered ! Meanwhile, look at this example :

PORTMAT // Material name

0 // Movement index

16 // Group index

1.8 // Peds per 100 square metres

2 // Number of exclusion materials

0

SLAG01

0

BROWTOP

0 // Number of exception materials

As you see in this example there is two exclusion materials defined, even tough there is no comments it's very easy to guess which they are, just by looking at the previous example.

Now, about the line "// Number of exception materials" This one is tricky, because there isn't any examples of this one, it seems it was never used in any original carma2 tracks. But after a few testings i see that it is working, because when i put there the number 1 instead of 0, it requires a name of a material, and it gives a error if that material doesn't exist on the track, so this must be functional and working correctly. This one just requires the name of the material, it doesn't require any "flags". I have to do more testings to see what this is for, and what it does, at least i have the proof that it works, if not the game wouldn't verifiyed if that material exists or not, at least we have the spec (or sintax), it's very simple, just the material name is needed. Hey, if you want you can also do this testing, now that you know it's format.

I am not too sure if i would want that the track would have simple model... i never liked that of seeing the cars being ugly cubes at the distance, and only becoming detailed when we are close, and in Gta3 i know what you mean, yes, the track textures also becomes more blurry in the distance and i also don't like that. I think i would prefer to limit the viewing distance to a smaller value to speed up the game instead of making the track or car look so ugly, but of course you are free to like what you like, and i may admit that maybe is ingenious but... Anyway, i think it's impossible to make a simple model of the track (fortunately for me but not for you!). But the computers today aren't so slow that they can't take a huge

track !

About the "quick map track" how many times did you tried that and with which settings ? Are you sure you know how to use that correctly so that the mapping doesn't become so bad ? Maybe you didn't use that feature correctly, i don't know.

Hum... good point. But i think that the feature of "Materials/Create new material group" would be usefull just when creating new materials, i think, anyway i let that option there, maybe someone find a good use to it.

About the CTRL+X i removed that shortcout from the drop-down menu just because that : it's useless, because it's impossible to cut 3d objects into the clipboard and then paste them into plaything2 ! (it would be too good it that would be possible!) so the only way is to not use CTRL+X unless when using a text-field in some plaything2 dialog boxes, there you can use the default "cut" function of windows, i don't know why plaything2 prompts for deleting objects, maybe it's one of the unfinished things in plaything2, and which i can do nothing to fix it.

Hoooo... very good question, how to remove the axis alignated planes ! I wish i know how, but also because plaything2 wasn't never finished, maybe stainless have forgot to make a option to remove them... because i searched in every plaything2 functions and there isn't any option to remove the axis planes. The only way is to restart plaything2, i think. Anyway i see that finally someone finded a good use for those axis planes ! It's to help to see if a object is touching the ground... very good, try to make a part in your tuturial about the best use we can do to those weird axis planes, ok ? Also see if you can see the use of the option "align object with virtual axis" because i don't know how to use that option correctly, include that also on the tuturial, because these weird axis planes and virtual axis nobody have ever talked that's why i would want that you would create a section in your tuturial in how to use all those options !!

About what you said : "you know how twisty the textures are in PT2" there is a way to fix that, i think you may already know but the material flag named "Correct perspective" many times fixes that problem in plaything2, isn't it true ?

Hoooo... another discovery ! That of changing the clipping distances ! Hey, don't you think that is a PERFECT TIP to include in your tuturial in the tips section in the section with your name ? You must include this there, it's a perfect tip to be there !

Hum... i will remind this when i would make texturing, but yes i know that you are talking, sometimes other faces are selected instead of the ones i want, but this happens mostly with the faces from the internal grid, and that's so annoying ! Many times i have to de-activate the internal grid to properly select some faces ! But why the hell they maded the faces of the grid selectable ?! I can't see the use of that. Other thing is that sometimes you select accindently the other side of the faces and we can't see the green highlight because we are looking their back but they ARE selected if you rotate the view to see the front of the face, are you aware of that ?

Interesting that of using a 128x128 texture with many sub-textures inside it...

Thank you of talking about issues of the plaything2 build ! FINALLY i get some comments/questions about the new options i putted there, i even thinked that no one is minimally interested that this plaything2 mod go on, not even the lite version, don't tell me that everyone loves to use the original plaything2 of stainless and having much more work to do a track because of the lack of shortcouts of the original version !

Anyway you know that i am not recommending you to use my pt2 build just because it was me who improved it, i am not being vain and not triyng to be the best and such, i just recommend the use of my pt2 mod because it saves a lot of work when doing tracks, but if the other track makers like so much to have crashes all the time and have a lot of unnecessary work that's their problem, later i hope they don't continue complaining and saying that making a track is a lot of work, and that plaything2 is better named as crashthing2, etc.

You know, c2 scientist, i think that the game Carmageddon2 is losing it's original value. I don't know how to express myself well, but just think how the game is "dissociated" from the two cutscenes that it have and from Max Damage. If you look well the cutscenes with Max Damage, you will see that we never get to see Max Damage associated with the game, other than it's him who is inside the car Eagle3 (and besides the Max damage inside the car is SO LOWPOLY that is hardly noticable that it's the same Max Damage of the cutscenes !), but that's not enough, i think that this game would have more cutscenes or at least some in-game cutscenes, like tdr2000 have, but unfortunately it's impossible to make in-game cutscenes. But i liked very much the style of Max Damage in the cutscenes, it gives a sensation of power, and it's a waste that Max Damage only appears in the cutscenes... it would be so cool if the pratcam would exist like in carma1... I can't understand why they removed the pratcam from the game... Maybe because the pratcam was the same for any car and don't matching the drivers ?!

Something must be done, Max Damage must be associated with the game much more than it is, other than the only two cutscenes, i am thinking very much about what i can do, and i am having some ideas and i need to make you some questions, and you tell me if those are good ideas :

1. First, we need a voice for Max Damage. If you hear well, at the very end of the last cutscene just before the words "the end" when Max Damage last appears we can hear some kind of a growl or a evil laught, is that the voice of Max Damage ?

2. If we had a good voice for Max Damage, we could make some few .wav samples, and then make some smashables as triggers for making Max Damage speak, in certain situations inside a track, specially in missions. I have seen this in other games, in which even inside a car, it's driver would make some comments even as we drive the car, so this could be possible. For example, we could make the c2 Max Damage do the same kind of comments that Frank (c1 Max Damage) does in Carma1, only that it's not necessary to be triggered by powerups.

3. I am having some great ideas to improve the last mission named "Carpocalypse Now", because in relation to the final cutscene, that mission is so imcomplete and SOOOOOOOOOO simple. To you understand better, let me reproduce a VERY OLD cwa post that Demon have posted here in cwa, in 25th of August, 2000. I hope he doesn't mind that i reproduce his post :

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exclusive chat with ex stainless worker

an "art monkey" as he says

chat was made on aol (names have been changed)

Rusk: hi there!

Demon: are you one off the carmageddon people ?

Rusk: Yup!

Demon: cool !!

Rusk: An art monkey

Demon: very cool

Rusk: ;o) Yeah, it's a fun job

Rusk: No more Carma though, boo (

Demon: thats what i want to do

Rusk: Ace! How old be thee?

Demon: 14

Rusk: Go for it! Programmer or Artist.... or not sure (other)

Demon: bit of both

Rusk: Ah ha! Producer then!

Demon: lol i dont know i like programing i like doing skins and stuff

Rusk: That's cool. Anything like that is gonna help 'ya! If it helps I left school with nothing very great and managed to get in the 'biz by just mucking about with graphics at home. It's that stuff that got me my job...

Demon: so what stuff would i have seen i carma that u did ??

Demon: in carma not i carma

Rusk: In Carma 1 I did most of the people sprites and some textures, and Carma 2 textured 4 tracks and designed some mission stuff

Rusk: Loads of missions were ditched due to time. Very upsetting!

Demon: what was one of them

Rusk: Welll.. The whole point of Carma 2 was that it was supposed to end with a nuclear boom! The last mission has you launching a nuclear missile, and then it ends. Boooo

Rusk: What should have happend...

Rusk: was that you had to "race" back to safety before the missile hit

Demon: hmm 2nd is well better

Rusk: And once it'd gone off and you were safe, you got to explore the ruined city, with a time machine that took you back to the beggining... Sorry - big ramble!

Rusk: Agreed

Rusk: Hey, I gotta go off-line for a sec. If ya wanna ask anything mail me

this was only a short chat but with lots of info

tell us if you knew any of this or just what you think

CYA Demon >: )

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See what i mean ? This can be a great idea to improve very much the last mission of Carma2. Well, you must ignore that part of the "time machine" which i think it's nonsense to include that in the recreation of the mission, but putting a city into ruins isn't as difficulty as you know. But to improve the last mission, we could, for example, improve the exterior part of the Nuclear silo track (which is SO simple and ugly and extremely lowpoly) with the scenes from the last cutscene, and fuse that track with the Beaver city track, because according to that interview with the ex-stainless worker, the original purpose of that fuse that is launched in the end was originally supposed to make a nuclear explosion in a city and then we could explore the city in ruins, and i think we could recreate that idea, by fusing the two tracks togeter, and even making some kind of connection between them using that road that is shown in the first cutscene of the game !! I am even thinking about updating the 3d model of the fuse in the end with a 3d model of a real nuclear bomb (which pictures i found on the net).

Well you may think i am dreaming too much and this is all a crazy idea, but tell me what you think about this. I am planning to make this later all by myself, but i need some advises to know which ideas are good or not to improve the last mission. Also, it's been a long time that i am having ideas to improve each one of the original carma2 tracks, not only the last mission...

One more thing have you ever unpacked the file NUKE.TWT in the races folder ? What the hell is that ? The nuke is a track ?! It have so weird settings there...

That's all for today for you !

to small block :

Good, another abreviation for the collection... thanks. So, OMG means "oh my god" ?! That's funny !!

Oh no, i haven't thinked that the fusion of the 3 tracks would have problems of overlapping, that's really annoying. Well at least you maked the right choices to try to join the tracks, thank you for your efforts in making Bleak city... But the only thing i don't like in your track is that it have too many wide and void spaces, we must put some "furniture" in those places, like benches, or even making some gardens, etc.

But it's weird, generally subdividing will increase the polygon count, that doesn't make the game slowdown ?

Now, about the new movement indexes, you must have done something wrong, because with me the game never crashed because of this. Well, then try to past this in your "settings.txt" in the PEDS folder :

//***************************

// MOVEMENT STUFF

//***************************

2 // Number of movements

// Movement #1

2 // Min time between random turns

30 // Max time between random turns

180 // Max angle of random turn

0.7 // Min walk speed multiplier

1.7 // Max walk speed multiplier

// Movement #2

2 // Min time between random turns

30 // Max time between random turns

180 // Max angle of random turn

6.7 // Min walk speed multiplier

9.7 // Max walk speed multiplier

And now there is a example of the Maimstreet.txt file in which i tested this movement stuff :

// Ped specs

6

0GRASS1A.MAT // Material name

0 // Movement index

27 // Group index

0.3 // Peds per 100 square metres

0 // Number of exclusion materials

0 // Number of exception materials

0GRASS1D.MAT // Material name

1 // Movement index

27 // Group index

0.2 // Peds per 100 square metres

0 // Number of exclusion materials

0 // Number of exception materials

ROAD.MAT // Material name

0 // Movement index

67 // Group index

0.5 // Peds per 100 square metres

0 // Number of exclusion materials

0 // Number of exception materials

TILE2.MAT

1 // Movement index

22 // Group index

0.3 // Peds per 100 square metres

0 // Number of exclusion materials

0 // Number of exception materials

TILE3.MAT

0 // Movement index

22 // Group index

0.3 // Peds per 100 square metres

0 // Number of exclusion materials

0 // Number of exception materials

TILE02.MAT

1 // Movement index

8 // Group index

0.6 // Peds per 100 square metres

0 // Number of exclusion materials

0 // Number of exception materials

See the change in the second line of each paragraph ? This is ok, it never maded my game crash. Of course you don't need to use this order (1,0,1,0,1) you can put 1 in all groups if you want but DON'T put there the number 2, because that will make the game crash (number 2 indicates "// Movement #3" which is not defined that's why it crash), because "// Movement #1" corresponds to number 0 and "// Movement #2" corresponds to number 1, maybe it's because you didn't understood that, that maked your game crash, most probably you must have used the number 2 to indicate the new movement but that is wrong as i exemplified. Now, if you have the track Maimstreet, you can copy from here and past in your track maimstreet.txt file and settings.txt file and see if it works ! Just be carefull because sometimes it's difficult to find in the track the pedestrians associated with the materials. Anyway with my example, the pedestrians with movement index 1 (in the track .txt file) will walk very fast, because in "// Movement #2" i increased their speed to see the difference.

Well, now going back to the subject of the smashable petpumps. Today i am sending to you the files to your email account in a zip file (right after i post this on cwa). I hope your email works and it's not out of space.

There is the explanation of how to make the smashable pumps, FINALLY i managed to make the smashable pumps work on your track Bleak city also ! It's because your track is so big, that if i didn't preprocess it after renaming the petpumps, carma2 would give the error "Insufficient model slots in storage area". That's why that with the track Maim Street we don't need to preprocess it to make the petpumps works as smashables. Anyway i will explain how i did it, but make sure you have the Bleak city track installed in your Races folder, and that it doesn't crash carma2 (be sure that the track is functioning right).

There is what you need to do to make those petpumps explodable :

1. Unzip the file that i sent to you by email, and copy the files into the Bleak City track folder and making sure that the new textures are also copyed to along the ones of the track.

2. Now open up plaything2, load the track Bleak City and go to the only place where the petpumps are.

3. Now select each one of all the petpumps you want to make smashables, and rename each one at a time to "&pump.act" (without the quotes of course) because you can't rename all of them at once! All of them must have that exact name. (also make sure that in the rename dialog box you don't touch at the settings named "based on..." or in "rename:", just write the new name in the text field) And DON'T forget to rename any petpump !

4. Inside the zip file i emailed you, there is a text file named "smashable.txt". Open that file in a text editor, select everything and copy everything into the clipboard. Now open the track .txt file, in this case "BleakCity.txt" and below the line "// Smashable environment specs", delete the number 0 and past all the contents of the file "smashable.txt", which is in the windows clipboard. Please make sure that you have done that correctly, and make sure that after pasting, only one number is between the line "// Smashable environment specs" and "// Start of smashable item", the number 1. Anyway i am sure that this is not the first time you insert smashables in a track so you know if something is wrong or not.

5. In the end of the "BleakCity.txt" file you have to put back the noncar name "00gas.txt" along with the other noncars (also make sure you have that file in the NONCARS folder of caram2) and don't forget to increase by one the number of noncars above those names.

6. Now just preprocess the track normally, if not the game will give the error "Insufficient model slots in storage area". If you are doing this method in other track, such as Maim street you DO NOT need to preprocess the track, only preprocess if that error appears, but with the track Bleak City it appears because that track is very big !

Done ! Now the new smashables will work perfectly, because i have done exactly this method with your track and it worked very well, so with you it MUST work also, unless you pasted the contents of the "smashable.txt" in the wrong place, or didn't respect the sintax of the smashable spec entrys in the track .txt file, or even forgot to rename 1 petpump.

So what you think ? Isn't it cool to have these "new" pumps ? Only the base model after the explosion is a copy of the beaver city petpump, but because the petpumps are similiar, it doesn't matter if the base is the same or not, as long as the petpump itself is not the same model is what matters.

That's all.