Dear returning Carmageddon fans Image

These last years, the CWA Board assimilated what was archived from many old Carmageddon forums, including the whole of the Official Carmageddon.com Forums.
If you wish to merge any previous account you might have had with your new or existing CWA account, don't hesitate to reach out to us !

Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

The greatest unfinished sequel ever!
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

Well, this is the continuation from the topic "Command "recording", and Cesm's modifications", so everyone that is interested in making advanced tracks (not just simple tracks as deathmatch arenas...) or noncars, or other stuff than cars, or even learn to use plaything2 then this is the right place !

now to c2 scientist :

Well, c2 scientist i think it's not a good ideia to make a very long topic. Of course it would be also cool to "break a record" but i don't know if the viewers like such long topics... and besides that the people who still uses 56k modems may have dificulties to view long topics, specially me !!

Anyway in this new topic i maded we will continue to talk, if you want to "brake a record" lets do that with this topic with this name, maybe more people interested in making tracks would see more often a topic with this name than the old name which doesn't have much to do with track editing.

Now i will reply to all your last posts, c2 scientist :

oh, don't worry, EVERY post you make here won't be forgotten, AT LEAST for me, because i have all of them recorded to ready offline anytime i want, because you give such precious c2 editing advices and tips !

It's a pity that almost nobody is interested in editing track as we two are (sorry if people that are insterested read this !!), even with my macros to simplify the work with plaything2 but it doesn't matter much specially without the tuturials i will make. Oh well, at least i am not the only one interested in making ADVANCED tracks and not only "deathmatch-arena" very little tracks...

Yes, i have already readed your updates to your tuturials, man, you discovered such things...you are really a c2 scientist ! Your "nickname" suits you perfectly !!!

And about my own tutorials and the pt2 mod, well... As soon as i manage to "defeat" my laziness i tell you, and then i will also "work" on c2 editing as much as you do (specially because i have lots of free time now, but i am very lazy). But finally i started to make my first tuturial, but this first one it's just to explain how to use my mod with all details.

Hum... yes those flags may don't mean anything, but one "nasty trick" is to insert garbage there and if it makes c2 crash it surely does something... but if c2 ignore that totally, even if you DELETE that flags section (deleting the numbers) and c2 won't crash then it doesn't do absolutly NOTHING. But i am glad you have learned almost everything on smashables, and the proof is the your update of your tuturials.

But anyway, have you tried to make more tests to avoid the drones to dissapear ? Maybe there is other tricks, or even a place to define the distance that they disappear, because ERROL said to me some time ago that there IS a .txt file which we can define the distance that the drones dissapear, even tough i never could find where that is, because he himself doesn't remember where but he knows that .txt file exist. And that issue about the train setting making the game crash ? Are you sure now if it really makes the game crash again ? Have you tested that again ?

Well... that is a good way to overcome the 340 limit, to make the parked car vanish. Oh my god, it hate that, but there is no choice you will have to make that way. But how many parked cars you plan to do as smashable cars ?! Thousands ?! lolol

How the hell did you know your version of Gmax ? My Gmax program doesn't show the number of the version anywhere, not even in the "about gmax" option... i searched every "help" option and readed manuals and even the readme.rtf file and never say the version anywhere... This version of Gmax i have, it come on a pc magazine cd-rom, and it doesn't show the version number anywhere. Tell me all the places i can see the version of Gmax, instead of the "about gmax" option.

Stainless could have bought the dev-kit ?! Well, indeed i agree but only in the time that the game was released, because now, it certainly is 100% impossible they would do that now...

lololol

Hum... please can you tell me, where can i get the 3dstudio max version 2.5 with character studio? Well, as this is a VERY OLD release of 3dstudio max, maybe i can ask this here (because of the problem with warez... Well i hope i can say even like this, sorry moderators...)

If anyone would have that version of 3dstudio max and character studio we could make new animations for the pedestrians of carmageddon2! I already have all the necessary plugins, but they are long no supported by the actual 3dstudio max... But it seems this is impossible.

Yes, it's because that i said that the macros would be useful, you know well that we have to click on a lot of places to import a noncar and then reinforcing the matrix and things similar to that. But if you like to have a lot of work making a track like that, it's with you ! lol

And yes Plaything2 is old and have such problems as you said in your last post. Well, i will try to "study" that issue of importing noncars, maybe i discover a better way than restarting pt2, next week i tell you, ok ?

Oh my! Yes, that drone limit speed is indeed misterious. Well let me ask you something, but before that, look this :

// 1:

-31.417, -0.825, 38.943

EST02RED

0

1

1, 0, 0, 0

See all that zeros alone on the right side of the number 1 ? Everybody that understands this well tell that every zeros there won't do nothing if we try to change them. Can you try that too more extensively? Try to put "garbage" there to see if there is any weird effects or if c2 crashes with a error, which is a good trick to discover new possibilities. I already tried but not extensively. It may be possible that one of those numbers may affect the speed, but it's not probable, because zero would correspond to the drone being parked, which is not the case...

Oh, i am very glad you discovered the format of "sphere", now i am sure it is well implemented on carmageddon2 and not unfinished. Yes, it would be perfect for rocks, well, thinking well, it may be not, at least with those noncars in the original tracks of c2, you see, the 3d model of the rocks is NOT perfectly round, and the bouding shape appears to fit well the 3d model, maybe if we make a new noncar like a snow ball (not those from the snow tracks in c2), those are more likely to be almost perfectly round to apply a "sphere" shape.

Hey, wait a minute ! You said in the tuturials there is only two kinds of bounding shapes ! There is one you didn't mention, and its also one i would be glad to know it's format :

wire frame

2 // number of points

0.029527, 0.744095, 1.3525

0.029527, 2.456693, 1.3525

1

0, 1

this is from the noncar 39magnet_ball.txt, please can you put also comments in this format to we know what those numbers are for ?

Oh, finally you have included in the tuturial that about the lighting options in the track .txt file, very good work !! But and what about those lighthing options in the materials inside plaything2 ? I think i haven't found any mention in your tuturial about that, but i am not sure...

Oh no, that idea of the close points to the drones slower down i already haved that too some time ago also. I never tried but unfortunally now i see it may be not possible. But anyway have you tried that already ?

Hum... i got now the game CARMAGEDDON 64 for nintendo 64 with an emulator, and guess what ? The game in certain issues looks much more better than the pc version. This isn't fair, the menus are very beautiful (full with 3d objects everywhere!) and they aren't even comparable with the ones from the pc version. Even some parts of the tracks are improved (hey just look at the petpumps of newcity, the roof is higher like those in real life and the explosions are 3D !) but i also seen many things much worse than the pc version, in this n64 version we can't knock down noncars and can't split cars on half, and pieces of the cars doesn't come off, tecnically is much more limited, so looking well the pc version looks more "powerful" but some parts of the tracks are improved but fortunally i already saw much areas of the tracks worse or even removed comparing to the pc version ! (In the n64 version i think there isn't smashables or fences!)

BTW now that you know well about smashables tell me, it's possible to make a 3d explosion instead of the 2d flames when a petpump is smashed ? Well for many people the 2d explosion may be better than 3d, but at least i want to know if it is possible.

Well one more thing : in case you didn't noticed, all the keyboard shortcouts in your tuturials ONLY EXIST in my modification, i hope the people that reads those tuturials understand that for those keyboard shortcouts work they will have to download my mod, if not they won't work. (i can't remenber be i think i already talked with you about this... sorry if i am repeating myself but i can't remenber)

Bye...



Now for HELLSPAWN73 :

My god how did you guess that idea of plotting a lot of close points to make the drone go slower? I just haved that idea before (really!), and may be good, but there is one more problem than those indicated by c2 scientist: there is also a limit with the number of nodes of the drone paths, but if we could control or limit the speed of the drones, then it would be possible, but unfortunally i think it's not possible.

Hey, you are also interested in making tracks ? Well, even tough it's a lot of work...
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

When I made new pages to my tutorial, I made first a template with the common settings (colours, titles, those navigation buttons), and then loaded it to make changes and add more stuff. Just a small tip for you, because it's better not to make everything twice. :smile:

I may make a new update (again!) for my tutorial after some time. For example, I just found out how to make a slick appear after trashing a smashable. (Includes friction, the length of skidmarks, size, etc) But the only material I've found is "Gibslick". (Bloody!) I don't know the exact name of the oilslick yet. Wireframe-bounding shape could also be added, and maybe Box-shape if such a shape exists! Those updates aren't very big, so maybe not yet.

Drone disappearing: it seems like, that with the Train-vehicle type, the drone can be visible very far away, even if the "processing" is "distance". (And not "always"). The game didn't crash anymore when I tried it with my own track, which didn't have too much stuff in it. Polycount, maybe? As for the textfile, I don't think such a textfile for drones exists, at least I haven't found it either. But for peds it's possible to define appearing distance. (Data/Peds/Settings.txt)

Let's see now... parked cars... umm... 400-700? I guess I have to keep the count down for Carmageddon. In reality there's pretty much of them. Some of them are in garages. And now, an announcement for all readers: I won't probably show no mercy for your computers! Some modern games still might use good skins for object details, but I'll make much stuff in 3D. Of course I'll be reasonable, but the noncars have better details than in the original game, nothing very amazing, but there will be loads of objects in my track. Medium detail multiplied by huge amounts might cause some work for your computers. Maybe. We'll see.

When I start GMAx, it shows a splash screen, and in the bottom-left corner there's a version info. Maybe you could try a new version? The dev-kit: I don't know if it was available at that time, I've just recently started to know about GMax... or maybe it wasn't very popular then. Even now, only several games have exporters for their games in GMax. 3DStudioMax: Don't know. And I prefer free programs more than Warez. GMax works well for me, but well, I don't need character animation.

And about the PT2-problem: I can import many noncars at time, if don't move them until I've imported them all. Importing two messes up the places, but not if they are still in center. If I want to import a new noncar when I have already moved the others, I have to restart PT2. Quick restarter could be useful, currently I use CTRL+ALT+P to quickly start PT2. (Windows shortcut properties, not PT2 shortcut keys)

I already tried the different values for the different sections in those lines, and still I didn't notice any effect... but check out the Airport-textfile, the Plane-paths have something values there. As for the close points, I haven't tried it yet, but I thought it wouldn't work perfectly... I can try it, but at least it makes much of nodes!

Yeah, I found that sphere-shape in some of the peds-textfiles. By now, I have already made a new rock, which I can use. It's unnaturally round, but I don't mind. Did I already say that Tumble-keyword isn't needed anymore?

I even tried PT2's lighting options, they just didn't have any kind of effect. Odd. Well, track's textfile's third line works well.

PC rocks! Kick the consoles to the sun! Then get them back and drive over them with Big Dump! :lol: (IMO)

3D explosions aren't possible. With "replacemodel" you could cause them to appear, but they wouldn't move at all or even vanish.

I'll add a note for the shortcuts in later updates, ok?

Hmm, I'm out of question currently, gimme some time...
User avatar
Hellspawn73
speed freak
Posts: 578
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2000 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by Hellspawn73 »

yeah Cesm I was interested in tinkerin with tracks but like I stated with some new revelations I have decided to focus my spare time into exploring TDR since not enough people have dedicated themselves to it...I respect the work you guys are doin as wish you guys the best of luck. I would recommend that although you guys may not be satisfied with your work you start releasing some betas so the community can see before this place dries up. Ya two both now ya can come to me with questions if I can help I'll try...but like I said I have gotten tired of C2 and am looking onwards now to C3.
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to c2 scientist :

well, i have been looking at the carma2_hw.exe file and along with sphere and polyhedron i seen also another keyword : "simple". I already saw "box" but in another place. Just try those types it would be cool to use new bbox types, that one of "sphere" was a VERY GOOD discovery, but the wireframe can be also be useful.

Hum... indeed making a smashable leave a blood trail isn't good... BTW can you tell me in which place do you define the slick for trashed smashables ?

Oh yes, just imagine the drone cars don't disappearing in the distance... it would be cool (specially because in the saved replays it SUCKS the fact that the drone cars only appears when our car aproaches...)

I am glad that the train type won't make the game crash anymore, but tell me, drones with the type train also slow down in curves ?

Yes i know we can define the distance view for pedestrians... but thanks anyway for the tip.

What ? Are you going to put that much parked cars ?! Well, indeed it would look real because in those days the streets of even little citys like in my country are almost full of parked cars, so it will look realistic. Good idea to put cars on garages. BTW in which kind of garages ? A parking lot or a individual garage like those of a particular home ? Don't worry about old computers. I doubt many people use lower-end computers, well if anyone has it won't be much people. Or don't tell me it will be necessary a geforce card to we play your track ?! lolol (i don't have one !!) Anyway it's exacltly that kind of tracks i will make in the future also.

What ? Then my Gmax version must be old, the splash screen of my Gmax doesn't have anything written on it, just the word "discreet" at the bottom right corner and the GMAX word in the middle, the background is blue inside of kind a building, and in the bottom left corner it says "Staring Gmax..." and "loading plugins" just like the original 3d studio max. and my version of Gmax needs to be registered (freely, no cost) online once.

Well can you tell me where to download the most recent version off gmax and how many megabytes it have ?

It's because with a 56k modem only i most probably can't download a new version of gmax...

Anyway i don't need it yet...

Hum... a quick way to restart pt2... what a neat idea... maybe i will add a new macro for that propose... But i may resolve that problem of importing noncars.

About the values in airport drones :

See ? I knew that those three zeros would do something... even tough only the planes have a different number, like this :

// 0:

56.683, -6.828, -7.901

F14

0

1

1, 0, 0, 2 (this number 2 is very suspicious what the hell it does ?)

Its this example or similiar you were saying, isn't it ?

Oh, if you don't mind about perfect circular rocks that's ok. Anyway you will put it on your track too ?

Hum... can you tell me why the tumble-keyword isn't needed anymore ? And can you explain what "tumble" means ? (remenber i am portuguese)

The pt2 lighting options didn't have any effect ? Really weird... I have to start making testing too, but i have other tricks to discover things...

Well, you may be right the pc version of carmageddon is the best, but don't forget it wasn't finished because of Sci (i think). lololololol great joke with the big dump !! (What does mean IMO ?)

Oh well, from what i already knew from smashables i also knew that 3d explosions would be impossible but as you discovered so many things about smashables i tought you might know a way... anyway i think 2d explosions are better don't you think ?

And now a last question : in the times you are playing carma2, just for fun, please tell me what you do that you like most to do in carma2 : you like and think it's fun to race laps and checkpoints, or you like to smash everything and destroy everything on the way, like me ?!?! Don't tell me you favorite car is the eagle ?!

bye

now to hellspawn73 :

oh well of course you are free to go to tdr, i agree that even i start to get bored of carma2, but unlike you i have not got bored of the game itself but yes in the fact that its always the same tracks, with the same objects and the same pedestrians, its that that makes me don't want to play carma2 until more good singleplayer tracks are maded, and think that for me the game would last much longer if big tracks would maded, but unfortunally it's a lot of work to do big and good tracks. But you and all the other mostly maded only cars, but i understand you may be tired of c2.
User avatar
Kruszchev
Proffesional Maniac
Posts: 2880
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by Kruszchev »

ohh. look thoose very long replyes are here again...

ahh forgett it... but its realy good stuff to know
"One chicken in a thousand is hatched near a road. One in every ten thousand of those ever tries to cross it. Half of them are run over by cars."
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

I tried "Box" once, but it didn't work. Anyway, wireframe is now fully figured out, but you have to wait for 24. December, as I will release the update then. (I give you all some time to think for additions/fixes!) Same for the slick material.

Train-drones slow down in curves. It's useful.

Individual garages. I also put a tippable garage door. ("Centre of mass when attached" is in the top) I don't have a clue yet how fast 3D accelerator you'll need...

The GMAx version I have, was also free (registration was required, but it was free) The filesize of the program (required!) is 20 MB, optional tutorial is 15 MB or 20 MB, and optional help files are 15 MB. The help files at least are useful, if you don't have them yet. You could download it with GetRight (pause and resume later) if you can't download it at once... I usually download big files in background and put the images off in my browser. It's your decision to download it or not, I think it's not very big, compared to 140 MB-file I've downloaded once. (<- and even that might not be very big to some people!)

Yup, that airport example was what i meant. If I recall right, I couldn't make it work correctly.

I will put those boulders in my track. :smile: Tumble means, that when the boulder starts moving in a slope, it rotates (or is "it spins" the right word?) and goes down the slope. The reason why this keyword isn't necessary is, that the sphere-bounding shape is so round! The Stainless boulder wasn't as round, so they had to make a keyword to help the boulder start rolling!

IMO = in my opinion.

Yes, 2D explosions look nice. But if C2 had a nuke, then it wouldn't be enough. (2D is flat)

In the beginning I smashed much stuff, but I got bored. A week ago I drove through the checkpoints, because I have so realistic physics, it's fun. The original physics were so horrible, that I wasn't a bit interested of racing. But now my steering wheel is broken again (sometimes it works, sometimes not), I put 14 opponents to every track, and send them to paradise. It's also fun to locate them in the map, and find them. On the other hand I "combine" these two: With the realistic physics, I can hit them from behind, and they lose the control of the car, and get off the road: SCRREEECH! BUMP! *windows smashing & metal bending* BOOM! Heh-heh! Kind of like what happens to Herr Kooled in C2-intro movie. I wish I could make them fall down a cliff or something. From somewhere high, at least! Eagle isn't my favourite, maybe some add-on car...

Some small questions:

1. Is it possible to delete vertices in PT2, to quickly delete faces too?

2. Is there any way to get "Got 'im in the bollocks!"-bonus? It gives 20 000 credits! I noticed with the LAPMYLOVEPUMP-cheat: then press CTRL+SHIFT+0. I'm wondering...

By the way, I just got GTA III. (saturday, yesterday) I'm a bit late... but now that I've played it much, I can safely say how odd the physics are. Well, it's fun to drive the vehicles, but not realistic. The landing after a jump at least... Not to mention hitting pedestrians, they always fly over the car, sometimes they go through the car. Oh well. Let's take rendering too. The engine seems to fade out the objects (street accessories, traffic cars, sometimes terrain too!) depending how far you are located from them. Fortunately the distance is defined well, so they don't suddenly pop up. Rarely, the terrain can almost completely change! (not in the city, but in the shores) Not very often, though. Anyway, the game is very good, these were some things I've noticed...
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to Turbo bastard :

lolololololol

So you complaining about long replys... well don't worry i don't mind of you saying that, but don't you agree that many posts in the foruns are almost always TOO short ?! Anyway, don't you think it isn't obvious that that person who writes long replys also write long replys here ?

But, anyway, again, don't worry i don't mind about your commentary, it's normal that people here aren't used to long replys, but i hope they don't be bothered by that.

Oh, btw you also like c2 track editing ? Just for curiosity of course...

to c2 scientist :

thanks to continuing to reply me and writing medium sized replys and not just very short replys as other people made (when they are about to reply me only).

Hum... are you REALLY sure that the keyword "box" won't work as a bounding shape ? After i readed your reply, i have tried to discover more kind of shapes, i used the words that are in the file carma2_hw.exe like polygon, line, simple and box. Everytime i use a word that doesn't work as a new shape the game would give an error telling "Wrong shape data" (using software mode, which is the only way to know certain errors), so if you put there a keyword that makes the error change, it means it's a new kind of shape discovered ! Because when i used the keyword "box" the game DO NOT crashed, and run normally, but that noncar is a ghost, of course because i didn't know the format of "box". But after tried extensively this "box" only accepts one point and i can't figure out what this point is for, in relation to a "box", there is the working example :

101 // version number

1 // non car number

0.002789, 0.756911, -0.018100 // centre of mass position

0.002789, -0.05, -0.018100 // centre of mass position when attached

1 // number of shapes

box

1 // number of points

0.000000, 1.895452, -0.033677

3, 3 // mass unattached, mass attached

0.933804, 1.913822, 0.946894 // am width height and length

30 // bend angle before snapping

0.3 // torque (KN m) needed to move object

// Materials for shrapnel

1

M14.MAT

// start of keyword data

END

See, the game didn't crash with this ! But because i has only fiddeling i plotted there random coordinates for only one point, because i was only trying to find new shapes, and this new kind, named "box" only works with one point i don't know why. Can you do more testing with this ? At least to try to know what happens and what is that point. (i used in this example any existing noncar of the game)

Well, at least you finnaly figured the format of "wireframe". Now what is left is the WORLD_HINGE_JOINT, but i doubt that you cannot guess its format, i already done that in the past (even tough i completly forgot the format and even forgot to take notes about that) and i discovered easely so maybe you can also figure out. But that one of the "wireframe" i couldn't figured it out but you maded it ! Congratulations !

Oh that's very good that the train drone type also slow-down in curves...

Do you know what ? I tried to make the drones in the newcity1 track with TRAIN like and it's very good the cars don't dissapear in the distance anymore !! Even if our car is very far away from those drones ! This is a good thing, i recommend people use this in carma2, setting the actual car drones to "train" type !

Hey i have got an idea, it is possible to make a articulated train drone ? Or a drone car with a trailer ? It would be cool to have a train with separated wagons and not just a huge block representing a train !

Hey, remenber when you said in your tuturial that it's possible to change the general lighting to look that the track is in mid-night time ? You said the objects, pedestrians and cars are full light. Did you already noticed that SOME faces or textures in the track are also full light and aren't affected by the brightness control ? For example try make the first track of carma2 (newcity1) be in mid-night time and you will see some road textures (specially that one below the little bridge in the first curve of the track) be full lit even tough all the rest of the track is darkned. At least tell me if you already saw that, if not, try and then tell me something ok ? It's becase you could use that to make the light posts's lamps be full light when the rest of the track is not ! Just like in TDR ! And i already discovered how to make those textures not be affected by the brightness control in the track txt file. Later i tell you when you know what effect i am talking.

Oh yes, i would be afraid that you only refered to parking lots when you talked about garages. But if it is individual garages, i even thinked about talking to you about tippable garage door but you already got that idea, cool ! You can make some of them be tippable and other open like a real vertical door, can't you ? For example, those that look more "fragile" or older would be smashables and those very strong looking ones could act as a vertical door or be tippable.

Yes, my version of Gmax is much like yours, with help files and tuturial files. 140 mb ?! For RICH people with adsl and netcable that is nothing but for me i would take two weeks downloading all that !

Oh, so that's what the "tumble" keyword means ! Finally i understand that... great idea stainless had when they included that option, even tough with the "sphere" bbox it isn't necessary.

Finally i am learning some new english abbreviations, like "btw" and "imo"...

Oh no ! I don't even thinked about that... (big 2d flat explosion may not be cool) some time ago i thinked to make a track with a nuclear bomb, or a atomic bomb (there is so many different names for that kind of bomb!). But even with a 2d explosion it would be ok, because after the explosion i could make the buildings dissapear or be in pieces and with debris spinning in the sky (lolololololololol) ! (you may think i am dreaming too much, and that it's impossible with c2, but it is, remenber the "smashable combos" i talked earlier? You can use the elevator-smashable to activate hidden smashables by pushing them physicaly) Don't worry i will make a track like that, and it will be very fun.

So, FINALLY i maded to know how you play c2...

Well i play in a similar way, let me explain :

Yes, in the beginning i imediatly used cheats and try to "make a indestructable" veichle of ultimate destruction (the big apc from carma1 converted to carma2 was the perfect car for that, or the Semi mk2 black truck or the Deathcruiser) because with cheats i could make a car weights 99 tons, be invulnerable and be able to run over 1000 mph ! It was really cool to smash everything, and i didn't get bored so easely because with 3d pedestrians, smashables and MANY different tippable objects there was a infinity of diferent funny situations that could occuor. That's one of the strongest reasons i prefer carma2 than the actual car racing games, i hate racing laps. But i think you already know that.

But much like you, after a few months i started to get bored, not of the game itself but the tracks, it's always the same tracks, the same tippable objects... i need more new situations, more variety of tippable objects to play with. When i got bored of smashing everything i then started to play without cheats, and it was cool also, but to play without cheats carma1 is still more fun than carma2, also because carma1 is easier than carma1, in carma1 we can't get wasted and there is no time-based missions. So when i got bored of playing c2 witout cheats, i again feeled the "desire of destruction" and back again to play with cheats, and the fun was renoved because in the last times i played without cheats so i didn't get bored again with cheats so fast. Then a few days or weeks later i got bored again and play without cheats and it was fun again. And i just keep playing in that cycle and that way this game is always fun to play for me. But i played carma2 so many times that now i am waiting to finish my pt2 mod to start improving the original carma2 tracks (yes, you guessed i will improve the c2 city tracks and make them look more real) because i think i have so much track ideas more than anyone else, because most of the other people just think about making cars (no offense), but i just think about tracks, tippable objects, drones and pedestrians. Understood ? Well if anything i said here about me also apply's on you please tell ! If not, don't worry i don't mind about that !

Finally some questions ! Unfortunately i can't answer them in the way you would but thanks for making questions even if they are not only for me :

1. I don't think it's possible to delete vertices. Anyway deleting faces is also faster, it's not really necessary to delete vertices when we can delete faces, but unfortunately we can't delete vertices on pt2 and not add new ones.

2. lololol good question ! I never figured out what the well that cheat is for, can you explain what does mean "Got 'im in the bollocks!" ?!

Hum... you can also "study" the action indexes for the powerups, and make a tuturial to make new powerups, for example you already know it's possible to make a earthquake effect with a twiked "drunk driver" powerup !

Good point, i already got GTA3 long time ago and i also complained about the terrible physics effects, specially comparing to those of carma2... Of course gta3 may be much better in graphics than carma2, much because of the year that the games were made so it's not much comparable, but i can garantee to you, for me carma2 still lasted longer than gta3. Gta3 may be very fun, but i don't know why i got bored of it much more quicker than carma2. But the game Gta3 was very fun until i finished it but there isn't almost any tippable objects and there isn't such a great variety of fun situations that there it was in carma2, but of course the citys of gta3 is thousands of times better than those carma2 citys... that's why i will try to make a city for carma2 like the citys of Gta3, it cannot be impossible, for god sake !! Anyway, i don't like much comparing these two games, but you must admit that when you drive a car in each game, it's almost the same thing, don't you think ? In both games we can hit pedestrians, we can smash stuff with the car, smash other cars with our car and even fall pieces of the car, even tough in carma2 we can't get out of the car...

Oh, btw let me ask about the track you plan to make :

1. Do you plan to make some BETTER building interiors than those horrible shops and "hospitals" in the original carma2 tracks ? For example, the shops having some tippable shelves (of course the objects of the shelves could be a 3d paper inside the shelves) And what about more shortcouts inside buildings to get to the roof ? Like flat stairs or even a elevator ?

2. Can you tell me estimating which percentage of your track is already made ? Or you are yet modelling the ground and building in the Gmax ?

3. Do you plan to use funks to make the lights of a trafic light post work ? Like changing to red, and red changing to green and green changing to yellow ? I don't ask to make the drones respect the traffic lights, but this will be fun anyway.

4. The track will be full light ?

5. do you plan to put some helicopter or plane drones in the sky above the city ? It would be very cool ! And some boat drones if your city has a big river or a sea, you can extract those boats from that carma1 track which has boats as noncars, and make them as drones ! What you think? It would be the first boat drone for carma2 yet !

for now that' all, forgive me for another long reply !!
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

So you have made the box to work with one point? That's not enough... maybe it could be 2 points (the diameter) or 4 values, like in the special effects volumes? (centre point, and three offsets?) I wonder what the "polygon", "line" and "simple" are... not the format of lines, but how they work...! At least "line" can be replaced with "wireframe", but "simple" sounds odd.

Isn't there anything that you remember of the World_hinge_joint? Like does it use vertex numbers, or co-ords? Was there a friction option, maximum angle, or something else? If you remember anything...

So it seems like Train-keyword is quite useful! But don't you think it can cause some unnecessary calculating for player's computer? If the view distance isn't very far away, but the game still calculates everything, or there are lots of drones in the track. Well, that maybe isn't very big problem these days...

There was some discussion long time ago about trailers for add-on cars, they talked about "Sub member, joint data", which they couldn't make working. But I haven't seen anything similar in drone textfiles... It kind of could be done with separate drones: the joining point would be done with exact bounding shapes, but the problems are, that it's impossible to make the drones appear behind each other as planned (for the joining point to be inside the other's), and the other problem is, that drones stop moving immediately when they collide.

Ok, now I tried the light-thing. I put 0.01 , 0.01 as the values, and started playing. Some advertisements were full-lit, but it turned out when I hit them with solid granite car, that they were smashables. Anyway, since the race was "City Slicker" (Newcity2) I noticed very soon that the road under the small underpass is full-lit. (When the race starts in City Slicker, just drive forward) That shouldn't be a smashable! But I didn't notice anything odd when I checked out that material in PT2... annoying! But you know something new??

Sure, I could make those garage doors to rise, but there aren't space for that kind of movement in the houses! (I'd need some kind of special turning movement for them!) Except for tall houses. For those I could use Rise_when_hit. Actually the keyword should be named "Move_when_hit", since any direction is possible.

We aren't rich, I even just have a modem... but I managed to download it anyway. Sure it takes a long time...

...and "nuke"! Maybe you don't even need to use "smashable combos", because you can define multiple destroying forces.

1: I just thought that it'd be fast to delete faces by deleting vertices, if even the vertices aren't needed anymore. Well, the vertices can be deleted with optimizing, if they aren't used by any faces.

2: If I remember the translation correctly, in another words it was something like "You hit 'im in the arse!" Maybe. English speaking members of this forum can confirm this, if it's correct...

You can make pretty similar city like in GTA III to C2, if the different limits won't prevent you. Hey, here are some things in GTA III I'd like to point out: (not track ideas, those later)

-Cars start burning and explode, when they stay on their roof.

-Traffic cars sometimes appear in too close to the player. (they can be dodged easily, but it just looks weird) And sometimes when I look around before stealing a car, I can't see any cops, but when I'm pulling the driver out and spin the view around, a cop can suddenly be next to me, and he gets mad! Argh!

-Peds and cars disappear very easily, if you turn your back to them and go walk away couple of seconds. This was especially annoying when I tried to make a cover of Colombian Cartels: One rampage-mission was about frying them with flamethrower, which goes through cars, so the cover prevents them from shooting me, but not me for frying them. Anyway, when I was making the cover, and walked to the road to get new cars, the covering cars were disappeared!

-Cops suddenly lose their interest when mission is completed. (That's good, even though it's not realistic...but nevermind)

-Through-the-car-going-objects are already mentioned before.

Some other funny things about it: my little-brother once jumped on a car, standing on the bonnet. He shot the car, and the driver got scared and started speeding. Well, those two come to a curve, the players flies off the car, standing perfectly like some guard but moving sideways in the air, and lands on an alley: a new hidden package is found! We had a good laugh! You should have seen it, it was so amusing, too bad GTA III doesn't have replay saving option. Another happening: You know the street race mission in first city? (four cars, Diablo mission) I grabbed once a very slow car, went near the starting grid, but I didn't drive in the blue marker yet. Instead, I put first some heavy vehicle in front of the other drivers, and when the race started, they tried to get out of the trap when I slowly won the race! Ok, that's all...

The track questions:

1. I won't make interiors for the small homes, but maybe I'll make them for bigger shops. If I make interiors, I'll decorate them with many prefabs. That's easy, make one & clone it. (and of course that's for many kind of objects)

2. Sadly, the actual track is only very little done, but when I really continue it, it shouldn't take too long because GMax has some nice tools. However, I've done a nice amount of prefabs. The researching has taken much time, but that's now done. Studies and other games take some time too. I also lack some digital camera textures, but I can use C2 textures too.

3. [This is a secret]

4. Yes, daytime.

5. The first track isn't near a river or sea, so no boat drones yet. I'll probably use plane drones.

And no need to apologize for long replies, keep it up!
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to Kruszchev : (sorry in the previous post i called you "turbo bastard"!!! that's why i repeat the same words again now )

lolololololol

So you complaining about long replys... well don't worry i don't mind of you saying that, but don't you agree that many posts in the foruns are almost always TOO short ?! Anyway, don't you think it isn't obvious that that person who writes long replys also write long replys here ?

But, anyway, again, don't worry i don't mind about your commentary, it's normal that people here aren't used to long replys, but i hope they don't be bothered by that.

Oh, btw you also like c2 track editing ? Just for curiosity of course...

to c2 scientist :

No no, c2 scientist. You didn't understand, this "box" setting ONLY WORK with one point ! That's what is weird. If you plot there more points it just crash ! (altough it's not the same crash when we insert a keyword that doesn't exist...) I know one point isn't enough, but i count on you to discover this mistery... maybe that "box" doesn't REALLY mean a "box" maybe it's other thing, or then this is a unfinished kind of shape, maybe stainless hasn't finished to program that, remenber that many things aren't finished in c2.

The "polygon", "line" and "sample" clearly aren't shapes for bboxes that's for sure...

what ? Vertex numbers with "world_hinge_joint" ?! Man i wish that would be true... no from what i can remenber there isn't such a option i remenber it can only have one vertex number which is from the noncar would be attached to the world, which makes the hinge, so it's very similiar, if not equal to using "world_ball_joint". I think i have tryed to use more vertex points but it didn't accept. I also remenber that was a option about friction, but i am not quite sure.

But what the hell... i have tried again to figure out again the format of world_hinge_joint and i can't !! No matter how hard i try, the game always crash, i can't understand why i didn't wrote in a txt file the format of that when i discovered it years ago, maybe you manage to guess the format. Please use a "wall" object to test that (to act like a door, with a hinge, just make a 3d box)

Yes, indeed i thinked about that about the calculation unnecessary, but with geforce 2 and 4 and higher cards, i can't believe c2 would be slow ! But if the c2 engine can't manage it if we have a lot of drones, then we would have to use the default "car" setting on the drones. But really, those original c2 tracks are SO simple that making the few drones there being "trains" won't even change the speed of which the game runs.

Hey, did you noticed the way that the drones move ? They move a litlte "jerky" someone here on cwa board someone said this is a bug in c2 because of the fast computers now, it was you wo said that ? Please can you try to discover a way to fix this problem ?

Hum... There is "sub member, joint data" with normal cars ? Tell me more about that, what do you know ? How to make that with normal cars ? It also don't work ?

No, separate drones, is ridiculous, specially to make a train with wagons, i can't even think about that !

Other thing it is possible to make a "world_ball_joint" on a noncar but instead of being attached to the world, the noncar would have two bbox shapes being "hinged" by the vertex in "world_ball_joint" like something like "object_ball_joint" ? This must be available if now how do you explain the "mutant tail thing" powerup ? If only we could connect each shape of the bbox of noncars in the same way that the mutant tail object... This is really a mistery... Hey, maybe one of the unknown settings of "world_hinge_joint" is to define if the object is attached to the world or to another shape on it's bbox... like the mutant tail object... But unfortunally from what i remenber when i discovered the format that isn't possible but maybe there is more settings that those i discovered...

Now, i have two questions about drones :

1. Did you notice that the drones that haven't a bouding box shape, the game CAN generate one in real time ? How the hell can we do that for noncars ? It would be perfect there must be a way...

2. How to avoid that the drones pass through knocked noncars in the road or even parts of the track itself ? This is a TERRIBLE bug, we must correct this, but there is a way ?

Oh !! Yes i know that smashables are also full lit and can be lit-out when we smash them, or vice versa. So, finnaly you understand what i was talking about ! So that's what english people call to that... a "road under the underpass" It's exactly that part of the road i was talking but i didn't know how to specify it in english. Well, isn't that weird ? Just that part of the road being full lit ? Well, some time ago, after EXTENSIVE testing i managed to find that that full lit is caused by a powerup that is on the hierarchy of another part of the road with that particular texture, maybe because any powerup is also full lit. Well, this is somewhat complicated to reproduce, i think, but in the time i figured out FORTUNATELY i noted the way in a txt file to reproduce that ! So that's what is needed :

.make a static object (like you did the ground of the track or a building), for example, a cube (it doesn't need to be a noncar or smashable i think) which is a little bigger than a normal powerup model. Then insert a powerup of type "&£" inside that cube and just apply in that cube the texture you want to be full lit when you reduce the general lighting of the track and it's done !! Everytime you use that texture on the track it will be full lit. Unfortunally i can't remenber if in the time i discovered this, this worked right, but i am a little lazy to make this right now, so you try. I hope you know how to put a powerup ! Btw, any powerup number will do, it just need to be a powerup to be full lit.

How did i discover this ? Because when i was trying to discover, i would be deleting all the parts of the track, one by one (preprocessed track) and then i discovered that one particular powerup was inside a model with the texture of that road. As soon as i remove that powerup (in plaything2) from the track that road wasn't full lit anymore. But if we get the powerup in playing time and it disappears the road won't quit being full lit (fortunately !!)

And there is many powerups on that track but it seems they aren't a little fused with the ground so the texture of that ground doesn't become full lit.

If you can discover how to know that and if this i said is righ, this is a great inovation in c2 editing, finally we were able to use some lighting effects ! Unfortunally the cars, pedestrians, powerups and smashables are full lit when the track is not, and that isn't very nice if we make a mid-night track.

Another thing it's possible to make the peds respawn also on top of noncars and smashables ? I already tried that but it doesn't appear any peds on those textures of the noncars and smashables.

And the another inovation is that thing of bending the railings of the windows of the building of glasses of the airport level, did you remenber that i have talked?

I don't yet managed to discover how to make that on other structures, but it has something to do with that glass breaking (smashable fences)

If only i could do researching again... but with my mod complete it would be much more confortable, that's why i didn't do more researching but i willing to do more researching.

Oh yes, i didn't think about that of the garage door go into the house to it rise... Well, you can't make the door move in diagonal, so i guess you will have to make the door tippable or smashable (if you make it smashable you can make the door be all bent !!)

Yes, but you downloaded 120 mb with a 56k modem ? I can't believe it... I tought you also have netcable or adsl as many people have...

What ?! I didn't understand how did you explain that of the nuke... "define multiple destroying forces" ? Can you explain that ? And how do you think it's possible to make a 3d explosion without "smashable combos" ? Yes, with "smashable combos" it's possible to make a 3d explosion, we can put more than one smashable on the same place right ? for example each smashable would be a piece of the bomb itself and each piece smashable can have a different final model which could repreent each frame of a 3d explosion ! See, we have to think very well to come up with this advanced tricks, but i am not sure if this one really works, what do you think ? Unless you didn't understood correctly.

Hum, good so you did have more experiences in gta3 !! There is my comments (see your last reply to understand which sentences i am commenting):

- no comment

- yes, that thing of looking aroud or turning it's most like a dream (when we sleep) : when we turn around and look to the same place twice much things are changed ! What a coincidence! But i don't like that in Gta3...

- the same as above

- yes, indeed if we finish a mission the cops forget about us, but that's good of course, it's easier like that, because one thing i hate in gta3 is being very difficult. There are many missions i failed the mission 20 times in a row ! How can be possible that so many people can do the missions very easy ? Like the missions "Paparazzi purge", "plaster blaster", "s.a.m." and the last one. That's why i don't like gta3, is very difficult.

- yes, i also many times stay on top of some cars and when we shot at it the driver would start to accelerate and sometimes i would be project to the road and i land standing still as you said. But that one situation was very cool indead ! Landing right next to a hidden package ! lololol

Hey, you are wrong, gta3 DOES have a option to save replay, even tough ONLY have ONE slot... try using the keys F1,F2 and f3...

What ? You haved the exact idea i haved ! I can garantee it's truth i already had the same idea, i putted some couaches and buses or trucks in front of the cars, and i remenber i said : "oh, this is going to be easy!!) and indeed it was !

Yes, indeed you don't need to make house interiors for the small ones. But for the bigger shops you have to do, because even in the original c2 tracks there was shops with interior, VERY SIMPLE AND VERY EMPTY but still more fun that just one block representing a building without any interior.

Oh, i knew it ! Your track will take years to make ! Oh well, at least Gmax will help, but if you don't use macros in plaything2 you will take years to fully texture the track and even to put some objects. If only i could finish my mod sooner... Hum... if you fully give credit you can put textures from other games, right ? Like Tdr or other games. Even tough isn't not permitted i think that only applys one those that doesn't give credit and sells that, but for making c2 tracks (which will not be selled never) and giving credits i doubt much people mind about copying textures from other games, tell me it's like that or not ?

Oh, of course it would be day time...

Hum, yes use plane drones it would be cool to be in a city and see planes or helicopters on the sky, but tell me : there isn't a problem about the distance that they dissapear ? Well why don't you use the same kind of path that there is with the train in the beaver woods tracks ? The plane dissapear on one place and reappears in the other, so it doesn't need to make curves, and in that way it is always visible.

Well, that's all. bye
User avatar
Kruszchev
Proffesional Maniac
Posts: 2880
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2001 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by Kruszchev »

wel... cesm... well im offdosre curius about makinh a new track my selfy..,. been thinking abouyt a big apoc city (what can ya get from me... apocs :grin:)



and no ii dont compöuin about long replys... i.... just forvett it... its boosing time now... :grin:
"One chicken in a thousand is hatched near a road. One in every ten thousand of those ever tries to cross it. Half of them are run over by cars."
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

Hmm, I don't think I'm gonna study this box anymore... polyhedron is enough for me. But maybe I'll try the Hinge_joint again, but not now.

I've noticed the odd movement too, but I haven't said it was because of some bug. Anyway, you know that when you hit them, they start moving correctly. (But they just stop, because something hit them) I think that in the action replay, it was the opposite: the drones move fine when following the path, but when they are hit, the movement becomes odd again. I can't imagine how to fix this... maybe it's somewhere in the .EXE-file? (I can't edit that)

There was some topic about this "joint data" some time ago, maybe you can still find it if you look back with the "View topics from X days". It was about making trailers for addon cars, but I didn't study that very much, and nobody seemed to be able to make it work. Don't ask me...

Well, maybe that World_ball_joint could be defined with one point, and then model something to the world, or use bounding shapes, to prevent the object from moving anywhere else than around the Y-axis. (So that it only moves like the "Wheel of fortune")

1. I guess that's only for drones: if you put zero to noncar's bounds, it just goes through anything. Plus that I don't trust game-generated bounds: they might be too simple (inaccurate colliding), or too complex. (Slows down the game when colliding) I prefer pre-created bounds, so I know exactly how they work.

2. Good question. The drones collide with main cars, other drones, detached parts of main cars, AND moving noncars (just hitted so they still move), but not with noncars, that don't move. (they are still attached to ground, or stopped moving) When they follow the path they don't collide with some things, but when they are hit, they collide with everything! (And stop after a while) But again I don't know how to solve this...

All right, now the lighting stuff! When I first tried your discovery, it didn't work, but that was because the track wasn't preprocessed. (even the powerup wasn't full-lit!) After preprocessing, it worked fine! Great work, dude! May I present my discovery: You don't need cubes! The texture of the powerup will be full-lit, even if the texture is used somewhere else! Just put some texture to powerup, let's say "PowerupBox", then put the "PowerupBox"-texture to some road, and both the powerup and the road will be full-lit. Be careful with this: if you use powerup's texture in some places which you don't want to be full-lit, you have to import that texture with another identifier. I tried all this: I used "LitTexture" in powerup and road, and "Normaltexture" in another road, and the result was, that the powerup and the first road were full-lit, while the second road was normally-lit. (very dark, that is) Both used the same TIFF-file, but with different identifiers. Even if I collected the powerup, the first road remained full-lit. What do you think of this? Easier, right?

Yes, I still have a modem... I don't spend so much time in the Internet, that ADSL would be cheaper... modem is fine for me.

When I said "Nuke", it was just an addition to the "Nuclear bomb" and "Atomic bomb", I didn't mean that the following things were about a nuke. Multiple destroying forces: check the "Other smashable stuff" in my tutorial, click on "See details" in "Radius of side-effect smashes", and there's the "number of side-effects". Just put two or more to that, clone the lines below, and change the force areas in those, that should work. (I haven't tried yet, though) But I don't know about the 3D explosions...

-----GTA 3-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I'll try those keys.

Hey, do you hate when the payphones give you again the already-completed missions? Anyway, the El Burro's phone gave me the racing mission again, so now I took part with a tank! When the race started, I took a shortcut, decided to play some Carmageddon, and drove in the wrong direction, and the other racers approached: Boom! Boom! Boom! Then back to the start and complete the race. Easy, again.

BTW, have you noticed how the windows in the houses are made in Shoreside Vale? They are just glued to the walls! Try to look from the corner, and you'll see how they float in the air.

Oh, I tried editing Weapon.dat-file, but the changes didn't have any effect! Useless file?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll just use the textures of digital camera photos and original C2 textures. (and maybe C1 too) Hmm, if I had more time, I could complete the track pretty soon. You know, I make and skin the houses and other stuff separately, use "Select all faces on the model" for huge grass (and other) areas, and road mapping for roads... doesn't sound like it'll take years for me? Of course those aren't everything on the track, but very much anyway. And the track model is no problem in GMax.

Daytime, or optional night time, if you extract the TWT-file to use the changer program. (if I make such an option)

I think that even if the drone is always visible, the view distance can still prevent you from seeing it, if the viewing distance limits it. I'll see about the disappearing soon.

Bye.
User avatar
autopilot
Travelling Scrap Heap
Posts: 2290
Joined: Mon May 20, 2002 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by autopilot »

hey C2, I wanted to know when you made one of ADRs cars break apart like that, is it possible to do it without the big explosion? thats a cool idea having parked cars bust up.. and i wanted to make some real low-polied parked cars on my track im making, but rather then have them break apart very much i was just gonna make a bumper break off or so.

I was also wondering if there is anyway to have a parked cars wheels move when you crash into em.. so when its "sliding/rolling" after its hit it looks more realistic? i was thinking of making drone cars just "parked" in places and making their speeds 0mph, but as i remember when you hit a drone their wheels always lock up. so i dont think that would work.
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

You can get rid of the explosions by putting zero to the count line, and removing those explosion lines below.

As for the bumper dropping out... you could make a solid car (as a part of the track, not a smashable, if you don't want it so) without the bumper, and then make a separate bumper as a noncar: this way you can define the "bend angle before snapping", and when the bumper is rotated enough, it would drop.

Or you could make the parked car as smashable, but when you hit it, you would use "replacemodel" to replace the original parked car with another parked car, which doesn't have the bumper. The bumper could then be a shrapnel material , but the problem may be, that the shrapnel materials appear at the centre of the smashable, so it looks like weird (the bumper would appear at the centre of the car)... maybe the noncar-bumper is better.

The wheel rolling: smashables can't be moved, like the petrol pump can't be, except that the shrapnel materials move when the smashable is crashed. So wheel rolling would be kind of useless if the parked car just remains still in its place...

BTW, Cesm: now that the full-lighting is discovered, I might as well make a night-time-track. Let's have a good use for this trick you found!
User avatar
autopilot
Travelling Scrap Heap
Posts: 2290
Joined: Mon May 20, 2002 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by autopilot »

hmmm I see, kinda tricky about parked car, i wouldnt really want the car a solid, i suppose i can make a car minus the bumper as a non car, and have the bumper as another non-car, and when the car is hit it would come off.. which only really works if say its the back bumper, and the car is struck from the rear. if someone hit the front it would move both and the bumper would snap off. i guess its a good thing to do if the car is really old and falling apart. or i can sorta set it up so the back is only available to be hit, say have the rear sticking out at the end of a narrow driveway.. I'll most likely do that.
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to c2scientist :

oh well, ok anyway if the box shape isn't finished it isn't worth to study anymore so you are right. But i will test it later when i can do researching as fast as you, or even faster, because that box shape it must do something anyway. Don't forget about the world_hinge_joint, later, that one may be useful.

Yes i understand what you mean, if we hit a drone, it will stop but before stopping it will not go trought objects anymore. This is a natural bug of c2 this i am afraid we would never be able to fix.

Oh yes i also remenber that topic some time ago about "joint data" it's because i remenber it i asked to you ! But i will try to find it.

Hum... it's not recommended to use a bounding shape to "incase" objects to the track itself like the example of "wheel of fortune", because also like a bouding shape to simulate a hinge if we hit the noncar too hard (specially with solid granite or with pinball mode enabled) it will "break" the bounding shape incasement (well won't you agree that indeed this is realistic ? In real life hinges aren't also indestructible !!! What a coincidence...) but at the same time the game makes a major slowdown.

Well, indeed i already know that the game only generates bounding boxes for the drones, but you did forget the pieces that comes of our car when we smash it ...

Yes i also already experimented to put zero on bbox on noncars and of course the game won't generate them...

Well... i don't know... Indeed if the game generates a bbox we won't know if it is good or not, if it is simple or complex. The problem is that even with the bounding boxes that we create, we can't actually SEE them so how do you know it's "perfect" ? Well, i have a new method of making bbounding boxes, tell me which is your method to make bboxes ? Don't tell me you model it and then use "munge acessory" or "asc to physics shape" ! I already tried that (well, only once!) and pt2 crashed ! I know it must work but i don't trust it, but it's true i only used that only once, i don't like to model the bbox and then do that. I have got a new method of making bboxes i don't know if anybody use it also, wanna know how it is ?

Oh no, it must be a way to fix that thing of drones passing throught knocked noncars... well later when i start to do researching i will try to fix this.

Hum... so my discovery works ! And thanks to that you discover even a very easier way to make that stuff of full lit work !! Good job when i readed that you wrote i really couldn't believe ! But after i readed what you said it really makes sense, the texture of any powerup is full lit so other faces with that texture of course will be also full lit !! I was afraid that the road would not be full lit after collecting the powerup, but i was wrong. But, hey wait a minute ! Can you try this : try to put only one powerup in the whole track with that texture to be full lit. I want to make sure that if all powerups with that texture are collected, the texture will remain full lit on the faces you used it also. And then tell me what happened.

Yes, indeed i liked your discovery, and if you are really going to make a track in night time like you said now that is a very opportunity to make lamp posts on the streets and even making a circle of light in the road below a lamp post like in tdr !! But in that situation the light post would not be tippable, if not the circle of light on the road would remain full lit even if the lamp post is knocked down, unless that thing of collecting all the powerups would make the texture quit being full lit, which means we could control that feature !

About the multiple destroying forces, i will see your tuturial.

Hey, btw it is possible to affect (kill or make damage) to pedestrians with any powerup or destroing forces ?

So you don't know about the 3d explosions... look forget about it now, later when i start making research i tell if it is possible because you know that a big 2d explosion isn't good, you said that.

Oh no, don't tell me more bugs of gta3 !! (lololol) Indeed, windows being glued to walls ?!?! That's RIDICULOUS ! Anyway i get the picture i know what you are talking, i don't remenber that in gta3, but i believe. That stuff reminds me of the Duke Nukem 3d level editor, some walls were done in that way, with a "3d paper" like those windows.

Hum, you can make changes to weapon.dat file, but don't do it manually, use a editor, go to "www.gta3mods.com" and download editors there, there is a weapon editor there, i maked changes and they worked !!

But i don't recommend you to "study" or try to learn gta3 editing, don't forget Gta3 vice city is coming and many things maybe changed ! That's one of the reasons i didn't quit c2 editing when tdr come out : everytime i finally managed to know how to edit a game, another better game comes and i have to start all over again, no way, specially because c2 have many features that never had been used and it's unfinished so it deserves to be improved by fans, like me and you ! Anyway i STILL haven't found a car racing game as fun as carma2, not even gta3, MAYBE gta3 vice city, but the game is very similiar to the original gta3, but maybe finally i will found a game that i like more than carma2 !

Well, i would say you would take a year to make your track, because putting 200-300 noncars or smashables isn't going to be fast... anyway avoid to make you track too much "voided".

What ?! You will pack your track in TWT file ? How do you do that ? You can't do that without using my tool to pack the pixies.p16 file... well, that's what it is for anyway, but just for finished tracks or to release them on the net, or for cars.

Let me ask you one thing : when exactly you finish researching ? Well, at least make a pause or a break, you did that already ? Just to know ok ?

Hey try to fix your last tuturial update (nr2) because i can't download it, it says the file doesn't exist.

Oh finally you decide to make a night time track ! It's about time !

Now one last thing, do you remenber this part on a .txt track file :

// SOUND GENERATORS

0 // Number of generators

Have you an ideia of what is this ? Some time ago i started fidlling with this and the game crashed (most when i put the number 1 instead of 0 in the line above, which means this have a format and it's working but i never managed to guess the format because i don't have a idea what this is. When you go back to researching than you have here one more idea !!!

Now i have some bad news : from the next week i will not have internet on home anymore (my dad will cut off the phone connection because of the high bills) so i will be without internet for a long time and i will only be able to reply posts in cwa in the internet at my school, so if i take 2 weeks to reply posts here don't worry i won't quit replying them, even if i take so much time. But until next thursday (the last day i have internet at home) i can reply posts normally.

bye
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

Yes, I remeber the slowdown thing... actually I just meant the direction of rotation with the "wheel of fortune"-example, not how it is attached to the ground/floor/whatever. So kind of like how a car rotates in intersections. (or when wheelspinning) The movement would then be limited to that direction, so that it wouldn't rotate upwards or downwards. Very low ceiling also works as a limiting geometry.

Go ahead and tell it. Meanwhile, I can tell me own... I open the model in CarEd (car or some noncar), then I make a new component (name is "Bounds"), that will be the simple bounding shape. When it's modeled, I export the whole model as ASC-file. Of course that includes the original complex model plus the simple bounding shape, so when I import it in PT2, I only select the "Bounds"-component, and use "Object/Save non-car .txt file as"-command to generate the bounds. I think I can trust that one, since I model the simple bounding shape myself.

When I tried the full-lighting, I tried with only one powerup, and the road remained full-lit after collecting the only powerup in the track. Good thing, eh? Now I'm gonna try following: import one powerup which has lots of triangles. I should be able to put one texture to one triangle, then another texture to another triangle, etc. etc. to make all needed textures full-lit with only one powerup! I think that should work, I just have to try.

The forces only damage other smashables, but you can damage cars by giving them the "Mine"-powerup. (Like driving into a mine, boom!) You can give powerups within the FORCE AREA. Plus, I think all the powerups within the force area are given to the player. (Opponents can't be given "turbo", "solid granite car" or something, only the mine. Probably) But peds can't be harmed, unless something hits them after the explosion. (flying shrapnels)

And the parking lot was made by attaching separate white stripes to the asphalt. In Duke Nukem, this was useful for attaching graffitis to walls. Maybe I'll put something like this in my track? (transparent textures) Not the windows of course, there I have a hole in the walls for windows, like it should be.

Some editable stuff of GTA III are in DAT-files (not 3D models this time!), which I should be able to edit with notepad, because the lines aren't crypted. Everything can be read easily, but changes just won't make any effect. But that doesn't matter, I won't edit that game much anyway. Maybe I could still take a look at the editor in the page you wrote.

Importing noncars and smashables shouldn't take much time, isn't it just importing and positioning, and then on to the next noncar? Except if I have to change some textures, but should be just for the signs. (Signs again) Yeah, I'll avoid the voidness... adding new stuff is fast.

I'll use your pixies packer when the track is finished, that should do it.

Ahh, I've already finished researching, there's nothing more important to study anymore.

You can't download it? I'll double-check. When you have it, tell me what you liked of the wireframe-shape, and curved road mapping in the Tips-chapter, ok?

Sound generators? Hmm, maybe that can be replaced with the Special effects volume's sound option... and that's why I think I won't study it...

Sad news, indeed... how much have you spent time in Internet weekly? (I spend about 7-9 hours)

EDIT: The file is now there, I forgot the upload it when I only updated the download list!!! :eek:
User avatar
n3wton
Wasted!
Posts: 1613
Joined: Sun Mar 10, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: England, Uk
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by n3wton »

This is a BiG Thread, wish I understood it :lol:
Image
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

Hey Cesm, a quick question: how can I select ALL the vertices in the dragging area? For example when I drag in the top view, it only selects the vertices of just one model. Like when I have road vertices in one place, and then I have grass field's vertices in the same place... when I select by dragging, it only selects the vertices of the road, and when I move those, it can create gaps, because the grass vertices don't move at the same time. Any way to solve this?
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to c2scientist :

You remenber the "slowdown thing" ? Do you already tryed to "incase" bboxes ? It's in that case that this is most obvious.

Oh oh ! So your way to make a bounding box is somewhat similar to mine, but at the same time very different. You know i never model bboxes, i have another way i DON'T KNOW if is better than your way to do bboxes or not, but i need a advise anyway. So there is :

First i load the object in plaything2, the object that i want to make a bbox for. Then i select it in object mode and now the new way : i select the vertices that i want to use in making the bbox !! Of course i select them by a specific order (for example if it is a cilinder i select the top face vertices in clock wise and the bottom face vertices in counter clock-wise or vice versa, i don't remenber this exactly right now, it's a very long time that i last maked a bbox in this way) and then i take note of the vertices numbers that are selected in the list "Vertices:" in the tab SELECTION of plaything2. You must already notice that those numbers correspond to the vertices number that are spit out when we select "Object/Save non-car .txt file as". But you said that that option generates bounds, i don't think so because that spits out ALL the coordinates of ALL vertices in the selected model (in a specific order, and the number of each vertice select in the model corresponds to this list, for example the 5th entry of vertices coordinates corresponds to vertice with nr 5 in the selection tab). So if i selected the right order of vertices then i seek for the EXACT coordinates of each selected vertice and i put them in a copy of the generated noncar .txt file and that's done ! (i even maded a program in visual basic 6 to read a noncar .txt file and i write the number of the vertice and the program displays the coordinates after reading the noncar .txt file ! Believe me, this works because it's in that way i always maded bboxes and they are so exact !! So what you think ? In this way we can make EXACT bounding boxes, and i looked at the original stainless noncars bounding boxes and it looks that they also maded them in this way, i think, but i am not sure.

Oh no! No it isn't a good thing that if all powerups with that texture are collected the texture won't quit being full lit, in that way we can't make full lit lamp posts at night time, unless they are not tippable. That could only be the only way to control this new feature, but don't worry. Maybe i can find another way.

About that idea of using a different texture in each triangle... very good idea it might work i don't have idea if it will work or not, but it's logical that it might work.

Oh no, the forces only damages other smashables ? Well, it seems a explosion won't be good if the pedestrians are not affected by it ! There must be another way to damage pedestrians at the same time the smashable is hit. The only way i know to damage pedestrians is using a special volume (even the water special volume actually damages pedestrians) but that effect is permanent and not controllable, unfortunally. But it's a good thing that cars and EVEN opponents can be damaged by the powerup mine !

Hum... i can't remenber but i think there is a setting to define which powerups can affect the opponents or not... i remenber i tried that stuff long time ago, but i don't remenber how... what i can remenber is that when the opponents got the powerups they still don't do nothing special or the game would crash...

Hey, now i have three questions :

1. How to make a "invisible wall" like those in the top of buildings in the mini-city in the tracks "junkyard" ? You know if we land on top of those buildings there is a "invisible wall" preventing us from fall to the void, can you try to do that and later include it on your tuturial ? From what you know from c2 editing do you have an idea of how that is made ?

2. It's possible to make water volume rise vertically ? For example make a "smashable of water" ? I already tried but the prefix in textures to make water don't work on smashables or noncars, and the smashables make the game crash if they don't have a bbox (which prevents water from being pass trough)

3. There is any way to make a smashable spit out of it mines (that kind of mines of the mortar powerup) without they spitting of our car ?

OH good i am glad that you will not make a very void track, it's so boring ! But slow also, if the computer processor isn't powerful enough.

Yes, you see the pixies packer is indeed useful, i promise you i will try to improve it, btw i had plans to incorporate it in my pt2 mod, so when it's finished i tell you ok ? Don't use the actual version of my mod in my site, it's the complicated version, i managed to remove several limitations, then i think more people would like to use it because it won't have that limitations of "windows metrics" or "capturing coordinates of elements positions" which i agree is very boring stuff. But of course to make me remove those limitations i also had to remove ALL the new keyboard shortcouts to the mapping bar toolbox (that one that appears when we press F5 in the original pt2 version) and the keyboard shortcouts to maximize each viewport and the stuff to make macros move the horizontal border line.

Hum... you already finished researching ? Well ok, you already done much work, let me continue by researching other things, when i start i tell you ok ? Anyway thanks specially for the smashables because that part for me it was the more complicated for me...

Well, today is the last day i have internet at home, so the posts after this one will only be readed maybe in the next week or in the other, and then other week to me post a reply... so please don't worry if i don't answer ok ? I will NOT quit replying here, that i am very sure ! It's because in my school each person have to reservate a hour to internet and the schedule is always full of people wanting to go to internet (specially because it's free) and specially i already finished school, but because i already studied there they let me in...

Ok, then later when i start researching i will also study the sound generator, maybe i found something usefull and different from the sounds of the special volumes, you already studied so much i understand you don't want more work ! So please don't be bothered by my questions in this post which could require you to research even more... just reply you don't know if you didn't research that.

I spent about 4 hours per week but my brother also, so it's expensive...

About the seleting vertices (the quick question), at the moment i don't know. Later when i start research i will try this too.

Bye
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

Maybe that works well, but I prefer my own way. You see, if I'd make bounding shapes for a star-shape, I'd like to make a box, but that wouldn't be possible with your method, because the vertices aren't in the correct places. Like when you doing a box-shaped-bound for round object: there aren't vertices in the "corners" of the circle. But these exceptions aren't very common, so I think your method is a good way to make bounds.

Hmm, so you're worried about lamp being lit even when the lamp post is tipped? Well, that's a tricky one... but I won't mind it, my traffic lights also work like that. I can tell my way to solve this, if you want: Make it as smashable. Now the lamp post don't bend, it snaps off immediately depending of the speed and mass of the car, but that's not a big problem. Then you can make the un-lit lamp post as shrapnel material. Remember those crashed petrol pumps? You can make the wasted lamp post like that, and you can move that un-lit lamp post around after smashing. (with the car) More simply put: full-lit lamp post is a smashable, and after smashing it becomes a un-lit noncar.

And it did work! We can put all the full-lit textures there, and it remains under the track, so you can't see it in the game. It's like a giant wall, which has a collection of textures. Oh, I made squares instead of triangles. Better, because the texture thumbnails are squares too.

So the opponents can't benefit of powerups or the game crashes... would be funny if opponent had a "Bouncey bouncey"-powerup. Was it the Flags-line? Do you know what fizzle type means?

1. Invisible wall is just a wall with fully-transparent texture. Simple.

2. I even don't know how to create water areas without defining a special volume box with area coordinates... when I know that, I can think this better.

3. You mean when it's smashed? Let me think... noncar shrapnel can't explode .... another smashable could appear (if that's possible), but it doesn't move anywhere .... I guess there's no way to do this. But this makes me (somehow) wonder if a noncar could be smashable? Like writing "02Lamp" on the trigger line... interesting, but I think it wouldn't work!

Your Internet-situation is difficult out there...

I got one solution for my quick question: if you amalgamate the two objects into one single object, you can easily select two vertices, which are in the same place. Some kind of select-only-from-one-object-at-time limitation! This solution also isn't very good, again I lose the possibility to use "select all faces on model"-option. Well, I do the mapping first, and only after that I'll move the vertices.

This topic will become very silent now... even the other track makers don't seem to be interested of this anymore, except Autopilot. I think I'll have to post some preview pics of my prefabs soon. (There's no point posting previews of the track, since I'd have to skin and decorate it, and later do it again when there's more land modeled)
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to c2 scientist :

Finally i managed to go to internet again, this time in my school... but i know now that in the municipal library there is internet also so maybe i can go to internet at least 2 times per week, but i don't know if they let me use floppys, because in school they are very reticent about letting people use floppys, i don't know why, i doubt it's only because virus, because they have a anti-virus scanner...

Hum... very good point, i haven't thinked of that situation of the star shape for a bounding box... normally i would prefer to make the star exactly and not a box, but i understand your point, about the vertices doesn't being in the places to make a box. At the first time i readed what you wrote i didn't understood but now i understand. Well, in fact i didn't undestand yet quite well how the "generate shapes" of plaything2 works, in my way i know where the bbox will be, but if it is plaything2 that generates the bounds its almost the same than the game generating bboxes for drones, we don't know if it generates well or not. Or the modelled bbox will "cut" the difference of size between your modelled bbox and the noncar ? Explain me, or the game will genarate bounds only for the modelled bounding box ? In that way pt2 won't use the noncar itself to generate shapes, or it does ?

Yes, i haven't thinked about making the lamp posts smashables, hey, that is also good to make a lamp post break on half, what you think ? I don't remenber quite well but i think it was in TDR that the lamp posts breaks, but i am not sure. No, i mistake, it's in Midtown madness 2 or 1. You could use those two features : to be able to be breaked and with the lamp quit being lit after smashed, or even change the texture of lamp to a copy of that one but with cracks, if the light doesn't work it's good that the lamp has some cracks, isn't it a great idea ?

LOLOLOL that idea of a giant wall with a collection of textures is indead funny !

No, i haven't idea of what "fizzle type" means but i plan to study also the powerups when i start researching again.

Hey wait a minute. Do you remenber those billboards in the first story of some buldings in the tracks newcity ? Those which we can break them like if they are glass ? I can't even imagine how they would look in a mid night track with the full lit texture thing... It would be beautiful ! Don't you remenber that in real life citys, at mid-night some billboards in the streets (specially in bars, cinemas or hotel) which have lamps inside to make them full bright ? And what about "light up" the billboards of the original newcity track at night ? It would look super cool... and that feature is also good for those billboards in real life that have some lamps in the top edge of it do you see what i mean ? Man, i can't wait to start making mid night tracks with full lit billboards it will be so cool! And i am also willing to start making special tracks to test the c2 editing limits !

Hum, how can i make a full transparent texture with just paintbrush ? Is impossible ?

As i suspected that was a simple thing, just using a full transparent texture ! So easy...

Hey, btw by selecting a face in a track of pt2, how do we know which material name is applyed to it ? It's because the only appearant way is to compare the texture, but not all materials show right in pt2, not even from the original tracks...

Are you sure you don't know how to make water without using a special volume ? Have you forgot the feature of the prefix "!" (without quotes) ? I once tryed to texture a smashable with that prefix and it didn't work, maybe because of the object having a bbox.

That's really a pity that we can't "summon" those mines that our car spits out when we use the powerup "mortar"... But the mutant tail is also a big mistery because it have several hinges without bboxes ...

Well, now the BIG NEWS : i maded a radical decision. I quited the making of my mod. No, better than that, i quited the idea of releasing it to the public. I will make my mod exclusively to be used by me, because i don't believe that anyone is actually using the pt2 mod with macros, maybe they are using only the improved plaything2.exe which is all what i will release from now on. It's because i am losing so much time worring about messages and explanations, and some complicated limitations of macros which could complicate a lot the using of my mod. So from now on, i will only release the plaything2.exe with other improvements which don't require more complicated things like macros, which will be called "cesm pt2 mod lite version". I can change keyboard shortcouts, discover new hidden functions in the plaything2.exe so from now on i will only release the "lite version" of my mod, which consists only of the plaything2.exe file or maybe other files. And you, c2 scientist, can "work" with me by inserting the keyboard shortcouts of my improved plaything2.exe in your tuturials and that's all.

All of this, also because you are right, almost nobody is interested in making tracks for this game, only TRUE fans of this game like me and you, would have pacience to make good tracks for this game and not get bored of it quickly, i must confess i am still surprised that someone woud study c2 editing so much as you did and you didn't quit c2 editing yet, it's really a miracle because you seem the only one after me that is really interested in new c2 tracks and discovering new tricks just like me.

I hope "autopilot" and "savage-elve" don't quit also making c2 tracks, i would glad they join us in this topic and giving advises and making questions also about c2 editing, because i would like that the few people that makes tracks use the newly discovered features to use in their tracks, specially "autopilot" and "savage-elve" i don't like the idea of other people making tracks without using our new discoverys.

Has you can see, i still have so much ideas of tricks for using in c2 tracks, that's why i just don't like when people quit editing c2 tracks, i bet that almost everybody that got bored of carmageddon2 only maded cars, cars, cars, and cars, and that maybe was one of the reasons everybody got bored of carmageddon2, because it's many new cars but always the SAME tracks, no wonder why people get bored of this game (of course i may not be right, so don't start everyone "fighting" me here because i said that!), i also got bored of the actual tracks and their contents but not of the game itself, each time a new GOOD track comes out my carma2 "spirit" renovates again, and become willing to play that new track and try to do some new situations involving opponents, pedestrians, noncars, smashables, drones and the track itself, that's why i saved so many action replays, i even filled a 700mb cd full with saved actions replays because so many funny situations can occour in carma2 because of the great freedom the game has. This is the carma2 "spirit", not the desire to finish 1st in a race like the actual car racing games.

And you c2scientist, you also like to see new funny situations that sometimes occour when playing carma2 and that sometimes deserves to be saved in action replay ? I give you some examples :

.several examples are in the topic "Smashing peds... whats yr favorite way?" That is one of the reasons i like carma2 so much

.one time i run into a pedestrian, and it was projected (dead) to the air in a diagonal way and it splashed in the top of a building (in the vertical wall just a few feet from the edge, not landed on the roof) with all the strenght and then it falled to the ground ! Beautiful!

.Another great example is the train flying and specially spinning in the sky. This one is tricky to do, but sometimes i managed to make it

.making noncars or drones spinning at high velocity in the air, this is one of the funniest things for me, specially if done with bombs

.make a elefant smash a giant glass window (in the funfair track, in the clown billboard)

.when a pedestrian jumps of a roof in a building and completly by random my car (a yellow bigdump) saves the pedestrian from falling in the floor, by falling in the box of the bigdump instead, even tough the pedestrian dies anyway. This happened to me once, totally unexpected ! And it's tricky to try to reproduce this !

.using the powerups solid granite, grip o matic and invulnerability and smash everything in the way, specially with the green cars of the maim street c1 track, i love the way that those cars are "spitted" to the side of my truck at high velocitys! I just can't want to do that with your parked cars, c2 scientist ! With the explosions the sensation will be even bigger !!

.so many situations that i can't write them all here...

bye
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

When I was collecting files for my own CD in the school (with permission, and I didn't download anything Warez, of course), I used to stay after the school collecting stuff. There weren't anyone else in the classroom, and the school had (still has) ADSL, so it was fast. Anyway, I wonder if you'd be allowed for this too, maybe just quickly to get the replies, if not anything else. Especially now because you don't have Internet in your house?

And I didn't understand how you can make the PT2 to generate the bounds after you have selected the vertices... here are my explanations: When I open the DAT-file of the object (a car, for example) in CarEd, and I can model the bounds, and they are in the right scale, of course, and I make it as detailed as I want. (under the limitation of 32 points per component) Then I export it as ASC. Normally, if I'd use "convert ASC to physics file", it would take all vertices: the original car with all doors. engine, and wheels, plus the simple bounds. I only want the bounds, I import the file, only select the bounds-object, and order PT2 to generate the bounds of only that component. (Less than 32 points, unless I've modeled many bounding shapes) The textfile will contain the coordinate positions of the several vertices. Actually it's just like getting the vertex positions from the bound-model... this method can only be used for "polyhedron"-shape. I think this is better than game-generated bounds for drones, since I know what I've modeled. (The bounding shape will be the modeled bound-model) With my method, the game doesn't generate anything, PT2 does, and only what I've modeled.

Yeah, lamp post smashables and noncar shrapnels should work well. But then I start to think of the 340-limit... you remember when Small Block said that the game loads anything what is in track's folder? This has been bothering me... if those will be included in 340-limit too? And is there any limit for amount of smashables? Because I surely can't make the garage doors movable, the limit of 340 moving objects will prevent it. I decided to replace them with smashable garage doors, but if the limit applies to this too... as well as mailbox-smashables, and other smashables. I can't make even mailboxes movable, because there are too many mailboxes around here, I think. Damn, limitations. I've also thought about making small speed limit signs to be smashables, and reduce the amount of lamp posts to about every third or fourth lamp post. Bigger signs can be noncars, because there aren't so many of those. Shrapnel materials also are a problem: they are as ACT-files in the folder, which probably will be loaded too. Every shrapnel-file can only have one type of appearance... if I make 100 and 120 speed limits smashable, I gotta make 100- and 120-textured shrapnels, which means 2 ACT-files. Option is to use only 3D metal shards, and those can be used with other smashables too, like destroyable metal doors. After the speed limit is trashed, there won't be any falling parts with 120-texture, but that shouldn't be a big problem. I'm sure I can come up with something. By now, I've thought about making shrapnel files for different kind of materials. (this does NOT mean MAT-things now) For example, metal pole can be MetPole.ACT, wood shards can be Wood.ACT, metal shards Metal.ACT, and so on. Now, when I create a speed limit smashable, I can define these shrapnels: (count = 2) Metal.ACT and MetPole.ACT. So metal shards and the pole appear and fall through the ground. Wood.ACT can be used with wooden structures. If I make more materials, I can use more combinations, if there are smashables made of different real-life materials. Like a big crate can contain lots of stuff: wooden chairs, metal poles, glass statues, stone statues. Then I could define these shrapnel materials: MetPipe.ACT, Glass.ACT, Wood.ACT, Stone.ACT. I've talked a lot now, but now get the idea. For your lamp post idea, you would model a broken lamp post with cracked texture, and save it as BrokenLamp.ACT in track's folder, and use that as noncar-shrapnel, or as a ghostpart. Or use MetPole.ACT plus a new SmallBrokenLamp.ACT...?

Funny, and very useful.

And imagine a gas station with those lit stripes in the rood and all advertisements... and you meant the neon-light-advertisement? Perfect! When I've been making my prefabs, I've made a 5m x 2m advertisement boards with 3 small lamps in the top... guess if I'm gonna make the advertisement full-lit? :wink: Even some of my road intersection signs have lamps in the top, which will illuminate the text at night! Oh, in South-Finland there are some speed limits made of tiny leds, so they can be seen easily, that can be also made in C2. (Probably it's made for that they can change the number when it's necessary)

That can't be possible... the program is so simple. You need something more advanced. As for recognizing the texture, you can try selecting the face, and click on "Edit mapping". You'll see the full texture. Another is, that you select the thumbnail for the bottom, edit the material, and use "browse" to choose some other texture. If the selected face changes its texture, it uses the material which you have just selected. The gray textures have transparent areas. If you want to make sure that a transparent text is correctly positioned (not flipped or rotated), you can make it temporarily use non-transparent texture, which you can see in PT2. Fix the positioning, and then change the transparent texture back. It becomes gray again, but this time you know it's correctly positioned. (When you first time manual map a transparent texture, you really can't say if it's rotated or not, it's just gray!)

The "!" only makes it nonsolid, you can drive through it. (useful for bushes and leaves) and !/74 make the texture cause water splashes. But the water area below the surface?

I won't quit easily, as I've said: C2 is the only game for which I can make so much custom objects. I think I'll make new tracks for many years! (that's because other things take time...) Driving in South-Finland in a game at summer-midnight is my goal. Then something else -> -> -> -> ->

And if Econobrick still makes new tracks, I'd add him too to the list.

Full CD? Not DivX-compressed? I've compressed my replays, they are only 155 MB. I could upload some DivX-videos to my site, but I have a 50 MB-limit... I think I'll need to move in the future...

Hmm, it sounds like you should record a new sound for a pedestrian: "Your actions cause too much noise, driver!"

Last thing is about GTAIII again. I like to find bugs and other cheating possibilities in games. For example in C2 I can park behind a lamp post and an opponent crashes into it while trying to get me. Or hit a truck from behind, and it tried to get me by driving FORWARD and steering when I steer, then I can steer toward a lamp post, and he steers too and crashes! Now the GTA3 thing: I was thinking that such large city with many interactive opportunities probably has a way to cheat a bit. I tried to get from Staunton Island to Shoreside Vale without completing the missions. Well, the sea was blocked with barricades, lift bridge was too high for passing, and subway was blocked, and tunnel too. But I found a way: I took a boat, drove it to land, and started pushing it with a truck! (pushing it on foot is too slow) I drove and pushed it behind the barricades, and rode with the boat to Shoreside Vale! I collected the packages, and took another boat from airport and went back to Staunton Island. Now I haven't completed Staunton Island yet (in my new savegame), but I already have 91 packages.

LaterZ!
User avatar
autopilot
Travelling Scrap Heap
Posts: 2290
Joined: Mon May 20, 2002 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by autopilot »

"For example in C2 I can park behind a lamp post and an opponent crashes into it while trying to get me. "

lol that sounds like me! i do that lots, its hillarious, you can complete a level this way.. just let them all kill emselves!

Its also funny if youve got a car on your tail and youre both driving at a high speed, you just gotta weave through some trees or poles and you just hear a big explosion and see the red arrow on your minimap become gray and you just continue on laughing!
User avatar
autopilot
Travelling Scrap Heap
Posts: 2290
Joined: Mon May 20, 2002 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by autopilot »

my most favorite C2 momments are those "real" crashes you get into with opponents.. you know youre speeding through an intersection and a car just happens to be going by on the other road and .. ahh its so lovely! hehe. i just got in a beaut with slayers chevette.. i was driving adrs cuda with the junkyard skin.. speeding down a road, and his cars coming down another street that intercepts with the one im on.. i even hammered my breaks cause i wasnt expecting it and i totally t-boned it still.. hahah I LOVE IT!
User avatar
autopilot
Travelling Scrap Heap
Posts: 2290
Joined: Mon May 20, 2002 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by autopilot »

Oh i was wondering if anyone reading this thread had any luck extracting textures from certain tracks... I am never able to fully extract all the photos, like if i unpack the city textures, i only get all the files up to the letter C and it just stops.. the only track i can fully extract is the junkyard level.. some i cant even use the twt unpacker on.. like the airport level, it wont even extract for some reason.. very strange. I dont want to use the same textures though dont get me wrong, i want to use original ones as much as possible, but there are some things i want... for road/street textures I only like the ones on beaver city track and wanted to use those..

have you ever been able to extract everything C2S? maybe you can release a texture pack thing at your page with lots of useful textures that people can use.. if you are able to anyways. it would be cool to "steal" textures from other games too, sometimes on the net you can find some free textures as well.

and how on earth do you skin rounded street corners without making a curving street texture? I think somebody asked this before.. but I never caught any answer to that.. hopefully someone might know
User avatar
Chris
pedestrian
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Jun 02, 2002 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by Chris »

C2_Scientist has some thing in his tracktut an update under hints :smile:

User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

If you mean CarEd's pixies extractor, then I've had this extracting problem too. I suppose you're extracting the pixies from NewC.twt instead or Newcity2.TWT, because the Pixies of Newcity2.twt don't have nearly any textures. So extract from short-lettered TWTs. I wonder if there's any other pixies extractor proggie on the net?

Uploading texture packs isn't very possible for me: I have a 50MB limit on my site... it'd be filled very soon. And uploading them with 56k modem is slow. I guess that 1/3 or 1/4 of filesizes of games are textures, the rest are movies and sound files, and 3D models plus textfiles aren't very big.

If you want to skin street corners with straight texture, you need to make extra triangles to fit the corner. (And the street tiles aer separate triangles, like in Beaver City) Then, as Chris pointed out, use curved road mapping which is explained in my tut update in "1.2 - Tips & tricks" chapter.

Hey Chris, wasn't it you who asked for the curved road mapping? Did you like it?
User avatar
autopilot
Travelling Scrap Heap
Posts: 2290
Joined: Mon May 20, 2002 4:00 pm

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by autopilot »

is there some kinda trick to get car shadows working in the game? anytime i make some kinda track.. the shadows dont show up under the cars, does the track have to be preprocessed maybe?
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to c2 scientist :

don't worry i will answer all these new posts later. but today i can still say that adsl on portuguese schools it's a dream !! Here the maximum is rdis and ONLY ONE rdis account is distributed from more than 100 computers and more than one school and only one server, so each computer gets as slow as a 28k modem or worse !!! And not even floppys are accepted now, so imagine the DISTANT dream to be able to record cds on school !! That's another good dream, not even in the biggest city of my country, Lisbon that exists !!! So as you see, in your country the internet situation is WAY much better than here !! Just to have an idea, this topic sometimes here on school takes 2 or 3 minutes to display, and sometimes 5 minutes !!

Anyway, now the rest of the replys i don't know when i can reply them, i still don't know the next time i can go to internet. bye !!
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

Yeah, it loads slowly, if you don't change the "number of posts per page"-value.

(Less posts = divided into many pages, and one page doesn't have so much text)
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

please remenber that this reply is for all posts after my last post in 14 january.

to c2scientist :

Finally i managed to go to internet again, since 14 january ! As you see i am desesperate to find a job for finally for the first time of my life having adsl (well because i don't even have telephone at home i can only have netcable), specially in my home !! It's one of my greatest dreams ! But it seems yet a bit distant...

But now i have other kind of news, good ones !!

I finally finished several days ago the necessary macros to start researching !! Now that you have finished reserching i am continuing that, by exploring other things you didn't discover. And indeed the macros are speeding my work quite fast, i maded quickly a little test track without much efforts (much less efforts than the last time i tried to make a test track some years ago), thanks to the macros, i didn't even needed for external 3d modelling program ! I like to model using plaything2, you know, with some tricks it's possible.

I am sorry that i won't release the macros but it's very complicated to people understand all the limitations, anyway nobody would use those macros anyway, for more details read my new topic : "Major news about my pt2 mod"

The first thing i started to research is the limit of knocked down noncars, and i got very interesting results, even tough not conclusive ones. I maded a test track, in which the floor is a long board with the floor textured with many squares, and i maded two rows of different noncars all lined up. I maded one row of 45 &05lite.act noncars (the default post lamp of carma1 tracks) and another row of 45 &04ariel1.act noncars. I choosed those two noncars because they are extremely low poly and that may increase the limit of knocked down noncars. Then i maded two elevators (horizontal moving elevators) so they can knock down all noncars by going straigh ahead through the row of noncars in their base. They move the two at the same time and they knock down each row of noncars at the same time, sometimes i change the settings so that only one moves when i trigger them. And there is a giant wall of glass (indestructable) between each row to not allow the knocked down noncars of one row physically touch the others. Other note, i changed the setting of each noncar type so that their "bend angle before snappping" and "torque needed to move object" are both 0 and the mass is insignificant (0.001 tones), this way each noncar falls imediatly when something touches it. Before using the elevators, first i tried to knock down all noncars of the lamp posts row with my car (i used the eagle3), by going straight ahead knocking them down, and always accelerating (i keep pressing the forward key). The first 41 lamp posts knocked down well (with some slowdowns sometimes), but the 42nd is completly unmovable, is rock solid ! After that i go back and tried to move the noncars from the other row (the ariel noncars) and almost all of them were indestructible also (non-movable), but the limit number changes just a little bit (sometimes 40 or 43). Then i restarted the race, and do the opposite i first knocked down the ariel noncars and then the lamp posts, and the result is the same, only now that most indestructable noncars are the lamp posts !!! So this looks like a 41 knocked down noncar limit !!

Unfortunally i can't post any images here, the current site i have completly sucks and i can't find another free server (even if it has only 10 mb).

About the noncars, this is not all, now come the interesting results : i restarted the race again, and this like i SLOWLY knocked down each noncar of the lamp post row, by going in about 15-20 mph of velocity, and my big surprise : none of them become indestructable !! Then i started knocking down the noncars from the ariel row and the same happened, none of them became indestructable ! So there is my conclusions, finally i know what causes the problem of noncars sometimes randomly become indestructable or rock solid : we must avoid to push several noncars at once, and avoid specially slowdowns maded by that event, if a big number of noncars start pushing each others, that chain reaction can severly limit the number of knock down noncars and increase the number of rock solid noncars later ! So as you can see, this is completly impossible to fix, the only advise to this is that when you or somebody makes a track, avoid to put many noncars close to avoid the impulse to try to make chain reaction with the noncars. Well if the chain reaction is done slowly without making the game slowdown i think it's not a problem, the problem i when several noncars are pushed and the game makes some slowdowns, those slowdowns when pushing several noncars i think it's a signal that the knocked down noncars limit has decreased and the next noncars knocked down can randomly become indestructable, and that includes the ones already knocked down. Even with low poly noncars ! And also with some of them their bbox messes ups and they half-sink into the ground.

Later i will release this track, but i am preparing it to have more limit tests of other things, so when it's ready i post on my site and i tell here in this topic, so don't ask yet to me to send you this track.

But i managed to do another test. But first let me tell you something : this has only done with a NON PROPROCESSED track. Later i give results with a preprocessed track.

Remenber that limit of 340 noncars that Small Block said? That's not true ! Because, i managed to put 955 noncars in that track!!! The game didn't crash with 955 noncars ! (note : remenber that the track is NOT preprocessed) I can't garantee that they are knocked down correctly because i won't fix their position individually (hey, they are almost a thousand !), because i used a weird method of cloning noncars (i saved the row of 45 ariel noncars in a separate project and then used "import .sdf project", if you want more details on how to do this tell me), but there is not a limit of noncars, but there is a limit of MODEL SLOTS. When i put 956 noncars, the game crash (i then start in software mode and saw the error) with the error "Insufficient model slots in storage area". Of course, the model of the track itself i think it contributes for the count (but i haven't tested that), so if i have done this in a bigger track the limit of models would be much less, that's why Small block's game must crashed with only 340 noncars, maybe he tried that in a much detailed track than this ultra simple test track i maded. And note that the models of the opponent cars don't count in that limit. Anyway i need to do more testing because that limit of 955 models can depend of the memory of the computer also so i need more testing.

Another thing, that 340 limit may apply to the number of .act files in the track folder, i have to test that also.

And also, in the carma2_hw.exe file i also saw there another errors that are possible :

"Insufficient material slots in storage area"

"Insufficient shade table slots in storage area"

"Insufficient pixelmap slots in storage area"

"Ran out of funk/groove slot bunches"

I think i got that last one when i tried to put about 35 opponents in the game...

About that test one last note : i have to research more that limit in preprocessed track, because yesterday i remenbered that with a preprocessed track the polygon count increases so this limit may be much more limited in a preprocessed track. But i maded a quick test and it's not true. When the track was NOT preprocessed, it haved a lot of identical models in memory (a model slot for each equal noncar) but after i preprocessed the track, all the duplicate models were gone, but the 955 noncars are still there and i think they knocked down well... And for my big surprise the 955 model limit was gone ! I putted more two noncars (two copys of the current noncars on the track) and the game didn't crash ! So i guess that because of the preprocessing removing the duplicated models the limit now looks endless... well, now the track itself have gained more models because it was divised but that is much less than the 955 models... so this needs more testing when the track is preprocessed. In the next post i talk more about that test.

But anyways, still maded yet another test, finally i discover what makes those railings of the building of glass in the aiport level be bended when we smash the windows. And this happens in the original UNMODIFIED game, even without patches or cracks. And the most weird thing is that if we enter the action replay mode, and if we back rewind the railings look bended all the time even before we hit them and smashed the windows ! That is a proof that indeed this is a bug of carma2 but a very interesting and fun one ! Before continuing i must say this : in plaything2 i discovered that the area in which that effect happens is two square-triangles (which forms a rectangle) or polygons.

Finally i discovered that the cause of this effect is the particular material mapping shape of each one of the two specific triangles (polygons) in the building of glass (so now i understand why ONLY in those two places the railings get bended), and those two triangles represents a 4x4 grid of smashables windows in the game. I forgot to say that there is two different places on the building with 2 triangles each one that that effect happens, but it may exist more.

Btw, do you already tried to know how to change the shape in material mapping to define the number of smashable windows ? It's difficult isn't it ? But i guess that the secret of bending railings is about that.

After more testing i realized that i can do all the normal operations that are in the toolbox bar that appears when we press F5, and the effect(or bug) keep happening in the game. But there is three things that "fixed" the effect or bug : we can't use the button "RESET",manually move the vertices of the shape, or use the mode "spin". As soon as i do one of those three things the railings behave perfectly and normally just like it was supposed to be (except with the mode "spin", in that mode the windows don't even smash, they are indestructable). Weird, isn't it ? See it's that particular shape that mades the effect of bending railings. But i also selected the other two triangles from the other place where that effect also happens, and the shape looks a bit different even tough the bent effect also happens.

This bent railing is really weird, isn't it ? It's so weird that i can't yet know the exact cause of the effect, i just know that if we move one or all vertices manually or press the button RESET or "spin" the shape the effect is gone. So i discovered a way to me and you and other track makers use this on custom tracks to make also bending glass windows railings: i will make a prefab with this, this will be a importable model, just like a noncar (but it's not a noncar just a wall), but i must include the file "R25GL5.mat", at least if you plan to use the same textures and the same kind of windows of the airport level. In fact i already did that prefab and i imported it on another track and it works, even tough i have to preprocess the track. But when all the testing is done, i will release that prefab on my site, or give a direct link here on my replys. See my website for more details. But there is two problems if you or other people plan to use that prefab on a track : the track must be preprocessed to make this work, as it's normal with smashable windows. And, unless you know what you are doing, you can use other glass textures and change the textures names, but only do that if you have experience doing smashable windows ! The other problem is that you CAN'T manually touch at the vertices of the shape of the manual mapping if you want that bend effect to happen ! And don't press "RESET" in the toolbox bar and don't use the "spin" mode. You use any other button in that toolbox bar to avoid touching at the vertices, because this shape is prepared for only a 4x4 smashable windows grid, which means only a grid of 4 horizontal smashable windows and 4 vertical smashable windows. But you can use the "scale" mode (i recommend to use the arrows that scales the shape both horizontally and vertically at the same time, don't use the normal arrows like up, down, left and right). Those are the three limitations to use this effect.

Well i don't know if you c2 scientist is insterested in using this effect or not, but i like very much to share what i discover in c2 editing with you and other people that makes tracks, because this may increase the variety of stuff that the people can put in their tracks, that's why this topic is called "Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks" anyway.

So what you think of these testings ? Now i can do researching even faster than you because with the macros done, so many things are done with a press of 2 or 3 keys only !

Later, maybe in the next reply i will post here the list of all the things in c2 editing i will start researching, so if you want that i research anything for you, or other people want, just ask me, i need sugestions, even tough i have a reasonable list !

Now i will start to answer your replys :

Oh yes that idea of the gas station is very good, yes i understand what you mean ! It's that what i mean in the other post!

But tell me, are you sure that the ONLY cause of the textures having gray or black thumbnails in plaything2 is the transparency ?

I don't think you understood. The "!" symbols indeed PRODUCES water, but using also the special volume of the water in the track .txt file (look at the track .txt file of the newcity track). I think you may be making confusion with something. So if its not that symbol that makes water, then tell me how the hell do you make water ?

Oh oh oh ! You are talking just as me !! "I think I'll make new tracks for many years!" Many times i think that also, don't forget that it's in 1999-2000 that i started to get interest about c2 editing... and today that desire haven't decreased yet, i still dream about new tracks full with "new toys" to play with... (noncars) Even tough i got so bored with the original tracks of c2 (i played them thousands of times, in software mode some years ago!) that i don't play the game anymore, i prefer to wait for more tracks and do my own editing.

No, my saved replays are indeed in avi format but with a normal codec (i think it's called Indeo video 5.10, or something like that i can't remenber the exact name). But how the hell do i use the codec "divx" ? I already have download the bundle of the site of Divx and installed it but all my video recording programs doesn't recognize that codec at least to encode video (some programs even say that is a unknow codec). Tell me which programs exist to encode avi files to divx ? Another thing, almost all the replays i have have recorded are in software mode, because in the time i have played most carma2 and saved replays, i still haved a s3 virge dx 4mb card so in that time i got used to software mode... but not now, with a geforce 4 mx 440 !! So i have very few action replays recorded in direct 3d mode or 3dfx mode...

For me it's very difficult to make a opponent crash into a lamp post when i am behing it. I think i never managed to do that, but i haven't tried much times. But yes it's very fun !

Now one request : remenber your section in your tuturials named "1.2 Tips" ? Can you put there my name and my tips ? If yes, tell me in your next reply and in a later reply i will post here my tips, ok ? Anyway i have written a quick note in the bottom part of the "about plaything2" dialog box of my new version of the pt2 mod (build 1 lite version), its a recommendation to your tuturials in case people don't know how to work with plaything2... i know your tuturials aren't the best for true newbies but it's enough for c2 editing experts.

Hey c2 scientist ! But i don't understand... Errol, which is (or was) a c2 editing master, he has done a new pedestrian animation... he said it's impossible to save/load those .skl files into plaything2 because it's unfinished. But i don't understand, do you remenber those weird options in TOOLS-ARENA in the original plaything2 version ? Yesterday i tried to use them, and they exported a .skl file without crashing the program !! I really don't understand, do you realize that this is fantastic, just imagine if we use plaything2 to make new animations, more realistic animations for the pedestrians ! Just like the character studio in 3d studio max... this is a new idea to research also, i will try to discover to which point we can produce animation stuff for the pedestrians. One of the impossible things i think it's to associate a specific animation to a powerup like the original ones do... but maybe i can find a way.

Well finally that's all, for you c2 scientist ! Please tell me, i am not bothering you with such big replys or i do ? It's because i am so afraid of being boring...



now to autopilot :

I am also aware of the Cared's pixies extractor problem : it won't extract big textures, such as the map of the track and others. Unfortunally there isn't any other pixies extractor program, and i can't make a program to convert pix to tif, that's too much difficult for me !

But long time ago i downloaded from the errol's site all the prefabs packs, textures packs, tracks packs, and many other packs of templates he maded. I have everything on my hard drive. The textures packs of each track environment have about 2 mb each one and the junkyard one has 3 mb...

I agree with you it's very cool to "steal" texture from other games, anyway i don't think that it's really stealing, stealing is putting them in our work as claim in the credit that was us to made those textures, or sell that work, that's what i consider steal, not just copying textures from other to use on our work with full credit and never sell. Do you agree with me ?

Look, car shadows doesn't have NOTHING to do with c2 editing (well i am not 100% sure), it's just a setting in the game just like the viewing distance ! Have you tried to use the ingame menus to set the shadows ? Or typing "lapmylovepump" and then choose EDIT MODE by pressing F4 ? I guess there is also a option to make a the car shadow transparent or not, or to activate the shadow and deactivate it... To activate/deactivated the shadow under the car, just press the key 2 when in editing mode (by pressing F4 after typing "lapmylovepump") until the game says "shadow under all cars". And if you want a solid or transparent shadow i think there is also a key to toggle that but i can't remenber which is and i tried to discover it again but i couldn't find. Anyway i am sure there is a key to activate that. And if those options doesn't make the shadow appear, well, it's your graphic card that had problems with that. If you readed the readme.txt file that came with carmageddon2 it says some graphic cards had problems to render the shadows of the cars, even tough those cars are VERY old.

And don't worry you can also participate in my conversations with c2 scientist, if you have more doubts or any comments to do to our (me and c2 scientist) new discoverys you and everybody are free to participate. Because i would like that these new features would be osed by other c2 track makers such you and econobrick, savage-elve and others, the goal of this topic is just that.
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

Very good! So that's the problem, several objects moving at the same time... I'll keep your discovery in mind, even though I think I'm gonna use smashables the most.

Heh, I once made 20x noncar project too, and imported that many times to have 340 noncars in one track... well, it surely didn't crash, but the car went through the noncars, maybe because I had imported 20 at one time. By the way, since I had moved those 20 noncars in different places in the original project, I was able to have every 340 noncars in different places: I just had to select the model that had the 20 noncars, and move that, and every 20 moved! Then I just moved the other 20, and so on, until every pack of 20 noncars were in different places. (there were 17 packs, not too much moving) Anyway, that's not all, my car also went through the solid ground nearby coordinates 0,0,0! But now, after reading your 955-noncars test, I'm not sure whether to use noncar or smashables...

Aha, those railings. I just think I won't use them, the car might get stuck into them. Not permanently of course, you could reverse out of there. I'd prefer fully nonsolid texture after the crash. Stainless used "edges" as the collision type, meaning that the edges of the smashed textures had a "wireframe"-bound, simply located in the edges of the texture, as you can think of the keyword. I'd use "passthrough", fully nonsolid. Well, sure it's good that you told this railing solution anyway!

Transparency is one reason for gray thumbnails, missing texture file is another, at least.

I discussed with Savage-Elve about this too, and he told me too that it's the "!"-letter. So, does this create water areas under every nonsolid textures? (that have the "!") For example tree textures can be driven through if I put the "!" in the beginning, would there be water under those? I mean if the tree is a solid part of the track, because as a noncar I could just leave that texture area without any bounding shapes, but that's not possible with solids, since there are no custom bounding shapes for those, and the game will consider every texture collisionable! Unless I use the "!", which will then create water area, again.

I have a program called "RAD Video Tools". (www.radgametools.com) That recognizes the DivX compression option instead of Uncompressed, (at least for me it does) and can compress directly from MOV to AVI. (more precisely, DivX-compressed AVI)

Sure I can put your tips there, and create a third name there for you. Umm, could you collect the tips of yours which you want to add, from this topic? (and from our previous track topic, if there are any you would like to add) Then send em with E-Mail to me, since it's quite unnecessary to make these replies any longer by rewriting them again, don't you think?

Is it easy to create new animations? That could be interesting... but I doubt I'm able to do anything good with them...

No no, I like long replys, especially if they are about C2! Keep 'em coming. Unfortunately, if you like long replys, this reply of mine seems to be rather short...

Hey, one thing: have you noticed how the "twosided" texture option works? Sometimes it would be useful to make a texture twosided, (for example, in flat surfaces) but it doesn't work always. For instance, it didn't work with my traffic light noncar (you know those small covers above the light?), but it did work with my solid tree object! (part of the track geometry, even though I'll import it afterwards) Well, luckily it works with trees, since I'll use those so much... considering the polycounts, having to make extra triangles to both sides of the tree texture would slow down the game a bit... if twosided textures save polycounts anyway! I'm not sure.
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

I've been thinking about those cubes that help with the defining of opponent/drone paths... yours idea was to move a single cube around and copy the coordinates, right? Well, how about plotting many (very low-poly) cubes around the level, and leaving them there? (Of course they'd have invisible texture) You might wonder what's the point in this. Well, the points is, that if you have to move, rotate or scale the whole track after you have already defined the paths, you don't have to start moving that single around another time, because in my version the multiple cubes will move/rotate/rescale at the same time as the track! The only thing required is some kind of recognizing of the centre point of the object, AND identifying which objects include in these "node"-cubes. Meaning that PT2 shouldn't grab the coords of a tree or lamp post, for example. Well, I'm not sure how to achieve this, but I could give my suggestion: rename the cubes as OpponentNode0001, OpponentNode0002, and so on, or DroneNode0001, DroneNode0002, and so on. When the coord grabber is activated, it'd search for the OpponentNodeXXXX-objects, and grab their center coords, and write them all in some textfile, just like PT2 writes the bounding shape vertices from the ASC-files. Note: the cubes only need to be resized so small, that cars can't collide with them, but fortunately that doesn't change their center point coordinate too much. And if finding the center points isn't possible, any existing vertex should also do fine. Another benefit is that you can see the path when work with your track in PT2.

Hey, actually I've come up with another idea: since Pt2 already knows how to grab the coords from ASC when creating a bounding shape, maybe it'd be possible to make the path as a 3D model, and get the coords from that? But then the path should have only 1 vertex per node, and that's not a 3D model... 2 points would make a flat path, and 3 points would make a triangle-shaped "pipe". I don't think 1 point isn't possible, since then there can't be polygons, and Pt2 complains: "no faces in the model" while trying to create the physics textfile.

Do you have any thoughts about this?

Anyway, I found something useful, while I was trying solve the car-goes-through-the-smashables problem. (see your "major news about Pt2 mods"-topic) When renamed any object into, for example, "&Mailbox", the object changed it's appearance to look like a mailbox. You might think: "Umm, what!?" Simple, there was a mailbox model in track's directory, as a external ACT-file. In that ACT-file, there was a model called "&Mailbox". And when the track was loaded in the game, it searched through the track directory, and replaced track's &Mailbox with external ACT-file's &Mailbox. You know what this means? Exactly. You can redecorate old C1 tracks to have objects with updated appearance. Open a preprocessed C1 track, search through PT2's registry in the models-tab, take some model's name, open your own prefab and rename it, and save it into C1 track's directory. That object now will be replaced with your object. I immediately replaced some old stuff with my own prefabs, for instance trees, lamp posts, and parked cars. If a model's name in the registry is &02Lamp.DAT, you'll rename your object into &02Lamp.DAT, and save it into track's directory. Easy. Small Block said C2 will load ACT-files from the track's directory, I just wonder if he knew this too? Replacing stuff in TWT-packed C2 tracks is a bit more difficult for me, because I don't know how to include my own texture files into those Pixies-files. And I can't play them as extracted tracks, since I can't extract all the textures from pixies-files. But for C1-tracks, this is possible. This can also be used to update the objects in our own tracks at later time, after they are already inserted. Something like: "Nah, I'll put this in the track now, and make a better model at later time". But all those models have to renamed similarly. Useful, don't you think?
User avatar
cesm20
turbo bastard
Posts: 329
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2001 5:00 pm
Location: Portugal, Europe
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by cesm20 »

to c2scientist :

sorry about your last reply (in 31 january), i can't reply to it now, but in the next time i will

include it in the list of replys, ok ?

Hum... i hope you understood WELL everything i said in my new discoverings, if you have any

doubts just read all over again, because my "speech" may be confusing because it's so big...

Also don't forget to reply my post to your reply in the topic "Major news about my pt2 mod".

At the moment, finally i have been able to stabilize my "internet situation". Now i can go every

tuesday and thursday to internet at my school, but only one hour per day, if other students wish

to go to internet also, if no one appears i can be there more time. So now i decided to post

replys in tuesdays and collect your replys (yours and of other people in other topics i posted)

on floppys to read at home and write the replys to send next tuesday. That's why i can write so

long replys, understood ? And you, don't tell me you read my whole reply and then you reply just

by what you remenber of what you read ?

I don't know if that stuff of unmovable objects also applys on noncars spawned out of smashables,

but yes i recommend you to use mostly smashables, but please, at least the light posts, and trees

must be noncars, if not they would fall imediatly if they are touched and don't havind a "bend

angle before snapping" and that's horrible.

What the hell.... You have used the same method of cloning noncars that i used !!! It's almost

precisely that what i have used, but i maded in a different way : i maded a empty actor object

(which can simbolize a container) and i maded 45 equal noncars inside that container. Then, i

maded a backup of the track, and then i deleted EVERY objects of the track except the container

and the noncars inside it so i have saved as a new project with the container (empty actor) with

45 noncars. Then i reloaded the "backuped" track and now it's just "import .sdf file" with the

project with the container (twenty times) and like that i have about 20 containers with 45

noncars each ! And yes it happened the same thing, each noncar DO NOT save it's position if it's

"father" container is moved, but this is not a big problem because this is only a test to see if

the game accepts so many noncars, it doesn't matter if they are not correctly positioned. But

what happened exactly is when i touch the noncars inside the containers (these containers of

course never are visible) is that they "magically" disappear and reapper in the original

positions that they were in the very first container and those noncars act if they have been

knocked down in that original position, is this what happens to you ? Anyway if i preprocess the

track ALL the 955 noncars go back to the original position (just like when we touch them on game)

so each one of the original 45 noncars has about 20 clones inside of each one so if we hit one of

those noncars the game becomes very slow, but i won't try to fix that because that's just for

test the limit, so that test will not be included when i release my test track.

Look, let me give you my advise : DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE LIMIT OF NONCARS !! Specially because

with preprocessed track it doesn't seem to exist a model slot limit but i am not sure yet. Just

use noncars for objects that look cool being "bended" (with the property "bend angle before

snapping") like lamp posts (in day light), trees, traffic signals, traffic light posts, benches,

attached barriers (you know those cilindrical ones like in gta3), mail boxes, billboards (yes

even big billboards, and billboards with those lamps on the top at night also like in gta3),

doors, elevators. And for smashables use: parked cars, old looking light posts (you can make them

look breaked in half or make their light glass with cracks, these ones that look old it's more

realistic to fall as soon as we touch them, because with smashables is impossible to have "bend

angle before snapping", right ?)

Oh, finally i know your oppinion about the railings ! Unfortunately you didn't like much that

effect but it doesn't matter, you can do other things that i sugested, tough. Hum, indeed

sometimes the car becomes stuck in the railings, but that is realistic, considering that is a bug

of the game it's a miracle that the railings when bended they "behave" like if they have a exact

bounding box.

Hey, talking about railings and smashable windows, did anytime happened to you that after

crashing several windows they all become indestructable ? And also the fences ? That's very

annoying specially in the funfair level track, if i could fix that... because some parts of the

track become inacessible because of undestructable fences did that happen to you also ?

Well, i don't recommend using the "!" prefix on a texture of a wall or of a object... it's

absolutly not realistic. If you want to make water just make a hole in the ground as if it was to

fill with water like a pool, and then make a kind of a cap (or lid, or cover) at the level of the

surrounding ground of the hole (or at the level you want that the water stays) then just texture

that cap (or lid, or cover) with a material with the prefix "!" (i don't know if that texture

have to be twosided or now). On a track with a ice theme you could use that cap as a plate of

glass (to simulate iced waters) or make a smahable with it !!! (and to break like the glass of a

window) Hey that's a good idea for the ice theme tracks of the ice levels of carma1 and carma2

(in each carma there is one environment on ice, and maybe with lakes).

In recent replys, to lumberjack, in the other day i said to him that i would like that the

missions of carma2 would more offer challenge not with a time limit but with traps and with stuff

that could make our car be wasted more times, do you also think that could be an improvement to

the carma2 missions, specially the second mission and others to smash things ?

What ?! I also have the Rad video tools and for my big surprise when i saw the dialog box

prompting for wich codec to use, DIVX 5 was there !! But i can garantee, other video editing

programs have a dialog box just like that one but DIVX 5 wasn't recognized. But then i tried to

convert and a 6mb .mov file was reduced to a 500kb avi file !!! But there is a few problems, in

the converted .avi file the cars that showed in the .mov file are gone ! How is that possible ?

There is possible that a video have sub-layers, for example one for the cars, and other for the

scenery ?! Anyway later i will fiddle with that, i didn't use those radtools much anyway i don't

have a manual.

I don't think that it's a good idea to collect my tips from these two topics... that would be

thousands of tips... i will try to make a selection of the most usefull tips, and also other ones

that i have noted in a special .txt file. But the list is not yet ready, maybe in the next

tuesday i will email them to you.

About the pedestrian animations, at the moment i haven't tried to discover yet if those options

work (if they don't have bugs) because remenber that plaything2 wasn't finished and these options

may be buggy. When i have more news about that i say, don't worry ! Even tough you would not be

much interested in new pedestrian animations. But at the moment i am preparing the plaything lite

build 1 and i may include those pedestrians options also (even thogh they are present also in

build4).

What ?! You like long replys ? Then well, i garantee you must be the only one here thinking like

that !!! Unfortunately there isn't much people like you in that aspect. Hum... this time the size

of your reply isn't short i just consider that size like almost the minimum that i would like,

but it's good like this, but much less than this, it's not too good.

I haven't played much with that thing of the two sided texture, i must admit that when i tried to

put a wall of glass in the test track, it was the VERY FIRST time i tried to make a two sided

wall ! I must also confess that i never maded anything from scratch, anything brand new for

carma2, not a car, not a drone, not a track, only extracted some noncars and created prefabs of

those noncars. Hum i think that twosided textures really saves polycounts, so try to discover why

the small cover of the traffic post didn't work, i recommend you to even make a backup of it,

that would be the source of another tip for c2 editing ! Every problems you have, i recommend you

noting down how did you solved them, that's what i do also. It's with problem solving that we

master plaything2 and c2 edinting, so it's worth noting every problems and solutions, and that is

necessary because plaything2 is a complicated program.

Hey you already downloaded the new track "Bleakcity" from the CRASHOCALYPSE site ? It's amazing

isn't it ? Some time ago i also haved that idea but it seems someone (chevy) as done that so i

don't have that work, he joined the three districts of Bleak city into one huge track ! But there

is a few problems, i think something is wrong with that track. The track is ...

is... very empty! For the size it have it's so empty of objects... i know that the original ones

have few objects, but the author of the convertion could have used the errols templates because

that texture problem with the green car (noncar) still exists and those blue traffic signs ARE

NOT noncars like in the errol's templates, so i think i must also try to make that fusion of the

three districts of that city, in my way. Anyway i was also planning to do that with other tracks

from carma1, there are other tracks that were divised also, not only Bleak city... And those new

textures, i must confess i didn't like them. I prefer the old ones, i didn't even recognized that

city, because of the textures everything is so different, it cannot be only because there is

three tracks merged... And also i extracted some static structures from bleak city and created

new noncars from them, tell me you won't like to be able to detach and knock down those

billboards from Bleak city and push them on the road ? And those goal posts on the stadium ? I

also transformed them into noncars, and it's very cool! To do this i used that option to detach

faces from the track, that function is very useful to create new noncars from static objects in

tracks, anytime you haved that idea also ? Looks like you are not the only one which will have

lots of prefabs on a web site...

One last question : in which frequency do you play carma2? It's not very often, is it ? It's

because i am so afraid that you also get tired or bored of carma2 just like happened to

HellSpawn, and you are the only guy here REALLY interested in making tracks and advanced track

stuff here (it may exist other great trackmakers but if they don't talk here, i don't know who

they are, except savage elve or autopilot i think).

Hey, you won't believe what happened to me in Gta3... it's a terrible bug, but it's rare to

happen, yesterday it was the first time it happened ! I don't know if you already done the

missions by Ray in the second island, do you know whom i am talking about ? About the guy in the

bathroom that gives missions ? Well, and do you remenber the mission "Gone Fishing" ? It's that

mission that there is a man inside a boat and he uses grenades to kill fishes, remenber ? Well,

for the first time when i was playing yesterday it happened the most weird thing ! I barely

couldn't believe it was the easiest mission ever ! Well thanks to the bug, but in the other times

i passed this mission it was very hard for me but this time i haven't been able to do anything

but get close to him to trigger the cutscene where shows he throwing grenades to the sea to kill

fishes. Do you remenber that also, didn't you ? Well that bug happened inside that cutscene. Can

you believe that he killed himself by it's own grenade ?!?! One of the grenades that he was

throwing fell in his boat and he died even without finishing the cutscene ! And it showed

imediatly "mission passed" and i didn't have done nothing ! He killed himself exactly the same

way he was doing with the fishes ! Well, maybe you can't believe me, but it's true this is

unbelieveble this never happen before ! It's true that i didn't see the grenade falling in the

boat but as soon as i see the second explosion the game says "mission passed" even without the

cutscene being over, so i didn't even saw the dead fishes ! The game canceled the cutscene

because the target (the man) died before the cutscene has over ! Isn't this unbeliveble ?
User avatar
C2 Scientist
jaywalker
Posts: 2059
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2002 5:00 pm
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

Post by C2 Scientist »

Actually I reply just like you: paragraph by paragraph.

I as well think that shrapnels don't count, since they are temporary. (they exist for 2-4 seconds) But trees, no way I can make them noncars, there are too many, and they'd be too tough anyway. They aren't like common C2 trees, my trees are 3X high. But lamp posts I'll probably make as noncars, since according to your discovery, there can be lots of noncars in a track. (If they weren't too close to each other, to touch each other while moving)

Umm, you said you made an empty actor to be a container (with "make new object from existing model", and choosing "empty"?)... and then you said, when you hit it the sub-noncars move their places... how can you hit an empty container? That shouldn't have a physical model, or should it? If you mean that the container is a noncar itself, then I understand partially the moving. It's something like putting a trafficlight-object under lamp post's hierarchy, so that when the lamp post is tipped, the trafficlight moves as well following the lamp post's movements... but they shouldn't move somewhere else in the track. Or maybe I misunderstood this again!! In any case, I can tell you a funny bug: try to scale a noncar with mouse (for example to be taller), then hit it in the game. On my computer, the noncar started quickly changing between the scaled and original size, which looked funny, because it looked like to shake. Or maybe it was frightened...? :lol:

I made mailboxes (1 box and 4 box versions) as smashables, but an object with 16 mailboxes is still a noncar, because it should be strong.

Indeed those indestructable fences are annoying, and yes, especially in the Funfair level.

As I said to Autopilot: "Destructable stuff is fun IMO" I already have listed some trap ideas on a paper, as well as lots of other ideas.

Very odd problem (cars disappearing)... I would think that layers would save reduce some filesize, since the background scenery was used for many frames, and only small area of a car changed... I don't know if it really is like this.

Ok, E-Mail them...I guess I'm gonna have to plan for a new update then.

Well, I made a new version of the trafficlight with GMax (very quickly, still as good if not better quality!), with onesided covers, and now the twosided thing worked correctly. There was also a bug with the previous version: when I made the cover twosided by modeling the other side, some triangles were missing after preprocessing the track containing the trafficlight. But that's not a problem anymore, since I made a new version. And I do write notes almos every time I solve something.

I have the Bleak city, and I liked it, the combination is better than having three separate tracks. Interactive objects are a plus, so having tippable billboards and goal posts is good.

Well I play every second day, sometimes I fiddle physice of some car to more realistic, and go cruising around. Remember that I have a steering wheel. Do you like realistic physics on a car? And are you playing with the original gravity? (Mine is 2.5)

I remember that mission... but he just started driving around the big ship, so I stopped and shot his boat with a sniper rifle.
Post Reply

Check who’s online

Users browsing this forum: helomyname and 247 guests