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A track..

All things Carmageddon TDR2000 related - hey, it's got multiplayer.
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Tony
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A track..

Post by Tony »

Correct me if I'm wrong. I just remembered something I read long ago, about a new track for the game I think. Did someone make one or try to make one? I think I also remember a screenshot..
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Mad Max RW
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Re: A track..

Post by Mad Max RW »

Beroc at LOD was working on one, but it was probably never finished seeing how it's impossible to make entirely new working tracks without TDR's source code or something along those lines.
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DeathChamberNo9
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Re: A track..

Post by DeathChamberNo9 »

What about the ones that came out with the add-on cars from carmageddon.com?

i don't remember what any of them were... Was one of them hell or something?

No not the one from the Splat Pack
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Re: A track..

Post by -[ Raven-X ]- »

those are all in the nose bleed pack
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Hellspawn73
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Re: A track..

Post by Hellspawn73 »

so when are we gonna get people interested enough into cracking the code for the tracks? i have to admitt i have finally seen the light of TDR after I went through CAD's tweaking guide...its amazing that they actually released TDR as such a crappy pos and such simple tweaking using the -s switch could create a completely different game on my system...I actually like TDR know...accept for the simple fact that the game lacks ground speed wich C2 successfully has....CAD said sumthin about its in the code of the tracks that this could be corrected..sumthin about a refreshrate or sumthin that should have been caught in the beta testin...don't ask me...i'm not a progy guy...i jus like to tinker with models.

supposedly if new tracks were created and added for TDR this problem would be alieviated...and think of this for all you C2'ers out there seeing C2 tracks with all the lighting affects of TDR and nuke power ups....me likes the idea
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CADster
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Re: A track..

Post by CADster »

i was talking about the tile rate of the texture.

the distance you travel is matching the rate that the texture repeats ... so it cancels itself out.... it can be fixed by changing the rate the texture tiles, or by changing the whole FOV thing in the engine. Im not a coder either, so if im wrong on the FOV .... im not a coder !!!

i just wish we could work together long enough to get this track problem solved in TDR. if new tracks could be made TDR would introduce a new world to the community.

looking at the features of TDR on paper is very impressive. I know TDR does not 'crash' like C2. but it can be tweaked to be pretty close.

I personally dont think TDR got the respect it deserved. It was way ahead of its time.
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The_Devils_Avocado
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Re: A track..

Post by The_Devils_Avocado »

exactly.
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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

Sigh..... You know, I worked on this problem for the longest, but no one really wanted to help with it.... I know most of the code, and probably could put more together now, but no one was willing to help with it at all.....
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Re: A track..

Post by Hellspawn73 »

............ :crazy:...........well spill out the details then...what was it that you needed? where did ya get to at least before it got hung up?....I know this was prior to when we started doin BeMax and I don't know if any of the coding in that has helped ya look at things differently now. Refresh our memories...I know ya got to the actual mesh of viewing police state..i remember seeing that at our site at one point in a post. If ya give us details we might be abel to see who in the community might be best to help us like Noodlz, D.A., or Boose(whenever he's not in a alcohol coma). And jus out of curiosity the way we you are converting c2 cars with the scripts in max are those same scripts viable for doin full tracks? because then we could have some test material ready to go.
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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

OK... Let's see if I can remember.....

Basically, Tracks and cars, like c2 use the same geometric coding.... with one difference.. Tracks use a Static Collision mesh (scol) and cars use a Dynamic Collision mesh (dcol). So, you could set up a car, that really was a track, export the whole thing with no special crap, and it theoretically should work.... BUT..... The Scol and Dcol are not the same file..... Both have geometric data for collision, though, of course alot more for tracks. Plus more information. Now.... it basically spells out like this...

(Counter data) 6 integers, I think Spells out number of vertices, with some extra data which is unknown

(Vert Data) Rather easily read x,y,z vert data....

(Counter data) 6 integers which is a counter for the number of faces

(Face data) Icludes true polygonal facing data, plus like 10 extra numbers per face, which are unkown.

(Xtra Face Data) another complete set of data which is face count about 12 more numbers which are unkown......

I could probably make some max importers for the scol, it isnt a hard data format, but the mystery of the numbers still is quite ellusive.

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Beroc-Lord of Destruction
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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

OK... a couple of things.....

you have to have numbers for traction.... if they arent covered by scripts....

i know the numbers for poly type as described in the .h file

there has to be numbers for car shading, as observed in the military zone... the car gets lighter or darker in areas of the maps

there may be numbers for face normals and overall traction surfaces... places on the maps where you just slide...... (i hate those areas)

there have to be numbers for smoke color and particle color

maybe smoke amount and particle amount.....
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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

and of course, if anyone is interested... here is the core code from one of my original scol readers.....

Open f For Binary As #1

Get #1, , it

vnum = it

Get #1, , it

For i = 0 To vnum - 1

Get #1, , vert(i).x

Get #1, , vert(i).y

Get #1, , vert(i).z

Next i

Get 1, , it

pnum = it

kount = 0

Get #1, , it

Get #1, , sg

Get #1, , sg

For i = 0 To pnum - 1

Get #1, , sg

Get #1, , sg

Get #1, , sg

Get #1, , sg

Get #1, , sg

Get #1, , sg

Get #1, , poly(i).t

Get #1, , poly(i).h

If poly(i).t > kount Then kount = poly(i).t

Get #1, , poly(i).p

Get #1, , it

For j = 0 To poly(i).p - 1

Get #1, , poly(i).v(j)

Get #1, , it

Next j

Next i

For i = 0 To pnum - 1

x = 0

For j = 0 To p(i).polys - 1

x = x + v(p(i).polynum(j)).x

Next j

p(i).center.x = x / p(i).polys

x = 0

For j = 0 To p(i).polys - 1

x = x + v(p(i).polynum(j)).y

Next j

p(i).center.y = x / p(i).polys

x = 0

For j = 0 To p(i).polys - 1

x = x + v(p(i).polynum(j)).y

Next j

p(i).center.y = x / p(i).polys

Next i

Close #1

note the it is short for integer and sg is short for single.... (int 2 bytes of data, single 4 bytes(long in c, and float in max)



Heh... realized that the code was incomplete... the last part was from another converter....
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CADster
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Re: A track..

Post by CADster »

surfaces (like the ones that let you slide) are cool. in a new track with this surface could be applied to all the buildings ... so you will no longer be able to pull a spiderman in your car.

one set of numbers could be vert color, another could be smoothing groups.



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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

Originally posted by CADster:

one set of numbers could be vert color, another could be smoothing groups.


Not in the Scol.... Vertcolors are in the mshs files... and TDR hasn't displayed the use of smoothing groups yet... so it is doubtful they would be incorporated into a collision mesh.

OK... here is some more info, from an actual scol2asc converter I made at one point.... asside from giving me the asc file for use in max and such, I had it make a breakdown of everything it pulled from the file.... this is an excpert from polygon 0, 1 and 2.... and the poly header block.... any number without a decimal point is probably a integer, and only used 2 bytes of information, any with is a single/float/long that uses 4 bytes....

Number of Faces: 4710

0 14130 0 9419 0

Poly 0: -5.757067 -159.7148 -385.8487 3.742579 1.318947 2.013184

0 3

vertices : 3 0

171 0

178 0

176 0

Poly 1: 1.734951 -159.7148 -385.8483 3.749438 1.318947 2.013504

0 3

vertices : 3 0

176 0

180 0

174 0

Poly 2: 1.735573 -159.7148 -385.8483 3.75006 1.318947 2.013504

0 2

vertices : 3 0

174 0

173 0

176 0

Here are the corresponding Unit info for each polygon, located at the back of the file....

Unit: 0

-2.011951

-107.9598

-244.5872

72.97826

54.84785

1100.576

7610 0

4711 0

Unit: 1

-2.011951

-107.9598

-794.8263

72.97826

54.84785

550.337

5653 0

4712 0

Unit: 2

-1.833588

-107.9598

-1038.718

72.7999

54.84785

306.4454

5221 0

4713 0

These are from the bulldogs map.... the number which apears directly above "vertices" in the polys section denotes poly surface type... in the case of this map, it says all poly surface types of 0 are ROAD1 as described in the .h file with it....

#define ROAD1 0

Any thoughts?
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Re: A track..

Post by Dark Angel »

Any thoughts?

your asking the wrong board :tongue:
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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

OK... here is the next portion for you Max guys out there who are willing to at least help with this.... A max script written for Max r3.1. This zip file contains a script that imports the scol from tdr. (most tracks have them seperate from the meshes... if not, look for them in the pak file) Edit the mesh and select a polygon, the press the button, and it gives all the information from the scol about each polygon.

F are Floats or Long information numbers that are simply decimal placed stuff.... I are Integer Words, or numbers with no decimal point. basically a number between 0 and 65535.

Again you can get this HERE.

Thanks guys
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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

OK.... I figured out almost all the first section of what was there....

The first three floats are center position(add all the vert locations together then divide by the number of verts added)

The second three floats are hieght width and depth notations(find min and max of the verts of the polygons then subtract the min from the max)

The first integer is a surface type, as described by the .h file which accompanies it.

the second integer is a revolving/randomized number which follows no suit. it may be used to keep memory down, but I dont see how.

the third ingeger is the number of vertices listed...

the forth is always 0, then followed by the vert list for the faces.

The other stuff is still a mystery, but I am taking notes on what that info leads with each new track I look at.

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Re: A track..

Post by keroltarr »

Hello Beroc, All,

I just joined CWA so I could jump in on this thread. :smile:

I for one would love to use my newly found 3dsmax powers to spread chaos throughout the universe...

a whole world at a time rather than just a car at a time :wink:

I was just wondering where the breakable building glass would be in the scol, or would it be there at all? it seems kind of "dynamic". I just thought I'd bring that up just in case you had forgot about it.

I'm a modeler and I'd love to learn MaxScript so iffen yall need my help just holler. :smile:

later,

Keroltarr

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Re: A track..

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

Very cool... yeah, at some point I will need some help... there is alot of script that has to be setup for exporters and stuff like that... and getting in on the ground floor of the exporter is probably the best way to do it.... as of the moment, I checked over the main scols for a couple of maps and didnt find the smashable textures in there at all.... possibly though, they may be in the scol for an individual race or so.... however I havent found any of that yet.... but you could look as for the moment the scol is the most important thing to get started working...

As for that, here is my plan....

I made a map, 400x400 units... two faces, at world center, made a TRACK_NULL dummy as a starting point and exported the polys after they were mapped.... it contains just a standard asphalt map... so it is very simple.... Next... I will start with the scol using the pieces I know about first, the vert data, center and sizing info for each poly, and then the face data.... The next plan after that is to take existing mesh data from Police state and apply it to the new scol.... shouldn't be too big of a deal... the last thing, is to put some start points for a multiplayer map, and fix all the scripts for it so that the game can read it.... Seems much easier at this point... most of that work is done, just the scol isnt finished..... I will restart that on Monday or so and do some prelim tests. With any good luck, we will see a flat test map here so you guys can see what I am doing...
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Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by keroltarr »

Beroc,

I cant figure out how to use yer script :confused:

I would email you directly but I figured others might want detailed instructions too

later

Keroltarr

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Re: Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

um... it probably will first come up and give you an error, but a window with the script will pop up, in that window, goto file/evaluate, and it should run just fine... however if you are refering to where the files go... there is a dlx file... binaryfile.dlx, that goes into the plugins directory, you can put the html doc there too as it goes to that. the script or ms doc should go into your scripts folder then you will probably get that error... I just didnt take the time to figure out what it was coming from, I am sure it is something simple, if not stupid....

There ya go....
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Re: Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

OK... that was a flop... but I did find out what was the problem with that script, and reuped it, so you guys can get it again.

I am still pretty much baffeled by why the second set of numbers is needed for the scol, but I am sure it will present itself at some point.... Keep on truckin guys....
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Re: Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by C2 Scientist »

Is this all for making a new track for TDR? What's with all those Static collisions and dynamic collision-files? Doesn't the game automatically recognize the collisions of the geometry of the track?

...

Forgive me, now I don't have a clue about this...!
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Re: Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

No, the game is givin a collision mesh, and doesnt use a high poly collision mesh... it makes the game faster... That is actually one of TDR's faults IMO.... Cos the way the tracks are setup, they gave a second mesh for collision instead of using the display mesh... so you can have hidden areas or stuff like that...

The dcol is what limits TDR's damage capabilities..... but speeds up the game allowing for better graphics, and more detail in the track... one of C2's faults IMO....
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Re: Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by Kruszchev »

hmm, 2 faults on diffirent games. they are based to work the same way, but the problems (the 2 problems beroc mentioned) they booth have is diffirent, and if the games would booth get rid of the problems they would be better... computer world is strange (noting one person shuld try to understand)

I know the reply dosnt so mutch sense... its just well... forgettit
"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."
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Re: Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by C2 Scientist »

Are you speaking of track's Dcols, when you said that it limits TDR's damage capabilities? Car-to-car collisions are different from car-to-track collisions... wait, dynamic collision means moving stuff like cars, and static collision means the track?

Nevermind, carry on where you were before my interrupt...!

BTW, this collision mesh is kinda clever if you think that road and grass field next to each other can be replaced with one huge plane if they all are positioned correctly... that's what came first to my mind.

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Re: Beroc's SCOL Max Script

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

kinda... but the scol of a track also discribes what surface type certain placements are.... So a road requires a road surface so that the game knows what to do when the car is over it....
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Figurin' out the SCOLs

Post by keroltarr »

Beroc, All,

Ok, first of all, that script is cool. I got it workin' and looked at a few maps. That was only slightly satisfying though. I want to be a little help with getting this whole thing figured out. Just some brainstorms:

Have you tried replacing the unknown data with dummy datta? all zeros or large numbers. Perhaps just modify 1 set of numbers at a time. Then load it in the game and see if it works and what kind of changes take place. If nothing changes, maybe it's unused reserved space for future enchancements to the game. I know there are a lot of things with TDR's cars that are "unused" or "not yet implemented"

You know how when you are driving a small car with hard suspension accross the grass surface you can visibly see your car seem to go over bumps and stuff. Theese bumps are too small to be actual polygons of the scol, maybe they are generated from some of these ambiguous numbers attatched to the polygons.

:smile: just some idears,

Keroltarr

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Re: Figurin' out the SCOLs

Post by IR2H-Core »

I'd Love Ta help Ya Guys with all this, I really would like 2 see some new Tracks, yet I didn't buy my Copy of 'Programming For Dummies' so I can't do it, but I Jus wanna say Good Luck, an Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: Figurin' out the SCOLs

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

Hmm..... good point.... I will try that thursday or so...

bump and particles are controled by script....

rip apart the script I sent you, if you want to try to learn how to program it... it wasnt hard, and is kinda straight forward....

Icore-

if you want to learn how to program... scripting is one of the easiest ways to learn.... Max has a reference built in for it....
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Re: Figurin' out the SCOLs

Post by Beroc-Lord of Destruction »

Image

Scol doer Import/Viewer

OK guys... here it is, in almost all of it's entirety...

The scol file uses something called Bounding Box Trees, more specifically and AABB tree... Here is exactly what it is...

Start with a root Bound, which encompases the entire map, it has a placement, a size and two children. If you look at Unit 0 above, it has 6 Long format numbers, the first three are location, the second are half the size of the overall bound.

That being said, lets pay attention to the children. Each bounding box in the tree has two children, The bounds for each Polygon have no children, they are considered leaves of the tree, or the farthest extent. The main bound points to two sub bounds which take up aproximately half the map each. Each of those bounds has two children, then two more on top of those 4 and so on and so on... Each bound of course takes up the entire space of all of it's children.so if you are in teh left side of themap, it locates your car on the left side, then goes through each of the children till it finds what you are close to... then, it only has to check what you are close too, not everything in the map. This makes the entire collision run alot faster.

Now, save a few little numbers which should make some sense with all this.... then we can start looking at a way to make this stuff using script in max.
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Re: Figurin' out the SCOLs

Post by CADster »

That is so friggin Cool... Beroc, You are the greatest.... LOL
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Re: Figurin' out the SCOLs

Post by Hellspawn73 »

Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image

....you never cease to amaze me bro...I think you are one of the few things keepin this community alive

Cheers!! you deserve it!
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Re: Figurin' out the SCOLs

Post by The_Devils_Avocado »

A-Men to that. Beroc mate, you are the best.
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