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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

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footnote31
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by footnote31 »

Hello, I would like to make my own track for C2 using 3dsMax R2 and Bemax (which I have obtained from this website.) I read through some tutorials on the net, but I couldnt find anything good enough for my use of it. I never used the program before and I would like to know how to make a simple track in it (modelling and texturing) before I could move on, so I would like somebody who uses it for the same purpose to help me out.

Thanks
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by Harmalarm »

Well I am one of those persons. From your question I understand you want to know more about 3ds max modelling and texturing first, and later move on to getting it ready for carmageddon?

First of all you do not need bemax for track making. All you need is the ASE2ASC tool and plaything2 to do the final setup for peds and such.

there are tons of tutorials on simple 3d modelling within 3ds max. I am a Max 8 user most of the time, max R2 is a dinosaur, and I personally dislike the navigation in it.

there are some simple tutorials over here (max8 is the last supported version over at Autodesk) http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/it ... id=9861621. Most usefull right now would be the modelling and the materials and mapping tutorial.

I think these tutorials will give you a good head start and an idea of the program. Be sure to learn the navigation and terminology a little before diving into the modelling part.
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Indeed, 3ds MAX 2 is only needed for making new ped animations. You can use any MAX version you want as long as you export in ASE format then use ASE2ASC, as Harm said.
(ASE2ASC comes with a very exhaustive readme btw.)

Simply create your mesh(es) and texture them. Don't forget to name the materials! (Avoid spaces (prefer underscores), special characters, and too long names)
Your track need boundaries too (well that's better unless you're at sea or similar). Apply smoothing groups too. Another thing is that it's better to keep as much objects as possible (and not merge everything into a single big mesh). Cutting by smoothing groups is a good idea as well.

Don't go too far with your first track and start with simple tests to have a good look at the process. Have a good look at PT2, it's the most annoying piece of software ever, yet it's an absolute necessity for track making. Notice how you can configurate materials with it, and how it manages meshes and the respective actors (noncars, grooves, smashes, etc. ... stuff that you shoud check later).
What you absolutely need to read is the track making tutorial by C2Scientist.

You probably have an idea in your mind right now. Spend times drawing concepts, writing ideas, and developping gameplay etc. Everything that crosses your mind. Do as much work as you can before going on the comp'. Take your time understanding the process, it's a very old game now, stuff aren't stable anymore, and you'll most likely encounter many crashes during your tests. So it's better to face them before going for good at track making than when your first fully featured track is 95% complete and doesn't stop crashing for no reason (hope you see my point).

A last note about MAX: get at least MAX8, it will ease your life in comparison to using an older version (though MAX3 can be as productive if you get it to work).

Good luck and don't hesitate to come back for help.
(Ofcourse we can't help you learn modelling (other forums are made for that), we'll just support you on the C2 setup part.)
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footnote31
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by footnote31 »

I made a simple track in 3ds Max 8, just an oval road with some infield terrain. I exported it as ASE, converted to ASC with ASE2ASC, preprocessed it in Plaything 2(as I read in the tutorial). Then I found out it had no textfile, which i created from the empty one found with the tutorial. It wasn't supposed to have peds, drones or noncars, just the opponents, so I did those lines and checkpoints(mostly I copied from textfile of other working add-on track). After I installed it with mapstockalypse into the game, I went to try it, but game crashed during startup, with the Send error report message. Anyone knows what the problem may be?
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by Harmalarm »

heh, the problem can be an number of things. Carmageddon tends to sometimes display the error message, and sometimes not. Restarting and re-running the map will sometimes give the proper c2 error message.

Can you upload your txt file? I can have a look at it, see if I can find some errors in it.
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by footnote31 »

here it is


VERSION 1

-,-,-
-,-
-,-
0.15 , 0.8 // LIGHTING strength for shady / lit areas
-35 , 0 , 2.2 // Position of centre of start of grid
270 // Direction that grid faces in





1 // The number of CHECKPOINTS
// Checkpoint #1
20,10,5 // Timer increment for each skill level (ped mode)
1 // # quads for this checkpoint
80, -0.5, 7 // Point #0
80, 1.5, 7 // Point #1
78, 1.5, 9.7 // Point #2
78, -0.5, 9.7 // Point #3



0 // The number of SMASHABLE ENVIRONMENT SPECS





0 // The number of PED SPAWN MATERIALS





- // HORIZON STUFF
NONE // Name of sky texture pixelmap (or "none")
0 // Horizontal repetitions of sky texture
0 // Vertical size of sky texture (degrees)
0 // Position of horizon (pixels below top)
NONE // Depth cue mode ("none", "dark" or "fog")
0,0 // Degree of fog/darkness
0,0,0 // Depth cue colour (red, green, blue )
-





1 // The number of SPECIAL EFFECTS VOLUMES

DEFAULT water
0.25 // gravity multiplier
200 // viscosity multiplier
0 // Car damage per millisecond
0.002 // Pedestrian damage per millisecond
0 // camera effect index
1 // sky colour
none // Windscreen texture to use
5100 // Sound ID of entry noise
5100 // Sound ID of exit noise
2 // Engine noise index
10 // material index





0 // The number of sound generators
-
-
-
-





map.PIX // The filename of the MAP PICTURE
2.091 , 0.000 , 0.000 // World -> map transformation matrix
0.000 , 0.000 , 0.000
0.000 , 3.480 , 0.001
331.674 , 237.342 , -0.001





START OF FUNK
END OF FUNK





START OF GROOVE
END OF GROOVE





START OF OPPONENT PATHS

39 // total nodes
0,0,1 // node0
36.6,01,2.2 // node1
74,01,2 // node2
109,01,2.2 // node3
145,01,2.2 // node4
145,0,-38 // node5
109,0,-38 // node6
72,0,-38 // node7
36,0,-38 // node8
0,0,-38 // node9
-29,0,-38 // node10
-66,0,-38 // node11
-105,0,-38 // node12
-105,0,38 // node13
-66,0,38 // node14
-29,0,38 // node15
0,0,38 // node16
36,0,38 // node17
72,0,38 // node18
109,0,38 // node19
145,0,38 // node20
-66,01,2.2 // node21
//thru buildings
86,0,20 // node22
54,0,20 // node23
54,0,56 // node24
18,0,56 // node25
18,01,2.2 // node26
18,0,-55 // node27
72,0,-55 // node28
//ramps
109,0,35 // node29
40,6,35 // node30
40,6,-70 // node31
69,6,-70 // node32
69,6,-42 // node33
32,6,-42 // node34
//river
0,0,-74 // node35
-15,0,-74 // node36
-15,0,74 // node37
0,0,74 // node38

53 // total paths
0 1 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path0
1 2 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path1
2 3 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path2
3 4 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path3
4 5 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path4
5 6 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path5
6 3 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path6
7 6 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path7
8 7 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path8
9 8 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path9
10 11 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path10
11 12 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path11
12 13 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path12
13 14 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path13
14 15 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path14
15 16 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path15
16 17 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path16
17 18 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path17
18 19 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path18
19 20 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path19
20 4 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path20
2 7 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path21
8 1 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path22
0 9 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path23
10 15 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path24
14 21 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path25
16 9 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path26
1 17 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path27
18 2 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path28
3 19 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path29
11 21 0 255 0 25 2.0 0 // Path30
21 0 0 255 0 25 2.0 1 // Path31
//thru building
2 22 0 255 0 255 2.0 1 // Path32
22 23 0 255 0 255 4.0 1 // Path33
23 24 0 255 0 100 4.0 1 // Path34
24 25 0 255 0 100 4.0 1 // Path35
25 26 0 255 0 100 4.0 1 // Path36
26 27 0 255 0 100 4.0 1 // Path37
27 28 0 255 0 100 4.0 1 // Path38
28 7 0 255 0 100 4.0 1 // Path39
18 7 0 255 0 100 4.0 0 // Path40
//roof
3 29 0 255 0 100 2.0 1 // Path41
29 30 0 255 0 10 2.0 1 // Path42
30 31 0 255 0 10 2.0 1 // Path43
31 32 0 255 0 10 2.0 1 // Path44
32 33 0 255 0 70 2.0 1 // Path45
33 34 0 255 0 70 2.0 1 // Path46
34 12 0 255 0 255 2.0 1 // Path47
//escape river
35 9 0 255 0 255 3.0 0 // Path48
36 35 0 255 0 255 3.0 0 // Path49
37 36 0 255 0 255 3.0 0 // Path50
37 38 0 255 0 255 3.0 0 // Path51
38 16 0 255 0 255 3.0 0 // Path52

0 // Number of cop start points

END OF OPPONENT PATHS





START OF DRONE PATHS

2 // Version
0 // The number of path points

END OF DRONE PATHS





1 // The number of DRIVING SURFACE TYPES

// Default material
1 // car wall friction
1 // tyre road friction
1 // downforce
0 // bumpiness
0 // tyre sound index
0 // crash sound index
0 // scrape noise index
1 // sparkiness
1 // "room for expansion"
SKIDMARK.MAT // the filename of tire marks





0 // The number of NONCAR TYPES





3 // The number of TIRE DUST TYPES

61 , 84 , 33 // Red/Green/Blue values
0.25 , 0.50 , 0.75 // Quarter, half and three quarter "strength"

92 , 51 , 34 // Red/Green/Blue values
0.25 , 0.50 , 0.75 // Quarter, half and three quarter "strength"

227 , 209 , 143 // Red/Green/Blue values
0.25 , 0.50 , 0.75 // Quarter, half and three quarter "strength"





1 // Number of MULTIPLAYER START POINTS

4.5 , 0.5 , 9.3 // #1 , Start point coordinates
180 // , Starting angle





1 // Number of splash files
CASPLASH.PIX // Name of pixelmap files for splashes

1
TESTRACK.TXT // Track's filename (For example: Newcity2.txt)
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by Harmalarm »

hm, seems fine to me. You have a pretty advanced opponent path system allready. Have you tried a totally stripped map first. Also note, is the track called Testrack or Testtrack. (see the double t's?) At the bottomline of the txt file, the filename should be correct, the same as the txt filename itself, and the same as the reference name in the races.txt (the one you changed with mapstockalypse)

you also might wanna put back those standard lighting settings on top of the track's tst. Not sure these will work

just put something random like


VERSION 1

255,255,255 // RGB for main directional light-source
1.0 , 1.0 // Ambient/Diffuse light to be used when plaything ambient says 0
1.0 , 1.0 // Ambient/Diffuse light to be used when plaything ambient says 1
1.0 , 1.0 // Ambient/Diffuse light to be used when plaything ambient says anything else
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Messageless crashes are often ressources related. First cause is a texture in a bad format.

Could you rather zip and upload the track folder? This way we can directly get it ingame, tell you what was wrong and give you some feedback.

Nice to hear you went this far in the process on your own.
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by footnote31 »

Okay, here it is

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y7VHKQU4

Note: I did the process again, from exporting to ASE. I noticed some files were created during converting toasc(sql, act, dat and mat), but when I preprocessed the track in plaything 2, more files were created(all except sql), so I decided to use them and I deleted the earlier ones, including sql file. And I'm not sure about generating the map, I tried both ways(generating manually and during preprocess) and I wound up with two map files.
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Got it to work quite quickly. You had a duplicated entry in the lighting header:

Code: Select all

1.0 , 1.0    // Ambient/Diffuse light to be used when plaything ambient says anything else
0.15 , 0.8        // LIGHTING strength for shady / lit areas
These two lines are meant for the very same thing so delete the first one. The track should work now.

Considering your track has no boundaries, it's better to keep opponents away, else they will fall and make the game crash. No peds either. So the entry in RACES.TXT should set your test track as a checkpoint race like so:

Code: Select all

TEST TRACK
TESTRACK.TXT        // Text file name
NotDoneYet        // Name of interface element
0            // Number of opponents (-1 = use default)
0            // Number of explicit opponents
1            // Opponent nastiness level (-1 = use default)
-1            // Powerup exclusions
1            // Disable time awards
0            // Boundary race (mission)
3            // Race type (0 = Carma1, 1 = Cars, 2 = Peds, 3 = Checkpoints, 4 = Smash)
180,150,120        // Initial timer count for each skill level
3            // # laps
150000,100000,50000    // Race completed bonus for each skill level
// Race description
LOCATION: TEST TRACK @R LAPS: @L  @R CHECKPOINTS: 2
0                    // Expansion
BTW, ASE2ASC only generates an ASC an a MAT files out of the ASE one. When you import the ASC file into PT2 and save your project it will overwrite the MAT file if you keep the same filename, and create a DAT, ACT and SDF file. When you preprocess a track a big PIX file is generated (TESTRACK.PIX i.e.) which isn't used and you can delete. If you generate a map with PT2 it will also be a PIX file but you'll notice the "_map" at the end of its filename. Maps generated with PT2 aren't working with C2 anyway.

I noticed you compressed your tiff files with LZW. It works but it's better to keep the format uncompressed. Don't forget to name your materials in MAX as well (you can do it in PT2 too ofcourse but the sooner the better?!), right now it was "01 - Default" and "02 - Default". I also noticed you preprocessed your track with a very high matrix considering the original polycount. You see, as there's no geometrical detail in your test track at all you can even keep a 1x1 or 2x2 matrix. Else the preprocessing generates a fuckton of triangles.

Good luck with the rest! Don't hesitate to post your wips to get help/feedback.
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footnote31
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by footnote31 »

I made everything you said, and the track worked. However, as I would gradually try to apply new things to it, I would go through the process again, adding something new to track model in 3ds max. So I decided to erase previous files(except tiffrgb and PIX16 folders) and I added new box to track model. Everything went fine until preprocessing in pt2, where it said "error loading models!" and then send error report message and closed itself. What is now the problem?
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Track making in C2 using 3ds Max R2

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Double-check the preprocessing entries (paths etc.)? Seems like there's a problem with the DAT file.
Else just re-up the track folder and I'll come back to you with the fix.
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