Advanced Carma2 track editing tips & tricks

[C2 Scientist]

When objects start flying around near an explosion, the force area has reached them.

I'm sure they have to make some kind of plans where to build everything, where to make the roads and parks... I don't believe they work without any drawn papers? It's a collection of roads, the names of the roads, building outlines, even roof angles, etc etc.

I can make rotated smashables at least... I'll see if I face any problems later. But I make models from stratch, that is, import them, not detach faces or anything...

Yes, I read the lines and realized you listed all 5 or so options... I though you gave just some examples, but yeah there was no animation file option, ok.

Aha, they won't step on those materials... I saw those once, but I didn't understand it. Well figured!

I don't car much of the cube-looking stuff or blurry textures, if they are far enough... you don't really notice much difference if it's rendered far away... well, some changing, but that's not disturbing for me. And... I'd also prefer cube-looking stuff to short viewing distances: it's just so beautiful to see the landscape far away. Fogging would be cool too, if there's an option to switch between clear day and foggy day... my new computer just doesn't seem to support fogging (Direct3D mode), if recall correctly.

"Quick map track" isn't map generating BTW, it's mapping the surfaces with textures, it doesn't ask for any options. I make the map with Top-view. I recently made the missing map for Death Street Alpha.

Yup, sometimes faces are selected without us noticing it anyhow, except for if we rotate which you mentioned... hey, sometimes toggling Wireframe view suddenly shows the green highlight, try yourself, ok?

Well, even with your mods, PT2 sometimes keeps crashing: for example sometimes when I open another project after working with one, causes a crash... not if I only have viewed and done nothing to it, but if I change something and then load another project, it crashes...

Hey, you could get some Max-sounds from C1, and use them... I've been thinking if we can put multiple sounds when smashable is destroyed, with "2 // Number of possible sounds" or something, but when I tested it, turned out that it just uses one of the sounds, not all defined sounds. The reason is that multiple sounds when a big house is destroyed, for example, would have been cool. (Explosions, wood crack sounds, and maybe that Max laughing?!) You know we can 'put speech' for cars, do you? It's how you define window breaking in cars... just change the sound, and you'll hear "ouch" sounds or something instead of window crash. ----- The chat is interesting... I also wondered why couldn't I drive out of the silo, since the description said: "Launch the nuke and get the hell out!". Well, a cutscene drove out...! What I once thought, was to make the intro road in C2... you know they come from the city, and then race on... that could lead to the Silo too. But, I have other plans for track making first, so you can have the honor of making it ... Anyway, the "Drive out of the silo" sure is possible, if you edit some mission goal stuff... put some smashable outside the silo to be the last target. And how to get out of the silo is easy, just make the "The End"-button cause a force area to destroy some door leading to the alternate exit... or to destroy that fence in the beginning? Hm, I'm bit disappointed of the apocalypse thing again... of course it does have it's interesting sides... but I do prefer tracks which aren't ruins or wasteland... but I don't mind if there's one or two wasteland tracks. As long the most tracks are 'normal'. Heh, time machine, I have thought about ancient track too! The race would begin from a timeship, no? Hehe, some day, maybe...

[Small Block]

Looks like you were right...I forgot the 0-to-x numbering convention. They keep numbering things w/ 1-to-x in the settings files, that's why. Now the new indexes work!

The smashables work, too! Thanks a lot, that's wonderful, as I've been blocked by that for a long time. Now, I do have some weird reactions, like for some reason, only 4 pumps condescend to blow up, a 5th one only moves and the rest just behave like concrete. All are renamed like you said, so I don't get it.....

Note that in Beaver City and the Beaver Woods, all pumps are named like this: &pet750.ACT, &pet751.ACT, etc. I wonder how they even work...I tried it and the smashables didn't work....but they do on the original tracks....

I know about the "empty" spaces...I think it actually looks coherent w/ the general layout of the whole city.....some areas are more tightly laid out.....one thing that always annoyed me w/ the original C2 tracks was precisely the cramping up. Beaver City is great, but SO small. Most cities are laid out w/ more air...at least in the U.S, but I don't think anyone would mistake Bleak City for a Euopean layout.

The exclusion/exception materials, now that's sth useful. I fiddled w/ them a while ago, but gave up w/o figuring out the whole format. Good.

As for the simple models, have you noticed that you can set the distance at which the game uses them for each car?

1 // Number of extra levels of detail

12 // min_dist_squared

The second line will command the distance......simple models are GOOD for your framerate.

[C2 Scientist]

Oh, Cesm, check out my "Mission out of the window?"-topic... useful or not, depending if you knew it or not...

And the force area can be said more easily... it's "Splash damage", I think that term more often used. The only difference is, that you can put the "Splash damage" where ever you want in the world.

[Small Block]

Just a quick post to tell you guys I've found an added benefit to my way of doing the bboxes: it's apparently simpler for the game to interpret! I've been rearranging most of the cars and I noticed an increase in animation smoothness/framerate.

It's not much, but it makes a visible difference.

If you have an old comp like me, it's a great trick!

[cesm20]

to c2 scientist :

Hum... yes i can try also models from scratch to see if they also make pt2 crash if we rotate them and being named with the prefix "&".

Well, then figure out the remaining of that stuff of the pedestrian materials, and flags, and then update your plaything2 tuturial.

Excuse me, but in Gta3 the textures of the building they became blurry not too far, i could perfectly see the blurry textures, and then when we get close they change to the higher definition. But well, everyone has it's own opinion, i will not discuss your opinion, also because that feature of gta3 tracks isn't possible in carma2 tracks.

Well i know that it's beautiful to see the landscape far away, i also like that i carma2, but because carma2 doesn't have that setting of blurry textures or simple models, the game becomes too slow, even with a geforce 4 (mx). Hey, btw, which graphics card and cpu do you have ? Which view distance value is good with you ?

Yes, it's true that in Direct 3d mode the fog isn't implemented, you can read that in several posts in cwa, at least some time ago, not the recent posts. BUT i can garantee that once i have readed a post here on cwa board (or a reply) in which somebody got fog in Direct 3d mode, i think it was with a geforce card, so that must depends on the graphics card being too recent or without some old features in it's drivers i think.

Hey, i think i never asked to you, but, if you have the patched version of carmageddon2 can you tell me the number of the version of your patch ? You can read it in the lower right corner of the screen, when you are at the main menu of the game (where you select the tracks and other stuff).

Nope, when a face is highlighted and we look at the other side, togling wireframe mode doesn't make the highlight appear... you must be confused in something. Can you tell me in which precise situation that worked ? Anyway there is a key to toggle the display the highligh of selected faces, but only when we are seeing the normal highligh : by pressing the key "h" and i think that this is implemented also in the original version of plaything2 by stainless, did you know of this feature ? This is useful to see the faces without the highligh and without deselecting them !!

Hey, about that method of making the petpumps smahable, most certainly you also read the reply that i do to small block... have you read that problem of 4 or 5 petpumps be smashed at the same time just by smashing one ? Do you know what causes this in smashables ?

Well, those crashes of when more than one project is loaded, those are completly impossible to remove just by a hacking program, but tell me, some of the original crashes are now more easily avoided, did you remenber the tab "DATA" and the buttons named "add", "add multiple" and "remove" that in the original release of pt2 by stainless where enabled even if there isn't any data currently applyed and that just by cliking them without the a data associated pt2 would crash ? Well you must have already noticed that now they are disabled until we associate a data with the object. Also now we (the users of my pt2 build) know that the crash that occoured when we tried to rotate objects in a 2d viewport was because that setting in the preferences dialog box (tab "interface" and "rotation method").Well, in fact this is the only two crashes that are easier to avoid noid, i think. Anyway the main goal of my mod is NOT REMOVE crashes, but to insert reminders to avoid them, so i don't understand why some people say that with my mod some crashes are gone.

Yes, i know that i could use the sounds of Frank from carma1 but... if that sound in the end of the final cutscene of carma2 is really the voice of max damage, then i guess that the sounds of Frank from carma1 would not be apropriate to a character like Max Damage in those two cutscenes, because that doesn't look like a normal man, it looks like a VERY psychopath man, mostly because the colour of it's skin and the look of his eyes he almost seems a demon or the devil itself! So i guess that a normal man voice like the one of Frank isn't apropriate. Well, forget abou this, wait until i do something and then i tell you more news about this, ok ? No, wait a minute... i said that sound of the end of the cutscene that i think it's the voice of max damage was very similiar from a portuguese voice of a cartoon here in portugal... well in the next reply (in next friday) i will post here a .mp3 sample file (i think that now we can attach files to a post, right ?) which i am sure it is very similiar of that growl of max damage, and then you tell me if it's a apropriate voice, even tough the voice will speak in portuguese, later with a few manipulation of syllables i can make it speak english. All of this, assuming that the "growl" in the end of the carma2 final cutscene is really the voice of max damage. Finally we will see the true spirit of carma2, and not a Max Damage which is always hidden inside the eagle and never shows up in the entire game unless in the cutscenes. You will see that this will be cool, to hear max damage laughing which scenes of total destruction, this will be the substitute of the old pratcam.

Hum... yes it's a good idea to associate the voice of the driver of a car when some parts of a car are smashed, that was my first idea when i first played TDR2000 i imediatly imagined that would be possible in carma2 also. But we can't rip those sounds of TDR200 and use them in carma2 cars... or could we ? If it's just for entertainment pruposes and not to sell anything i think it's not illegal...

About what you said : "What I once thought, was to make the intro road in C2... you know they come from the city, and then race on... that could lead to the Silo too" yes it's that what i think too, good, i see you are also interested in making these kind of projects, thank you so much for at least liking this also !! I always feel so alone in this kind of projects, with everybody only thinking in races and making laps or about using or making sports cars...

Well, about my project of improving the last mission, i take note of your suggestions, but i won't reveal anything more. I think it's better to be a surprise when later i would release it to the public, than revealing everything now, don't you think ? But before i can still say this, specially about what you said : "but I do prefer tracks which aren't ruins or wasteland... but I don't mind if there's one or two wasteland tracks" don't worry the track would be normal before the explosion and then when we would race out of the silo we could see the city being desintegrated (NOT in a cutscene !! It's in realtime !!!) by making the buildings as smashables, but that's all i will say by now, i don't want to give illusions because i don't know if i can do that in a track but i think it's possible the only problem is my big lazyness.

Oh, btw do you know the anime cartoon named Dragon Ball Z ? That anime has a lot of destruction and even lots of nuclear explosions and many kind of total destruction explosions (and many earthquakes also), many of those situations looks realistic and can be recreated in carma2, so prepare for many surprises in the future !

now about the "Mission out of the window?" subject :

You know that i LIKE the fact of existing missions in carma2. So i don't like the idea of removing them. That's true that we have more slots, but i sugest to only use that individually and not in a mod (such as Carma2 advanced or others), so your post isn't a bad idea. At least now we know how to remove the missions if someone wants more slots.

now to small block :

I knew it ! I knew that would be the mistake that you would have maked. I am glad that works for you, and also the petpumps also work ! Hum... i can't remenber about any problem with petpump exploding at the same time without nothing touching it. Can you test the petpumps of the beaver city track again several times, to see if that happens also in the original beaver city ? Or that only happens in the track you inserted the smashables ? Hey, wait a minute, which track did you inserted the smashable petpumps ? In your bleak city or the maim street track from carma1 ? If it was your track Bleakcity, it maybe a synthom of the track being so big, i don't know, try to make those petpumps smashables in the Maim Street track, if you have it.

And no, that stuff of the petpumps of beaver city being named as "&pet750.ACT, &pet751.ACT" i THINK it doesn't have nothing to do with the petpumps exploding at the same time. You know that the noncars and smashables in a track when the track is preprocessed their names are changed like that, but their model name is the original name, did you never noticed that when you preprocess tracks ? The noncars and smashables names are changed like that after the preprocessing, but the model names remain unchanged.

About what you said "I know about the 'empty' spaces...I think it actually looks coherent w/ the general layout of the whole city.....some areas are more tightly laid out.....one thing that always annoyed me w/ the original C2 tracks was precisely the cramping up." Well, in part i agree with you, but the best is not everything very empty or very cluttered. So i guess that Bleak city is too empty and Beaver city is too full, don't you agree ? But Beaver city looks full mostly because it is so small, it's mostly because that.

About the simple models, c2 scientist was talking it that would be possible with tha track itself, but i think its impossible isn't it ?

That's all.

[Small Block]

I think the pumps exploding when you only hit one of them is simply the result of the "force area" variable, that or the exploding pumps being thrown onto the neighboring ones. Now, I know PT2 renames smashables to suit its needs, but the funny part is, the pumps I renamed in Bleak City have NOT had their names changed by the preprocessing! They're ALL named "&pump.ACT".....that maybe why only 4 of them explode(one at a time, usually). Maybe the track has gotten so big the preprocessing can't take time to focus on that??

Yeah, I actually thought of putting some noncars to make for some animation in the "empty" places, but I favored hi-speed ped-bashing-on-slippery-grass.....

The original tracks had some weird-looking buildings in those zones, but I found them obnoxious, as they looked too crazy to be taken seriously.....who builds stuff to look like an Apple-II and decorates it w/ quasi-medieval moldings? That looked fun in C1, since the whole game was a bit odd and futuristic, but it looked kinda out of place in C2.

[C2 Scientist]

Cesm:

Well, I have ATI Radeon FDX 8500 LE (nothing spectacular) and Amd Duron 1.2 GHz (which I'm gonna update some day), but it runs very well at the view distance of 100 units. If I happen to update my system, I'll raise it some. And something about high-poly cars: (I think I haven't said this here yet?) I've modeled simple models for some cars, and I made them a little more detailed than common simple models, so that I can use only 3, 4, or 5 as the distance when car begins to use the detailed model. So the slowdown begins only when they come very near me. Probably all of Adr's cars lacked these, while Econobrick always makes very good simple models, that's cool, I didn't have to make those again! --- Hm, I think I HAVE said this somewhere... was it some other topic...? Anyway, no 5k-poly-rendering or disappearing cars, when far away, for me.

My C2 version: V. 1.02A

Heh, do you read the posts carefully..? I mentioned, that *sometimes* wireframe mode makes the highlight appear... or if you're talking about that wireframe doesn't make it appear if we look the face from its back, then you're right... it's not possible to see it from behind, anyhow... I can't tell an exact situation, it does it randomly, I guess. Probably the clipping distance affects to this too.

[See the petpump reply at the bottom]

The ruined city: If this isn't too difficult, consider this: how about the making the whole solid city part as a smashable (&NormalCity), then replace with the huge ruined city, with replacemodel (&RuinedCity), instead of just single buildings? I don't know, it might be hard, but if you can keep the geometry in the same position in the modeling program, at least that shouldn't be a problem... well, another is that I don't know the *possible* limit (if there is any) for the polycount/size of the smashables and replacemodels... hm... at least that'd let you reduce the amount lines in track's textfile. Well, you're the one planning the track, conside yourself. This whole concept sounds very interesting to me, by the way, when I imagine the changed 'landscape'...

I've never seen "Dragon Ball Z"... (In China/Japan everything seems to be a dragon!?)

Yeah, I only removed the most boring missions, and only when I really needed more slots.

Small Block:

What I've noticed, is, that if the force area delay in smashables is less than 1, it destroys the objects inside that area immediately, but if it's 1 or more, the delay is correct. So, 0.9, 0.8, 0.5, 0.1 etc. equals to zero. Also, if for some reason, the 'appearance' only moves, while the actual object and its bounds stay in one place, it's clear that you blow them all at the same time, because the bounds are in the same place, and not where the actual other pumps are... but this would mean that you can pass through the other appearance-moved pumps, which I suppose isn't occuring in your project?

What's the point having .ACT in smashables, BTW!? And the numbering haven't worked for me either, it doesn't seem to find the smashable when I have additional text somewhere, which differs from textfile definition to actor ID in PT2... I'll try again.

---

I made a try... First I imported petpumps and renamed them into &GassoPump001.ACT and &GassoPump002.ACT, made a little texture change for them (which stayed like it should), and then wrote the trigger model in textfile: "&Gassopump.ACT". The game didn't find it, because I had those numbersin the ID. When I added third gassopump, which I named "&GassoPump.ACT", it worked since the ID was same as in textfile, but the GassoPumps with numbers weren't smashables, i.e. they were rock-solid... so C2 excepts me to write smash specs for every single three-digit-numbered-gassopump? No thanks, I'll use only one model without any texture changes, which I planned to do in any case.

The numbering is weird indeed, but I noticed that the BRender registry in PT2 shows, that the PetrolPumps in Beaver City are named simply as &PetPump.act? (Which I think is the 'real' method) No numbers, that is, so how did you find the numbers, then? (also in Beaver Woods?)

[cesm20]

to c2 scientist and small block :

hey, i think it's time for a "carma2 editing vacation" here, only for me, there is much more than one month that i don't update my pt2 mod and that i don't do anything about carma2 editing, it seems that at the moment i am not motivated to make carma2 editing, specially because i am doing another kind of game (which doesn't have nothing do to with carma2 or car racing game) but i have dreaming to have it so much time ago, and i am "obssessed" to have that game (make it) in a game maker named Dark Basic, and because of that i am getting even much more lazy about carma2 editing, so at the moment i will not try to make carma2 editing, some weeks later from today, maybe i come back to carma2 editing, i also do this to avoid to get even more tired of carma2, then when i feel motivated again to make carma2 editing, i will continue my pt2 mod and resuming the projects of improving the original carma1 and carma2 tracks, but meanwhile we can continue talking here, most specially to keep me updated about your progress in carma2 editing and any stuff that you are doing (c2 scientist and small block).

I hope c2 scientist doesn't feel disappointed with me, but i am not quitting c2 editing, i still like carma2 very much, maybe with the same strenght than you, so i can't quit editing it, i just want to delay even more (in fact in the last years i was delaying the making of carma2 editing all the time but some times i make quite a bit of improving on my carma2 editing) but specially now i will delay much more because i am dedicated to making other game, so now i will really have to delay this, and save carma2 editing for later.

I hope c2 scientist doesn't quit also carma2 editing, because now you are the only person here which REALLY is dedicated to carma2 editing so much in the track stuff which is my favorite part of c2 editing (instead of cars as almost all the people are). So, continue doing carma2 stuff and making tracks, just keep me updated of the news, don't forget that one day i will finally start making many carma2 stuff and believe me, even you would not be match for me !! lolol

now to small block only :

About the petpump stuff i think i have nothing more to say, specially now that i am not much into carma2 editing, at least at the moment and some weeks later. So if you don't want to reply, don't. Unless you have something to say.

now to c2 scientist :

So, you have that graphic card, and that cpu ? Curious, my cpu is almost equal to yours : i also have a Amd Duron but at 1ghz. Hey, do you motherboard supports agp 4x? It's because mine DOESN'T support, but it was supposed to support...

So you have the same version of carma2 than i... so that's the last patch available for carma2 i think. There is no other more recent.

What i know about the wireframe, is that sometimes when i go to the model edit menu (you know where we can force identify matrix) sometimes pt2 makes the object in wireframe, i don't know why, this also happens randomly in other dialog boxes.

Hey, not a bad idea, of making a whole city as a smashable, but... i don't know if that would work, well it can work but is that the apropriate to simulate that ? You know, before the nuclear meltdown our car would be passing in top of the smashable all the time, because all the city would be a smashable... that could accidently activate the smashable, i don't know, or worse, how about the bounding box ?!

Oh no, if you never seen Dragon Ball Z, you will never understand the "destruction" ideas that i have... well, never mind.

That idea of putting .act in the smashables was also mine, i simply think that it's necessary, i never tried a smashable without putting that in the extension, does the smashables work without that ?

Well that's all.

[C2 Scientist]

Just when I thought I'll post a new reply here, you had already done it! I'll answer the few points you mentioned before telling my new question.

My motherboard does support 4x AGP.

You can't activate the smashable accidentally, if you put big enough threshold needed to destroy it, e.g. 1000.

(To destroy that you need 5-ton-vehicle with 8000 km/h, or 30-ton vehicle with 1333 km/h)

Smashables don't use bounding shapes, they seem to generate the collision meshes themselves, which I think are accurate enough... don't know what it'll be like with a city, though. However, I've noticed that sub-objects under the main smashable (which has the &-letter) seem to be non-solid, ie the objects go through it, like it didn't even exist.

I've made smashables to work without the .ACT, without any extra work, so I wonder why it's there in Stainless tracks...

Hm, now I ask my question I planned to ask. It's about programming, and I think you know that best of current members... and besides, you had made the Pixies packer-program... with Visual Basic, right? Anyways, the program I'd like to have would be a customizer for my C2 downloads, mostly for addon tracks and cars. For example, if someone doesn't like drones blocking the way in my tracks, he could use the program to switch them off: the program would use the value 'zero' for drone paths, instead of all those lines defining node coords, drone type in that node, and next destinations.

Because I think it'd be too complicated to make the program scan for the specific lines afterwards, I've come to different solution. Each set of lines, like different horizon stuff, (Day horizon picture / Dawn / Night) would be in separate textfiles: HorizonA.txt , HorizonB.txt , HorizonC.txt. The users would then make their choices, and the program would then copy the lines from correct textfile. Of course there would be lots of options (textfiles), because we might like to create different options for things like ambient light, starting point, etc.

Now an example:

Let's take those horizon picture options: Day=HorizonA.txt , Dawn=HorizonB.txt , Night=HorizonC.txt.

We'll add drone existence option: DronesON=DronesA.txt , DronesOFF=DronesB.txt.

Finally there would also be ambient light option: Dark=AmbLightA.txt , Bright=AmbLightB.txt.

User makes these choices: (He would tick some boxed or choose from a list in the program) "I want day horizon picture with bright ambient light, but with no drones." The program would create a temporary texture, then collect the lines from the small separate textfiles: it'd get the lines from HorizonA.txt , DronesB.txt and AmbLightB.txt. When the collection is finished, the ready textfile is saved, and overwrites the existing track's textfile.

That was about compiling a textfile of small pieces. Another task for the program would be file operations: I could make minor changes to the tracks, and put them into subdirectories in track's folder. The program would again have options, this time for the track's geometry (different racing route with moved route arrow markers). I would have made these changes for the track models I have in the subdirectories, so the program would need to overwrite the active track model (ACT , DAT & MAT) with some of the models in the subdirectories.

Example for this:

I'd have a track with new arrow model positions in a subdirectory called "Arrows3". If the user would like to use the race route option #3, he would choose that from the list, and the program would overwrite the active ACT,MAT&DATs with Arrows3/ACT,DAT&MAT.

Hm, maybe the program would also need to copy the new opponent paths to the textfile, but that can be discussed later.

So, what do you think? I'm sure this is possible if you know enough programming. Maybe I should learn to... after all, these would just be some simple copy&paste operations, and file operations too, plus creating the interface... would that be easy for a new beginner...? On the other hand, I don't have Visual Basic tools, and I don't think anyone has made a freeware Visual Basic programmer either...

[C2 Scientist]

Interesting 'research' results: I was interested of the "&" letter, so I did some rename-and-play tests. I imported two similar houses and (just in case, to be sure) two similar rocks. Then I moved them with mouse. For the other house and the rock I inserted "&" in the beginning of the ID. Result was, that house and rock with the "&" kept their bounds in their correct places, while the house and rock without the "&" were nonsolid, I could pass through them. Their bounds were in the centre of the track. And then I preprocessed the track. Rock and house with "&" kept their place, while rock and house without "&" returned to centre of the track, where their bounds already were. Useful discovery? For me it is, I've had these moving problems for a while, now it seems they are gone, yay!

I just hope the game doesn't have anything against too much "&"-letters!? Hm, why would it, anyway?

Oh, and while doing those tests, I tried the subobject-of-&-model thing: I created an empty model, named it as "&Thing", and put the solid house under it. The result, again, was that the house now became nonsolid, until I moved the house away so that it no longer was a subobject for "&Thing". So I think you could create an invisible collision mesh (with "&") for a gassopump, and put the visible gassopump under the collision mesh. The actual gassopump would be nonsolid, but the collision mesh would stop the car, and because it has matches with the visible pump, the player wouldn't notice the difference. "Oh, now I collided with that pump". Well, since it's smashable, it'd more likely be destroyed, instead of stopping the car...

And as Small Block once said, that .ACT is only required for moving things, let it be so, I won't start studying that, at least not now...