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Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

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Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

..but apparently I'm forgetting something elementary about making C1 cars.

I have this:
Google Drive link


I substituted it for the APC and while the untextured model shows up ingame and chases after me like the APC did, it sometimes drives right through me like it's not solid. Also in my game a single center wheel textured like the Wez bike wheel appeared under it spinning. WTF?

Then I put the APC back and tried this MFP as a separate car.

Then the game loads, the race loads, but at the start of the race it's like I'm looking from below ground.
I see sky and a horizon and I hear the starting countdown and peds splattering, but no terrain and nothing moves except the guy in the pratcam-and his position is more or less stuck because my car is not moving.

I'm sure I forgot to do something basic, but I haven't yet found what it is.
Tosh, could you check it out for me when you get a minute?
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

So right off the bat, here's the main problem with modding from C1SE or other very modded installs: missing files you might assume are default ones. In this case UNI1BON.ACT, isn't a default C1 file (should be replaced with EBONNET.ACT). So when you're about to release a mod, don't forget to check if all needed files are either included in the ZIP or vanilla C1 files.

To properly substitute the APC, the mod must be named APC (as in, APC.TXT etc). When plotting cops in a race, the executable specifically loads APC.TXT without even checking OPPONENT.TXT.
Your MFP textfile didn't load MFP.DAT nor MFP.ACT by the way..?

About the car going through the floor: you swapped min-y and max-y in the bounding box. It should be this:

Code: Select all

1										// number of bounding boxes
-0.159,	0.030,	-0.336					// min x, min y, min z
0.159,	0.267,	0.345					// max x, max y, max z
Also, in the grooves, the center of spinning coordinates for FLWHEEL.ACT miss one dot in the z value (should be -0.214 instead of -0214). And the front pivots miss the - in front of 0.214.

Another problem I noticed, your MAT file is corrupted: you edited it by hand but you overwrote data instead of inserting, if you get what I mean. Always make sure that you insert/add data, instead of overwriting existing data (even if they are zeroes (they are important!)). Also you shouldn't have added .MAT after the material names anyway because your model doesn't call materials with that extension (it is not required unlike .PIX for the texture files).

Finally, while you're modding like that, you might as well remove the crush data for the main model as it doesn't match and turns to spaghetti. In this case you'd just have to put 0 in place of 78 in the second crush data, then just remove all the stuff after that and before the third crush data. Then you do the same for the third crush data (it's the Eagle bonnet, it can deform as well).

To make things easier, I'll attach both the TXT and MAT files to this post.

Image
Attachments
MFP-fix.zip
(2.29 KiB) Downloaded 84 times
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Aye, thank ye for the corrections.

Yes, I named all the files "APC" when I replaced the APC. The only thing that didn't work was the textures and of course my backwards BBox.

I wrote the BBox coords down in a bit of a hurry. I should pay more attention to the details.
As for the Overwrite/insert in the hex editor, I thought I was vigilant in keeping the insert mode selected, but apparently I missed an instance.

I didn't know about the default files and SE. Good to keep in mind.

thanks, man.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

OK, that worked well.
You're right, SE doesn't need the ".MAT" extension after the material identifier in the mat file. In my old encrypted OEM game it did.

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What happened to the board?
It looks weird today.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Oh don't misunderstand though: having .MAT extension at the end of the material identifiers is probably better for C1. It's just that the game doesn't seem to care if it's not there.
It's simple really, if the materials applied to the model don't have .MAT at the end, then the materials in the MAT file shouldn't have them either or else the game won't be able to match them.

About the board, it's been upgraded, I'm currently working on the style.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Ah. OK. That explains the board. Cool.

Thanks for the refresher.
I forgot how much fun this is.


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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

OK I seem to have hit a snag again.

I have remade this model and updated .dat, .mat, act, and .pix files numerous times because apparently there were too many components in the model. (C1 told me so when it crashed loading the model.
so I've pared down the model by grouping components together as one new component thereby reducing the number of total components down to 27 or 28 which seems altogether reasonable because models with the same number of components run OK.

I've buggered something up. I don't know what yet because C1 crashes out with a "Carma95 has encountered a problem and needs to close" error upon trying to load a race with this vehicle.

I get through the "pick the car screen. I get the 'do it for me, etc. car upgrade screen before a race.
it's when the race is actually loading, it crashes out.

Nothing else has been changed except this carname.txt substituted for a stock C1 car in the opponent.txt.


The problem vehicle is a motorcycle based on the Wez bike (same size, BBox, wheel positions, etc. just a new driver model, skin and a few pieces swapped out or removed. it's supposed to be in and act identically to the Wez bike in 3D space.

Tosh, I could sure use a fresh pair of eyes right about now...

EDIT**
Nevermind, Looking around with the hex editor I see what I did wrong. I left the components grouped as if it was a C2 vehicle, creating a bad actor file with components that no longer existed and all kinds of smash groups that weren't necessary.

As soon as I deleted all the extra groups and grouped everything but the wheels into the main group, it loaded and runs.

Image


Edit again**

OK. Now even though the bike steers and moves correctly- both the wheels (The visible, textured wheels) won't visibly spin and the front wheel (s) won't visibly pivot (steer) even though the bike behaves correctly, dammit.

Text file error?
Groovyfunkrefs?

I don't quite know enough about how the groovyfunkrefs control things.

The grooves make the model behave as though wheels are pivoting and spinning, yes? (this part is working.)
The funks make the wheel textures look as though they"re pivoting and spinning, right?

Here's what I got:
Jim Goose Bike
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

About the model limit, for the player's car it's 30. It's very rare to hit that limit with C1 (I just did for the first time one week ago or so because of multiple animated parts). It's always best to merge as many components together as possible, at least everything that should deform and aren't animated.

A quick look at your TXT and ACT file shows the grooves and actor identifiers don't match: the grooves are the usual default FRPIVOT.ACT, FRWHEEL.ACT etc. but your ACT file only references GOWEELF and GOWEELB. So you have to rename them to FLWHEEL.ACT and RLWHEEL.ACT and also need FLPIVOT.ACT for the steering. (I don't remember too well how CarEd works, how does it automatically set up wheels?)
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Ah! So I just need to rename the wheels in the actor file? Or do I need to rename them in the CarEd .obj and recompile?
(Recompiling makes more sense).
Lemme look at how I did the Wez bike as this one's based on it.

See, I would've taken forever to figure that one out.

EDIT* Mistake corrected and duly noted for next time.
It's just been so long since I made C1 cars that I forgot some of the process.

Thanks again for helping me fix ma fookups! :beer:
The best lessons are the ones I learn the hard way.

EDIT AGAIN: All I had to do was regroup the wheels under the proper names and recompile the model.

Works perfectly and because it's based on the Wez bike, it does the same insane stunts.

Image

The other thing I've been meaning to ask you is about Crushit.

Now, I'm supposed to put the .dat file into a flder with Crushit and run it, yes?
Then paste the data chunk Crushit generates *in place of* the model's *second* crush data chunk, right?

I've done that to a couple of my C1 models and either it has no effect (spaghetti) or it acts like null crush data.

(You did mention to me an easier way to null the crush data, but I forgot what it was.)


I'd rather the model deformed like it's supposed to. Wottahell am I doing wrong?
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

About CrushIt and the crush data: what you detail seems correct to me.
Put the finished GOSLING.DAT in the CrushIt folder and execute CrushIt. Copy the content of GOSLING.DAT.txt and paste it in place of the second crush data chunk in your GOSLING.TXT. Should be good.

If it turns into spaghetti, then it sounds like the model used by the game doesn't match the model used by CrushIt to generate the crush data. If you go back to CarEd, modify stuff and recompile the model, I guess then it's better to run CrushIt again with the newly compiled DAT file.
If it doesn't crush... it might just mean your vehicle is too tough: maxed out APO? car softness too low? (first line of the second crush data) bounding box that not close enough? (usually leads to other problems)
When I'm not sure if the crushing works properly, I use cheat codes to force it:
IBETYOUCANTPRINTCUNT typed during gameplay to enable the Edit Mode: Cheat
then SHIFT+4 to crush the model :ssmile:
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Ah. OK.
I do have max APO.
That might explain the non crushing.

I'll have to play around with stuff and see what happens.
Thanks for the info.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

OK... Here's a good one: (It's always something...)

Image

You would think by the way this vehicle is behaving that the bbox is too narrow on the min side.
But it isn't.

it's ever so slightly off center (0,0 on he X-axis) but I built a physical box around the model and took the coords from that.

it should be perfect.

but it falls halfway through the ground or walls. Peds pass through the left half of it like "wtf!?" BUT ONLY SOMETIMES.
Other times an opponent will hit it on the left side and it acts normally. Sometimes it'll bounce off a wall on its left side normally, but not usually.

Why?
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Hello D_B,
Looking at the screenshot, it does indeed seem to be bbox related. Sometimes you take the bbox coords alright but either forget a 0 or a dot or a - when writing it down. Happens to me all the time. Could also be related to angular momentum proportions but such an extreme case wouldnt let you drive at all I think.
Can't think of anything else at the moment, also I'm not home till next thursday so couldnt test.
You might import the DAT file (not the SDF nor ACT) in Plaything2 and check your bbox coords against it, but as you build the model in CarEd, there should be no offset between the main actor and its model.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Ah, 'K... Found the problem.
T'was an 0.0216 where there should have been an 0.216 min x.

Works nice now.


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Where is the font for the car menu images?
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

:slol:

You can find Econo's template for fonts in here: https://rr2000.cwaboard.co.uk/R4/PC/Tosh_C1_helpers.zip

There's sadly no proper font file besides that. I wonder if it'd be easy to create...
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Toshiba-3 wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 4:29 pm
When I'm not sure if the crushing works properly, I use cheat codes to force it:
IBETYOUCANTPRINTCUNT typed during gameplay to enable the Edit Mode: Cheat
then SHIFT+4 to crush the model :ssmile:

OK, I just tried to force-crush a car I made and it *did not* deform at all.

Not even a crinkle.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Alright, never hesitate to share your work-in-progress right away when you're stuck on something and I give it a look and come back to you :swheel:
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Got another question regarding C1 cockpit images.

I've made exactly *one* before.

This is my second attempt.

I've made a motorbike that doesn't have any gauges or indicators of any kind. I only want a view over a handlebar.

This is what I have so far:

Image

I want to know how to completely get rid of the speedo/tach needles/overlays, the damage indicator, and that stationary "part of a picture" under the handlebar image.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Hello D_B,

The easiest thing to do to get all the HUD elements out of the way is to push them offscreen. In your other topic I had pasted a carname.txt-for-cockpit with annotations. You'll want to look for the [internal] values this time. Just change the x coordinate (usually the first value) to something larger than the cockpit.

The 'stationary part' of the screen is the onscreen part that isn't set to be rendered in carname.txt-for-cockpit. The rendering area is defined under the filename of each cockpit part (forward, left, right) at the top of the document. In this case I think you'll have to write 32,24,672,504 instead of whatever's there to clear the screen.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Ah. Sorry it took me so long to reply.
Thanks for the point in the right direction.
I have some time now that I'm on vacation so I'll dig into it and post the results and any remaining questions here.
Thanks, man.
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

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Ok, so I tried what you suggested in the cockpit text file (low res folder where I put it.)

Image

There is still a stationary (doesn't move and doesn't match terrain (never changes) texture (in this case, the road/fence/wall of the track) underneath where I put the bike's handlebars in the forward cockpit image. (White X's)

I imagine that's where a dashboard/indicators would go.

Where is that section referenced and can I make it go away?

Also the speedo/tach needles are still there and making 'trails' as they move-although they're not colored anymore. (Blue X's) Can I make them disappear?

There is actually very little left in the bike's cockpit text file.
All tacho image references have been changed to 'none.'
The 'number of dimmed rectangles' is set to 0, yet those rectangles are still where a gear indicator and damage display would be. (Red X's) Can I make them disappear?
Also I forgot where the mirror coords are referenced (Yellow X)

The 'FRANKF.PIX has been changed to YZ250.PIX, but the FRANKL, FRANKR.PIX files are still referenced in the cockpit text file, but the dashboard is no longer visible.

I used the coordinates you suggested, but nothing changed.

Did I misunderstand something?

Here is the cockpit text in 32x20x8 (where Mastro instructed me to put it because when I put it in the hires folder, nothing happened.)

YZ250f.PIX // Cockpit forward image file names (Once I sort this one out, the rest will be just transparent)
32,24,672,178 // Left, top, right, bottom rendering coordinates
FRANKL.PIX // Cockpit left image file names
32,24,672,178 // Left, top, right, bottom rendering coordinates
FRANKR.PIX // Cockpit right image file names
32,24,672,178 // Left, top, right, bottom rendering coordinates

none // Speedo type, x, y, filename, x-pitch
none // Speedo type, x, y, filename, x-pitch

none // tacho type, x, y, filename, x-pitch
none // Tacho x, y, filename

none // Gear display x,y,image (external)
none // Gear display x,y,image (internal)

0 // Number of hands frames
e

// Left, top, right, bottom of mirror
// Left, top, right, bottom of pratcam (*** relative to screen, not cockpit)



0 // Number of dimmed areas (external)
// Dim rectangle

0 // Number of dimmed areas (internal)
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Ha! You butchered the hud text file :lol: When the game thinks that text file is corrupted it will load the Eagle's instead. That's why stuff are still being displayed despite your changes.
BTW it should really be placed in the 64X48X8\CARS folder.

Try this instead:
YZ250f.PIX			// Cockpit forward image file names
	32,24,672,504			// Left, top, right, bottom rendering coordinates
EYEBALL.PIX				// Cockpit left image file names
	32,24,672,504			// Left, top, right, bottom rendering coordinates
EYEBALL.PIX				// Cockpit right image file names
	32,24,672,504			// Left, top, right, bottom rendering coordinates

d,88,442,HSPEEDO.PIX,14		// Speedo type, x, y, filename, x-pitch (external)
// Speedo type, x, y, filename, x-pitch, min rad, max radius, start angle, end angle, colour, maxspeed displayed
a,0,0,none,0,0,1,1,210,-35,-255,160	// (internal)

a,8,375,HIRESTCH.PIX,64,432,0,44,215,0,-4	// tacho type, x, y, filename, x-pitch (external)
// tacho type, background-x, background-y, background-imagename, centre-x, centre-y, radius-1, radius-2, start-angle, end-angle, colour 
a,0,0,none,0,0,1,1,282,50,-255	// (internal)

62,442,HGEARS.PIX			// Gear display x,y,image (external)
999,999,none				// Gear display x,y,image (internal)

0						// Number of hands frames

0,0,1,1					// Left, top, right, bottom of mirror
0,0,104,110				// Left, top, right, bottom of pratcam (*** relative to screen, not cockpit)

1019,394,1,1,2,3,1,HENG.PIX			// Engine damage x,y,flash1..5
1021,417,1,1,2,3,1,HTRN.PIX			// Transmission damage x,y,flash1..5
1013,417,1,1,2,3,1,HSTR.PIX			// Steering damage x,y,flash1..5
1011,396,1,1,2,3,1,HLSUS.PIX			// lf brake damage x,y,flash1..5
1035,396,1,1,2,3,1,HRSUS.PIX			// rf brake damage x,y,flash1..5
1012,459,1,1,2,3,1,HLSUS.PIX			// lr brake damage x,y,flash1..5
1034,459,1,1,2,3,1,HRSUS.PIX			// rr brake damage x,y,flash1..5
1003,394,1,1,2,3,1,HTYR.PIX			// lf wheel damage x,y,flash1..5
1043,394,1,1,2,3,1,HTYR.PIX			// rf wheel damage x,y,flash1..5
1003,457,1,1,2,3,1,HTYR.PIX			// lr wheel damage x,y,flash1..5
1043,457,1,1,2,3,1,HTYR.PIX			// rr wheel damage x,y,flash1..5
-400,0,571,357,EXTDAM0.PIX

3						// Number of dimmed areas (external)
566,353,623,467			// Dim rectangle
60,437,81,474				// Dim rectangle
86,437,135,474				// Dim rectangle

0						// Number of dimmed areas (internal)
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Deep_Blue »

Ah! I did not know about that particular fail-safe.

Why Eyeball.pix?
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Re: Aight. I'm supposed to know this stuff...

Post by Toshiba-3 »

I use eyeball.pix because the game won't accept "none" in place of those large cockpit pixelmaps. Eyeball.pix is an image so tiny that it will never appear onscreen during gameplay and stay hidden in the top left corner (cockpit images are larger than the screen to allow them to shake during collisions).
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