5. STARTPOINTS AND SPLIT TIME POINTS

5.1 Start points

Startpoints for the cars are assigned as small boxes that are situated slightly above the ground so the game won’t place the car UNDER the road. In single player mode it’s named as start and in multiplayer as start1 - start6. And no, you can’t add extra players with extra boxes.

5.2 Split time points

These are made with big quadrangles that give the player a split time when he/she drives through it. There has to be 10 of these. First one is some distance from the starting point, and split_09 means finish. First is split_00. You have to drive through them in the correct order, so the quadrangles should be big enough to span the whole track width so player can’t drive past, over or under it.


6. MATERIALS

You assign the texture / material properties in Max’s material editor. All materials that share same texture must have identical names. If you want to use same texture with different surface properties, use different material name.

6.1 Material tree / surface order

Multi/Sub-Object Material -> Bugbear Material -> Standard Material

6.2 Standard material settings

Blinn Basic Parameters:

Ambient: white
Diffuse: white
Specular: black
Specular level: 0

6.3 Alpha

Materials that use alpha channel must have the texture in use copied into opacity.


7. BUGBEAR MATERIAL

Bugbear Material is Bugbear’s own material plugin that is used to assign extra parameters such as alpha test and ground surface properties.

7.1 Alpha Test

If the texture has alpha channel, you can select with alpha test if the alpha edges are soft or sharp. Soft edges are better looking but they’re slower to draw.

- Disabled -> soft edges
- Forced -> always sharp edges
- Enabled -> Sharp edges if the game settings are set to lighter graphics

7.2 Surface

Tells the game if the surface is gravel, wood, metal or whatever.

7.3 Effects

Special effects such as water.


8. SKYDOME/SKY

Background sky and sun location in the game are in their own Max scene file. You’ll find ”sky” skyobject which gets the background/sky textures mapped onto it and ”sun” (point light) which is used to position and align the sun, i.e. where the flare shines.


9. CAMERAS

Game uses Free and Target cameras. Free camera is a static camera that doesn’t move, and Target Camera follows the car. Camera’s Far Range setting is used to limit the camera’s range before it starts / stops viewing the car. If the car moves out of camera range and there’s no camera right after the previous one, engine switches to a random car camera.


10. SMOOTHING GROUPS

All meshes of all objects must have a smoothing group. Ground/track usually needs only one smoothing group to keep things fast. More smoothing groups means more calculating for the engine.


11. GRANDE FINALE

Tips:

You can lighten up the CPU load by including in the track collision just the tree trunks, removing bushes and audiences and making separate collision walls and remove the complex objects behind it. Less collision polygons = more speed.

When the track nears finishing, it’s a good idea to keep 2 separate Max files for track objects and collision objects. It speeds up Max considerably and keeps things easier to follow.

Reset Xform is sometimes necessary for the track mesh after some Max tools, but it’s advisable to avoid it whenever you can. Splitpoints, traffic signs etc might misbehave after reseting.

Rally Trophy’s alphatest settings for some objects:

Audience fence: Enabled
Phonewires: Disabled
Audience: Disabled
Trees: Enabled