| Rally Trophy Facts : | ||
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INTRODUCTION Simplified quick guide to create your own stages for Rally Trophy. The example Max file has 1 base block and a section of a simple stage for example purposes. Please note that they’ve been huddled quickly together and feature all kinds of cool texturing bugs, so it’s advisable you do your own and not use this one to build your stages from if you wish to have perfect looking stages. Always remember to use vertex snap when modeling and UV mapping your blocks! NOTE: To avoid too big downloads, we didn’t include textures for the car and skybox model in the package. However, you can extract all the textures you need from BZF files using BZF Manager. Alternatively, you can take a screengrab from the UVW mapping window in Max to get yourself a nice template to draw your textures on. OVERVIEW OF THE TRACK CREATON PROCESS Copy all the plugins to the plugins directory in your 3DS Max folder, such as C:3DSMAXPLUGINS and you're set. Shaping the track:
1. NAMING To function in the game, track has to include properly named objects. Object names can affect their function in the game. All names without quotation marks! ?? in object name means you can write your own naming here, such as tree01, tree02, tree_birch04, tree_small etc ”track” track mesh ------- "split_00", "split_01", ... - checkpoints, split_00 is the first checkpoint after startbox, and split_09 marks finish ------- "start" startpoint of the rally "start1", ... "start6" 6 startpoints of the arcade stage ------- Checkpoint checkpoint signs sign_?? traffic signs, ?? is free i.e. you can write your own reminder names here (i.e. sign_stopsign1, sign_dontfeeddogs etc) ------- "grass1_??" ja "grass2_??" bushes / grass "littletree1_??" ja "littletree2_??" small trees "tree??" trees ------- Objektit sky scenessä "sky" skybox "sun" sun location ------- 1.1 Name parameters: You can add different functions to the track objects by adding a certain number in front of the name. You can combine 2 functions by adding the numbers together. For example, 003 is a sprite that doesn’t get grouped (001 + 002 = 003) 001... game doesn’t ”group” the object into track block 002... sprite object, i.e. object faces the camera at all times (like audience, some trees etc) 004... high detail object that doesn’t get drawn if the game settings are not in high detail mode 008... reduced diffuse (some objects may appear too bright in the game, this reduces the brightness) An example: 012grass1_grass-stumps Grass stumps that are fixed, won’t align themselves to the camera and appear in high detail mode only 2. TEXTURE MAPPING Stage textures are mapped in 12 meter sections, which means 1 texture spreads over 12 x 12 meters in the game. There are few rules that reduces the CPU load, such as big, unified mappings in the scenery is better than separate textures sprinkled all over. For example, road and the ground next to it would be ideally single and straight in the UV map and doesn’t get cut between each block, or in the worst case every 12 meters (see example block). Hence, it’s advisable to re-map the roadblocks after combined the blocks you want to shape the track. After shaping, mapping gets practically impossible. 3. EXPORTING Track gets exported as 2 files. Other has all that’s visible to the player (stage1.bmf) and other has collision data (stage1c.bmf). There are few objects that must not be in both files such as splitpoints and traffic signs. See below. 3.1 Visible objects: Objects that have to be visible but not in collision: Time checkpoints (splitpoints), starting points (start), moving objects, turning objects (crowd) 3.2 BMF Exporter Export: Generic - skybox Track Collision - collision data Track - visible track Prepocessing: Vertex cache optimize - Optimization that should be used only in the final version as it can take a while to process this. 4. SUN AND VERTEX SHADOWS Sunlight is brought into the scene for vertex shadows with Sunlight object. Shadows are calculated using Bugbear’s Apply Vertex Shadows -plugin. To be on the safe side, you should add a white vertex color to the stage before applying new shadows. You can adjust with Max’s own object properties panels which objects cast shadow and which don’t (for example, collision walls and splitpoints shouldn’t cast shadows). Some of the objects can’t be calculated shadows this way, such as trees, bushes and audience. These objects get their vertex color from the ground surface beneath them with GrassTouch plugin.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 |
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