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Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

The greatest unfinished sequel ever!
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Tarquin
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Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

So after seeing a a better Cop APC in the works that flaws my crappy first attempt at a car for Carmageddon 2, I've decided to make a new, quick and simple car.

Mech Maniac returns in his Mk2 Grunge Buster.
Based on his old design but slightly modified, here it is....oh and its not finished yet - I'm currently texturing it.

P.S: There is a driver in there but its not quite clear from my pics

*edit - pic removed due to outdateness*

So what's your oppinions about this one then?

It has 5 detachables, it'll be splitable and it'll be a strength 1 opponent as it wont be as strong as Carmageddon 1's (But on that Mech and all the Auto Scum guys were strength 3)

I have textured it more since that screenshot was taken. But not much (only the top of the nose and the detachable panel which is ontop of the nose.
I've also textured the engine which will be visable once that top panel comes off.

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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Hi Tarquin,

It's a very good work so far I think, though you could have tried to have more details, but yeah it's somewhat hard in CarEd for the first times.
In my opinion, the wheels are a bit too large, even if I guess it's part of your new design.
Are you using the original C1 textures or do you repaint them ?

I let you know already that C2 has a "shear" groove feature that will simulate the suspension deformations (like the purple buggy in C2 I think), it would look nice on this car as well.
Coffeycup hosts C2S's tutorial : http://coffey.polygonized.com/mech2.html
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

At one point I did re-size the wheels but I never saved it when closing and then didn't bother to edit them again.

Once its all textured I'll be doing all sorts of re-sizing to it (I also plan to shrink it length ways)

I didn't want to make the model too detailed because in game there are like 6 to 8,000 poly models and with 16 of them and quite long distance viewing, the game can get some what sloe (40 FPS) So I want to keep the models as low in polys as I can manage - but still keeping a pretty good complex design.

As for the textures, I'm totaly re-doing them.

As for the groove feature to make a suspension thing, I know it exists but I don't know how to use it but I was going to see how it was done with Screwie Lewie's car...but I'll take a look at that tutorial and see what else I can do with these groove things.
Thanks :smile:


Oh and at the moment each wheel on my car is made up of 2 components - I can use them like that and the game will make both parts move togeather right?



*edit*
Since the batteries dies in my Wiimote, I went on Carmageddon instead and with it edited my Grunge Buster.

Here's the latest update:

Image

I've shrank the wheels (width ways) and edited the main cokpit area slightly.
I'n this pic you can also see the top texture of the nose - and in one pic you can see it without the nose panel.

Oh and remember, Grunge Buster was small, and so is mine, here's a comparrison picture so you get a rough idea of how big it is.
Its on the very far left.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by random_monkey »

Looking good there buddy!
I only have 2 crits though :wink:

I think you should model a bit of the inside of the nose/grill... Nothing too fancy, but I reckon it might look nice with a little indentation for the rim.

and second, I think it could do with being squashed a bit lengthways. One of my favourite things about the original is that it's so compact... the nose stopped ever so slightly after the front wheels, the rollcage was low and a bit longer than what you're showing, and the front part wasn't so bulbous ;D

On a side note, what's the 2nd car you've got in that lineup? - it looks like the copcar from TDR?
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

Thanks,
I do have plans to shrink it length ways as mentioned above,
As for the front grill, sure, I'll see to modeling it a bit more.

And finally, yes the second car on that comparrision pic is the Cop from TDR :smile:



*edit*

Right then, I've done all that and got a little further with the texturing. :smile:
But I have a question, I've noticed that some cars have double sided faced triangles in game but through Cared they're only single faced. Examples of these are Screwie Lewie's suspension, Harry's railing around the top of his log mover and of course - every cars' windows.

How do I make a double sided triangle or does Carma 2 do it for you (via the crush data or something?)
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by random_monkey »

You don't have to make a double sided triangle. It will only increase the polycount, and carmageddon has something handy which you can make us of...

When you've finished making your model, textured it and got it in game, you can load up the act file (or the dat, I forget which) in plaything 2. From there you can choose each texture already on the car, and tell it to be double sided.

This way, C2 tells the textures relevant to be mirrored on the other side... Rather than increasing the polycount :grin:
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

Ahh, well thats handy. :smile:


Anyway, I've nearly finished texturing the actual car, I just need to do the back and the bottom. After that I'm onto the wheels (and withit the suspension which will use that "mirrored" texture thing you mentioned)
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Toshiba-3 »

HI Tarquin,

About your wheels being two components : you'll be able to merge them together in PT2, or simply put one in the hierarchy of the other one. The wheel will react correctly ingame as whole.

Please note that when you load a model from CarEd in PT2, make modifications then save, you'd better not reopen it in CarEd as you would lose all the data set via PT2 ! (and would have to do it again~).

Cool texturing so far, keep it up :cool:
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

Well I've found another solution to my 2 component wheels.
I can merge them back into 1 component through Cared and then using just one texture for the outside of the wheel - it'll slap the texture on the opposite end and the texture wont be stretched like how I imagined. :smile:

I'm trying to avoid using Plaything2 just because I really don't want to lower and visual settings on my computer due to bad past experiences.

Oh and update:
I haven't done much but I've now textured the underneath and the rear. So alls that's left to texture is the cage (that'll be quick and easy), the wheels (do 1 and I've done them all) and the exhaust with that their placeholder.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Lumberjack »

PT2 has some features which you might find useful, like the ability to apply various textures to one component, and mapping the texture around the component better. For the sake of simply changing your screen colours to 16 bit, you will have the use of these features along with many other useful things. I understand your reluctance though, and of course everything needed can be accomplished in CarEd, that's what it was designed for.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

Well, I'll see how Cared goes.
I've nearly done the whole car now. The wheels can be all done easily and with 1 texture since I now know of that the texture also gets slapped mirrored on the other side.
I'm doing the same thing for the exhausts and once that and the wheels are done, I'm on to the techy stuff - crush data and the likes. :smile:




*edit*

The model is now fully tectured and I'm off to do the techy stuff.
But I have a few questions,

1. I've noticed that most cars, maybe even all have a .dat or .act at the end of some of their components. I.E: FRWHEEL.ACT / DRIVERBOD.DAT etc..... Do I need to add an extension like that to my components such as the wheels or for the driver?
2. *edit*, solved this while typing it.

Oh and about my wheel textures, I kind of used one from another car :tongue:
When I get near the end of doing something I tend to rush it and in this case I rushed it so bad near the end that I didn't even bother to make any wheel textures and took some from some guys "The Bear" car - I think I downloaded that from this site?

Once the car is all done, Like always, I'll go back over it and touch it up. When I do I'll make my own wheel textures.



*edit again*

That was fast and easy, my car is now in game :grin:
But there are a few little problems,

1. I have some strange spastic behaving wheels, instead of turning on the spot, it looks like the game is turning the wheel based ont he center of my car so the entire wheels move around my car as seen in the pics below

http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/Ch ... c%2064.PNG

http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/Ch ... c%2065.PNG

What's going on there?



2. I tried to make a smashable texture but the game wanted to know my smashable material file, whats that? I tried a shot at the main Grunge Buster material file that Cared created by it didn't work.

But overall I'm very happy, I didn't think I would get a car into the game and even then I expected it to have loads of problems.
So I'm happy :smile:
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Your wheels need pivots.
I don't remember what's needed for the wheels in CarEd for a good compile of the car, but it can be solved easely via PT2.
I sugger you have a look at the tutorial/help file coming with CarEd (cared.htm), and also at the tutorials this site offers, you'll find answers for the smashables : they need to be applied on the model as well.
TTR is the author of the Bear, and probably of the texture you used.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

Ahh thanks, :smile:
I'll check that out



*edit*

Well, it turned out that I'm an idiot (who would have ever thought that :tongue: )
I didn't know that the FRWHEEL has to be called exactly that, and the other wheels must have the simular names.

After renaming them, it all worked out.
So look out, Grungebuster will soon be here....but not untill tomorrow, I have a few things to sort out first, which I wont be able to see to until tomorrow.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Ah yes, they indeed need to be named exactly like that for CarEd.
In PT2 they can be named differently (unless it would be impossible to make cars with more wheels).

I'd advice you to take your time before releasing your first car.
There are several features you could tweak or implement, etc :
Most effective bounding box, detachables, flapables, animated parts (GROOVE)
like simply the driver's head (always a nice little detail to see the head turn), a simple
model, correct physics, animated textures (FUNK), shrapnels color, damage vertices fire
points, the cameras, nice interface picture and informations, a correct C2C file for
installation, a clean and correct zip/rar archive : the final car folder should only keep
CAR.ACT/DAT/MAT, SIMPLE_CAR.ACT/DAT/MAT, CAR.TXT, CAR.WAM, additional
material file (SCRN4.MAT for example), and the tiffrgb folder. The CARCI folder (which
contains the interface pics) can keep the PIX16 folder only, it's quite rare that anybody want
to modify the interface images.

Those are ofcourse details, but they make the difference between lame addons and great addons.

Were you able to add the SHEAR groove effectively ?
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

Everything you mentioned there I have allready done :grin:
Well except for the driver's head turning and this damage vertices fire
points thing....which I don't know what that is.

I'm still tweaking the car to make it perfect (I lowered the cockpit camera but lowered it too much and now need t raise it)
I also wont be releasing it untill I add in my own wheel textures. I don't want to release something of mine that has other peoples work in it.


There are 5 detachables (all have been prooven to come off)
The car can be split and in many ways (Hurray, many cars I've downloaded don't like being split and usally crash the game when they have been forced to split)
I've done all the car interface pics as seen here: http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/Ch ... c%2066.PNG

I've also adjusted the handling nuerous times to make it comfortable, this also included the speed and suspension.


Oh and as for this: "Were you able to add the SHEAR groove effectively ?"
Um no, I havn't got that working yet - that is the final "majour" thing left to do for the car.
But I have taken a look at the website you shown me but I can't seem to work it.

Anyway, some shots
http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/Ch ... c%2068.PNG

http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/Ch ... c%2069.PNG

http://www.myfilestash.com/userfiles/Ch ... c%2070.PNG
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Lumberjack »

You might like to take a look at this tutorial for some ideas, and also the other tutorials here at TSS, The best thing to try to accomplish a feature already seen in game is to copy the relevant setup sections from that car's files. The shear groove should be able to be worked out from that.
I think the way this should work is to use the suspension reference number from that wheel when defining the shear groove for the suspension part..

FLPIVOT.ACT
not a lollipop
constant
straight // (straight, no path)
absolute // (absolute, shear, spin)
0,0,0 // Offset from centre turning point - defines 'orbit' rotations
4 // Suspension Reference number (we'll call it SusRef)
0,1,0
rock // Movement type (rock, spin)
absolute // (absolute, controlled, continuous)
8 // Reference number (GroovyFunkRef)
0.05,0,0 // X,Y,Z co-ords of centre (turning point) of wheel
y // Axis of rotation
0
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

You might like to take a look at this tutorial for some ideas
And then my suspension was fixed.............. :grin:
Thanks, on that tutorial I saw something - just before all the groove / funk entries were a special thing all about suspension. That was what I didn't change, so now I assume that will sort everything out for me.

Thanks, :smile:


*edit*

Right then, it's done, complete, el finishido.
And I've just sent it to the spray shop upload e-mail so hopefully we'll have it here :smile:

I just want to say thanks to everyone who helped me and those names are also mentioned in the readme of the Grungebuster. But you guys know who you are :smile:
However, there was only one thing that I never included and that was a working "simple" form of the model.
I just couldn't get it to work but I have included that model itself as well as the textures with the main model so you have all the parts, its just up to you if you want to get them working for you.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Lumberjack »

Hmm.. why couldn't you get it to work?
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

I don't know, I made a small box, textured it, named the model Grunge_Buster.1
The actual file name was named Simple_Grunge_Buster and in the text file I did say to have 1 other detailed model.


Anyway it doesn't really matter. Its only 1,300 polys so I've pushed up it's rendering distance to 16 and the car is very small so its not noticeable if it suddenly pops up.

P.S: Did you recieve the file I sent through the upload section?
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Lumberjack »

Hmm, no, I think the address still functions but I don't look at it anymore. Anyone else?
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Hi Tarquin,

For the Simple_model, you're right about the fact that the car is very lowpoly and could go without simple_model.
But then you can totally get rid of the level-of-detail (lod) management :

change this :

1 // Number of extra levels of detail
16 // Minimum distance before squared

to this :

0 // Number of extra levels of detail

So just put 0 instead of 1 and then remove the next line.
Most of my simple_models are like 3000-4000 polys (I don't take the time to make a real boxy one heh) but I set the distance to something like 6 or 8.

For the file, just upload it to Rapidshare and post the link here, I'm pretty sure R_M or Lumberjack will upload it to TSS ASAP. You should post a ~300*200 pic for the gallery too, just to help them spare time, so that they don't have to make the pic themselve.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

As for the simple detail thing, I know abou the "0" levels of extra detail (worked it out from some guy's mafia taxi car) but I want to be as performance friendly as possible so I don't want the car to be always rendered espeically since at such a long distance you wont even be able to see it :tongue:
So I just increased its visability to 10 or 16?


Oh and I've attached my car (in the same layout as the other Carma 2 cars) to my last post at the bottom of this thread over on the CWA board

http://www.cwaboard.com/ubbthreads/show ... =&fpart;=1


Oh yeah, I've started my second car, another Carma 1 car, De Gory'un, driven by Metal Mikey.
But I wont be doing much with that for the time being as I have a few other things to do first. :smile:
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Toshiba-3 »

[I'm the one who put the Mafia Taxi in C2]

Here's my review of your Grungebuster :
First, you haven't removed the PIX16 folder from the CAR folder and the TIFFRGB folder from the CARCI folder. C2 will create the main PIX16 automatically from the TIFF one and the interface pics don't need the TIFFRGB from the CARCI folder. It's a waste of webspace, your zip could be 50% lighter. Just a detail ofcourse, most people don't worry about that and it's a pity.
Well at first I'm not keen about the idea of having a new engine sound, usually most new engine sounds suck, but this one actually turned out to be very good, maybe because it's directly from C1.
I found your car to be surprisingly very enjoyable, wasn't expecting this for a first car. The SHEAR groove has a lot to do with this, and is well setup. However I would have made the wheels to pivot around a point set between the suspension and the wheel and not the very center of the wheel, this would have avoided the wheel going through the suspension.
Detachables works well ; if there's no funk you could have deleted that part in the car.txt file, same for the smashable textures, if you don't install them, they are useless and can be removed. Textures are good and do their job very well by adding a lot of non-3D details, though it's too bad the headlights aren't 3d. Model-wise it's a quite good lowpoly model, but the driver model really is outdated nowadays, you could have used Coffeycup's free driver model instead and retextured, but it would ofcourse have added a lot of tris.
Damage fire points aren't correctly setup. I don't see the point of the bumper cam. I personaly would have added the driver entry in every damage infos as the car is very small.

That's it. In short it is a very good first car, with already some well working features.
I hope you'll improve it someday.
Keep up the good work !
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

*edit*
I've sorted the damage fire points now.

As for the driver, yeah I used the one that came with Cared :tongue:
When I make Metal Mikey I will model him myself and by this he'll be in more then 1 model so I can texture it better as well.


As for the pivot thing:
However I would have made the wheels to pivot around a point set between the suspension and the wheel and not the very center of the wheel, this would have avoided the wheel going through the suspension.
I didn't know I could do that, I'll take a look at the pivot setup in the funk / groove stuff, asuming that is what effects the wheels?


Oh yeah, at the moment its hosted on Coffeycup's site so its easy to find.
I'll take another look into my car and see about fixing those little problems and also may even update a few things (Since I now know how Cared's grouped components work)








List of stuff to do (or done)
1. *Pivot on wheels done*
2. Do something with the driver,
3. *Cancled this one*, It doesn't bother me and no ne has noticed it so I'm saying its part of the design (Going on about the exhaust texture)*
4. Get a "simple" model form working......is there a guild somehwere saying how to do this as I'm sure I'm making a mistake somewhere with it.
5. *Fire points set up*
6. Get rid of the extra un-needed files for webspace :grin:
7. *Fixed some typos in the CTC file* (Grungebuster should cost only 95,500 instead of 955,000 also it is faster then 0-60 in 3.3 seconds.)
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Hello~

Good to see you're still working on it.
You can find Coffey's open source driver there :
http://coffey.polygonized.com/files2.html#Earl
If you're interested, it's already textured, in OBJ format, etc., you'll just have to reskin it. Helps you spare some time.

About the simple model : have you tried to use no alphachanneled textures ? The only time I made a simple model in cared which didn't work had textures with alpha channel.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

I'll see about that Alpha chanel thing,

As for the driver, I'll check it out but I may end up making my own model :tongue:
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by TTR »

Woah, any update on this? The artwork looks sweeheet :smile: Cool you used my TDR CopCar on the comparisment, never actually compare my vehicles to default ones.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Lumberjack »

Pivot point is in the grooves for the wheels, I believe. I had quite a few problems with that for the interceptor because of my non-standard wheel type. CarEd sets the pivot point to be the outermost point of the wheel, as I remember. I used CarEd's coords display to measure how much I wanted to change (the car.txt for that car is actually here so you can see what I mean).

Oh, actually I see now that you have already done it..

If anyone has more things to add to the "notes on car.txt" then do let us know.
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Re: Grunge Buster - Mech Maniac returns

Post by Tarquin »

I haven't been here for a while (sort of stopped playing Carmageddon 2 for the time)

Anyway.

Everything about the car was sorted out except for re-modeling the driver so I didn't want to release it till that was sorted out (I want to make as few released versions of the car I could manage)

I haven't done anything for a while but the other day I did actually play Carmageddon II so maybe I'll find my way getting back into modeling cars...or maybe not. I have a horrible nack of doing something for so long then moving onto something else..then move on from that to something else again.
Useually I will end up in a circle and meet up with one of my past projects and once again continue with it.

*edit*
Oh yeah - I never got a simple form working but I never did get around to trying out what Toshiba said to do (about it not liking alpha channels in the simple textures)
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