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This track has tons of new features, including 470 textures.

Any comments?

Just a few notes for you.

First, we need some sort of texture transitions <a href="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/hiddencutsbytarres1.jpg">here</a>. Either from road to grass then grass to dirt, or some way to bring the road and dirt together.

I notice the road edges are not very round, as in <a href="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/hiddencutsbytarres2.jpg">here</a> and <a href="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/hiddencutsbytarres3.jpg">here</a>. I don't know if there's a reason for that, or if it's to try and allow you some swervy sections, but whatever it is, it stands out pretty sharply.

Speaking of swervy sections, spots like <a href="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/hiddencutsbytarres4.jpg">here</a> and <a href="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/hiddencutsbytarres5.jpg">here</a> are notorious for texture seams. Many people have tried many things to get spots like that to look better, but nobody has hit on a fool proof solution yet. Of course, you can do what you like, and you've done not too badly with this track and in your last one, but I tend to think keeping those to a minimum helps more than it hurts.

Speaking of really swervy sections, I don't know if you're aware or not, but our trains can't follow tracks like <a href="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/hiddencutsbytarres6.jpg">this</a> ;-)

What's with the birds? Perhaps you can animate them? Either like the heli-bird, or like guitar bill's vulture (goes in circles), or both.

Who's dorothy ann? She's been hanging around quite a bit lately, I notice. I was curious.

The bridge took me by surprise but once I saw what you had going, it was pretty good. Not over done at all, and very trecherous.

But more than anything else, I think the road is very rough. Too rough. True, that's a stylistic thing, but it hinders the racability aspect of the track. You've gone to a lot of work to make it look nice and design the course and layout, and done very well I might add. It would be a shame if it doesn't get used more because of the way you have the road. My vote would be to smooth it out so as to speed it up.

I hope that helps. Nice work over all.

hey phin, about those train tracks. i made some like that for evo on a track called "Gold Rush" that took place underground. but the tracks were way too wide hehe. what im saying is that curved tracks is a pretty good idea for a race, even if trains cant go along them. but yea, the tracks here arent very curved.

notice real roads arent perfectly curved.
go in photoshop or whatever you have and make 2 layers. make a set of grass on the first layer, and your road on the second. first curve it as much as you can, then erase the edges you dont need. it may not be perfectly round, but no road is . add the white lines. then you can go over parts of the road that are broken on the edges. not sure if im explaining this correctly but look at the road textures on both Farm Road 29 and Barn Yard 109.

but if your looking for perfectly round roads, then im not sure what to tell ya. just try your best.

Mat-Allum,

For your custom textures, use the MTMG texture tutorial here. Then you should have good roads. It looks like you took a straight piece of track, rotated it and put it on the others to make a curve, is that what you did?

Thanks for the tips, guys.

The "texture misalignments" you talked about first (from concrete, to a turn into sand) are actually in the centers of the textures. Highlight the textures involved in Traxx and you'll see.

I didn't see any misalignments on the sharply swurvy sections.

The "straight corners" you were talking about, I couldn't help. I'm lousy at texture patterns, and ended up making one road, then copying and rotating.

Oh, yeah, about the fogels (the red birds): I dunno how I'd animate them, as I converted them from another editing program. I do not know their original source. But anyway, maybe someone could help with animating them. Two people on one animation equals a good anim.

The train track corners: Sorry about that deal, but look just before that, on the road: Accident ahead. I am planning to make it look like the train crashed, perhaps slightly derailed by the stupidly curved tracks.


"Dorothy Ann" is to my races as the cow in the truck is to Malibu350's races. I haven't exactly decided why. Then again, lots of people have hidden stuff in tracks.

> . . . texture patterns, and ended up making one road, then copying and rotating.

Hey, I wasn't critisizing. Just I noticed it and so I mentioned it. At least now I understand why, and that's cool.

> Oh, yeah, about the fogels (the red birds)

Let us know how you'd like them to be and maybe we can come up with something for you.


> The train track corners

I was funnin' with ya. That's why I kept it separate from the other stuff. I actually thought it was a funny idea. And the train wreck sounds good, so I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

> dorothy ann?

Ah ha. A trademark !


A little chat and everything becomes crystal clear. Good stuff.

Well, the fogels around the checkpoints could fly (circle? oval? figure eight?) around the checkpoints rather than stay put. The one supporting the pink and red thing by the bridge (Nintendo's "Kirby" character) could be bobbing up and down, and the rest could be flying in circles.

I have already made some changes with the course and terrain, so when I upload Beta 2, it'll be easier.

Sorry about the "QUOTE" tags in there, made some sorta mistake.

Hey Mat, bud you have some great help there. I ran the track and any thing that one can say has been said. Keep up the good work and look forward to the next beta bro.

Okay, here's Beta 2.

http://mtm2.com/~tracks/dl.cgi?dl=4213

Features:
Better terrain
Faster route
Better comp trucks by the damaged bridge
Hidden part in the mountains, by the finish line

I ran it, and I don't know if the terrain is better or worse, lol. I know one thing, I still don't care for it. I opened it in traxx and spent some time trying to fix it, and I'm not even happy with my own efforts. It'd take me the better part of a week to go over the whole thing - it's long, eh? Anyway, I did manage a few things so if you want the terrain file I'll upload it someplace for you (then you'd copy and paste terrain as bitmap to put it in the track) but I'm afraid it'll mess some of your model placement too. No easy answer sometimes. Or we could make a temp pod so you could try it before you'd have to commit. And speaking of models, I began trying to make the bird fly a little. I'll let you know when I've got something usable.

[ edit ]

Here's the animated fogel model.

<a href="http://mtm2.com/~tracks/beta/Hidden.zip">download</a>

Mount it in game to have a look first and if you like it just copy the models to the models directory and load them into traxx - just into the models box, you don't have to insert them. I used the same name for the control bin so all you'll have to do is remake the pod, after you load the models into traxx, and you'll be all set.

Sure, if you don't like the terrain and have fixed some yourself, I need all the help I can get!

And good job on the animated fogels. But one question... could their wings flap a bit faster?

Animations are easy using OP's <a href="http://cownap.com/~mtmg/downloads/mtm2/trackmaking/BinAnim.zip">bin animator</a>.


<center><img src="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/BinAnimatorbyOliverPieper.gif" width="416"></center>


The "Animation Name" is the file name that will be saved. It will be saved in the same directory as the bin animator program, and it must have a "bin" extension. The 'frames' do not have to be in the same folder because the program doesn't check for them. So, yes, spelling counts.

Since you never know exactly how fast something will move, what I usually do is save a bunch of files at different speeds. This saves re-typing all that info over and over. What I'll do is call one FOGEL.BIN, then if it's 0.5 frames per second I'll call it FOGEL05.BIN, and if it's 1.5 frames per second I'll call it FOGEL15.BIN, and 2.5 will be FOGEL25.BIN and so on. Then I'll make a temp track and insert them all and run it in game. I'll keep the one(s) I want and delete the rest.

You'll catch on quickly, I'm sure.

For the terrain, I'll have to dig it up.... later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

<center><img src="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/HiddenShortcutsTerrain.gif" width="256"></center>

Like I say, it's only a little bit. You'll notice the difference on a few of the corners, but the longish straight sections probably still need more touching up.

So, to use this, open your track in traxx, and on the edit menu select copy terrain as bitmap. Then in your paint program, paste and you should see a graphic similar to above. Save it as a bmp or a gif file. This is for back up purposes in case you don't like the new one.

Now, for the new one, open it in your paint program and copy it to the clipboard. With traxx still open, on the edit menu select paste terrain bitmap. If you have your eye on the terrain, you might notice the slight change.

http://cownap.com/~mtmg/traxx/bitmap.html

Pod it up and have a look. If you like it, you can continue working on it. If you don't, just follow these same steps to put your original one back. (alternately, you can save a new txx as a temp file while you try it out, and just delete it if you don't like it).

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If this was my track. What I'd do is work on about ten to fifteen squares along the road at a time. I'd make some changes then go try in it game. I wouldn't even close traxx. Then, after trying it, I'd do a bit more. When I'm happy with that section, I would move up another ten squares or so. I often bring the first truck along with me because driving up to the middle parts of the track can be very time consuming. Once you have gone all the way around the course, the truck will be back at the beginning anyway, so there's no harm in saving yourself some time. But basically, that's all there is to it. Just take your time, little by little, section by section, and you can make a nice driving course... or at least one that you're satisfied you've done all you can.

Hope this helps.