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...you may be pleased to see this in the game sometime soon. Currently has no textures but I have some I can map to it. Anyone who can help, your assistance would be appreciated. Vertex count is 3673 and face count is 4306, do you think it will cause much lag?

44 Now, when I was 7 maybe 8 living in memphis in 68 when MLK was shot. I remember my grandmother picking me and my brothers from school just before all _ell broke out. Same year BK was shot I believe. 69 my oldest brother AARON came back from nam in a box. Chicago went crazy some where around there.{DNC} Crazy time the sixtys, I was just a kid. But I remember the 60's.

> Vertex count is 3673 and face count is 4306

I don't know your binedit experience yet, but there's a few things to note. First, is something with that many faces will be a lot of work. If you press the space bar to highlight a face then the f key to select it, just think about doing that four thousand times. Ouch. So, to map the early parts you might like to use 'select by facing'. Also, once you have a group of faces selected, make sure you remember to save the face group. If you ever need to tweak it later, you won't have to go through all that selection process all over again. Another thing to consider would be to break the model down into parts. Say, delete those bars from the body and save just the body. Then open the original back up and delete the body and save just the bars. If you break it down into parts, you'll be sure to get all the faces you want and they'll be easier to select and which should make for a better mapping job since you only have to focus on little chunks at a time. But save the face groups even if you break it down. The groups are preserved when you re-merge it again later. And a tip. If you separate the parts, don't center or move or resize the individual parts. They will merge back exactly the same if you don't move them. This is not the end of the world but re-fitting the parts will be a step you can avoid.

> do you think it will cause much lag?

Yes, absolutely. Something this complex should not be put near the racing area.

And the textures are done. It causes the Noah effect but that is fixed when the reflections are turned off. Now I just need help with the wheel placement. Anyone want to try?

@Phin: I converted it through ZModeler so all the mapping was done already.

I also have a Lotus 72E in the works.

I remember building Al Unser's Lotus 38 plastic model somewhere around 1967...Sure wish I had it now.

Here's a similar copy, thou more detailed than the 1/24th scale model I had:



That vertix count is prett high...Don't know how much lag it will cause, but I like to keep mine below 3000 absolute, and below 2000 vert if possible.


I can place the tires for you if you wish, but please note that I can't get rid of the shock struts or the axlebars that the game places on every vehicle. They may make the car look a little strange. I have a method to remove the front/rear driveshafts, but it affects all vehicles in the game.

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P.S.....I don't recall ever seeing THIS Lotus before (model 42B), but the article says it was made for Indy but was never raced:

BigDOGGe, I have some tyres made for this car so I would be very grateful if you helped with the tyre placement. That Indy Lotus looks great, I bet there's one for GPL. As for my Lotus 72E, it already had perfect tyre placement and will only require the Small Tyres patch. It's face count is only 2000 thankfully and only 1500 vetices. I will e-mail the Ferrari to you now BigDOGGe, with its tyres.

Also, if I raise the tyres and the body over the shocks, will they become invisible and still work with the Small Tyres patch?

Ferrari received. I'll get on it tommorrow.

Changing the Y-axis parameters in the trk file to alter the visible struts produces very poor handling. Try out different settings in the game to see what I mean.

Just for the record it is possible to build mtm2 trucks that do not have shocks, axle bars, or drive shafts... the downside is that you're stuck with ugly axles.

<center><img src="http://malibu350.com/images/mtmgbbs/noshocksornuttin.jpg">
<a href="http://malibu350.com/images/mtmgbbs/NoShocks.zip">noshocks.pod.zip </a></center>

You know, I never thought of that but it's a very good idea. I'll bet Vage's Flintstone Mobile would look far far better that way.

<center>YabbaDabbaDooo

<img src="http://malibu350.com/images/mtmgbbs/flintstones.jpg"></center>

Did you do that using an MTM1 trk file? If so, it may be possible to remove or change the axles by podding it at the top of the pod.ini file, IF I can locate the stock mtm1 axle's filename.

I'll have to experiment with it a bit. Thx for reminding me of that method.

> Did you do that using an MTM1 trk file?

Yes, you can dl the 'noshocks' pod i posted above and see what's going on there in the trk.

> it may be possible to remove or change the axles by podding it at the top of the pod.ini file.

I played around with this about a year or so ago but didn't have much luck... I don't remember if I tried overwriting by mounting higher or not.

> IF I can locate the stock mtm1 axle's filename

axle.bin

I answered my own question...The answer was "yes", placing it above the startup pod did the trick.

I had to create my own AXLE.BIN model and place it in my MODELS folder, then use Winpod to create the pod file....Wouldn't work using tracked2, which automatically would use the default axle.bin model in the startup pod.








I tried it with both an invisible axle, and a replacement model with success. This opens up some interesting possibilities. Thx bro.


It appears I'll have to make sure the indy car's wheel model is left-right symmetrical as well, since I can only use one model for all four corners. That may not be too hard. I'll let you know how it goes...

OK...Here's the results, if placed at the top of the POD.INI file. I resized it from the original 26 foot length to 17 feet, which makes it more to scale with stock MTM2 vehicles:

...pics taken using the SMALL TIRES stock track converter...






This is what it looks like if you DON'T place it above the startup.pod in pod.ini...note the visible MTM1 axles:





I did a lot of work to improve the wheel model, which looked pretty bad before. They're still mapped to only two 64x64 pixel textures, so no performance was lost in doing so:



I emailed it back to Crash Cart to distribute when he so desires, in case he wants to do a bit more work on it (the top/front of the body may need remapping, due to a small visual flaw. The flaw can be seen in the pics).

Thanks for the help on eliminating the struts/axlebars, Mal...It made a BIG difference.

Why don't you just use a no-face or transparent axle?

I did.

That's what you see in the 2 top pictures, after placing the pod at the top of the .INI file.

I discovered that the MTM1 AXLE.BIN model is not found in the MODELS folder.

MTM1 trucks use a default AXLE.BIN model that apparently sits in the startup.pod.....The only way I could get my own invisible axle.bin model to show was to place the Ferrari pod above the startup pod.


Hmmmm....Perhaps a default transparent AXLE.BIN model should be placed in the next copy of FIXMORE....Then we could release vehicles like this Indy car, without requiring special pod installation methods.

The tires on the Flintstones above are a single vertex (no texture required). You could do the same for the mtm1 axles

The axle I used was a single face model, reduced to microscopic size.....Same effect, but the above limitation still applies.....The axle in the startup pod will still over-ride it if the car is not placed above said startup.pod


The flintstone car appears to be hiding the mtm1 axle within the stone wheels, so it didn't require podding in a specific location in the .INI file.

If that isn't the case, then I don't know how you got rid of it. I placed an invisible axle model in my models folder and named it AXLE.BIN, but the default axle still appears if I pod at the bottom of the list.

Yeah the axles in fred's rig are hidden inside. The only reason I brought up the single vertex model is for maximum efficiencies sake, I realize it doesn't change the fact it needs to be above the startup pod.

Nice job btw on those wheels.

My question is why are you naming it axle.bin in the first place. Just call it something else. Or are you saying it will error out if you do that? My understanding was the name axle.bin was needed in mtm1, but that mtm2 was more flexible, even if using the mtm1 trk format.