MTM2.com

okay, I downloaded the fixmore4 pod from the main mtmg site. however for some off reason it doesn't seem to be working. I did my test by trying the dirt smoke thing (which I'm assuming is in the pod) and didn't notice it.

so I guess what i'm asking is do pod this file normally or do you have do do any different steps? and if neither why might it not be working for me?

and what fixes are exactly in the pod? and what does each do?

dirt smoke? turn on smoke effects, thats all u gotta do.

Be happy mtm2 remembers that setting, mtm1 didnt, u had to turn off smoke effects every time u started the game lol.

that's the thing. I try to see if what the pod contains will work but it doesn't seem to be working for some odd reason.

The fix pod goes at the top of the pod.ini file list. More info here:

http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/helpfile.shtml

The smoke is a separate file.


There is no list of fixes in the fixmore4.pod. There are 440 fixes. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. When you run into problems, though, you might change your mind.

Thanks. don't worry i plan on using it. Thanks for making it.

and a big thanks for all the help you guys have been. this is what happens when you get back into a game you haven't played for 5 years.

okay, this is kind of strange.

I got the pod merge thing. did a bit of merging (didn't get all to work but got some to work.) anyway, merged together a pod containing diggerfan's grave digger 18 and 16 trucks. The pod managed to somehow turn the frame color on digger 18 (bright) to the frame color on digger 16 (darker). I got rid of the pod and repodded digger 18 but it didn't help. I tried reinstalling digger 18. no luck. is there anyway to fix the problem?

Sounds like you've just had your first introduction to filename conflicts...

A pod file is actually like a container that holds all of what would otherwise be individual files that make up the truck or track (like how you can have multiple files compressed in a zip file). There are a whole bunch of files that go together to make a truck - typically you have one or more *.bin model file, a *.trk data file, a number of *.raw and *.act texture (image) files, etc. Each of these files has to have a name, like digger16.bin or frame.raw - but all you have to deal with for downloading and mounting is the pod (like digger16.pod).

Behind the scenes though, the game still treats the files inside the pod as individual files. When you startup the game, it goes down the list of pods in pod.ini and loads the files in each pod. Now, if it encounters a file whose name is the same as a file it already loaded from a previous pod, it skips over it (because we can assume that if they have the same name, they should be the identical same file, and we've already loaded it). The problem is, we can have two files in two pods that share the same name but are actually different - unfortunately, the game has no way to differentiate them, so it loads one (the first one it found) and any others with the same name get skipped.

So I'll bet what's happened is that digger16.pod and digger18.pod each contain a texture file called (say) frame.raw, which is the texture applied to the frame. The texture files have the same name, but they have different contents (a lighter and a darker frame colour). However the game just loads the first one it finds (evidently the darker one for digger 16) and skips the second one, and just applies the first one wherever there is call for a frame.raw (i.e. on the frame of digger 16 and the frame of digger 18). The result is that one truck ends up with the wrong colour. That's a classic filename conflict scenario.

Similarly when you merge pods, what you're doing is throwing all the files that the source pods contain into one bigger destination pod. If the merge tool finds two or more files with the same name, it can only put one in, so the other gets left out (in your case it got the frame.raw for digger16 and left the one for digger18).

How can you fix it? Well, you can extract the files from the pod and make changes yourself so that one of the diggers doesn't use a frame texture file with the same filename as the other (i.e. you edit the files for, say, digger 16 so that the frame.raw is given a different name and the digger16.bin is edited to use the renamed texture and not the one named frame.raw). Or you can request the truck maker to fix it for you.

Or, just live with it. You won't be able to have both trucks mounted in your pod.ini at the same time and have them display correctly in the game (however you can at least influence what frame colour you get on both trucks by the order they are listed in pod.ini - if you want the darker frame, put digger16.pod above digger18.pod, and vice versa if you think it's easier to live with the brighter frame on both).

it gets worse. was adding some trucks to game when this message came up:

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n228 ... hot2-2.jpg

I looked on the site, and found what I though was the problem fix worked. but now it's stopped. any help?

here's the thing I only have 71 pods. with the patch in effect too. that shouldn't be happening. I did merge some, would that be an issue?

If you have less than 99 pods and you still get the error then the cause is a pod or pods that contain multiple .trk files. MTM has a limit on the amount of .trk and .sit (tracks) files it can handle at once. The fix is the same, unmount suspect pods until the error goes away.

you can only have 99 trucks/tracks combined. merged or unmerged, if you go over this limit, mtm2 simply won't start, it will sit there in your process list till you end task it.

I don't think merging has much of a purpose other to save file space, but a merged track will show as a different version in game. I used to merge everything i had when i was on my ole 95, to save HDD space.

okay, thanks.

hopefully this is my last problem:
was playing the game today and noticed that it's managed to change the color of a part of a truck I have.

pics:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n228 ... hot1-2.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n228 ... hot2-3.jpg

the top of the headers, it went from grey to black for no reason. this pod wasn't merged of anything. any help?

I truely hope this is the last question i have for a while.

It's common for custom trucks to change colors from track to track because the tracks color palette supercedes the trucks color palette but, in you case it looks like a texture name conflict where the track and truck have a texture with the same name -- one is grey (truck) and one is black (track) the tracks texture trumps the trucks.




I hope not.

it happens on all the tracks I have. It just happened all of a sudden.

is there anyway to fix it?

all i can think of is use common colours, pure red blue and greens, stick to the 240 something safe colours.

how do you do that?

Please note Malibu350's reply.



That is most definitely the problem here. What tracks you use is beside the point and has no bearing on anything here. Place the truck pod at the top of the pod.ini list and you should see gray again.

thanks.