On this page I will be placing tips and tricks that you can use on your own MTM2 trucks. Most of the text on this page has been culled from other pages of this site, so don't be surprised if you read some things twice.
While building a truck, and especially when working on a .BIN model in BINedit, keep a piece of paper and a pen or pencil handy. These are invaluable for noting down vertex numbers and coordinates, schematic diagrams, filenames etc.
It's usually a good idea when modifying someone else's work to get their permission before you begin. Although most people agree that anyone can use anything they want in making their trucks, there are a few people who are a bit touchy about others using their hard work (sometimes rightly so, particularily in the case of scratch-built .BIN models that they spent hours working on).
It's a good idea to save work-in-progress and backup versions of your texture files in .BMP or .GIF format (.JPGs can also be used, but sometimes don't work as well). This will save you having to mess with those .PAL/.ACT files while working.
I save my work-in-progress .BIN models to a lot of different filenames. Basically what I do is to prepare and save all the components of the truck seperately (eg. body, frame, rollbar etc.) first, and then put them all together and save the final .BIN. This is really just "covering my bases": if I screw up somewhere with the final .BIN, all I need to do is reassemble all the components. It's a bit like making something out of Lego really.
Another point is that it is usually a good idea to stick to eight characters or less for the filesnames of the files you put into your truck (although in the case of "development" files that do not go into the truck, and the actual .POD filename, you can go over if you want).
You can compare saved component .BIN models by inserting them into one another, however this is only for checking and reference. Do not save or you'll be stuck deleting the inserted parts if you are not satisfied with the way they fit together. Once you have made your comparison and checked what you are looking for, clear the screen by going to Files -> New, and then reopen the bin you want to work on.
Since Scrape Points determine the weight displacement and points at which crash damage is put on the truck model, it is usually best to go with what Tracked2 sets for you. Generally, I only manually edit the scrape points when I want them in certain positions, and Tracked2 puts them in the wrong place.
Zipping compresses files, making them smaller and therefore quicker to download from the internet. If you are planning on releasing your completed truck to the world, it is a good idea to zip up the truck .POD, as this will make quicker to download. Placing a .TXT file in the .ZIP with your truck .POD is a convienient way of letting people who download it know what the truck is, who made it, etc. You will need a program such as WinZip for zipping files.
There is a little trick I use on my trucks to make their paint look better in the game. If you look at a stock truck's texture files, you will notice that it's paint is kind of blurred and blended rather than clear-cut. It's hard to describe, but if you look at one yourself you'll see what I mean.
Firstly, save the image in case what you do doesn't turn out right, then you can go back to how it was before. Don't forget to save the palette file!
With the image in 16 million colours mode, select the area of the truck that needs to be blended and from the Image menu choose "Soften". This will blur the detail of the selection. Then choose "Sharpen" a couple of times (twice is usually enough) to restore the detail, and you will be left with a section of paint that looks more natural than hard-edged pixels.
I used this process on the flames I drew on Devil's Dodge, as it saved me having to draw the edges of the flames by hand to get them to look right. The main reason that I do this is because I don't have any 3D-accelerator hardware, and I don't want my trucks looking like pixel city when I drive them in the game. Obviously this procedure cannot be used on everything, as some areas of the truck may need to retain the detail you draw by hand.
Taking screenshots will depend on what type or paint or screen-capture programs you have. If you have a program like HyperSnap you can take full-screen screenshots of the game in play. If you're using a program like PSP to take screenshots, you may or may not be able to take full-screen pics. The program I use, PSP4, can't take full-screen pics, however PSP5 can.
If you can't take full-screen pics then you will have to take screenshots of the MTM2 replay screen by pressing the Print Screen key and pasting into PSP, and then cut out the section that you want. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as you can use the VCR controls of the replay screen to get the camera in the right position for some good views of the truck, however the size of the pics will be smaller.
Another option is to use the GOLD mode cheats to access Slew Mode, which will allow you to move the truck around manually instead of being restricted to driving. Click here for a webpage with more information.
You should also take your screenshots on a track with good lighting conditions: some tracks have the light and brightness adjusted such that the colours on a truck appear differently, and in some cases look better or worse.
The final option is to use Tracked2 for your screenshots, if your computer will allow it.
You may have heard people complain of latency or "lag" in a game - when a game's framerate is so low that things happening on the screen do not move smoothly but appear to jerk or "chug". This usually occurs when too many things happen in the game at once, and your computer is struggling to keep up.
The act of showing a 3-dimensional model such as an MTM2 truck moving around in a 3-dimensional environment such as an MTM2 track places a huge strain on the processor of a computer. As modern technology has evolved, computers have become faster and better able to cope with huge loads, so that the computing power required for an old game such as MTM2 has become paltry. But for an older, slower computer, framerates can really suffer when the computer tries to display a high-detail model moving and interacting with its environment.
As a general rule, the more detailed a model is, the more computing power is required to display it and make it appear to move. For a truck maker, this means that the more detail you pour into your truck, the more strain you are going to place on a computer trying to display it. This is an important consideration if you plan to release your truck to the world even if you do not have a slow computer yourself, because if a person with a slow computer tries to drive your truck they may find that their framerate plunges to unacceptably slow levels. You will notice that the stock trucks (the ones that come with the game) do not have terribly detailed bodies - they're solid, rather than having the detail of the fiberglass truck I describe here. The game developers have "considered the lowest denominator" with these: they may not look as fancy, but they allow for a decent framerate even with a computer that can only just run the game.
Three factors affect the amount of lag a detailed truck model produces on a computer: in order of importance, these are the number of vertices, the number of texture files, and the number of faces.
The number of vertices is the biggest factor - the more vertices a model has, the more computing power is required to project them into the 3D environment of the game. High vertice models - those that exceed 1000 vertices - can really make a huge drain on the game's framerate. Hence the reason why the stock trucks have a modest vertice count of around 200. A good rule of thumb is to try to stick to below 1000 vertices when making trucks, as this allows a decent amount of detail but still makes the truck run acceptabley on almost any system capable of running the game.
The number of texture files also has an impact, because the game has to load these and hold them in memory to display the truck. You will need a large number of texture files to notice any difference, but practically speaking, you shouldn't need more than three for most types of truck.
The number of faces is the third factor that effects framerates, and it might be surprising to know that they don't really effect it much at all. It seems that vertices have the greatest effect by far, and projecting the faces that the truck uses is simple. As long as you are concious of the number of vertices you are using and use them efficiently, you can still build very detailed models that run beautifully in the game.
For further reading, I would suggest you go check out The MTMG which has comprehensive tutorials and downloads for just about anything MTM. Also have a look at Alpine's website which has a large utilities page of useful programs, and a really awesome painting tutorial with lots of advanced tips and tricks.
There are also many sites that offer parts for you to download and use on your trucks. The MTM Workshop, and The Un-named Site are two of the largest such sites. Many truckmakers, myself included, also have download sections on their websites where you can download the parts they use on their trucks as well as the trucks they create.