TRI TRACKED A Track Editor from Terminal Reality Inc. Version 1.00 Created: 12-21-96 Last Revised: 01-22-97 WHAT IS TRACKED? ================ TRACKED is a track editor developed by Terminal Reality Inc. for use with Microsoft MONSTER TRUCK MADNESS (MTM). This track editor will allow you to create new tracks that can be added to and used in the full version of MTM. Tracks created and edited with TRACKED only work with the full retail version of MTM. This track editor is provided as is. Technical Support for this product can be obtained via email only. To contact TRI for support address your email to: tracked@terminalreality.com DO NOT contact Microsoft for technical support for this editor. FIRST TIME SETUP AND OUTLINE ============================ Make sure that you have a "Typical" or "Full Install" of Monster Truck Madness (MTM) loaded on to your computer. Make sure that TRACKED.EXE, TRACKED.INI, and TRACKED.POD are installed in your MTM directory. Launch the TRACKED program. Select File Manager. Select option A - First Time Setup. This will expand the files from the MTM GAME.POD file out into the DOS file system. Once the files are in the DOS file system, you will be able to look at, and change them. To create a new level, you need to clone an existing MTM level. Levels are typically called "situations" in the editor, but levels is an easier term to follow. To clone a level, select option C under the File Manager. Choose a level to clone from the list of levels already created in MTM. Give it a new unique name, up to 7 characters long (i.e. MYTRACK). Next, you can give your level a description, up to 31 characters long. This description will appear on the pull down menus for circuit and rally races within MTM. Once you have cloned a level, you can safely make changes to it. It is a good idea to move your level/situation into a .POD file frequently. If nothing else, this serves as a backup for the work that you have done. This .POD file can then be used in MTM, and it can also be traded with your friends. GENERAL PROCEDURE FOR CREATING A NEW TRACK ========================================== The following sections describe the general process that a level designer at TRI uses to create a track. You may find that the best way to start learning how tracks are put together, is to start taking them apart. Start with the tracks that are shipped with the game, and go on from there. There is an detailed listing of the keys which are used in each option of the Editor. You will find this under the "KEYBOARD GUIDE" section of this document. If you want to jump there right now and blaze on ahead, do so, but if you want a little more in-depth background on how we do level design, read on. TRACK REFERENCE LIST ==================== This is a listing of the situations/levels that are available in both the retail and on-line versions of MTM. You can use this list when it comes time to clone a level for any new tracks that you would like to create. If you want to create a Circuit track, you would clone one of the Circuit tracks in the list below, the same if you want to create a Rally track. Situation Track Type Track Name --------- ---------- ---------- CASTLE.Sit Rally Highlands Rally CIRC1.Sit Circuit A Crazy Eight CIRC2.Sit Circuit Canyon Adventure CIRC3.Sit Circuit Round and Round CIRC4.Sit Circuit Winding Way CIRC5.Sit Circuit Mud Pies DEMO.Sit Rally Arizona DRAG.Sit Drag Strip Indiana State Fairgrounds DRAG2.Sit Drag Strip RCA Dome DRAG3.Sit Drag Strip B.C. Place DRAG4.Sit Drag Strip Tacoma Dome (J) DRAG5.Sit Drag Strip Trans World Dome (J) ISLAND.Sit Rally Yucatan Adventure Available On-Line ----------------- CRAZR8.Sit Circuit A Crazier Eight (Add-On) SNOWY.Sit Rally Snowy Canyon (Add-On) SIERRA.Sit Circuit Sierra Logging Run (Add-On) DISTRIBUTING NEW TRACKS ======================= To use a new track with the MTM game, the .POD file (self contained track file) must be mounted. If you do not mount the POD file, the game will not add it into the list of tracks that you can race on. The POD.INI file is used to tell the game which tracks to load, but you must follow the example below and include at least the first 4 POD references or the program may not function properly. There is a utility that we have included along with the Track Editor, PODMAN.EXE. This program will allow you to mount or unmount PODs. Just start the program and it will bring up the list of PODs that you currently have available to add into MTM. The standard PODs and the TRACKED.POD file will not show up in this list, we ignore those since you HAVE to have those ones to run the game and editor properly. You just double-click on a POD file in the currently available area and it will now appear in the mounted PODs area. To remove it, just double-click on the POD in the mounted area and it will be moved back into the list of available tracks. For PODMAN to work efficiently, all of the user tracks should be placed in the root directory of MTM. You do not have to follow that rule if you want to edit the POD.INI file manually. If you wanted to create a folder to place all of your user tracks in and then point the POD.INI file to load those, it will work, but PODMAN will not. To Create (or modify) your POD.INI file manually, follow this example: 6 SYSTEM\STARTUP.POD SYSTEM\GAME.POD SYSTEM\UI.POD SYSTEM\TRUCK.POD TRACKED.POD MYTRACK.POD In this example, MYTRACK.POD is the .POD file that you have created. If this INI file is in the same directory with the MONSTER.EXE program, this will tell MONSTER.EXE which tracks to load and include on its menus. This list can keep growing as you create and download more and more user created tracks. It would be a good practice to always include PODMAN.EXE along with the tracks that you create. CREATING THE TERRAIN ==================== To see a list of all the keys which are used under this option, jump to the section titled "ALTITUDE EDITOR". The first thing to do is to create a fractal landscape for the level, which will create a general smooth terrain for your use. To create this you select the Altitude Editor option and select the Generate Fractal Landscape option. Use these setting to get a smooth terrain: Seed: 16384 Corner Alt: 20 Center Alt: 100 Smoothing: 20 Save off your selection before making any other changes once you have created a terrain that you like. It is always a good practice to save your progress after making dramatic changes to your track. Next, while still in the Altitude Editor, jump to the center of the map by pressing "J" and type in 128,128 for the coordinates. Our whole world is a 256 by 256 square grid that you can manipulate. Raise the center point up dramatically so that you will always know where the center of your map is at. All levels must be in the center of the map or the course following system will not work properly. The course following system does not deal with wrapping around the world, so you always need to start your course layout from the center of the map. As you raise altitude points up, keep this scale in mind. One Altitude point is a distance of 2 feet high and one squares length is 16 feet. Raise something up 5 units and it is now up 10 feet higher. Don't raise the terrain up too high or the computer controlled trucks may have difficulty navigating the race course, but for sheer fun, go crazy. You should probably design your course on paper before jumping into track design (this will really make things go much easier). But if not, start creating your terrain (mountains, roads, bridges, tunnels, etc.) although you may want to clear the current textures off of this level first. See the next section on how to normalize the terrain. It is a lot easier to work on if you do this but it is not required. Move around the environment and layout your course or create daunting mountain ranges to drive through or over. If you want to create tunnels or bridges, you will use the Ground Box system. Jump to that layer by pressing "Tab". You can now move around the Box layer and create whatever you need for your course. If you want to go back you can press "Tab" or "Shift+Tab". CREATING TEXTURES ON THE TERRAIN ================================ To see a list of all the keys which are used under this option, jump to the section titled "TEXTURE EDITOR". After designing what your course should look like on paper (this will really make things go much easier), you can now layout the textures for your track. Go into the Texture Editor and jump to the center of your map. If you want to start off a level with a clean slate, you should normalize the textures for a layer. There are two layers to our world, the Ground layer and the Ground Box layer. The Ground layer is the normal terrain which you drive over and the Ground Box layer is used for special terrain such as bridges, tunnels, or buildings. To normalize, you would type in "N" and select a generic texture such as GOLFGRAS and let the editor replace all of the textures on that layer. You can repeat the process for the Ground Box layer and now you are ready to roll. To place a texture on the ground, just scroll through the list of textures and once you find the one you want press "SPACE" to plop that texture down on the grid. If you want to texture a whole area with one texture, expand the grid selection with the F6, F7,or F8 function keys and then press the Spacebar. You can also lay down patterns and copy those around the track using the F9 and F10 function keys. This is the main way that we create and place our turns and straight sections around the track. Here is a habit that we follow. Select from the multitude of track styles that are already available and begin laying out the turn patterns for those textures. Many of them are five by five grid textures and there will only be one turn defined in each style. We do not duplicate textures, but use the rotate texture function to create the other turns that we will use. We create a circle of the turn patterns in an area and then do a copy and paste around the design of our track to fit them all together. Once you layout a turn pattern, you can copy row by row or column by column around the general area there and use the Rotate Texture mode (toggle through modes by using "BACKSPACE") and then use "R" to rotate clockwise or "Shift+R" to rotate counter clock-wise. Once you create the pattern area for your track, with all of the turns and any of the different transitions for the straight lengths, you can then start laying out your basic track design. Later on when you need to setup the Ground Typing, the type of ground (Dirt, Water, Grass) and the depth that the truck will sink in, you can return to your pattern area and do all of your ground typing here. That way you will not miss any of the textures that you use on your track. Once you have laid down the texture design of the track you can go back in and fine tune the altitude of the course for this track. LAYING OUT A COURSE =================== To see a list of all the keys which are used under this option, jump to the section titled "COURSE EDITOR". With the track textures laid out, we need to create the courses which the computer controlled trucks will follow. There are three courses that we need to define: Course 0 - The centerline race course Course 1 - The standard racing line Course 2 - The professional racing line (includes shortcuts) The simplest way is to lay down all three courses as the exact same. This will be used when you have a track design that does not have any shortcuts and no area where the computer truck can cheat in on turns. Course 0 and 1 can be the same, but don't have to. You can pull course 1 in a little more to create a tighter turn that the computer controlled trucks can follow. Course 1 and 2 will always be the same if you do not have any shortcuts on your track, so only change Course 2 when you want the computer controlled trucks to take those shortcuts. You can toggle through the courses by pressing the "~" key. The information display will show you which course your are currently editing and there are a few extra courses that we do not use so skip over those. You always start out with the Add Starting Segment option and to go through your course segments for a particular course, press "[" to move forward or "]" to move backwards. If you ever want to delete a course point, you press "X". Locate your starting point while you are at the Add Starting Segment and then press "Space" to place a point down. The Editor will now move on to Add Ending Segment and you move to the end of your straight section of track and press "Space" again. Repeat this process for the rest of your straight course sections and press "~" when you are done to go on to the next course. When you exit the courses will automatically be saved. You create line segments on all of the straight sections of your track. You lay out a course in straight line segments and the game automatically interprets the turns for you so you do not have to worry about that. The closer that you move these points towards each other, the tighter and slower the computer trucks will take a turn. Speed and how a track is driven are also affected by the ground typing that you do for your textures, i.e. dirt textures and grass textures, so you will need to revisit your course to make adjustments later on. Never put two segments together to form a straight line. You only need one straight segment for a course to work properly. DON'T DO THIS o---------o o---------o The whole idea for the course segments was to make it easy for the levels designers. Place straight course segments down and let the game compute the curves for the truck to follow. CREATING CHECKPOINTS ==================== To see a list of all the keys which are used under this option, jump to the section titled "MODEL EDITOR". After you lay out the course, you need to create the checkpoints that you will race through. You always lay down the checkpoints in order from 1 to XX and you place the starting light last. This one is always your last checkpoint when you are racing. The checkpoints are setup by first placing the banner model (CKBAN1.BIN, CKBAN2.BIN) or the CKBOX.BIN model along the course. The CKBOX.BIN file is an invisible checkpoint model that we use, usually only for the starting light. Select the appropriate model from the list of models when you type in "Ctrl+F". Move around the world and press "Space" when you want to place the specific checkpoint model. After placing the models, go back to each one and set its attributes by pressing "B" and setting its Model Type to Checkpoint. That's it. The only problems that you can encounter is that the direction that a checkpoint and which you have to drive through is facing the wrong direction. There is no visual clue for checkpoints without banners, so what you do is race to a checkpoint and if it is not resolved by driving through it, spin it around 180 degrees and try again. Your finder will always show you the direction that it thinks the next checkpoint is. TRUCK STARTING POSITIONS ======================== With the basic design and courses laid out, we want to race our new track and see what we have created. We need to create our starting line area and move our trucks to it. Select a place to start and let's move the trucks over to face the direction that we want them to race on this track. There are eight default trucks already placed on a track and you just need to move these over to the starting line. Move them over and place each one in their own square grid so that they do not bump into each other when we start a race. The basic course is now setup and we can see if our track is fun to drive. ADDITIONAL INFO =============== Situation files are text files. You can edit them with a standard text editor program, provided that you preserve the formatting. The EDIT.COM program is a good one for this. Situation files are stored in the WORLD sub-directory. Many of the files are in plain text format and you can make modifications there, BUT if any mistake with the format is made, your track may not work at all. Be very careful if you decide to edit files manually and also be aware that support will be very hard to provide when these types of problems occur. ************** IMPORTANT NOTE ************** When you go and test your tracks, be aware that this editor is not designed for intensive game play so we have stripped out support for all but the keyboard. The sound has also been turned off. KEYBOARD GUIDE ============== GENERAL EDITOR KEYS (ALL OPTIONS) Arrow Keys - Move around the environment Arrow Keys+Shift - Move faster around the environment A - Increase Ambient Light A+Shift - Decrease Ambient Light D - Grid outline toggle (off, hatch, boxes) D+Shift - Grid color cycle E - Eye movement mode toggle E+Shift - Return eye to due "north" heading I - Info panel toggle On/Off J - Jump to coordinate X, Z (0 to 255, 0 to 255) M - Follow terrain toggle On/Off (affects eye) O - Grid selection color cycle R - Rotate clockwise R+Shift - Rotate counterclockwise R+Alt - Set rotation degrees R+Ctrl - Set rotation functionality (eye, object, texture) V - View 2D level map 0 - Toggle model placement display On/Off F1-F4 - Activate custom eye presets F1-F4+Shift - Save custom eye presets F6 - Expand X, Z selection F6+Shift - Collapse X, Z selection F7 - Expand X (Horizontal) selection F7+Shift - Collapse X (Horizontal) selection F8 - Expand Z (Vertical) selection F8+Shift - Collapse Z (Vertical) selection Tab - Cycle down through ground layers Tab+Shift - Cycle up through ground layers 1+Shift - Ground layer display toggle On/Off 2+Shift - Ground Box layer display toggle On/Off Backspace - Toggle through rotation modes (Rotate Eye, Texture, Object) NOTE: Rotate Object is not working right now. Sorry. TEXTURE BROWSER Space - Classify texture type F - Filter by texture type G - Go to texture by name G+Shift - Go to texture by number PATTERN BROWSER (SCRAPBOOK) S - Slice an external texture file (file must be in \SLICE dir) F9 - Copy pattern from scrapbook F10 - Paste new pattern to scrapbook COURSE EDITOR [, ] - Move forward/backwards through the course points ~ (Tilde) - Cycle through the list of courses from 0 to 4 (0 to 2 only are used) * Course 0 - Center racing line * Course 1 - Standard racing line * Course 2 - Professional racing line (if you have shortcuts) C - Set the course section width (feet) and speed limit (feet/sec) TEXTURE EDITOR Space - Place texture on ground or box selection Space+Ctrl - Grab selected texture [, ] - Move forward/backwards by one (1) in the list of textures [, ]+Shift - Move forward/backwards by ten (10) in the list of textures C - Create fractal terrain for entire landscape C+Shift - Create fractal terrain for selected terrain only F - Next box face (box layer only) F+Shift - Previous box face (box layer only) L - Create fractal terrain with texture mapping N - Normalize entire layer to a single texture N+Shift - Normalize entire selection to a single texture P - Pattern browser S - Search and replace (affects entire layer) S+Shift - Search and replace (affects selection only) T - Texture browser T+Shift - Texture lookup by name W - Wrap texture around box (box layer only) X - Flip texture axis Y - Set texture terrain type (grass, dirt, etc.) and depth (from 0 to about 100) NOTE: We rarely went over 20 on the depth Z - Zoom in on current texture F9 - Copy selected texture or texture areas F10 - Paste selected texture or texture areas ALTITUDE EDITOR Space - Enter new altitude for current selection or box [, ] - Raise/lower selection by one (1) unit [, ]+Shift - Raise/lower selection by ten (10) units B - Create new box (box layer only) C - Create fractal terrain for entire landscape C+Shift - Create fractal terrain for selected terrain only F - Next box face (box layer only) F+Shift - Previous box face (box layer only) L - Create fractal terrain with texture mapping X - Delete selected boxes (box layer only) F9 - Copy selected altitude points F10 - Paste selected altitude points MODEL EDITOR (Box/Ramp/Truck placement & editing) B - Set model attributes (type, flags, scenery level, mass, sounds) Space - Place occurrence of model in world Ctrl + F - Model file list selector X - Delete model (only in editing option) PgDn - Rotate model clockwise PgDn+Alt - Rotate model slowly clockwise End - Rotate model counterclockwise End+Alt - Rotate model slowly counterclockwise