Object Tutorial &  Info

!!----Breaking News----!!

1)  The first problem we found, was when we tried to put the object in the editor (Armadillo)  it crashed for some and not for others. Why? Well it has to do with how Motocross Madness was loaded on your hard drive. The default loading sets up a file that looks like this:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Motocross Madness2

Well this wont let you put your user made objects in the right folder. Sure in Armadillo it finds the _art pic and the SLT file., but what it doesn’t like is the .TGA file.  It look’s in the main armadillo folder for it. You say well I’ll just put all my .TGA files in the main folder but that’s messy and will make problems. So we, who had the default setting reloaded mcm2 with a new directory. The drive doesn’t matter it could be your F, D, or whatever drive. I just use C: for an example.

C:\MCM2\

Simple and Clean. We believe that the maker had the same directory setup.  It need’s to have the register set with this directory so the TGA file can be   found in the right folder like the instructions ask.

2)  Now came the second problem. I could see the object in Armadillo and I could put it in the game but after I raced it MCM2 crashed. I couldn’t see the track image and when I went to race another track the game crashed to the desk top.

Well here is the sad part it has to do with using Multiple UserMade objects. For some reason, we still are not sure why, MCM2 doesn’t like to compile more that 1 SLT file with the same name. You have to make another SLT file of the object the change in the name. Here is what Jeff found:

So that’s the mystery of why the game crashes with multiple User Made Objects.  The way we made the MakeCMP.INI file is like this:

I tried modifying this to only point at the .TGA files that I wanted but the [TextureMap] section does not work right when you do that. I just resorted to making a new folder each time and only copying in the .TGA files that I need.

The way we made the track ini:

Your trackname.ini file should look something like this if you have all your .tga files in your project folder:

No other .TGA files are needed for the bundle than what is shown above.

You can use the same .TGA texture map to make the same multiple User Made object. This will save file size in your final .ENV file. You just have to make sure that the SLT file points to the right tga file you want to use. Its on the 4^th line.

Here are the steps that Bruce recommends for bundling a track with multiple user created objects:

"A tip that I would have for multiple objects is to set up only 1 SLT for placing objects, then place as many as you want, because Armadillo doesn't care. When you are ready to bundle you then need to edit your .SCN and add a letter or number to the end of the SLT name for all of the extra copies of that object in the .SCN. If you placed 3 bobsvan.slt's then you would go back and edit the .SCN and make the 2nd one bobsvanB.slt and 3rd one bobsvanC.slt. You must then create these additional .SLT files by making copies of the original and renaming them."

The last thing would be that it is necessary to manually backup your .SCN and .INI file and edit the backups the way that you want. When you are ready to bundle you have to copy them to the original names before you start Armadillo. So you have to do these steps:

Steps for Bundling

1. Create your track, have everything saved, and exit Armadillo before bundling.
2. Edit your .SCN and project .INI so that they are correct for the objects that you are using.
3. Restart Armadillo.
4. Load your project.
5. Bundle without saving

And last we found that you need to use just the 256x256 .TGA texture map. I used a 512x512 map for the semi that Fraser made and it looked great. But when viewed on anther computer running a 16meg card it failed to see the texture and put the wrong texture map on the object. Later I tried  the same track just redoing the texture map for the semi truck to the size of 256x256. Then putting it through MakeCMP  again and bundling it again and the truck had the correct textures. Even if you try to force the textures to work that setting in the game doesn’t help.

Well we may expand on this but now you have the info you needed to get those object filled tracks out there. We felt that this information needed to go out for all. I know there are many object/track builders out there just waiting to show off their stuff. I know myself and many others are just going to benefit from this with more creative tracks. This was a pain to have to do the testing after the plugins came out, and we may have a better solutions down the road. But here is the answers so far for what we have to work with.

---JMS (Jesse)

Thanks to Jesse for his 'mini-manifesto' on this frustrating issue, and DirtTwister, MCMnut & Fraser for their input.  We have all been waiting and wondering if the object problems could be worked out.  So far, so good I guess...stay tuned!!!