Just curious.I never was into MCM1.I got hooked on MCM2 instead and when I learned you can download and make your own tracks,I was even more into it.It has been close to 3 years that I have been into trackmaking,almost 2 since I got really good at it,and it's been exactly one year since I uploaded my first worthy track.I learned from asking LOTS of questions here,making some friends through here and ALOT of reading EVERY tut I could.It's paid off for me.I am curious,and here are my questions:
1.Who was the first ever track creator?
2.How on earth did you ever figure this stuff out? Photoshop,making tex,importing...all that stuff.
I was just curious how this all came about,thats all.It's all easy for me now,but I was wondering how you guys did it with no one to help out like we all have now. ;)
Bruce can probably answer this, although I'm not sure that even he was there from the VERY beginning. I can't even remember when I got start but it was sometime in '99, about a year after MCM1's release. Initially everyone was making SX tracks because it was easy using the MCM1 track editor. Rainbow posted a complete set of instructions on how to make nationals and I believe that everyone started from there (not sure though). I'm sure there are several old timers out there who know how it all started...
Jeff
Krazyman, I did once have the first ever MCM1 user created track, but the name and creator I cant remember. It may come back to me. That first track was a big breakthrough back then because the information for making a track, that rainbow released, at the time was sketchy. Several programs were need to create a track. For MCM1 the tracks ran on several files, not 1 .env file like mcm2 does. Going by some foggy memory, and Bruce can correct me on this, you needed a paint program for the textures,game pic and displacment map (tga). Then there were some small utilities needed, MCMSpline editor, and tga2asc.exe and maketerr.exe. From these programs you would compile your .ter (terrain) file, .dat (spline) .tga (gamepic). Your .scn file all you had to do was edit an existing file (change track name, sky(.cub) and grid area) Put these and you sky (.cub) file in your national folder and away you go. It was a lot more work back then just to get a working track then it is now with 1 program which does everything for you. (compiling)
Some of the big breakthroughs for MCM1 back then was making your own sky, and Krackerjack figuring out how to make a large grid national. Anyone remember Krackerjack Acres? About 6 months before MCM2 came out, someone figured out how to skin and bike and a rider. If I recall the bike sound could be changed too.
So for MCM2 rainbow decided to package the track files into one .env. This was to avoid "hackers" from opening and editing a track, which coincedently was never a problem in MCM1..go figure. A few of us old school track makers then thought it was the end of the world that rainbow was coming out with the "does it all" program. We predicted then everyone and theyre dog was going to be pounding out tracks. You see at the time the trackmaker of the day was an ingenious type of person, they were not only smart enough to get a track to work, but had the artistic touch to make a very enjoyable track to ride. There were far less poor quality "first timer" tracks back then then there is now. I remember on mcmempire 90% of new tracks uploaded were very good and worthy of downloading.
The first MCM2 created track was either Spawn's Green Hill Bluffs 3 or RonRons Golf Course one(Again i forget the name)
As for your second question, its a little vague. Are you talking about all the utilities TD made to enhance track making? The basics of making a track, Rainbow had documented it all for us, both mcm1 and 2. TD utilities, well these guys are into computer science, coding, decompiling ect.
Theres some of my sketchy memories....
(I think the first mcm1 track was made by Lonewolf)
I made some killer sx tracks with the built in block editor :P
I was the first to change the MCM1 bike model :P hehe, I cant believe Rainbow released MCM1 with that horrible bike lol.
I remember for MCM1 making TMX 99 which is Twisted Motocross in MCM2 that we had to make the spline in Max and export it with some plugin, I think that changed though with some editor which was made after the time I made TMX 99 which was prob one of the first tracks with the SX style jumps instead of the jumps built into the ground like how the tutorial explained.
You could change the bike models? I didn't know that. :D You got any pics of your old ones Twist?
The night that the tools were released for making tracks for MCM1 a guy Name X_Lonewolf had a beta of a new track to test, this was a tweaked over stock disp map that came as a example from the tool set.
The next day two User created tracks came out. One was from Lonewolf and I cant remember the name "something Revenge" Another guy named Tincrunch had a track named OOP that he also u/l for everyone to d/l.
The track OOP was exactly just that, lol it was nasty. Tincrunch and Lonewolf went on to be 2 of the favorite track makers back for mcm1.
the first creator to release a track for mcm2 was K2Rider i know that 100% sure
Yeah I editied the SLT number values to change the shape of the bike, it was alot of work to change it though, lines and lines of code had to be changed and tested.
(http://members.optushome.com.au/twisted1/pics/twistsmcmbike.jpg)
WOW. Big difference wasn't there. ;)
Yeah, that was an awesome fix for those bikes! I remember downloading the MCM1 demo and hating the bike so much that I held off on buying the game for a few months. When I realized how much more realistic it was compared to other games of that time (Motoracer1/2), I went out and bought the game and was forever hooked.
The bike mod was a must for anyone who played the game IMHO. Back then the bike models were in text file format so you could edit them and make a new model. Like AUS_Twisted said, you had to guess and do a lot of trial and error to make the bike look right. Cool memories... :)
Jeff
Thanks for all your answers....very informative.
For old farts sake, id like to get some more posts in here, Im sure Gravy, Budderbean, UFO_Showtime and Bruce could throw a few bones in here.
Motoman, thats the name i was trying to recall.....Tincrunch made the very first user created track. But I dont think it was soon after rainbow released the files/data. Im sure it was a couple months...I may be wrong.
Xtimes for me was the BIG thing with racing MCM1. Then came ORN, it too was very popular. Tons of people playing the game all the time on the Zone too. Holy crap that seems like a long time ago, only 6 years though!
Maui once floated the idea of writing a history of the MCM2 community from the start, i'd like to read that if it gets written. Some interesting stuff here but like WFO says a lot more to be added.
Laurie
Thats wild! I had an idea just latley to make a history timeline of MCM1/2. A huge undertaking though and would probably never be completed..so much information!
Ah the days of the ORN...... ho hum. ??? I can remember when we had Central, the orn, and mcmwharehouse. Those were the days. But yes, like laurie said. There is still much more to be added.
A lot of people think MTX will out do MCM2. I am still kinda skepticle on the whole thing. It is kinda hard to let go of a game that you have put so many years of your life into. lol
I dug up the rainbow website for mcm1....its still up after 6 years! Theres even a little history of the game posted. Look here (http://www.rainbo.com/motocross/news.htm) Scroll to the bottom to start at the beginning. An interesting read.
Heres a snip from the page.
October 1996
Rainbow game designer Robb Rinard envisions a crusty future. Based on the performances of the riders in the Fleshwound Film "Crusty Demons of Dirt," Motocross Madness is conceived. The concept seemed to fit all the necessary criteria to become a reality. The publisher liked the concept and there was a serious need in the gaming market for someone to take motocross racing to the next step.
This comes from the first VRT tourny called "Pace Supercross Series" back in 99, then VRT_McMnut hosted the 2nd tourny called the VRT/KK series with all special tracks from Kips Creations with the green dirt (lol)
ahh the Memories, I think YBS_Superrat or KTM Primetime one the pace series? I think this was the 7th round, and If I remember right, VRT_McMnut won the last round Pace Las Vegas (not his track though) I am going to try to dig up a story I wrote about the MCM community about 18 months ago that i posted on the RFJ boards about all the people that contributed to MCM in 1 way or another.
(http://www.bluescreations.net/images/A_Main_Results.jpg)
WFO you should start that, once you get it rolling i'm sure a lot of people will contribute and make the job a little smaller. It'd be a great thing to check back for updates and watch the story unfold - doesn't all have to be done in one go.
Ahh that screen brings back some memories..
rfj's forums are still around if you need them blue
http://www.rfjzone.com/msgboard/
Here is a MCM1 Movie! Thanks Bruce! :Caution: 24 megs
http://www.bluescreations.net/downloads/BoneCrusherOne.mpg
WFO you mentioned Xtimes. Does anyone ever see Madmax these days?
Lots of old timer names roll in my head from this post.
PT,Ogre,Crusader,Sean,Wilfor,Panther,Flyin,Fragbunny,Snowman,Dino,SR,Butcrak,Mr Happy,Mugen,Fastrog,RacinJoe,Wreckerman<< he was the guy that made the first site for MCM. I'm not sure about this but i think Wreckermans site is what we know now as Central.
That guy on RST named MXDirt took it over.
Back in them days if you did stunts or tagball you were a minority.
Would be nice to see some of them around again.
I almost forgot to mention everyones favorite guy " NJK_DeadDog" lol man was he a train wreck of a personality.
Here is a Very old review of MCM1>>> http://www.cdmag.com/articles/014/026/motocross_madness_review.html
This link will jar alot of you old timers back a long way>> http://www.igl.net/php/page.php?p=hall&t=base&lng=eng&l=zmotor&g=si&svr=cgi&pl= Its a slow link but well worth the history.
Damn the good old MCM1 days. I about *#*#* myself when I first played it at my friends house! lol. Never seen a moto game that good. Does anybody know what happened to Diz_norebase(sp?) or whatever his name was. I heard he was hired by Rainbow and works for them making tracks for games.
Wasnt IBPrime KTM_Primetime? also I was going to host a mcm 1 reunuion but alot of guys had issued with mcm1 and new graphics cards so it never panned out, but I raced X_Nacdaddy and he was still fast as heck
Quote from: AheadBMX_6 on August 25, 2004, 04:47:48 AM
Damn the good old MCM1 days. I about *#*#* myself when I first played it at my friends house! lol. Never seen a moto game that good. Does anybody know what happened to Diz_norebase(sp?) or whatever his name was. I heard he was hired by Rainbow and works for them making tracks for games.
back when the rfjzone was still alive and kicking it was a post on the forums about him... as far as I can remember he did get hired by rainbow but that is allso asuming it wasn't just
*#*#* talk ;)
FYI Diz_NoRebase was aka Robert Kinneman. If you have ATVORF2 just look at the credits. You'll also race against him in the game (along with others) since they used their own names for the computer riders.
Jeff
BTW: Dave, I did win a round in that PACE SX series but it wasn't Las Vegas. I remember blowing the qualifier and didn't make the final. I think the results you posted there were for Vegas.
I have Crusader on ICQ, he's usualy on with NA though from the times I've seen him on, I hardly ever use ICQ though. Had some good races with him in the past, I still have a replay from one of Kobra's tourneys early on in MCM2 battling with him till the end.
Let's not forget about the most prolific early Nat maker (Noel) N-Graf-X. I remember getting his first tutorial CD.
I remember looking at the MCM 1 box in the fall of 1998. I thought it looked so sparse (no trees) and having been disappointed in just about every other motorcycle game that I had tried I didn't buy it. In November I downloaded the demo and then proceeded to spend hours just driving around in a quarry. I used the keyboard at first. My P II 200 played the demo ok. I then suggested it might make a good Christmas present. I got it for Christmas 1998 and I was hooked. I tried it on the zone and I soon learned that my P II 200 was struggling to handle the on-line. It would be a long time before I upgraded though.
I had the week off after Christmas and the first thing I wanted to do was to make my own track pieces for the track editor. I first created them by hand, then I created a program to help me. I contacted Robb about including original track pieces in my plugin and he said it was ok. Sometime in January 1999 I released my first plugin Step-Up.
I then spent the next few months working on StepUp2. I tried to figure out how to include more than 40 pieces. I believe I ended up squeezing 52 or so in it. StepUp2 was released shortly after the 99 Atlanta SX. I attended it and met Randall (RKip_455/Kips Kreations) there. He contacted me after downloading my StepUp plugin and helped me test and made several suggestions for StepUp2. The 99 Atlanta SX also inspired a few pieces for the StepUp 2 plugin.
Shortly after the Atlanta SX Randall and I started working together on making tracks. I had modifed my ASCEdit program to create displacement maps from completed MCM 1 SX tracks. Randall had an interest in reproducing a track that he raced on and I created Ironman MX for him from an SX track that he layed out. He liked it so much that he wanted to learn how to do it, so we spent quite a bit of time chatting each Saturday going over the process. It worked out so well that Randall started helping others. Randall I meeting, working together, and then spending Saturday morning chats with 2 or 3 others was the seeds of creating Twisted DIRT. Around June of 1999 we created Twisted DIRT and we went public with a website and some new tracks on August 1st. 1999.
I believe the first track for MCM 1 was made by TinCrunch whom I believe is Drew (the same person that created the movie BoneCrusherOne). Drew was one of the people that got very unhappy with the MCM 1 community and stopped creating tracks. There was a lot of drama back in the old days. There is now also but I'm immune to it now.
Bruce
Holy MCM memories batman...
I can still smell the beer from those first MCM1 demo race nights!
I've made a lot of life long friends as a result of this game. We've gone to watch the pro SX & National races together, partied together and rode real bikes together nationwide and still get online and RACE now and then!
Back in the MCM1 days, me and HSD_HopinGator figured out that we lived in the same town and he offered to loan me his 5 year "old" CR-250 and take me riding after 10 years w/out a bike (spent getting married, having kids and then in divorce court)... now - I have 3 bikes ;D and still go riding w/ Hopin!
I'm looking forward to the future of MCM or MTX and more adventures w/ the hopelessly addicted!
It's funny how "just" a game bring this many people together all over the world. If it wasn't for MCM2 I would not know anything about graphic design, computer hardware, heck computers even. lol I have learned alot and met a bunch of really cool guys through this game.
Ditto
I have to agree there Sky, I didn't have clue when I first started lol.
same here. Well I still don't know jack, but atleast I can do more than talk on AIM.
I cant actually exactly rember the date i purchased MCM1 was way back i do know that.. long long before mcm2... so like most i played around in quarries etc,, using a joypad or keyboard at that time.. then i got around to trying it online oh my i was shocked so many riders,such a buzzing place..
After a short while i noticed that lots of ppl seemed to be playing national tracks more than anything else.. so i had a few games got truley beaten,, that was it i was hooked like a fly wound a pile of ****.... i would go away look at times ppl had been posting etc,and be in awe of some of the laps ppl were putting in like mentioned earlier in this thred ppl like fragbunnie twisted etc.
Then one day im sitting on zone and a guy cant even recall his name sadly asked me if i was english, to whcih i replied sure of course.. he said well u should go to tourney room now as there is a english only tourney ongoing etc..
I was like a tourney hmm i may get my arse kicked,, yet again... but off i went to the rooms and met a great bunch of guys from a team named MMUK and quite a few others,, from teams like HRC,MXUK etc the guy hosting the tourney was MMUK_BOSSMAN seemed like a nice guy and over the follwoing weeks and months we raced each wednedsay night UK time though MCM1 and onto MCM2. Of course things changed ppl changed ppl changing teams etc etc..
But i did meet a number of very nice guys over the years and was lucky enough to meet quite a few in person when we had a big get togther in London and have stayed friends with many since that day.
and of course then was all the battles on orn xtimes etc...like has been said already
So what has mcm1 and mcm2 given me.....
GOOD TIMESWith regard to the parts of this thread that are saying on how we developed,, all of us i still think this item written by HD_QuadMXRacer now known as BLODG still sums it all up i hope he dont mind me pasting it here :)
QuoteFrom my observations and own experiences it appears that a typical MCM2 player goes through several stages during the time he plays this game. I have attempted to classify these transformations for your reading pleasure (or maybe for my writing pleasure?).
The Evolution of a MCM player
Stage 1: The Newbie
We all know this category very well since we all started here. This is the guy who just got the game in the last few weeks or months. Chances are he rides MX for real (or used to) and that is why he bought the game. He starts out playing the stock tracks against the A1 riders. He will try the career mode and may even run a ghost race every once in a while. Before long he tries out the Zone and realizes that racing against the computer is not near as fun as playing on the zone. At first he is likely to think almost everyone on the Zone is cheating since they all blow by you so fast. He is probably playing with the keyboard or a gamepad and has no idea what pre-load is. If he is purely a gamer and not an mx'er he may spend some time playing stunts and/or tag since he can't keep up in Nats or SX. After playing for a few weeks or months he comes to a critical point in the evolution of a MCM player. He will either start to lose interest and eventually abandon the game, he may try to get a hold of a hack bike to make himself more competitive, or he may start practicing more and move onto one of the next stages.
Stage 2: The Recreational Player
This type of player only plays the game every once in a while and never really becomes hooked. Or I suppose it's possible that he was previously an addict and only comes back to play occasionally. He may play other games that keep him from ever becoming too engrossed in this one. He may join a team so that when he does play he cans socialize with some friends. Sad but true that these may also be the idiots that flood the chat box and annoy the hell out of everyone.
Stage 3: The Addict
The MCM junkie, the fanatic, where would this game be without us! This is the guy who becomes obsessed with learning the game. He may be retired from real MX racing and finds this game feeds his adrenaline rush and fuels his competitive fire. It's not the real thing but it's damn fun and doesn't hurt when you crash! He spends hours downloading tracks and running ghost laps. He most likely has joined a team by this point and probably races in tournaments as well. Some of his best friends may be his online racing buddies. There is almost nothing that will stand in his way at this point. He may have started using a joystick in place of the gamepad or keyboard. He has upgraded his PC or even bought a new PC altogether purely to make the game run smoother! He has probably upgraded the 56K connection to cable or DSL if available in his area (and bizatches and moans when it's not available). I would like to think anyone who has made it to this level believes that cheating is for losers and never uses a hack. He probably spends some time surfing the various MCM2 web sites and message boards. He may even dabble in making tracks and/or skins. This category of people are the heart and soul of MCM2.
Stage 4: The Elite
The addicts may be the heart and soul of MCM but the people in the Elite category are what keep MCM2 alive! These are the team owners, recognized track makers, web site owners, and dedicated tourney racers. These are the people that dedicate their time and money to make this game better for the rest of us. They have probably been around since the beginning of MCM2 and probably even played MCM1. These are the guys who create the recorders like The ORN and Dirt Times and the web sites like Turtles, Warehouse, and mcmlinks.com. I have only mentioned a few but there are many other web sites out there that are dedicated to providing the Addicts with their "fix". These are the tourney hosts who deal with flack from the newbies to provide you with a competitive tourney. These are the top track makers who give us something new and exciting to ride on. These are the guys who sacrifice television and sleep to race 3, 4, or 5 tourneys a week and/or burn laps for Dirt Times.
There is a sub-category of The Elite that very few MCM racers will ever reach called
The Freaks. These are the guys who have spent thousands of hours mastering the game. These are the guys at the very top of the ORN and Dirt Times who run lap times the rest of us only dream about. These are the Foggy's, the Gravy's the Mayhem's and the Budder's that set a precedent for those wishing to become the fastest. Now I know there are more people who belong in this category and I only mentioned a few, so please don't be upset if I didn't mention you.
Now which category do YOU belong in?
© HD_QuadMXRacer 2002-02-11
Westy
Thanks for posting that Westy...great reading!
Im somewhere between addict and eite on that list.
This was when Xtimes shut down.
(http://members.optushome.com.au/twisted1/pics/Xtimes1.gif)